J. Clarke wrote:

Robatoy wrote:
On Nov 4, 8:03 pm, Mark & Juanita wrote:
Robatoy wrote:
Thanks for all the great suggestions. I've been drilling deeper
into
the net and there sure are a lot of options I wasn't aware of.

I have been a happy Vectorworks user for a looong time. Now that
Leopard is out for the Mac, they have decided not to support older
versions ( not THAT old either). That disturbs me as I have been
paying for upgrades since Version 1 (MiniCad)
As Leopard and my MacPro, allow me to run XP-Pro or Linux via
Parallels at no loss of speed (Intel chips now), the whole CAD
business can be evaluated rather than dropping a $ 1000.00 for an
upgrade to a company which only seem to understand loyalty in one
direction only.

For $ 1000.00 US (That's about $ 950.00 Can) what are my other
options?

Given your budget, VariCAD is certainly worth a look. You may
also want
to seriously investigate PRO-E Wildfire (the PTC link on the link
page that
was previously posted). PRO-E is an industry standard and used in
multiple applications. However, I'm not sure what the going price
for a low-end (most likely sufficient for woodworking needs) is.

I looked at those, but found out that Ashlar Vellum is all growed
ups..*G*

Whatever you decide, please post your findings. Others of us who
have
leapt from the jaws of MSoft are looking at our alternatives. At
this
time, there are two applications for which I have not found good
substitutes:

1. CAD -- I was using TurboCAD. It doesn't run under WINE
and they aren't going to Linux anytime soon

I pretty much made up my mind about Ashlar Vellum. Thanks for the
input though...

2. MindManager -- a truly remarkable organizational and
task
planning/tracking tool (with Results Manager, it really rocks).
Again,
doesn't even load under WINE and looks like no hope of a linux
version.

Now THAT looks pretty cool. I will investigate further.

Google "mind mapping mac" and you'll find a variety of similar
applications. I've always found that sort of thing to be awkward
compared to using a piece of paper (or Painter and a graphics tablet)
but maybe I've just never stuck to one long enough for it to become
transparent.


Some of the freeware is pretty slow. To use Robatoy's words, MindManager
is "all growed up" and is very fast, intuitive and lets one organize
thoughts and plans much faster than drawing with paper and most especially
faster than graphics programs. It is especially faster when you want to
re-organize things.

--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough