Orange Commands

Hi there,

fresh off the oven, Orange Commands 1.6.7 is out.

It fixes some bugs, adds some new features, and resolves a personal pet peeve with the Resize commands.

Up to now, if you selected a group and resized it, every item inside the group would resize, but the selection would turn to a multiple selection of the items inside the group. This is no longer the case. We respect your selections and will try not to change them : )

The new command (as requested by @chunwui via Twitter) swaps the position of two selected objects.

Finally, a new feature has been added to the resize commands. If you resize a text box vertically (something that did nothing in previous versions), the leading of the text is modified. It’s one of those things you never knew you needed until you try it. Leading will be increased/decreased in 1px/1% or 10px/10% steps, depending on the command you run.

Get it at the downloads section. If you ordered the Pro version, check your inbox : )

Detailed changelog

• ad9d6d1372 (New command: Position » Swap)
• 0148a5ed55 (New feature: vertical size commands now modify line-height when applied to text boxes)
• ab894c3981 (FIXED: Position commands do not work properly for objects with border)
• 8cc43296bd (Properly restore selections when you are editing groups.)
• 3f2fdb7733 (Fix bitmap object positioning bug)

I have just uploaded a small update to Orange Commands to the downloads section.

It fixes some bugs that occur when Orange Commands is installed along with other extensions that define a ‘dom’ object. In human-speak: it now plays well with other extensions.

You are encouraged to update to this version if you are getting random “The script cannot be run” errors, or if you are using the amazing Annotations Extension (more about it soon in this blog).

If you bought Orange Commands Pro, expect an update on your inbox soon :)

I have just release version 1.6.5 of Orange Commands, with the following changes:

• 62300167fe (Fixed a nasty bug, reported by @nachogil, that happened when resizing items inside groups.)
• 51a672b5d4 (FIXED: Pages » Numberize was numbering in reverse order. Fix by @inefable)
• Better tests, so things won’t break so much in the future

Get it at the downloads page!

On a side note, I have started a small experiment in ecommerce with the release of a Pro version of Orange Commands. More information is available at the Orange Commands Pro page.

Exactly one month after the last release, here comes another one.

Actually, there have been some private releases (thus the jump from 1.6 to 1.6.4), but none of them were worth sharing : )

So, what’s new in Orange Commands?

Lots.

During the last month, I have been writing automated tests for the commands. I started reading “Test Driven JavaScript Development”, by Christian Johansen and it has really made a difference on the quality of my code.

While building the test suite for Orange Commands, I also wrote some bits of code for benchmarking the commands. Some things are quite slow, and getting to know where the time is spent when running a command gives you a very clear idea of where to start shaving seconds.

Here’s an example: one of my tests creates a new document, draws 400 rectangles, and then resizes them using the ‘Size » Width +10’ command. In v1.6 this took 94 seconds in CS3, and 146 seconds in CS5 (which also crashed very hard after running the test). Version 1.6.4 runs the same test 100 times faster, and is much less prone to crashing CS5 (though I’m still trying to pinpoint exactly why it crashes).

I have also added a nice “About Orange Commands” box:

As for the real changelog, here’s the list of changes:

• Massive rewrite, with focus on performance (keyboard resize commands are much faster now)
• eba55c4f95 (FIX: Support CS5′s ‘exact’ roundness in Properties » Set Rectangle Roundness in Pixels)
• 15ec6bcee1 (Use current roundness in Set Rectangle Roundness prompt.)
• bafac75f39 (NEW: Export » All Documents as JPG in…)
• f51f054b81 (Add ‘(copy)’ to duplicated pages via Pages » Duplicate Current command. Also, make the duplicated page current, as that is the most probable thing you’d want to do after duplicating a page.)
• 43f124410a (New About box)

Grab it from the Downloads section, and let me know how it works for you in the comments!

Long time no see!

I have just uploaded a new version of Orange Commands, including a long time wished-for feature: the ability to export your document’s slices as CSS (so you can export sprites directly from Fireworks).

The way it works is very simple:

• Create a nice design in Fireworks. Save your document.
• Slice it as you see fit, using the “Slice” tool.
• Give each slice a name in the Property Inspector panel.
• Run the command in Commands » Export » Slices as CSS Sprite.

The command will do three things:

1. Create a yourfilename.css file.
2. Copy the contents of that file to the clipboard, so you can paste the styles in your editor of choice.
3. Create a yourfilename.html file, so you can see a demo of how your sprites look like.

Right now the commands uses one type of sprite (block display, hidden overflow, negative text-indents), but I intend to make it generate different kinds of sprites (so you can use a sprite for inline icons on links, for example).

Download the new version at the Downloads section.

Please play with it and let me know how it works and what you’d change about it in the comments!

Hi there,

with the release of Fireworks CS5, some commands needed tweaking. Orange Commands 1.5 brings CS5 compatibility, some bug fixes, and a new command: Safe Flatten.

Safe Flatten (in the Commands » Effects menu) duplicates the current selection, flattens it, and hides the original. Fireworks is known to distort your symbols when they have complex vectors, something that kills their appearance when they are supposed to be pixel-perfect. This command fixes that problem.

Get 1.5 from the Downloads section!

This version adds four new commands for scaling under the Size menu:

• Size » Scale to Width: scales the selected objects proportionally so that they have the specified width.
• Size » Scale to Height: idem for height.
• Size » Scale to 16-9: changes the selected objects height so that they have a 16:9 aspect ratio (you’ll love this if you are designing TV sites : )
• Size » Scale to 4-3: idem for 4:3.

Special thanks to Juan Pablo for the inspiration for these commands.

Download away, and report your bugs on the comments : )

A new week, a new release of Orange Commands.

This time, I have added a set of Align commands:

• Center on Canvas – Both (No shortcut)

  Centers the selected object(s) on the canvas, both horizontally and vertically.

• Center on Canvas – Horizontal (No shortcut)

  Centers the selected object(s) on the canvas, horizontally.

• Center on Canvas – Vertical (No shortcut)

  Centers the selected object(s) on the canvas, vertically.

They are useful if you (like me) hate the performance of the Flash panels in Fireworks and have deleted the ‘Align’ panel.

(BTW, deleting the Flash panels and commands that you don’t use can dramatically enhance the performance of Fireworks)

The latest version of Orange Commands includes 4 new commands:

• 3 Canvas commands that allow you to resize the Canvas using the keyboard (as requested by Alberto Calvo). They support math operations, so you can quickly double the canvas width or height by adding a “*2” to the current size.
• A new Effect dubbed ‘Plastic’, that turns a solid fill into a soft linear gradient (perfect for adding a little depth to a flat object)

Enjoy it!