News
23-July-2008
There's a new version of MagnetoGuides available - click here for more info.
We'd also like to introduce the alpha release of Lightning Brain GREPGrokker - a free on-line tutor teaching GREP in a visual, interactive way. It's a work in progress, and it is still early days, but it already works well, and it's fun! Please have a look and give us some feedback. Click here to try it out.
Finally, Rorohiko has become an Adobe Approved Training Center (AATC), and Kris is now an Adobe Certified Instructor (ACI) for Flex.
18-July-2008
An old-time favorite, Place and Scale, has been updated to version 1.0.6 - it offers improved CS3 support, and more importantly, it can now be enabled or disabled as needed via the preferences dialog. More info and download by clicking here.
3-July-2008
LightningBrain MagnetoGuides has been upgraded to version 1.0.3 and has now officialy been released. This is one of those things where you wonder why this is not a standard part of InDesign - once you've seen it it is hard to imagine no-one thought of this before. Licenses for this tool cost US$59.00. Click here to read more and watch an on-line demo.
Keyboard navigation in InDesign CS3! Ever wondered about using keyboard navigation on an InDesign layout (i.e. use keyboard shortcuts to navigate the selection from one page item to the other)?
Kris created a bunch of free, open source scripts to do exactly that - with these installed you can edit an InDesign CS3 document and rarely need to lift your hands off the keyboard to reach for the mouse. Simply 'jump' from page item to page item with a keystroke, edit text here and there, nudge an item up or down,...
We've made the scripts available for download via the mogomedia web site (the people behind The InDesign Conference, The Creative Suite Conference, and a whole lot of other great events. Their conferences are must-do stuff - for most people in the trade, attending one of these conferences pays back for itself in increased efficiency after a few weeks).
Click here to read David Blatner's blog post, and to find the download link for the scripts. The download is free - all you need to do is register on the mogomedia web site (which is free as well). And if you like these scripts, leave some feedback on the mogomedia site!
16-June-2008
We've released a beta for a new tool, aimed at people who need to do a lot of work on structured layouts - for example, people doing paper forms design. The tool is called LightningBrain MagnetoGuides and a fully featured, time limited demo beta version is available for dowload now. Licenses for this tool cost US$59.00. Click here to read more and watch an on-line demo.
15-June-2008
We received a bug report for Lightning Brain Color2Gray with regards to images with clipping paths in CS3 - in some cases, the clipping path was turned 'inside out' when printing. That should be fixed with version 1.0.9 of LB Color2Gray - click here to download it.
3-June-2008
The Lightning Brain Sudoku Generator now has support for 'covering' of empty puzzle cells. Click here to download the latest version.
18-May-2008
Some slight improvements were made to the Lightning Brain Text Exporter (correction of the automation samples) and Lightning Brain StylePainter (more dependable 'painting' of the styles).
15-May-2008
There is a new version of the free Lightning Brain Text Exporter; it adds better support for InDesign CS3, and support for text gathering for right-to-left languages. It also adds some optional new features whose availability is linked to the purchase of a license for APID ToolAssistant: for example, suppressing text on invisible layers. Click here to read more.
We've also simplified our product structure and merged the two plug-ins formerly known as Active Page Item Runtime and Active Page Item Developer Kernel. The combined plug-in is now known as the APID ToolAssistant, a free download. Click here to read more. If you need to upgrade your Active Page Item Runtime, you'll need to replace it with APID ToolAssistant.
Last, but not least, we have a new InDesign freebie available - it's called Lightning Brain StylePainter. It allows you to easily assign a lot of styles in one go via the power of grep expressions. Works for InDesign CS/CS2/CS3.
10-May-2008
Kris's introductory course on InDesign C++ SDK programming is now available in book form via Lulu - if you are interested in purchasing a copy, click here.
The goal of the book is not to teach you how to develop for Adobe InDesign; it's intent is rather to show you how to approach that task. It is an accelerated introduction to the Adobe InDesign CSx Products Programming Guide. It helps to make sense of the information in that otherwise overwhelming tome.
