† Theunis de Jong (1966–2020)

[Marc Autret]

Better known under his nickname “Jongware”, our brilliant and famous colleague Theunis de Jong died on November 28 at the age of 54.

Everyone in this forum—and especially the older generation I belong to—will surely understand what this death means to the InDesign community. I invite the Adobe team, moderators, persons in charge… to create a dedicated tribute page. As Theunis had many many friends here (Peter, Uwe, Gregor… well! I won't mention you all, buddies!), it would be really attentive to give them a space of collective memory.

I have posted a more personal—and written—tribute on my website (I would be very touched if you read it, of course). It contains a quote that I think justified to share here with you anyway. A month ago, as he knew his days were numbered, Theunis wrote to me:

“I am really happy to have been a member of that community for so many, many years, and having been able to teach people the occasional tidbits about design, layout, and typography, InDesign in general and scripting specifically.” —Theunis de Jong, Oct. 7, 2020.

Take care,

Marc Autret

https://www.indiscripts.com/pages/theunis

[jane-e]

I'm so, so sorry to hear this sad news about Theunis, aka @Jongware . He was always willing to share his vast knowledge and will be missed by all of us in the InDesign community.

~ Jane

[Olav Kvern]

This is a great loss. Thank you, Marc Autret, for your beautiful obituary.

Sincerely,

Ole

[LeonardoAgosti]

It's an incredible loss at such a still young age.. 
As most of the InDesign people active around the world we never met in person, but I'll, and I can probably say also we'll all miss him and his great advices..

Sincere condolences to the family and everyone who knew him.

[Geоrge]

RIP. Пусть земля ему будет пухом. 

[Asuvath]

May his soul rest in peace. 

[Colette WIlson]

RIP Jongware!

He will be sadly missed, his bio is a fitting tribute to someone who has followed a path of discovery, always exploring and always willing to offer help!

[Harbs.]

Oh. That's really sad!

He was a very valued member of the community and I learned a tremendous amount from him.

I'm not sure how many folks remember, but this is the second Theunis de Jong our community has lost. Both were brilliant people.

[Peter Kahrel]

@Harbs. The first de Jong you're thinking of was Teus, not Theunis.

[Harbs.]

It's possible I remember wrong, but I thought his given name was Theunis as well. IIRC, they were related. Either way, very sad news. 😞

[LeonardoAgosti]

Yes, it was Teus De Jong and it was exactely 10 years ago..

[Marc Autret]

Indeed the two “de Jong” had the exact same first name (“Theunis”) but they didn't abbreviate the same: “Teus” vs. “Theun”. @davidblatnershed some light on this extraordinary coincidence — see a few comments above.

[Harbs.]

Thanks. I can't find my old emails, but I'm pretty sure I had a similar exchange myself. I think he told me they were distant relatives.

[Laubender]

Thank you Marc for letting us know. And for your kind words.

I'm shocked! Spent my weekend totally offline, and now this sad news.

My condolences to his family and friends.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Trevor:]

I haven't checked into the forum in a long time and would have missed this post if Harbs wouldn't have posted on slack but after seeing it I must comment.

Theunis helped me and countless others out on many occasions and will be missed by the community here and more so by his family.

The treads between Jongware, Marc, Uwe, Peter, others, and myself were quite inspiring each demonstrating their own style and JW certainly had some of that.

[Keith_Gilbert]

Thank you for letting the community know and for your beautiful tribute Marc. Theunis was a wonderful example of someone who tirelessly and selflessly gave to the community, again and again over so many years. We all have benefitted in so many ways from his inquisitiveness, brilliance, and generosity.

[Argonaut777]

That's very sad news indeed.

I rarely post in these forums but, I was honoured when he commented on one of my queries many years ago and explained the nitty gritty of the GREP issue that I had had with one of my own GREP styles.

It was his example that opened up the possiblities of the use of scripts and GREP to me.

His passing is great loss to the Design community.

RIP Jongware

[Jean loup Fusz]

Very sad to learn of his death. As for many InDesign users, JongWare's work has introduced me to InDesign scripting.
I use his scripts and his HTML version of the JavaScript documentation almost daily.
His death is a sad loss to the InDesign community.
My thoughts are with his family and loved ones.

[Loic.Aigon]

That's sad news. A crual reminder that we are only visiting this earth for a short among of time and Theunis would have deserved to stay with us much longer. 

As many of us, I owe Jongware so much. The HTML file have been part of my daily work for so long that I can even browse files in a blink. Without it, scripting would have been a harder road. 

I only had digital exhanges with Theunis and there were only a few but I can say he was a man with a sharp mind and total humility and kindness. I cannot imagine how sad his relatives and close friends can be at the moment but all my thoughts to them. 

RIP Theunis, you were really inspiring.

[CarlosCanto]

I'm an illustrator dude and never come to the ID forum, but I know who the scripting regulars are. I used to visit the ID scripting forum a lot when I was learning years ago. I learned most of what I know from the couple of illustrator scripters that were still around at that time but mostly, I learned from the heavy guns in this forum, the artillery was far superior in this side of town. One of the ID scripting gurus was so good that he made the cross over to the Illustrator forum. His scripts were the most complex I've ever seen. 

I got hooked when I saw his "Draw a Tricuspoid Shape" script, when I was in scripting pre-school. But then he wrote Where Am I? and Gear Up!, oh my the scripts just kept coming, Puzzlify, Krazy Circles, Monoline, DrawArtHandles and my personal favorite, Circle Fill. I quickly became a fan of his. He wrote many more scripts, too many to count, those are just some of the ones that helped me understand some of the hardest Math concepts and scripting in general. His body of work is truly inspirational to me.

And back to the Tricuspoid script that a user requested and to exemplify his dedication as Marc rightfully pointed out in his beautiful post, this is what he wrote

"Several hours of Heavy Math fun 🙂 Oddly, getting the circumference circles was about the hardest part."

"// Change to set the size of the tricuspoid

// Actually, it's not the *actual* size, more like cos(30) or something ...
// (I might look into that later. It's 01:18 right now; yup, past the midnite hour.)"

I'm happy I had the opportunity to spend the last decade in the illustrator scripting trenches alongside a legend, rest in peace Math Genius JongWare, you will be missed.

[Scott Falkner]

Wow. This is going to sting. Jong sponsored me to be an ACP. His advice has helped a lot of people, myself included.

[PECourtejoie]

As a mere human being (read; non scripter) I understand how we depend on the dedication and knowledge of scripters, both qualities Jongware had in huge amounts. I trust that others will continue his legacy.

RIP...

[AlanGilbertson]

We are all diminished by his passing. Marc, your tribute is thoughtful, beautiful, and appropriate. Thank you for that.

[*Tim*]

Very sad to hear of Theunis' passing.

More oftern than not, whenever I had an InDesign scripting problem to solve most poeple would say it's not possible and then I would find that Jongware had found a way.

Rest in peace.

[FRIdNGE]

In memory of Jongware! …

(^/)  The Jedi

[CarlosCanto]

love it!