EazyDraw

Dekorra Optics’ EazyDraw is a vector-based drawing application that doesn’t know what it wants to be when it grows up. Its name implies that it’s an uncomplicated, easy-to-understand tool, but few of its features are obvious or clear in function or performance.

EazyDraw’s basic tool set seems pointed at more-complex illustration techniques instead of simple ones. In an unusual twist, EazyDraw applies a few of those complex and sometimes rather sophisticated techniques in an easy, immediate fashion; it’s occasionally more intuitive than its high-end rivals. Making a spiral, for instance, can be a bear in other programs, but here the process is intuitive and interactive.

EazyDraw buries a full and complex feature set beneath a decidedly difficult interface. It handles transparency, masking, importing raster images, cropping and framing images, and even applying vector shadows; however, these tasks involve a byzantine series of steps that’s hard enough to figure out in the first place, let alone remember on your second try.

Built from the ground up as a Cocoa application, EazyDraw takes advantage of OS X features such as the font manager and the Quartz graphics layer. It runs only in OS X.

EazyDraw’s nonstandard interface takes a bit of getting used to. The tool icons are simply drawn, but their corresponding functions are not readily apparent. The Knife tool’s icon looks like an arrow rather than an X-acto knife.

On the positive side, EazyDraw has a fluid and fast screen draw, as well as unlimited undos.

Macworld’s Buying Advice

EazyDraw defies categorization. It has the illustration-tool features you’d expect from a higher-end application, but its odd interface and limited output capabilities will slow down, rather than speed up, your work.