6-April-2008
We're about to start the alpha-test program for a new tool called 'StoryTweaker'.
This tool allows round-tripping text out and back into an InDesign layout, for example to allow translation of the text or for text correction.
A small, stand-alone application then allows correction or translation of the text - no need for a copy of InDesign to edit the text.
Once the text is corrected or translated, it flows right back into the correct locations in a copy of the layout, replacing the original text, without any risk of accidental layout changes by the translator or copy editor.
If you're interested in taking part in our alpha program, please e-mail joris@rorohiko.com
30-March-2008
The various Active Page Item plug-ins have all been updated to version 1.0.44 - there is a new Active Page Item Runtime, a new APIDKernel and a new APIDToolkit available.
24-January-2008
Our next freebie is in beta - it's called Lightning Brain AliasHerder. It is for Mac OS X 10.4 or higher.
Drag-drop a folder onto this application's icon to replace all aliases inside the folder with the files they are referring to.
It smooths working with slow file servers ('shopping basket' functionality) and helps resolve problems with 'mixed' Apple iPhoto® Libraries that contain a mix of referenced and copied image files.
This main reason why we created AliasHerder was in fact to solve an issue with our 18000+ image iPhoto Library. Without AliasHerder we would have been faced with the unhappy prospect of painstakingly rebuilding a large iPhoto library. Click here to read more about what AliasHerder can do for you!
31-December-2007
Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
One of our new year's resolutions is that we want to make all of our users aware of our top-notch support service! If you encounter any problems with our software - whether it's a freebie or a commercial product - please contact support@rorohiko.com and let us know about it, so we can find a solution for you. We're eager to help!
6-November-2007
Lightning Brain LikeFindsLike for Adobe InDesign CS/CS2/CS3 has been updated to version 1.0.2. This tool helps you quickly select a bunch of similar items that are scattered all over a page or a spread. Instead of having to shift-click-click-click to select a number of scattered frames of the same type, you can now select a single frame, and then use the Select All Similar function (preferrably via a keyboard shortcut) to select all the other similar frames in one go.
Version 1.0.2 fixes a bug - an error dialog that would appear if there were any groups in the document. On top of that, 1.0.2 is substantially faster than 1.0.1 - on complex pages, selecting many items now only takes a split second - with version 1.0.1 the same operation could take tens of seconds.
Click here to go to the LB LikeFindsLike download page.
8-October-2007
We've just released a beta-test version of our next freebie for InDesign CS/CS2/CS3, Lightning Brain LayerLifter. LayerLifter allows you to move objects between layers using a contextual menu (right-click or control-click), as an alternative to using the Layers palette. Click here to find out more and try it out...
5-October-2007
Version 1.0.43 of Active Page Items (Runtime, Developer and Enterprise) for InDesign CS, CS2 and CS3 is now available.
Active Page Items is a tool that allows you to develop scripted solutions that can react to events like page item modifications.
The Runtime version (used by our various freebies) has some bug fixes, whereas the Developer and Enterprise versions also gained a number of cool new features - check the version history on the web page for more info.
A few of the most interesting new things: for improved InDesign CS3 support, there is now a feature that allows easy routing of events to a named ExtendScript target engine in InDesign CS3.
Also handy is a scriptable function to clear the InDesign CS3 undo stack (which can offer substantial speed gains on complex ExtendScripts that otherwise build up a sizable undo stack).
And there is support for integrating and synchronizing external user-interfaces that are carried in little satellite applications.
We tend to develop our satellites in REALbasic, because it's Mac/Win cross-platform, but pretty much any development environment will do.
Disadvantage of the 'external UI' approach is that there is a slight look-and-feel discrepancy between the 'native' InDesign UI and the external UI, but the advantage is that you can develop a complex UI so much faster in an external development environment, and time is money! Check the cookbook that comes with the Active Page Item Developer Toolkit for a simple example.
Click here to go to the Active Page Item Developer web page.
And click here to go to the Active Page Item Runtime web page
24-July-2007
Lightning Brain ImageLibraryLoader and HistoryLog have been updated to support InDesign CS3.
