Inspiring

Question

Halo Arrows

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
October 27, 2011
2 replies
1643 views

Is there a way to make halo arrows, or is there maybe a plugin that has more options for arrows? I know (and what I have been doing) can make a large white arrow and a smaller black arrow and group them. This does work, but when rotating the arrow it distorts sometimes and has to be ungrouped, changed, and grouped back. We use these kinds of arrows for darker images so the arrow will stand out. We used to use Interleaf and it had all kinds of arrows that could be used.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

ls

This topic has been closed for replies.

Michael_Müller-Hillebrand

Legend

Is,

My suggestion is to create the foreground line and then use a script to add the backgrounds. I used this as a demonstration how similar FrameScript and ExtendScript programming can be, see here (the text is in German but you should be able to understand the code):

http://www.framescript.eu/2011/02/linienhintergrund-automatisch-erstellen/

There are some problems with arrows. They are drawn from the tip and the rules how their size is adjusted based on the line width are non-linear, i.e. it is not easy to find a good automated solution. I am working on that for a client atv the moment, covering exactly one style of arrows.

- Michael

L

lsk2002Author

Inspiring

Michael,

OK...way over my head, but I did run a script in InDesign a guy gave me...it it wasn't that difficult. I don't even see a window like in FM10 where you run a script from. I use FM9. (I have been searching a little on the net.) Anyway, I opened the toolkit and copied and pasted the extend script in there and saved it....just because that was the closes thing online and in help that I though might work...lol...but how do you run it.... IF that is where to start?

Thanks,

ls

Michael_Müller-Hillebrand

Legend

Is,

ExtendScript is supported from FrameMaker 10 only.

FrameScript is supported for FrameMaker 6 through 10. With FM9 you may want to download a trial version of FrameScript, see http://www.framescript.com If installed it has its own menu with a run command. But before trying the script have a look at the settings easily visible in the source code.

- Michael

Bob_Niland

Community Expert

I long ago created a small set of self-masking arrows for our group to use.

These started with a 0.5in long Frame graphic line, 1.0 pt black, with a default (90/16/12 filled) arrow head at one end.

At high zoom, a Frame polygon was added under and just outside the outline of this arrow. No border. Named fill color (one of the colors routinely set to white or Cutout during final rendering).

A small amount of the arrow tail was left exposed beyond the mask, so it can be placed on top of our self masking bubbles, touching or overlaying the black circle, without having to be super precise in placement. For use on line art and bi-tone bitmaps, another variant has a bit of the arrow tip unmasked beneath, so it can "touch" the thing being pointed to.

The arrow and mask are grouped. We keep the set on a Reference page.

They rotate cleanly (with a nice transparent outline), and render cleanly.

What they don't do is scale cleanly. So we don't.

And keeping the tails orthogonal to the bubbles (of which we have several styles), requires a bit of practice.

_______

You'd expect a premier tech pub app to do callout bubbles.

L

lsk2002Author

Inspiring

Error,

Thanks for replying. Glad someone else is in need of something like this. I guess my way or your way, you have to fiddle with it. Maybe that can be on the wish list....

ls

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

Throw your items in this hat - https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

It's the only way to get Adobe's attention ;>)

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