Rorohiko Ltd.

The Lightning Brain Sudoku Generator has been updated to version 1.1.0 – this latest version adds support for 6×6 sudoku, with 3×2 (HxV) subcells. 6×6 sudoku puzzles are smaller, and less intensive to solve than their 9×9 brethern – I estimate they would take the average puzzler about a minute or less to solve. Good fun when you only have a minute to spare! Click here for more info.

Here’s one to try – the clues in this puzzle are arranged in a visually symmetrical pattern: more pleasing to the eye, but that makes the puzzle also a bit easier to solve. If you want slightly more difficult 6×6 puzzles, you should not use the visual symmetry-options that our generator offers.

Lightning Brain Soxy for Macintosh has some new features.

The latest version knows how to handle InDesign .jsx script files. Instead of stashing your .jsx files into the InDesign Scripts Panel folder, you can now simply tell the Mac Finder to assign the .jsx file name extension to be opened with Soxy.

Soxy then looks inside the .jsx file for any comments that indicate the version of InDesign the script is destined for, and it then runs the .jsx file with that version.

This means that InDesign .jsx files become almost like little stand-alone applications: you can store them wherever you like on your hard disk, and simply double-clicking them will make the script run inside the proper copy of InDesign.

Soxy must be able to guess what version of InDesign needs to be launched – it will scan the beginning of the .jsx script file for comment lines like

// InDesign CS4

or

// InDesign 6.0

or entries like

#target indesign-6

and use these to decide what version of InDesign this script ‘belongs to’. Most script .jsx files have such a comment – and if they don’t you can always open them in a text editor and add such a line at the beginning of the script.

Make way for double-clickable .jsx files!

For more info click here.

Lightning Brain ImageHorn for Adobe InDesign is a free plug-in designed to enable dynamic image fitting (’horn’ like in ’shoehorn’).

Dynamic image fitting automatically re-applies the selected fitting settings to an image each time you resize the frame that contains it.

Version 1.0.1, our newest release, adds support for placed PDF and EPS files – the previous version only supported placed bitmap images.

David Blatner recently covered LB ImageHorn as one of 10 free must-have plug-ins on Lynda.com:

InDesign CS4: 10 Free Must-Have Plug-ins

Click here for more info about ImageHorn and the download links!

Lightning Brain Soxy 0.1.3 is available for download, testing and purchase! It’s InDesignProxy on steroids.

If you have a Macintosh with more than one version of applications like Adobe® Illustrator®, Adobe InDesign®, QuarkXPress®… installed, and you want to avoid accidentally resaving, say, an Illustrator CS2 document in Illustrator CS3 format – then Lightning Brain Soxy is for you.

Click here for more info, and to download a fully functional time-limited demo version.

Version 0.1.3 is our first beta release. Soxy is a ‘drop-in’ replacement for InDesignProxy - but where InDesignProxy only knows how to handle InDesign files, Soxy offers a whole range of supported document types. Check it out!

More info here…

You have a Macintosh. You handle files from in various formats, created with a range of versions. So you have more than one version of Adobe Illustrator, or more than one version of InDesign, and maybe a few different versions of QuarkXPress installed.

You double-click a file, edit and save. Gaah! You’ve just accidentally saved the document into a newer format. Know the feeling? Then Lightning Brain Soxy will be for you.

We’re close to releasing the first beta version of Soxy (short for Son of InDesignProxy).

Soxy does everything InDesignProxy does, and more – in addition to Adobe InDesign, it also supports Adobe Illustrator (so it knows how to launch Illustrator CS3 instead of Illustrator CS4 when double-clicking an Illustrator CS3 document, for example), QuarkXPress, and PDF, and we’ll be gradually adding other formats as time passes.

Simply tell the Finder to open all .pdf, .ai, .indd,… files with Soxy instead of with their ‘native’ app, and Soxy will take care of the rest; it will analyze each file as it is double-clicked, and then automatically forward it to the proper application.

