Macromedia Freehand
By late 1994, Altsys still retained all rights to FreeHand. Despite brief plans to keep it in-house to sell it along with Fontographer and Virtuoso, Altsys reached an agreement with the multimedia software company, Macromedia, to be acquired. This mutual agreement provided FreeHand and Fontographer a new home with ample resources for marketing, sales, and competition against the newly merged Adobe-Aldus company. Altsys would remain in Richardson, Texas but would be renamed as the Digital Arts Group of Macromedia and was responsible for the continued development of FreeHand. Macromedia received FreeHand’s 200,000 customers and expanded its traditional product line of multimedia graphics software to illustration and design graphics software. CEO James Von Ehr became a Macromedia vice-president until 1997 when he left to start another venture.
FreeHand 5.0 sold for $595 in 1995. This version featured a more customizable and expanded workspace, multiple views, stronger design and editing tools, a report generator, spell check, paragraph styles, multicolor gradient fills up to 64 colors, speed improvements, and it accepted Illustrator plugins. In September 1995, a 5.5 upgrade added Photoshop plug-in support, PDF Import capabilities, the Extract feature, inline graphics to text, improved auto-expanding text containers, the Crop feature, and the Create PICT Image feature.
A FreeHand 5.5 upgrade was part of the FreeHand Graphics Studio (a suite that included Fontographer, xRes (image editing application), and Extreme 3D (3D animation and modeling application).
FreeHand 6.0 in 1996. This version only existed in beta. Some Freehand 7 prerelease versions were released under the Freehand 6 tag.
FreeHand 7.0 sold for $399 in 1996, or $449 as part of the FreeHand Graphics Studio (see above.) Features included a redesigned user interface that allowed recombining Inspectors, Panel Tabs, Dockable Panels, Smart Cursors, Drag and Drop with Adobe applications and QuarkXPress, Graphic Search and Replace, Java (programming language) and AppleScript Automation, Chart creation, and new Effects tools and functions. Shockwave was introduced to leverage graphics for the Web.
FreeHand 8.0 sold for $399 in 1998. This version began integrating to the Web with the ability to export graphics directly to Macromedia Flash. Customizable toolbars and keyboard shortcuts were prominent features. Also Lens Fill and Transparency, Freeform tool, Graphic Hose, Emboss Effects, and a “Collect for Output” function for print.
FreeHand 9.0 sold for $399 in 2000 or $449 as part of the Flash 4 FreeHand Studio bundle. This was a major repositioning for FreeHand emphasizing the Web and especially Flash output. Creating simple Flash animation from layers was featured. The Perspective Grid, Magic Wand Tracing tool, Lasso tool, and a Page tool that treated pages like objects (resize, clone, rotate, etc.)
FreeHand 10.0 sold for $399 in 2000 or $799 as part of the Studio MX bundle. Macromedia released this as Carbonized for both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. It shared a common Macromedia GUI Interface and several tools were added or renamed to match Flash tools. New features include Brushes, Master Pages, Print Area, and a Navigation Panel for adding links, names, and adding actions or notes to objects. Also “Smart cursor” Pen and Bezigon Tools and a Contour Gradient Fill.
A minor version of FreeHand 10 (10.0.1) came as a result of Adobe winning a lawsuit against Macromedia for infringement on a Tabbed Panels patent. A reworking of the user interface produced this temporary fix for the panel issue. 10.0.1 was available with the Studio MX bundle or as a new purchase but not available as a patch to existing users.
FreeHand MX sold for $399 in 2003 or $1580 as part of the Studio MX 2004 bundle. FreeHand 11 was marketed as FreeHand MX and featured tighter interface integration with the Macromedia MX line of products. This release also featured a revamped Object Panel where all attributes and text properties are centralized for editing, Multiple Attributes for unlimited effects, Live Effects, Live-edit of basic shapes, Connector Lines tool, Flash and Fireworks integration, Extrude, Erase, and Chart tools, along with improvements to the standard tools.
During the development of FreeHand MX, the customer install base was 400,000 users worldwide but because of competition with Adobe Illustrator’s market share, Macromedia focused instead on its web oriented lineup of Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Contribute. In 2003, Macromedia reduced the FreeHand development team to a few core members to produce the 11.0.2 update released in February 2004. The company released a final product suite prior to the 2005 merger with Adobe, called Studio 8, which was characterized by the absence of FreeHand from the suite’s interactive online applications of Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, Contribute, and FlashPaper.
Read more about this topic: Macromedia Free Hand, History