[This is being posted to Mac, Windows and app forums as it relates to both - apologies for the duplication]
Hi,
When Corel announced that CorelDRAW was returning to macOS, I was personally super-excited to see this for several key reasons (which I wrote about in this article: CorelDRAW is gracing macOS again - and why this is important).
This is not an advert, but I feel it's an important brief background. Astute Graphics is known in the Adobe Illustrator world, since 2006, as developers of plugins for professional users. Many of the world's largest brands rely on us as well as many, many freelance designers and everyone inbetween. We serve varied sectors including branding, architecture, fashion, sign making, gaming and more.
The tools we currently produce for Adobe Illustrator allow users to gain very high-level control of Bezier profile (drawing and editing), positioning, effects, stroke variable widths and more.
Some of this functionality will already be in CorelDRAW. But what core drawing and editing functionality are Corel customers seeking that they feel would be suitable via a 3rd party option. And yes, I acknowledge everything should be there natively in the single purchased core product, but reality doesn't always allow this.
Finally, in Astui, we now also have the building blocks that allow us to produce much more advanced tools and functions. These include Boolean (add, subtract, divide vector shapes), Offset Paths, Variable Stroke Widths and many more. Even though well-developed technologies such as Boolean and Offset are within Corel - hence it being the key competitor to Illustrator - it's essential to have full access to these underlying technologies in order to build exciting tools such as Long Shadow, Path Reshape and more.
Excitingly, Astui can be deployed as a web API allowing online tools such as CorelDRAW.app to benefit. Equally, having this toolbox allows Astute Graphics to build new tools quicker and based on 7+ years of technical development.
So - are extensions applicable to a wide range of users welcome to Corel users as they are in Adobe's world?
I'd love to understand what you think,
Nick
Do not become a 3rd party for Corel they will make your life hell. Corel is by far the lowest grade and poorest developer of software I know in over 3 decades as both a graphic artist and a software developer. Steer clear of Corel. Further the ability of Corel to penetrate the MAC market remains to be seen. I highly doubt they will pull it off and by that time everything will be browser based. Do not waste your time. IMHO!Corel has a niched fraction of the market to answer your question.
Maybe try instead to go with afffinity... or maybe both. corel draw is on the way down the mountain.
Hi AdvancedArtist - I appreciate you take the time to write your opinions, which I respect. However, I can't make business decisions purely on unsubstantiated comments that you may have arrived to personally. I'd be genuinely interested to learn how you would back these comments with specifics.
I had the pleasure of meeting in person with Corel at their Ottawa headquarters the other week to explore exciting opportunities to produce tools for their ecosystem, especially now they’ve returned to macOS.
I left with an impression of a very passionionate, knowledgeable and skilled senior team. They also proved to be very pro-active.
Yes, I would also say that they current CorelDraw userbase is more concentrated in some fields (such as signmaking) than the more generalistic Adobe Illustrator or Affinity range. But, I can only speculate that Corel must have made a truly significant investment to return to macOS which is not a sign of a company who's admitted defeat.