Stretch between guides... well, yes and no...

[Doug A Roberts]

I'm a little stumped by something this morning. I want to make a sort of annotation bracket on a path with angled ends and a pointer in the middle, as below:

Ideally I want our users to just draw a straight path and have this appear, but without any of the 45 degree angled parts scaling or stretching. Obviously I can achieve this with the ends using an art brush (up to a point), but I can't think of a way of having the triangular centre a) stay centred, and b) not stretch. anyone got a better idea?

[Doug A Roberts]

i decided a solid triangle in the centre would be good enough and thought I was on to something. strokes don't stretch in an art brush, right? so i create an annotation line in the centre of the brush (which, sure enough doesn't stretch), and then add a width profile to it to make it into a triangle. but it seems a stroke with a width profile does stretch? aaaargh!

[JETalmage]

Make the Artbrush out of half of the bracket, and use two Paths, grouped:

JET

[Doug A Roberts]

thanks JET, i'll have a play around with that on Monday.

Kurt: 2017

[Kurt Gold]

If you are a rational person with straightforward desires you should stop reading right now and stay away.

If you are a person who thinks that sometimes some jumble is appropriate to almost get what you want, then you can download this sample .ai file.

bs_1.ai.zip - Google Drive

It contains three sample graphic styles which may or may not work for you. They are not fully developed and a bit imperfect at the start and end points, but perhaps you can take it for starters and improve the basic idea.

[Kurt Gold]

That could be done as well, Rick.

It would not be that convoluted, indeed. I think I've already made one some years ago. Will take a look into my graphic styles archives and post a sample if I can locate it.

[Kurt Gold · Accepted solution]

Don't know why the post from Rick is not there anymore, but for what it's worth he was asking for a simplified approach.

I found one in my archive. Not sure if it is appropriate, but you can download a sample file with a graphic style here:

bs_2.ai.zip - Google Drive

[Doug A Roberts]

this is great Kurt. I was able to build what i needed out of it. i had an idea i'd need to hide the central section but just couldn't get the whole idea together. thanks so much!

[Kurt Gold]

You're welcome. A noble realm such as Akkad deserves robust constructions.

I'm pretty sure you already know that, but for rather unexperienced users who are going to use this technique, a little hint may be important: If – at some point – the progress requires flattening the transparency, make sure that you enable the Preserve Alpha Transparency option in your Flattening presets. Otherwise some unwanted white filled objects will appear and destroy the construction potentially.

[Kurt Gold]

Which version of Illustrator are you using?