Good basic drawing program?

DaveWT

Well-Known Member
We are looking for a good basic drawing program. MacDraw is long gone and we have been using an app called Intaglio which we got quite used to. But it hasn't been updated for years, and it won't even run on my wife's M2 MacBook Air, even with Rosetta. We have tried EasyDraw but it seems like it will have a huge learning curve and the free version is very limited so we won't even get a chance to do a complex drawing to learn it properly before having to make the decision to pay. My own needs are for dimensioned scale drawings and the occasional electronic circuit diagram. My wife's needs are for creating patterns for quilts. I have scoured the Mac App store and what I see are "paint" programs, complex CAD apps and simpler apps from questionable developers who harvest your data. (Why would a drawing program need access to my Contacts?) Any recommendations for a good basic 2D drawing program?

Dave
 

chas_m

Well-Known Member
Take a look at Graphic, Drawberry, and XDesign. I think they’re all available from the Mac App Store, but a search on “(name) app Mac” should get you the developer’s website.
 

DaveWT

Well-Known Member
Thanks for these suggestions, Chas,

I had looked at Graphic on the App Store previously but saw it was last updated 4 years ago. The developer has not yet submitted privacy details and as it it that old, I wondered if it will work on a silicon Mac. So I passed over it.

Drawberry doesn't appear to be on the Mac App store. I see it was last updated in 2009 so again I will pass.

XDesign is on the App Store and appears to have been updated 2 months ago which is promising and the developer claims to NOT collect any data. However I don't see any provision for getting a trial version. It appears I would have to commit and pay full price and then see if it works for my needs. I may have to do that in the end.

But in the meantime I am trying to get more comfortable with my trial version of EasyDraw. I am finding that now that I have committed to working through the user guide (I first thought to get the user manual but it is 407 pages!) I am thinking it may be better than I first thought. And while the trial version is limited the lowest paid level is very cheap, which would afford a better learning period.
 

rkot

Member
Has anyone found the MAC program KEYNOTE good as a graphics program? Drawbacks?

I am looking for a graphics program too mainly for mind maps and flow charts.

What are you using the drawing program for?
 

DaveWT

Well-Known Member
We have settled on EazyDraw and after working with it a bit more, it seems to be doing what both I and my wife need it to do.
 

rkot

Member
Given that you are doing dimensioned scale drawings you might also want to take a look at Google sketch up. I often use it in 2D for woodworking project plans. 3-D use is a lot more complicated.
 

DaveWT

Well-Known Member
Thanks to all have been responding with suggestions, but as I said we have settled on EazyDraw. It was a matter of finding a single app that both I and my wife could get comfortable with, for our different needs and after some playing with the free version we have committed to a year's subscription. There was also a lifetime option on offer that at first had our attention but after studying the wording (on the App store version) it appeared it might be a lifetime of use of the version 10 stuff. If they upgrade to a version 11.x I believe we wouldn't have been entitled to that. And they do updates frequently so since they are at version 10.8.4 I could see them soon going to an 11.x version relatively soon.
 

chas_m

Well-Known Member
Has anyone found the MAC program KEYNOTE good as a graphics program? Drawbacks?

I am looking for a graphics program too mainly for mind maps and flow charts.

What are you using the drawing program for?
Keynote is an incredible presentation program, but as a graphics program both it and Pages offer tools that are just the tiniest step above “bare bones.”

Can you use the graphics tools in Pages or Keynote to easily create an org chart or other set of basic shapes, arrows, and lines? Yes.
Can you do much more than that with them? Not really, no. You‘d definitely want to move on to a “real” graphics program.
 
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