LB ImageLibraryLoader allows automatically updating a floating palette (a library) with images from a folder - making it much easier to access image assets than using the 'Place' command. Click here for LB ImageLibraryLoader
HistoryLog is a very simple-minded tool that allows you to automatically keep track of a document's history. It has now been enhanced to also provide an automatically updating document time stamp. Click here for HistoryLog.
30-June-2007
There is an updated version of PlaceAndScale with added support for InDesign CS3. It is also is much easier to configure than the previous release.
PlaceAndScale allows you to set a 'target resolution' for each of your documents. When you subsequently drag/drop a bitmap image file into the document it will automatically be scaled as necessary to meet the document's preset target resolution.
If you want all your JPEG pictures to print at 300dpi, independent of the camera they came from, PlaceAndScale is the ticket. Click here to download version 1.0.5 of PlaceAndScale.
We also have an updated StoryParker for InDesign CS/CS2/CS3. StoryParker helps you work on cluttered pages by temporarily moving page items out of the way, and later putting them back exactly where they came from. StoryParker 1.0.7 resolves the issue of abnormal delays when selecting page items. Click here to download version 1.0.7.
Finally, there are updates to the Active Page Item Developer Toolkit and Active Page Item Developer Kernel - click here to download version 1.0.42 of either.
17-June-2007
For all of the many who inquired about the availability of CS3 versions of our TextExporter and Color2Gray freebies for InDesign CS/CS2/CS3 - the wait is over; you can now download new versions which are compatible with InDesign CS/CS2/CS3.
To download TextExporter version 1.0.2, click here.
For Color2Gray version 1.0.8, click here. Many thanks to Richard Gray from Zimmerman Advertising for taking the time to help us resolve the bugs.
Also, a new version of the Lightning Brain TextStitch freebie for InDesign CS/CS2/CS3 is available for download - version 1.0.3 is a bug fix release. Click here. Many thanks to Chris Steffens from Publishing Worker (http://www.publishing-worker.com) who has been very helpful in ironing out bugs.
There is also a new version of the free Active Page Item Runtime - version 1.0.42 - make sure you update your runtime as well. Click here to get the runtime; it should result in some noticeable speed improvements for our scripted plug-ins.
There are still a few of our scripted plug-ins that have not been updated for CS3 - but these are coming soon; stay tuned!
28-May-2007
A new version of Lightning Brain TextStitch is available for download. We've had tremendous feedback, and as a result, we've added some new features.
It's pretty hard to explain it in all words - simply give it a go if the blah blah below does not make sense. Click here to download the new version.
You can now choose to 'unstitch' the frames of a story while automatically chopping the story text into separate chunks, one for each frame, so the look and feel are preserved.
Second major improvement is that we now allow you to auto-stitch or quick stitch frames that have text in them, and TextStitch will optionally insert frame break characters as to force the joined-up chunks to stay put in their respective text frames.
28-May-2007
A beta of our next new freebie for InDesign CS/CS2/CS3, Lightning Brain TextStitch, is available for download. TextStitch allows you to thread multiple text frames with one or zero (!) mouse-clicks per text frame - if you have many text frames to thread together, TextStitch should come in handy. Click here for more info
We've also updated Lightning Brain ChatterGoofy to be compatible with CS3 - our Jabberwocky-compatible nonsense text generator for InDesign CS/CS2/CS3. Click here for more info.
Finally, we fixed a new bug that was introduced in Lightning Brain StoryParker 1.0.5. The new 1.0.6 version fixes a conflict with InDesign CS/CS2 - Lightning Brain Story Parker 1.0.6 should work with CS, CS2 and CS3. Click here for more info.
9-May-2007
We have two new freebie releases today!
First of all, we've updated our popular, award winning StoryParker scripted plug-in - it now supports InDesign CS3, and we've made some speed improvements too. Click here for more info.
Second, we have a cool new scripted plug-in called LikeFindsLike. It allows you to very quickly select scattered page items without accidentally selecting other, intermingled items. All this without needing to frantically shift-click-click-click...
