Gravit: Another Open Source alternative to Freehand or Fireworks

I remember (with some nostalgia) that when I started in the world of graphic design for * hobbies * the first tools I started using were all from the ** Macromedia ** Suite, which was later acquired by ** Adobe * *.

Is that they had the complete set between ** Dreamweaver **, ** Flash **, ** Freehand ** and ** Fireworks **. Especially the latter, he used it a lot to create various types of graphics, which he could then take to the web with Dreamweaver or use in some animation with Flash.

I then moved to the GNU / Linux world and all that was left behind. I imposed myself, resigned and without good results at first, to look for free alternatives for these tools, but at that time, nothing satisfied my needs.

For Fireworks or FreeHand the most appropriate thing that currently exists I think is ** Inkscape **, but a few years ago it did not have the quality that it currently has. ** Quanta + ** was the perfect IDE for web development until it died with the arrival of KDE 4, something that I still don't quite understand. And for Flash I have not yet found an OpenSource tool that meets your heels.

Gravit, another alternative.

Browsing through social networks I came across Gravit, a tool that although it was created to be used online, already has installers for Mac, Windows, Linux and for Google Chrome as an extension.

The best of all? It is ** OpenSource ** and ** it is written using HTML5, JS and CSS3 **, although for its installation in ** ArchLinux ** I had to install some Ruby gems using AUR, but there is no need for that, as you can download a file that we only have to unzip and run a binary.

Gravit Features

I have not tested it thoroughly, I have only played around with its tools a bit and it has some very interesting features. Let's see some of them:

Smart guide lines

Creating objects with exact measurements or strokes is not a problem with Gravit. It has the so-called * Smart Guides * that show us at all times the possible places to which we want to move, I repeat, exactly.

Gravit_SmartGuides

Smart duplicate

The example image speaks for itself. It is very useful when we want to give continuity to a certain pattern with the same object.

Gravit_SmartDuplicate

Smart objects

How could it be otherwise, playing with objects and their shapes is something that with Gravit is quite simple to carry out.

Gravit_SmartObjects

As you can see in Gravit almost everything is intelligent and you can find more functionalities and its demonstration here.. 😀

Gravit

Its interface and its tools are similar to those of Adobe / Macromedia, so working with Gravit will not be entirely uncomfortable or require too high a learning line. Anyway, I invite you to try and draw your own conclusions, but I warn you, it is possible that you miss some other functionality or that the application does not work properly.

How to run Gravit on ArchLinux

If you have problems running the binary in ArchLinux, open a terminal and type:

$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libudev.so.1.6.2 /usr/lib/libudev.so.0

And that's it.

Download Gravit

You can download Gravit from the following link:

Download Gravit

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  1.   Raul P. said

    Excellent article, for me, it is still impossible to find any linux software that replaces cryengine.

    The "painters of desktop environments" should focus on creating professional software, and put makeup aside, hehehehehe seems they studied for makeup artists and not for programmers.

  2.   andrew said

    Interesting I will take a look when I have time. +1

  3.   Henry seron said

    Dear, I think that at this point it is no longer necessary alternatives to develop in flash, we have html5, with this protocol I left flash a while ago and I do not miss it at all.

    Greetings.

    1.    elav said

      Yes, you're right, what happens is that I miss the Timeline along with working with ActionScript. With HTML5 you can, but not all of us understand how Canvas works for example, and it becomes complex.

      1.    eliotime3000 said

        There are people who have become fond of ActionScript, but there are tools like Wallaby that help transition from ActionScript to HTML5 (even Flash CC already has a Flash to HTML5 converter included).

        And don't forget about Adobe Edge Design, which is a kind of Adobe Flash focused entirely on the use of HTML5 and CC3.

  4.   dbillyx said

    The truth is that I still use fireworks, both on the windows pc for client work, and on debian, the latter from time to time, when I lose my mind in inkscape and gimp ... I still keep that version 8 in cd and hard drive. I'll take some time to test gravit. And if I like it… I don't know how to say goodbye to fireworks ……… .. xD

    1.    eliotime3000 said

      I still have my Adobe CS4 installation on my Windows Vista partition, so I will continue to use it until I am fully used to GIMP or learn to use Photoshop to lay out web pages the wrong way.

  5.   kallaikoi said

    In Ubuntu I get the following error:
    ./Gravit: error while loading shared libraries: libudev.so. 0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
    Any idea how to fix it?

    1.    Felipe said

      Try this:
      install the necessary libraries
      sudo apt-get install libudev1 libudev-dev -y
      If your system is x64 you put this command: sudo ln -sf /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libudev.so.1 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libudev.so.0

  6.   Percaff_TI99 said

    For the item "Smart lines" in Inkscape I use the grid (AltGr + #) with the option "Grids" checked, in this way it places the object in the corners for me, achieving the precision I want.

    Greetings.

  7.   Original and free Malagueños said

    Any tool that comes to eradicate flash is welcome.

  8.   beeg said

    There is no Chinese photoshop like wps office something like that is almost identical?

  9.   rootsandculture said

    Thanks for sharing the article. A question a bit apart from the subject that is discussed here, would you tell me what is the environment and / or icon pack used in the last image?

    regards

    1.    eruzama said

      Hola!
      The icon pack is the default pack for Plasma 5, I think it was Breeze
      ^ _ ^

      1.    rootsandculture said

        So the environment is KDE? I see it very minimalist and I like it, it didn't look like KDE.

  10.   DaFeBa said

    I'll have to try it. It seems to be far from the functionality of Inkscape, but if it works on mobile platforms and handles SVG it can be a great complement.

  11.   let's see said

    Let's try it, then I'll tell you how!

  12.   AlonsoSanti14 said

    How can I install it in Manjaro ?, since from the Official Website I can't find a way to download it

    1.    Michael Monroy said

      It gives you the option to sign up for the beta, it is a web app, to get the invitation you must get 4000 points playing PacMan, no joke!