A bug in Illustrator CS3: No 9-slice scaling?

[homestar]

Hi all -

So I'm trying to get familiar with the upgrade, spending a lot of time just messing around with the new functionality.

I got really excited when I heard Illustrator would implement 9-slice scaling this time around. But now I've got the software running, and it just flat out doesn't work. I've followed all of Adobe's instructions. I save a collection of shapes as a symbol, and choose to make it a "Movie." I check "Enable 9-slice scaling." I double click a symbol to open it in the isolated view, I get the guides, position them accordingly...

...and then I go to scale an instance of the symbol and BLAM-O. Regular old scaling. The text distorts. Grouped shapes that shouldn't distort do distort.

I'm gonna post this over at the adobe forums too - but this group just tends to be more active.

Has anyone else played around with this?

Matt

 

[Stratification]

Are you scaling afterward in Illustrator or in Flash/Flex? My understanding was that the 9-scale was implemented to allow exported shapes to scale correctly when used in Flash. If you're trying to scale afterward in Illustrator I don't think it's going to work.

 

[homestar]

That would make sense, but...

Are you scaling afterward in Illustrator or in Flash/Flex? My understanding was that the 9-scale was implemented to allow exported shapes to scale correctly when used in Flash. If you're trying to scale afterward in Illustrator I don't think it's going to work.

That *would* make sense. However, even when importing into Flash, the symbol still doesn't scale properly.

Plus the Adobe video workshops make it appear that you don't have to be importing symbols into Flash for this to work. They focus their discussion on Fireworks, but the discussion makes it sound like scaling would work in Illustrator with a symbol that was *created* in Illustrator.

Here's the site for the lessons:

http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop/

I'd give a link to the particular video, but since the whole site's in Flash, I can't.

 

[iMeowbot]

Yep, Illustrator support seems to be b0rken, or at least not as complete as the description initially seems to suggest.

Using a very simple object (just a square with a big circle in the middle and small ones at each corner), it does do the right thing in Fireworks (middle circle scales and squishes arbitrarily, corner circles stay put).

I notice that in the demo videos, they do a bit of handwaving when it comes to Illustrator, using only a simple solid rectangle in the example. Too, the Illustrator help doesn't actually say that this kind of scaling will work within the program, only that the guides can be defined.

 

[homestar]

I notice that in the demo videos, they do a bit of handwaving when it comes to Illustrator, using only a simple solid rectangle in the example. Too, the Illustrator help doesn't actually say that this kind of scaling will work within the program, only that the guides can be defined.

I did notice that they glossed over it in the video. I hadn't noticed the lack of commitment in the docs, though, until you pointed it out.

Kind of a bummer. That kind of symbol scaling could be a really cool feature in Illustrator. And I'm a bit peeved they went to all that trouble to advertise something that so clearly, as you say, b0rken.