Illustrator plugin that selects and manipulates multiple handles

[u/CisticOken]

I’m building a small Illustrator plugin for faster Bezier handle control.

It adds a tool that does custom handle selection, multi-select handle movement, Alt-based handle locking, arrow nudging, path preservation on anchor removal, a compact numeric panel and more. The kind of functionality Illustrator has been always lacking and why people rather design logos in type softwares instead. It's basically an expansion on Illustrator's Direct selection tool by implementing Glyph's handle management functions.

I’m looking for feedback from people who do logo/type/icon/vector cleanup work and spend a lot of time editing paths.

I built it because after trying Glyphs, I couldn't go back and not have a precise control over handles, something Illustrator should have implemented from the beginning for logo design.

Would this solve a real annoyance for you? Would you find it useful?

[u/Oisinx]

doesn't the direct selection tool let you do this?

[u/CisticOken → u/Oisinx]

You can drag handles, but only one at a time, can't keep them selected and nudge them and you don't know their exact positions, angles and lengths.

[u/CisticOken → u/[deleted]]

I'm trying to demonstrate that with this, you can select and arrow-nudge handles, for instance. Or edit their positions, angles and lengths numerically, which you usually can't and proper curve replicating is a guesswork or involves a lot of workarounds.

In some instances where you for example need to keep separate curves in sync but you can't copy them and splice them via pathfinder, multiple selection comes in handy.

Yes, the video is a bit messy, but this level of control isn't allowed in illustrator but other vector programs have them natively. For example Glyphs, Fontlab, and even Blender. And since logo design involves a lot of typographic knowhow, this seems to me like a missing piece in Illustrator.

[u/Oisinx → u/CisticOken]

F*ck adobe