11-28-2007, 11:56 AM
Hey everyone! At my university we've got CD7 and I was mighty impressed by its possibilities so I decided to download the trial version.
As a student I do lots of presentations, involved in a part time job requiring alot of photoshop work and involved as a chairmember in a nonprofit organisation, I construct alot of mindmaps, timelines etc.
My experience was overall pretty good but not entirely flawless.
Importing/Exporting pictures are sometimes messy and takes amount of work. For instance:
My biggest obstacle was importing/exporting pictures:
- Importing .png files with a transparent background is extremely annoying, the pictures background is scrambled sometimes black or white. Exporting them transparent isnt possible (or did I miss a thread on how to tackle this problem?)
- If I want to move several pictures from CD7, I have to
a)go to filemenu b)press export c)graphic file d) save as png. or jpeg
I have to litterly do that for every picture I want to move to Photoshop, words, powerpoint, or any other application that Im working on simultaneously. What perhaps would be nice, is to simply "drag and drop" from one frame to another, like I do with other clipart from office for instance. A few icons and pictures in the CD7 library is doable to drag and drop. I have to export each one of the pictures I use for layout in photoshop (mostly with white background) remove the whitebackground and resave the image as .png.
I mean, the team behind CD7 created an amazing library of clipart and icons, flowcharts etc. are better than all the mindmapping softwares I've used combined.
I think for the price you pay for the package, you get an amazing collection, that I'd gladely to pay if it wasnt its so restricted (in the format .cdl) for CD7 use only. What I would like to see is the clipart library(just the clipart folder) in transparent jpeg/png or other popular. That would save me the trouble of converting every single one. Why not pasting them up on the forum or as a gallery for download on the official site to add more value for instance for the CD users?
As a costumer I'd be more than delighted (entitled to maybe?) to have the clipart library in popular format, a suggestion would be posting the pics in jpegs or .png for the registred users on the forum or on your public website
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I liked the interface, it works extremely well and fluent on my computer. I do have some improvement suggestions, as a new CD user I have completely no clue whats in the menu, lets say Insert menu. So its slightly a heavy learning curve. I've noticed a trend among software companies, they're starting to adapt to the Ribbon UI, like on Office2007. In my experience it actually improves overall clarity of the menu and commands. Any considerations on adapting to that form of UI anytime soon? Intersting hearing some point of views there.
As a student I do lots of presentations, involved in a part time job requiring alot of photoshop work and involved as a chairmember in a nonprofit organisation, I construct alot of mindmaps, timelines etc.
My experience was overall pretty good but not entirely flawless.
Importing/Exporting pictures are sometimes messy and takes amount of work. For instance:
My biggest obstacle was importing/exporting pictures:
- Importing .png files with a transparent background is extremely annoying, the pictures background is scrambled sometimes black or white. Exporting them transparent isnt possible (or did I miss a thread on how to tackle this problem?)
- If I want to move several pictures from CD7, I have to
a)go to filemenu b)press export c)graphic file d) save as png. or jpeg
I have to litterly do that for every picture I want to move to Photoshop, words, powerpoint, or any other application that Im working on simultaneously. What perhaps would be nice, is to simply "drag and drop" from one frame to another, like I do with other clipart from office for instance. A few icons and pictures in the CD7 library is doable to drag and drop. I have to export each one of the pictures I use for layout in photoshop (mostly with white background) remove the whitebackground and resave the image as .png.
I mean, the team behind CD7 created an amazing library of clipart and icons, flowcharts etc. are better than all the mindmapping softwares I've used combined.
I think for the price you pay for the package, you get an amazing collection, that I'd gladely to pay if it wasnt its so restricted (in the format .cdl) for CD7 use only. What I would like to see is the clipart library(just the clipart folder) in transparent jpeg/png or other popular. That would save me the trouble of converting every single one. Why not pasting them up on the forum or as a gallery for download on the official site to add more value for instance for the CD users?
As a costumer I'd be more than delighted (entitled to maybe?) to have the clipart library in popular format, a suggestion would be posting the pics in jpegs or .png for the registred users on the forum or on your public website
-----------------------------
I liked the interface, it works extremely well and fluent on my computer. I do have some improvement suggestions, as a new CD user I have completely no clue whats in the menu, lets say Insert menu. So its slightly a heavy learning curve. I've noticed a trend among software companies, they're starting to adapt to the Ribbon UI, like on Office2007. In my experience it actually improves overall clarity of the menu and commands. Any considerations on adapting to that form of UI anytime soon? Intersting hearing some point of views there.