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SelectMenu selects art with notes

As an Adobe Illustrator user, you’re probably aware that in the Attributes panel you can add notes to selected art objects. That’s a useful feature, but what do you do if you have many art objects in an illustration and you later need to find objects with notes? Especially art with a specific note?

The free SelectMenu plugin for Adobe Illustrator has been updated to address just that. In the menu Select > Object > Art with Notes… you’ll be presented with this dialog.

select with notes

You can choose to select all art with notes or only art whose notes contain certain phrases. The search matches notes regardless of capitalization.

You can download it here for Adobe Illustrator CC 2019 through 2023, for Windows or Mac (Intel, or Apple silicon on 2022-23). Documentation on all supported art types and attributes are available online, and through a Documentation button in the plugin’s AboutBox. It’s entirely FREE!

Rick

SelectMenu updated with new types, select by name

SelectMenu has been updated to add more art types, as well as a new select-by-name function.

Select art by name

Now you can select objects by their name, as displayed in the Layers panel. In the menu item Select > Object > Art by Name and you will see this dialog:

Select Menu select art by name

Choose whether the art name should contain the text you enter or if it should match exactly. Text is not case-sensitive, so the common rectangle, for example, with the name “<Rectangle>” would include “rect” entered in lower case. Please note that non-ASCII characters like accented characters and traditional Chinese are not currently recognized.

Menu selections can be recorded as Actions and played back to be included as part of other automations.

By user request, the long, long menu has been divided into groups to make items easier to find. Here are the menu groups:

Main menu:

Adobe’s Select > Object menu ends with Area Type. SelectMenu plugin adds the following items:

Path Text Objects
Legacy Text Objects
Guides
Paths

Paths with attributes:

Open Paths
Closed Paths
Filled Paths
Unfilled Paths
Stroked Paths
Unstroked Paths
Dashed Paths
Undashed Paths
Compound Paths

Basic art attributes:

Styled Art
Unstyled Art
Opaque Art
Transparent Art
Overprinting Art
Effects Applied

Basic art types:

Groups
Symbols
Path Blends
Gradient Meshes
Raster Art
Placed Art
Graphs
Non-native Art

Special Art Types:

Live Objects (Plugin Art)
Envelopes
Flares
Image Traces
Live Paint Art
Symbol Sets
AxoTools Live Art
Compound Shapes
Opacity Masks
Intertwines (AI 2023+ only)

Repeats:

(AI 2021+ only)

Radial Repeats
Grid Repeats
Mirror Repeats

I’d like to thank Jeen Hung for his assistance in making many of these newer selection types possible.

SelectMenu is still free. The updated version is available for Adobe Illustrator CC 2019 and up, for macOS and Windows platforms. You can find it here on the plugins download page.

Select Menu speed bump

The popular free Select Menu plugin is now faster! I guess one could say it’s a speed bump in that its speed has been bumped up. Then again, its speed bump has been the result of removing (unless you want it) a speed bump, as in those bumps in the road intended to make you slow your vehicle down.

One recent improvement, or so I believed, was when the plugin checked for the existence of various types of objects in the current document and disabled unneeded menu items so as to save users from looking for something that’s not there. In a very large or complex document, however, that search can take a second or two, or longer, so the feature didn’t necessary save much time. With version 16.0.6, the default behavior is to enable all menu items whether needed or not. If you decide you’d rather have the menu parse the current object types, just press the Alt or Option key while selecting the Select > Object menu and the plugin will diligently search like Yoda examining the contents of Luke’s food case.

Did I mention that it’s free? Yup, still free.

Updates for everything!

All Graffix plugins have something in common, whether it’s a module of code to add an About Box, handle preferences, or other functions. All of these shared libraries have had improvements made to them, making the plugins more stable, more reliable, and with better memory management. Every plugin available for CS6, CC, CC 2014, CC 2015, CC 2015.3, and CC 2017 (all 132 variations) now has an update available They’re recommended for all users.

And once you’ve downloaded those updates, you may notice that the read-me doc has been updated, as well, with clearer instructions on where to place the plugin. There’s also a link to the support area of this web site, which has been updated with an FAQ section and will see more frequent and meaningful help topics.

Many thanks to all users who have shared their questions, comments, and observations, which led to these improvements.

All the best,