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CANVAS AND ITS DEVELOPMENT

(7 posts)

Started by rsands
Started on February 18, 2007 - 08:15 PM (2 years ago)
Latest reply from Michael Kohan (2 years ago)

rsands
Member

I'd posted a query on a Canvas matter elsewhere and added the following.
I must say the more I delve into Canvas it really is an extraordinary piece of software and I am puzzled why the developers don't realise its potential and be more forthcoming in updates etc. Maybe they dont believe in it enough?
I clarified that by - I was referring to the owners/ marketers of Canvas not those responsible for the programming 'developing' side. I hope (think) I've made my intentions clear - apologies to any offences to those in the developing area who no doubt fully believe in the program and I imagine probably 'cry them selves to sleep at night..........'.
I restate here that Canvas is an incredible piece of software - I have AICS, COREL Draw 12 and also Xara Xtreme Pro. They all have their little niceties but in overall use and layout my preference is Canvas. However - As many reading here would acknowledge its also a bit stuffy in certain places and is in need of some tweaking to make it more stable and also to give it more grunt when it comes to doing things particularly in GIS arena. There are no doubst many features that we users would also like to see added.
So - is there any interest from the owners of this little beauty? I just hope that they do read these comments in a positive and encouraging light.
That is if they get to browse these Forums. I did a look see at the Forum moderators and notice very few postings from any of them. Not being sure of their purpose that may be fine, but if their task is to oversee the health and cleanliness of this Forum site then surely they must read it to work out who is offensive and who should be banned etc. If thats the case then I expect its reasonable to assume they also read the comments and have the ability to pass onto ACD Systems (the owners/ devlopers/ researchers etc) the comments and fealings that are out there in this vast world of consumers.
I know I'm not alone in these sentiments and some may be saying 'Not another winger or knocker'. People generally only cry out when things get desparate and genuine concerns should be recognised and hopefully addressed.
I hope these comments fall into the latter - genuine concerns.
regards from DownUnder, Richard

Posted On February 18, 2007 - 08:15 PM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)
btrask3
Member

Richard, I received the following reply from Mr. Vanderkerkhove at ACD. No answers, but at least a response!

From : Doug Vandekerkhove <DVANDEKERKHOVE2@ACDSystems.com>
Sent : Wednesday, February 21, 2007 12:48 PM
To : "Mr. Trask"
Subject : RE: CANVAS X

I understand your concerns and we are taking actions that will ensure the future of CanvasX. Your commentary is a good summary of the situation and consistant with our initiatives. END

___________________
HERE IS MY ORIG. EMAIL

From: Mr. Trask
Sent: Wed 2/21/2007 7:10 AM
To: Doug Vandekerkhove
Subject: CANVAS X

I am very disappointed in ACD's lack of continuing support for CANVAS X.

Since ACD purchased Canvas from Deneba, the product support has disappeared.

I have been a Canvas Windows user for over 10 years but recently UPGRADED to an iMac Intel/coreduo computer running OSX, which ACD does not intend to support (is that correct?).

OSX can run windows simutaneously via a virtual program called parallels, but ACD hasn't released windows improvements since May of 2005 and CanvasX is not listed on the VISTA approved products list.

SO WHAT GIVES?... WHY HAVE YOU MADE THE BUSINESS DECISION TO TRASH CANVAS?

ACD must be honest with your Canvas customers who, over the years, have been so loyal.

Your lack of transparency and customer care say volumes about ACD and it's TRUSTWORTHYNESS.

I recommend that you sell the CANVAS X code to Apple or another 3rd party and not let Canvas, a feature rich piece of software, just DIE.

Respectfully
Mr. Trask

PS... I always tell my employee's that a complaining customer was one of our best customers... because most dissatisfied customers never tell you about their dissatisfaction... they just go to the competition and you never see them again.

Posted On February 25, 2007 - 04:30 PM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)
afterhours
Member

btrask said:
Richard, I received the following reply from Mr. Vanderkerkhove at ACD. No answers, but at least a response!

From : Doug Vandekerkhove <DVANDEKERKHOVE2@ACDSystems.com>
Sent : Wednesday, February 21, 2007 12:48 PM
To : "Mr. Trask"
Subject : RE: CANVAS X

I understand your concerns and we are taking actions that will ensure the future of CanvasX. Your commentary is a good summary of the situation and consistant with our initiatives. END

<snip>

PS... I always tell my employee's that a complaining customer was one of our best customers... because most dissatisfied customers never tell you about their dissatisfaction... they just go to the competition and you never see them again.

As a long-time Mac user of Canvas (v3.5 thru to X), I have to say that I agree -- most users will never bother to tell you that they are unhappy, they just take their money and move on to competitive products or services that acknowledge the customer's presence and concerns -- even if those concerns cannot be immediately addressed.

Is there a bright future for Canvas X on the Mac (or on Windows)? Or is that future the sale of the code or the discontinuation of the product? These are the questions that have been on the Mac user's mind for over a year (please see the Mac forums and read the posts, Mr. Vandekerkhove). Or will this product go the way of Webstar on the Mac -- dying after its latest owner purchased it solely to mine the existing user group for their own mail server product?

We Macintosh users could migrate to Windows ... a Mac runs Vista as reliably as a HP or IBM. But we don't wish to spend resources and time constantly applying viral definitions, managing firewalls or putting up with the bugs Vista users now must work around until it reaches a stable patch release version. We could run XP Pro on our Macs, but face a mature OS with continuing security issues of its own. We'd like to leverage the power of OS X and the unix underpinnings with Canvas natively, but there are stability issues with Canvas that have yet to be addressed. The product has become stagnant, and we dream of an encouraging revelation of your roadmap for the future of Canvas on either platform. With thousands if not tens-of-thousands of hours vested in Canvas documents that are integral parts of our daily workflow, we need to know we spent our money on the right tool -- and we won't be left with the unappetizing future of porting documents to a competitive product.

