Hi Kris and everybody here in the forum,

I’m writing a script that uses adornments feature. The script gathers certain information about each image in the document: effective resolution, scaling, color mode and image type. And depending on the parameters it shows the result in one of three labels:
– for errors
– for warnings
– means no problems

I’ve been testing it for about a month and everything seems to work, but I encountered a few problems:

1) Adornments, as they currently are, work great for simple layouts, but when objects are overlapped they are overlapped as well.

2) When several neighbouring objects are rotated, adornments aren’t rotated with them, so it’s hard to tell which adornment belongs to which object.

I solved the first two problems in the following way:
At first, the  script creates a temporary nonprinting layer, hides frame edges and for each image creates a ‘dummy’ rectangle, without fill and stroke. Geometric bounds are calculated in a such way that it is shrunk inside by 1/3, so that adornments are always in the middle of the picture, even when it is rotated.
In this manner adornments are applied to the dummies and never overlapped.

So here is my feature request for a future version of APID:

• Please make them appear above all objects.
• Let them rotate with objects.
• Make them zoom in/zoom out smoothly, not by increments.

I dabbled a little with SDK – generated FrameLabel plug-in – it does the last two things.

3) Currently I am the only one in our editorial office who has APID installed. But whenever somebody opens a file saved on my machine a dialog pops up – “Missing Plug-ins” APIDToolAssistant… blah-blah-blah…
It’s a minor problem in InDesign as it has “Don’t show again…” check box, but it’s a little annoying for our InCopy users because it doesn’t have it.

4) On some pages adornments look dull and on other bright. Why does it happen?

Thank you in advance,
Kasyan

Dunno, but you only need another three posts, so keep going!

With regards to the adornments - I hear you, and it's all on the to-do list.I am currently still swamped, but once the Adobe CSBU conference in Seattle is over, I should be able to work on APID again. I've kept Harbs waiting too on a number of fixes - he's been very patient!
Problem #4 - I hadn't seen or heard, will definitely investigate!
Problem #3 - I forgot to add an APID-specific 'tag' to the 'Ignore' list - it's related to the GUID handling. It's already fixed in the 1.0.47-pre... releases - I can send you a prerelease if you want that fixes this. There's a few options

1) Use APID 1.0.47-pre... (Harbs has 'em at

http://www.in-tools.com/downloads.html

I should really create a 'pre-release' area on our own web site, where I can put 'as-is, grab it, no docs' prereleases, but haven't had time for that yet. Thanks, Harbs)

2) Don't use any of the GUID functions

The documents that 'have' the problem will carry it with them - it's not really an issue, but it's annoying; you need to save them to .INX and back to fix them. But once APID 1.0.47-pre... is installed, you won't generate any new problem documents any more.

So, I'd say - stay tuned, bear with me - it's coming. I'll try to do it ASAP, but I am really, really swamped. But there is light on the horizon...