No. Way.
If you use Illustrator to draw anything that isn’t totally willy-nilly, you *must have* these scripts. Downloading these scripts is like jumping through a magic portal to awesome-land. I’m using them with CS4, and every one works perfectly as advertised. And best of all? They’re free. Seriously. Please, for the sake of your own sanity, check this out.
Excellent! I thought you’d like these. I am in Illustrator heaven now (and I only draw the odd logo). I can’t imagine how useful these will be to you…
What boggles my mind is Adobe’s indifference on this topic. I’ve talked to them a number of times about it, and they seem to think that plug-ins and scripts like these are an acceptable substitute for real integration of these features into the application. I think it’s totally absurd, and it kills me that AI–the most powerful application in the industry in many regards–doesn’t have a simple round corner tool. It’s totally bogus, and I’ve told them so time and again.
The funny thing is their justification. I won’t quote them directly for lack of permission, but to paraphrase it, they basically say “Our user base is enormously bigger than any of our competition, we must be doing something right.” Yes, there are tens of thousands of designers out there using Illustrator, myself included. But that doesn’t mean we’re all using it happily! I use it for lack of an acceptable alternative. I know I am not alone in this!
So I need help from people like you, Glenn. If enough users tell Adobe that they need to add some of the “duh” tools to AI, maybe they’ll start to take it seriously!
What’s comical to me is their obsessive focus on tools that help users automate the color-scheme creation process. WHO is using these color tools?? I can create my own monochromatic, analogous, or triad color schemes, thanks. The idea of “color sets” is a good one, but they’ve gone off the deep end with this functionality. I wish they would focus on really useful tools, like a useful “trim”, “join”, and “fillet” tool!
Found this via John Nack’s blog. (I imagine you’ll see a lot of traffic from his post.) Your comments about Adobe’s indifference are troubling. If that type if mindset is driving that company…
Nack seems to be the antithesis of indifference. That he’d link directly here after your comment was posted only cements my belief that people like him can move Adobe in a better direction. He’s one of those guys who gets it, and cares.
We finally got Illustrator in our high school media arts lab and the kids have really taken to it. Examples are scattered throughout our blog and galleries. The additional functionality in these Illustrator scripts will really help my kids. Thanks so much for pointing the way!
Now, to explore your site…
Thanks Mike. I’d be the FIRST one to say that John is a great guy and a fantastic resource to the entire digital design community, and I’d agree completely with everything you said. He is the one who turned me back on to Adobe when I started to get really jaded around the CS1-CS2 timeframe, and boy was he right. CS4 is a fantastic evolution, and shows that they are definitely headed in the right direction!
But then there’s Illustrator. The interface is improving, and I am thrilled to see multi-page layouts finally available in AI. The improved gradient tools and controls are a fantastic addition, and live paint is one of the best things they’ve ever done for AI.
But I’d say AI is about where Photoshop was two years ago: it’s got tons of great functionality that is buried deep within the program in frustratingly obscure ways, and it is completely lacking in some fundamental ways. It’s drawing tools are some of the worst in the industry. I’ve been begging for years, and they really seem to have no interest at all in improving in this area. It’s a shame!
AI is a powerful package, and I use it in my work very, very often. But not for drawing, unfortunately. But the plugins in this post are a big help!
Adam
They clouds have opened up and beautiful vector rays are shining through. I can’t tell you how long I’ve looked for a set of AI tools like this that didn’t cost an arm and a leg or have a fuddled interface.
Next time the drinks are on me. Thanks for sharing.