Try it - you won't understand how you lived without it! Click here for more info.
26-April-2007
We've released our first batch of CS3 updates! The following softwares have been updated to support InDesign CS3:
Active Page Item Runtime - Version 1.0.39
Active Page Item Developer products - Version 1.0.39
Lightning Brain Sudoku Generator for InDesign - Version 1.0.7
More CS3 updates are in the works...
6-April-2007
The April Sudoku booklets are out! Click here to get them.
22-March-2007
We've released version 1.0.1 of the ClipAThing plug-in for InDesign. This is version provides speed improvement - no new features were added.
20-March-2007
We have just released our first beta version of the ClipAThing plug-in for InDesign. This new plug-in can access and apply embedded clipping paths from images placed in an Adobe® InDesign document. Click here for more info.
4-March-2007
The March Sudoku booklets are out! Click here to get them.
27-February-2007
We've released version 1.0.38 of the Active Page Item Runtime and the Active Page Item Developer products.
The main new feature for Active Page Item Developer Toolkit is that it now supports compilation of standalone ExtendScripts - so there is no more need to learn to use the event model of Active Page Items in order to protect your scripts.
Simply drag/drop your stand-alone ExtendScript on our InDesignScriptCompiler, and it creates an equivalent compiled script for you.
The compiled script is run-only and can be distributed in demo mode; facilities for selling licenses to your end-users are provided.
This release also fixes a conflict with Windows 2000.
10-February-2007
The February Sudoku booklets are out! Click here to get them.
23-January-2007
We have released our first beta version of the SendToMaster plug-in for InDesign. This new plug-in moves items on a page to the master page. Click here for more info.
1-December-2006
We've also released version 1.0.37 of the Active Page Item Developer products (click here for more info on APID). This version has a number of new features: print-dialog related events (so your scripts can interact when the user prints a document, support for calling external apps, etc...)
1-December-2006
We've just released version 1.0.37 of the Active Page Item Runtime (click here for more info on APIR). This update resolves an issue that incorrectly suppressed the 'missing links' dialog when a document was opened.
30-November-2006
At the Adobe CSBU Developer Summit at the Adobe University in Seattle, Kris ran a few presentations about our product development approach and development methods. You can view recordings of these presentations by clicking the following links:
Lowering The Treshold: Using ExtendScript for Commercial Solutions: how Rorohiko uses ExtendScript for commercial development
ExtendScript/C++ Hybrids: how to use ExtendScript in C++ code and how to call C++ code from ExtendScript.
Handling Licensing and Copy Protection of ExtendScript Solutions: how Rorohiko's Active Page Item Developer Toolkit can be used to protect ExtendScript-based solutions.
19-October-2006
Our free Lightning Brain StoryParker Plug-In was voted "Computer Arts Winner" in the October 2006 issue of Computer Arts Magazine, in the InDesign Plug-Ins section.
12-October-2006
We've released version 1.0.6 of the Lightning Brain Sudoku Generator for InDesign. This is a bug-fix release - no new features were added.
3-October-2006
The October issues of the Sudoku booklets in PDF format are available...
5-September-2006
We've just released our first beta version of the ImpositionCompanion plug-in for InDesign. This new plug-in helps to overcome some limitations of InBooklet SE, which doesn't impose correctly when a document contains objects that overlap two or more pages. Click here for more info.
4-September 2006
How about some leisure? There's a new craze in town, called Shendoku™. Shendoku™ is the 'sociable version' of Sudoku; read all about it at http://www.shendoku.com.
We've developed a free on-line version of the game - click here to play and hone your Shendoku™ skills. If you like Sudoku, you will probably love this game! Warning: it's addictive! Let us know what you think of the game - e-mail your feedback to shendoku@rorohiko.com.
1-September 2006
We've recently released the 1.0.32 update of the various Active Page Item components. Click here for more info.
The September issue of the Sudoku booklets in PDF format are also available...
Click here for more info.
We also have a message board for discussions related to our software.