You don't have to give us the nitty gritty of daily build development. You need only post expected goals and decision/development milestone for your future path. Even if you can't completely make those self-assigned deadlines, knowing what you are going through would asuage many a user, keeping us simpathetic and supportive just knowing that you are trying.

I can assure you that if you were to adopt such a transparent policy with your user base, there would be many, many of us willing to be just as rabidly supportive of your software as we are of our choice of operating system. And if you are abandoning the Mac OS because it doesn't fit your paradigm of coding, or your coders are unable to work with Xcode for whatever reason, knowing that there is some way in which we can continue with Canvas using Vista or XP, with cross-platform compatibility or parity for the existing documents -- that would at least give us viable options to consider. Even if it isn't where we think you could take your product.

Posted On May 16, 2007 - 09:25 AM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)
gxdata
Member

There is the usual highly-exaggerated discussion by the (all male) gossips at Wizaerd's Forum http://www.wizaerd.com/forum/index.php?pAc...tart=0&Msg=5145 on the topic Canvas XI: The official word!. </forums.acdsystems.com/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":blink:" border="0" alt="blink.gif" />

The one note of sanity and reality - my opinion, of course - was posted by Arnošt Löbel on 05/20/07 (20May). I believe that Arnošt was involved with Deneba, perhaps in development (I can't recall - though I have been a Canvas user since v3.5 on Windows).

It would have been good sense to cut loose the Mac development at about v8 of Canvas. The effort to keep 2 codebases going, with very significant feature changes, combined with change in both the Windows and the Mac platforms, would have been very draining on resources (manpower and money).

But that point was passed long ago.

Now, we have new Macs running a Unix core on Intel processor, with a considerable user interface codebase itself (ie, it's very naive for people to say that having an Intel CPU and Unix core makes it an easy port from a Windows codebase to the current Mac).

And Windows Vista has cosmetic features (apart from other more fundamental differences) that make a Windows XP to Windows Vista port a bit of a waste of time, unless it takes advantage of some of the more attractive visual and developer-centric features of Vista.

What these features are isn't really important, but they're related to WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) and XAML, and though what has been recently released as Silverlight is based on a small cross-platform runtime that allows Windows XP and Apple Macintosh to display an impressive range of graphics (and, the DLR - Dynamic Language Runtime - can be programmed against), I would have made the call that Canvas vNext should be the last for the Apple Macintosh platform.

My development strategy would have been to use the .NET platform (which is not entirely Windows-only - but near enough to it) and transition a Windows-only codebase to incorporate more and more of what Vista allows.

Mac: it's a marketing decision, but despite the fact that Canvas was (I think) once a Mac-only program, I would be phasing it out NOW with a last version, probably minus any GIS or Scientific add-ons.

And that is despite the fact that Microsoft has at last entered into the graphics design field, with the "Sparkle" / "Acrylic" (Expression - it was bought in a couple of years ago, given a make-over, improved, expanded by Microsoft). Expression is now a range of products, which are not just targetted at graphics design per se - really, they are complementary software design and development tools.

There's a place for Canvas. Microsoft is not eating its market, and the Macromedia/Adobe beast is no great friend of Microsoft. Maybe MS is more friendly to the ACD Systems minnow.

Why would I (given the role of software strategist for ACD Systems) adopt this path?

Because Canvas is a good multi-porpose product, and the .NET platform is easy to develop with. Plus, the Vista "pillars" (WPF, WF, WCF) are very powerful and useful for enhancing a product like Canvas. </forums.acdsystems.com/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

One part of Vista which is very appropriate is WF - Workflow Foundation.

The workflow engine can be easily incorpoaretd into a product, and this would give Canvas great power and flexibility - and, once "available" in a product, it can be user-driven, which can generate a vibrant third-party development effort. That is, its presence allows tools development that is not entirely dependent on ACD Systems, and the facility it can allow is much more powerful than a "macro" or "scripting" system (which in Canvas's current manifestation, is a bit Mickey Mouse).

But I'll leave the discussion at this point.

Posted On May 22, 2007 - 04:48 AM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)
Toe
Member

Um, gxdata? I wouldn't exactly call a message from a VP of ACD 'gossip'. </forums.acdsystems.com/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":blink:" border="0" alt="blink.gif" />

Posted On May 22, 2007 - 06:45 PM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)
Mark Franklin
Executive Vice President – ACD Systems

Richard S,

Thank you for your post, yes I think that we do realise it's potential and there is considerable interest in further developing Canvas. It has been brought to my attention that we have not been participating in these forums as much as our customers would like and so I would like to add that I will try and address that in the future by participating here when possible.

Regards,
Mark Franklin

Posted On May 22, 2007 - 10:48 PM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)
Michael Kohan
Member

According to an ex-employee of Deneba and ACD, Macintosh is almost 50% of Canvas sales. Seems to me that dropping Mac is a very bad business decision. If ACD does not have the ability to develop a Mac version, they should sell Canvas to someone who does. I can't tell if what Mark stated is worded in a way that leaves the door open for future Mac development or not (it is difficult for me to decipher or make sense out of most of ACD's statements).

Posted On May 23, 2007 - 01:42 AM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)