[Rick Johnson]

That’s right, that’s how it works if you’re currently in a release version.

Beta versions will check for beta update notices and release versions will check for release update notices. When downloading the update, betas will download the newest beta and release versions will download the newest release version.

Pressing Alt or Option will switch the downloaded plugin between release and beta. If there is no corresponding beta version to download, you’ll probably get a “File not found” error in your browser.

[Rick Johnson]

Thanks, Oleg, I agree that this is better. Next time I update Square Up I’ll keep this in mind.

[Rick Johnson]

Thanks, Oleg, that does look useful. Tools to calculate an auxiliary projection have been in the works for some time in AxoTools. Right now, the Transformations panel sort of does that, but an easier method should be coming soon. I hope you find its interface better than this one, also. 😉

[Rick Johnson]

Hi Brian,

I’m sorry to be so long in responding. I thought I’d get a notice of any new  posts, but I guess that’s not the case!

I know exactly what you mean by actual dimensions vs. foreshortened dimensions. In my earlier work I used actual dimensions in isometric drawings, too. When using dimetric or trimetric projections, though, the art gets distorted without the “Foreshorten” option (in the upper right of the CADaxonometric panel).

In my own work, I use CADtools to draw the orthographic views to scale, and wrote AxoTools in order to assemble views using the “project in place” technique, as well as other tools I added to augment CADtools’ tool set. The projection method I use relies on math used by technical illustrators for many years, which requires foreshortening on everything, but it also enables features such as compound rotations.

I’m sorry, but I don’t have any suggestions for you except to scale projected isometric art to 115.4701076758754% before adding dimensions in CADtools. Perhaps this scaling step could be added to AxoTools as an option when projecting, but that would break a lot of other AxoTools features.

I hope this was helpful. Thanks for asking! — Rick

[Rick Johnson]

I wonder how many of us are subscribed to this forum and will be notified of this post… There’s a “Subscribe” option in the upper-right corner of the page, which I’d encourage all beta testers to choose. Things have been pretty quiet here, and with AxoTools development in general, for quite a while, but now issues from AI 25.3 are addressed along with support for AI 26. Overdue bug fixes are in progress, and we should see betas again soon with new features.

Here’s the status of planned updates, not necessarily in this order:

• Live extruding in the Transformations panel is a priority. Ron Kempke is testing some new formulas that should give more reliable results for compound rotations.
• Gradients in shaded extruded objects will be revisited. There are some aspects of implementing it that are “challenging” but it looks promising. I’ll go into that in more detail later.
• The axonometric measure tool for projected angles and foreshortened distances will appear soon, in part because there are no technical hurdles to implementing it! It’s also related to calculating the projection of a skewed surface in an existing axonometric view, so it may be combined with a panel for auxiliary projections. I’ll post more on this soon — your input on what approaches are intuitive and easy to use are important!

Thanks — Rick

[Rick Johnson]

Hi Rob, I’ve had a lot of near misses with the virus, but still doing OK. Hope you are, too.

I did get the updated CORE libraries as soon as they became available, and went to work immediately on updating all plugins. AI 2022 was a tough one for updates, but not as brutal as CS6 was. All plugins are now ported to 2022, including Apple M1 support.

I hope the updated plugins serve you long and well!

— Rick

[Rick Johnson]

Hi Ben,

I’m sorry for the delay, and for the problem you’re having. It makes no sense that Adobe Illustrator reports a problem to the plugin, yet reports to the user that the operation completed successfully.

I’ll get back to you via email to work on troubleshooting this problem.

[Rick Johnson]

I apologize for the delayed response. Somehow I didn’t get, or didn’t see, a notification of new posts here. Unfortunately, sometimes unusual situations behave differently in real life than when they’re simulated during development. I think that issue is fixed now with new versions of Cutting Tools, Nudge, SquareUp, AxoTools, Concatenate, and TextSync, uploaded September 9, 2021. If it persists, please email me and I’ll keep investigating it.

[Rick Johnson]

Every time you use a tool in AxoTools, any tool, it turns the key press monitors on upon mouse down, and turns off the key press monitors upon mouse up. Are the keys stolen before any tools are used? I made sure the key press monitors are off at startup, which should be reflected in the next build.

I have no scheduled date for another beta build other than the current one expires in September and one is needed before then. A new version of CORE is expected to address some issues with Illustrator 25.3.1, and I’ll rebuild all release versions when that is available.

As for the next beta, I’ll confess I’ve been away taking care of other things, and am now starting to work on code issues again. Some new features in progress are too broken to release now, but a new beta will be needed when they are functional.

Remember, too, that you can switch between the beta and release versions by checking for an update, then holding Alt or Option while clicking the Get Update button.

[Rick Johnson]

Thanks, Egor, I’ll address that in the next beta build. It should only capture keys while dragging a tool. I wonder, if users really don’t even use those shortcuts, maybe it’s best to just remove them.

To toggle the line weight, click with the Axo Line tool. Click a path with the Line tool to toggle its weight between the defined in the Draw Settings panel.

AxoTools has a button in the About Box to open the online documentation. Should it appear somewhere else also, to be easily discovered by users?

[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!

 

[Rick Johnson]

The beta version uses an all-new extrude function. Previously, it extruded along one of the three axis. Now it can extrude in any direction to support the Transformations panel’s live objects. You make a good observation, though, that the Extrude tool and Extrude panel should continue to use the old Extrude function until the new one works better. I’ll change that in the next update.

[Rick Johnson]

I’m sorry, I got interrupted while uploading the new versions and didn’t finish. Beta 210415 (16.2.06) should be available for all versions now.

Something to note: The beta version checks for a newer beta build, and the release version checks for a newer release build. If you’re in the release version and opt to download the newest beta build, there may not be a beta build at that time. In that case, you’ll get a 404 in your browser. If you’re in the beta build and there are no more betas, you will be redirected to the newest release build.

[Rick Johnson]

Thanks, Egor. I’m trying to reproduce the problem but it works here as expected. It’s frustrating for me, and I’m sure much more frustrating for you! I changed the user units from pts to mm, but no surprises. Are there circumstances for you where it extrudes properly? Do you see the same behavior in the current release version?

[Rick Johnson]

That text shading is pretty nice, and extruding compound shapes like that and getting all of the parts properly stacked/layered is no simple task.

As you’ve probably seen in the beta builds, I’m working on new shading methods including gradients for curved surfaces. I’ve been working first in implementing the new shading in live object (Transformations panel) extruding, but Illustrator doesn’t have true multithreading so things can go haywire quickly. I’ll likely disable shading in extruded live objects at least for now in order to continue work on the improved shading.

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