Once Soxy is released, we’ll be selling it for US$19.00. For people who download and test the beta we’ll set a ‘beta price’ of US$14.00.

Watch this space – we’ll announce when the beta is ready for download here!

We’re also trying to gauge demand for ‘Soxy for Windows‘ – if you have a need for this, or any other thoughts or ideas about Soxy, or what additional file formats we should add, let us know at marketing@rorohiko.com

P.S. We’ve also added support for InDesign SDK/C++ software developers who have both debug and release versions of InDesign installed – don’t you hate it when you double click an .indd file and InDesign CS4 Debug launches?

InDesign fits in a wide range of workflows because it has a massive amount of functionality. You’re probably only using a small fraction of what’s available, and that’s just fine.

Yet there are quite a few less obvious features that are key to using InDesign efficiently.

How can you unleash your creative genius if you are missing out on those features?

That’s where the InDesign Seminar Tour comes in – the lucky few who live close enough to San Francisco, Seattle, LA, Boston, Minneapolis, NYC and Philadelphia can take a shortcut! Spend a day listening to the experts to learn all you need to know to use InDesign efficiently.

Rorohiko Ltd. is sponsoring the InDesign Seminar Tour; we’ll be giving away free software – and there are other goodies to be had as well!

Click here for more info!

I wanted to highlight one of the company policies we have here at Rorohiko – it’s our ‘no ads, no spam’ internet policy.

No ads means: you won’t see any Google (or similar) ads on our site. That is a conscious decision on our part.

Our web site is pretty well ranked and could potentially generate a fair bit of advertising income, but we decided against that. We think that when you come to visit our web site, you don’t want to be dazzled by all kinds of ads. On our web site, all you find is information by us, from us, for you. Concentrated info, so to speak, not watered down with irrelevant advertising.

No spam means: we don’t send out any bulk e-mails. We actually do have a fairly large list of e-mail addresses of people who registered on our message board or our e-commerce server. We don’t intend to mis-use these e-mails. The idea is that when you want information about us, you can decide that for yourself, and visit our web site.

So, how can you stay informed about what we do, without having to check our web page all the time?

RSS to the rescue! Most modern browsers allow you to subscribe to an RSS feed. Often, an RSS icon is shown somewhere in the URL area of your browser for any ’subscribable’ URL.

An RSS feed is kind of a special URL that will auto-update in your browser as new material becomes available on our web site. Simply subscribe your favorite RSS reader to http://www.rorohiko.com and that should do the trick.

Some mail programs also have RSS subscription features. You simply add the RSS feed to your browser or your mail program – and you will instantly be notified when we have something new on our web site.

That way, we give you the control over how much or how little you want to hear from us – you decide whether or not to add the RSS feed.

I dug up some interesting URLs with more info about how to use RSS below:

Apple Mail:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mail/3.0/en/15170.html

Safari:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Safari/3.0/en/9328.html
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Safari/3.0/en/9348.html

Mozilla Firefox:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/RSS:_Live_Bookmarks_overview_(Firefox)

Mozilla Thunderbird:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_RSS_Basics

Microsoft Internet Explorer:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/rss/default.mspx

Do you need to work on a large, complex document, with many large chunks of text?

FrameReporter helps you navigate around – attach a name to various text stories or text frames, and use a simple popup menu to ‘jump to’ any named story or text frame – jump from the story on ‘Global Warming’ around page 56 to the story on ‘Organic Pet Food’ around page 70 and back.

Also, InDesign shows a lot of information on its many floating palettes and ribbons – but have you noticed you always need to take your eyes off the current selection to consult a palette?

FrameReporter puts the info where you need it – I’d say ‘right at your fingertips eyeballs’

Imagine a multi-text frame story – how can you know whether the text overruns or not without having to scroll way to the last frame, while you’re removing some superfluous words to clear the text overrun? FrameReporter shows you where you need it – it puts a special ‘overrun marker’ on any selected frame that is part of an overrunning story.

Download a fully functional, time limited demo today – click here for a web page with download links and a cookbook description of the FrameReporter features.