This is Signal vs. Noise, a weblog by 37signals about design, business, experience, simplicity, the web, culture, and more. Established 1999 in Chicago. Follow us on Twitter for more information on our products.

I like the idea but I would try to do it with fewer words.

The effect of switching this amount of text seems very distracting to me.

That’s pretty slick, especially if you’re trying to learn the program.

This is very interesting. I hope to start seeing some viable competitors to the digital illustration monster that is Adobe.

Inkscape for linux is pretty good. I use photoshop (wine) and inkscape under linux =)

Being a ‘hands on’ person i think the idea is great. Learning through user interaction in comparison to reading a textbook will always get my approval.

Can you guys tell us when Sunrise is coming? It’s been many months since any news came out… the rumor is starting that your project is bust and 37signals can’t do a CRM . Is it true?

Oh, come on… XFig, as ugly and user-unfirendly as it is, has been doing some form of this (limited to mouse buttons) for what, 10 years? More recently, Inkscape also provides the same functionality as seen in the movie.

Photoshop CS does something similar at the bottom of the window, and usually says “Use Shift, Alt and Ctrl for additional options.” When you press those keys, individually or in combination, the text updates.

It bugs me that Illustrator does not keep up with Photoshop in many little things I find helpful.

Putting this text adjacent to the tools like Lineform does seems like a better design choice to me.

Sunrise/Sunset… I hope they release it tomorrow and block your IP from using it.

I’m still confused.. maybe you could hire an animated paperclip to explain this to me?

You are in a parallel Mac universe, are you? ;] Ever heard of Xara? Though UI sucks from time to time – it is somehow the easiest vector graphics app to learn and use.

How is this different from the typical status bar at the bottom of the application window that is updated based on where the user is or what the user is doing?

@Jeff

The physical location. Makes more sense right under the toolbar as opposed to the bottom of the screen where it has not direct link.

I’m sure you can disable the help bar if needed.

Thanks for the response. Why is this news buried in your FAQ for backpackit? The comments on your SvN post about Sunrise suggest some real eager interest in this product, but you bury news about it. Tell us more.

(AC: It’s only because we love 37Signals that we pick. If there were a better way to get their attention, we would have. Sorry for the off-topic post(s).)

Lineform is pretty awesome—I was able to pick it up very quick because of how this tooltip-bar was implemented. I’ve used it for the past two weeks and felt it has some other strange UI choices and therefore is lacking in some areas though.

For example, to apply color to an object, Lineform uses the OS X color picker - which is awesome - but with this integration it’s not always clear what you are coloring. I find it really frustrating when applying colors to your document.

Having said that, it does runs like a champ compared to the incredibly slow Inkscape on OS X . (note—on linux it’s a dream) and is so much more affordable than Illustrator.

Also, it’s the best of the three for being a “good citizen” in the OS X world— it even won an ADA .

When all is said and done, though—I love Lineform.

You folks need to check out Xara.

A bit OT, but are any of the vector illustration packages (OS or otherwise) able to open FH and AI files?

I love FH, but Adobe has pretty much killed it off (not that Macromedia hadn’t put it on life support in the first place) and have no interest in dealing with the bloated AI.

I’d love a simple app like this, or the OS Inkscape and be able to bring my current body of work over into that app as needed.

Xara is a great example of an intuitive graphics app.

I’ve been using the commercial windows product since 1995 – in which days it was light years ahead of it’s rivals, notably Corel Draw.

There is now an open source version under development, and it is at a stable and usable stage on linux (but not so on Mac OS X yet – Mac FOS devs get on the case!).

I think 37s should give it a go on linux (http://www.xaralx.org – most major distros do their own package as well) or try the trial of the commercial Windows version (http://www.xara.com).

It’s a breath of fresh air compared to the industry behemoths.

Another vote for xara from me. I would love to see a raster program with the same commitment to usability.

Forcing your users manipulate an object through a dialogue box is the last refuge of the scoundrel!

All apps in CorelDraw Graphics suite (another Adobe CS competitor) have context-sensitive tips like this in the status bar since at least version 9.

What’s more, the newest version of CorelDraw (X3 or 13) has a very user-friendly “Hints” docker offering context-sensitive explanations of tools and actions to new users. Example (cropped screenshot).

For those familiar with Rhino 3D, the command line would list all your modifiers as well. so if you typed in “line”, the command line would show you the modifiers “endpoint | intersection | mid | etc…”

It was pretty nifty, and helps get you up the learning curve quickly.

I’m not sure that the on the spot help is really all that helpful for Lineform. If you select an oval tool, you would expect to use your mouse to draw the shape. I’m not really bothered by it because it isn’t really in the way, I just think it’s that necessary, that’s all.