[The Iso Pach]

Hey everyone. New guy here.

My history with vector work is about 3 years designing websites using Macromedia (now Adobe) Fireworks. I'm approaching the limits of the capabilities of this program, and I need to expand my skill base by diving into Illustrator. This is especially important now because my job requirements involve label and brochure design now. Fireworks is rather limited in these areas.

So, to start with, I would appreciate some advice on 2 things I've wanted to do with Fireworks but couldn't:

1. How do I define a stroke to be dots, or dashes, or stars, or whatever I want, and control the size of said dots/dashes/whatever, the spacing between each dot, gradual increasing or decreasing of dot size along the path...?

2. How do I define the fill of an object to be a linear gradient that follows the shape of the object, rather than remaining a true linear?

I've wanted to get into Illustrator for a year now; every time I start playing with it I end up going back to Fireworks because of the super user friendly interface, object selection/handling/transforming... its great. However, it lacks the power and versatility of Illustrator. Also, being made for web design, it really doesn't like working in 300 dpi for print projects.

Any super illustrators here that have some wisdom to share, I'm listening.

~Anthony