Links to available AxoTools 16.2 beta builds

[Rick Johnson]

Here are the links to the available beta builds for AxoTools 16.2 with the new Transformations panel for compound rotations and movements:

Mac:

CS6
2020
2021

Windows:

CS6
CC 2015.3
2020
2021

— Rick

[J.B. ❤️]

The CS6 Windows version, as well, please.

[prowhiz]

Thanks for the builds. I’m not sure if this is the right place to drop feedback.
I just took the transform panel for a spin and must say it is pretty impressive. My first observation so far is with the history states. When I roll the dial to rotate, it appears that every single degree of rotation is recorded. Therefore when I undo, I have to go through 50 history states if I rotated 50 degrees. Since its a rotation dial, it would make sense to record the dial as a single history state instead.

[Rick Johnson]

Yes, this is the place for feedback, thank you! I’m sorry for the delay — I just now saw that your message was here.

The Undo problem is a valid concern, and one I’ve been researching for quite some time now with no solutions. As you’ve probably noticed, each time the artwork state changes, Illustrator increments another Undo state. It seems to me there must be a way to “bookmark” a certain state and return there if the user chooses. If I find a way, I’ll certainly enable that.

[Oleg]

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/dzt1cte4nyr6kab/210401125008.png

[chegr]

Yes, mine has expired too.

[Rick Johnson]

I’m sorry about the expiration surprise — didn’t expect to go this long without an update. I give each beta an expiration date so people update when a newer beta or a release version becomes available. I uploaded new betas last night, so if you go to the About Box and check for updates, you’ll get a dialog to download it.

I should have engineered that better. When a plugin expires it should check for an update and should also get the release version if there’s no beta available. If you have other suggestions, please let me know.

[Rick Johnson]

I’ve made some changes that will take effect with the next beta build. Currently the plugin will not load if it has expired, which means you cannot get to the About Box to download an update. In the future, expired betas will still load. Also to come, when you check for an update in a beta version, the dialog will read something like “Alt-click Get Update to download the release version instead of beta.”

Would it be helpful to add an undocumented behavior where Alt/Option clicking the Get Update button in a release version will fetch the beta version instead?

[Ron Kempke]

If I understand you, I think so because the beta version may contain new features not yet released.

[chegr]

We had a rough year, as many others, so me and my wife recently decided to have a plan to be able to use a data we now store in our heads to be retrievable in the case of accidents. Plus just recently we had to open my father’s garage and spend a lot of efforts, both physically and mentally, to decide what to do with all of his now master-less tools and materials.
And than this expiration thing happened. And my first thought (I apologize for that) was ‘Is Rick allright?’. And then — ‘If he is not, does it mean that the tool is forever lost?’. And it filled me with a lot of sadness. What can we done to ensure our tools surpass us?

[Rick Johnson]

I’m sorry to hear about your father, Egor. It’s a valid concern about the plugins continuing to work. In case something happens where I’m unable to continue supporting the plugins, I do have a continuity plan.

Plugins only expire under two conditions, when an annual license expires, or when a beta version reaches its expiration date. That date is typically about two months from the date it was released, which should not be a problem if new versions continue to be released, but that’s not always possible. I can set the expiration date out farther, but I hesitate to remove it because people may continue to run a beta version for a long time, thinking it’s a release version, and miss important updates in the future.

As explained above, beta plugins will continue to load when they expire, and the “Check for updates” process will offer the option to download the newest release version instead of the beta.

Any suggestions for improvements on that logic will be seriously considered. Thanks for your input!

[chegr]

Will you post here an update when a new beta comes out? Or anywhere else?

[Rick Johnson]

I’d be happy to email you, if you’d like, but there should be a couple of ways to automatically be notified.

In the upper-right corner of the forum main page is a link to Subscribe. I’m presuming that will notify you of new posts. Since I’m the admin, I get notified anyway, and haven’t engineered a way to test that for others.

In the About Box, where you check for updates, there’s an option for how often to check for new updates. I have mine set to 1. That should also notify you on launch when there’s a new build.

I hope one of these will be a simple and reliable method. If neither works, I’ll email you.

Thanks for your input, Egor!

 

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