Comments on: Just One Wish: A Bridge Panel

By: Jason Thompson

Jason Thompson — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 10:23:07 +0000

I know its been a while since anyone commented on this post but there is a free script from lightning brain called image library loader, this allows you to select a folder of images and this will appear as a panel in Indesign and all you do is drag and drop the images in to InDesign, its pretty much exactly what you are after Ted!

By: Eugene

Eugene — Fri, 23 May 2008 07:13:06 +0000

That is very true Bob. I could do that. But as I said, I hear a lot of people look for the solution in the Text Wrap Panel, given this it shows they are newish to the software, so creating object styles and shortcuts might seem a bit blah to them.

Your suggestion is an excellent one and I’ll pass on the advice.

By: Bob Levine

Bob Levine — Thu, 22 May 2008 13:38:53 +0000

Keep in mind that the text wrap and the ignore text wrap settings are applied to two different objects so there could be some conflicts if you weren’t careful.

Why not just set up an object style for ignore text wrap? Assign a keyboard shortcut to it and you’ve got a one click solution.

By: Eugene Tyson

Eugene Tyson — Thu, 22 May 2008 08:45:53 +0000

Setting aside Bridge. What would be cool is to have Ignore Text Wrap on the Text Wrap Panel. Anyone else find it cumbersome to have to open a dialog box to make this happen? Plus I get a lot of queries on how to do this and a lot of people say they were looking for it in the Text Wrap Panel.

It would be nice to be able to switch that in the Control Panel or the Text Wrap Panel.

By: Klaus Nordby

Klaus Nordby — Tue, 20 May 2008 21:36:29 +0000

Gary said: “What I don’t want is the duplication of code and the RAM it would consume for it to be in all of those programs.”

The coding heads at Adobe are pretty smart, among other things, memory and I don’t think we outsiders should take it for granted that *apparent* multiple instances of Bridge in the various CS apps would *necessarily* entail any big resource drain. As my quick tests showed, multiple instances of mini-Bridges entailed no worrisome memory drain.

But I agree with Ted that the current version of Bridge is often way too slow. And I take it for granted that there are dozens of engineers and managers at Adobe who agrees with this, too, and that they’re working on it. CS4 might contain many pleasant surprises yet . . .

By: Eugene

Eugene — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:51:34 +0000

Trish, using Bridge, if you want to place a Word document into InDesign and get the import options for the RTF or DOC file then use

File>Place in InDesign and hold down the SHIFT key and it will place it into indesing showing the import options.

This works for any file type that you use File>Place in InDesign using Bridge.

By: Trish

Trish — Tue, 20 May 2008 05:35:39 +0000

it’s a shame that when you drag and drop text document(s) from bridge into indesign, it doesn’t allow you to choose “show import options”… nor does it alert you to missing fonts. It’s great for what it is but there’s definitely room for improvement if they want us integrate it into our workflow.

By: gary

gary — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:35:02 +0000

A Bridge panel in InDesign would be great, but I’d want that panel in Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, etc. What I don’t want is the duplication of code and the RAM it would consume for it to be in all of those programs. In other words, if I have multiple Adobe apps open, I don’t want multiple Bridges open.

What I’d really like is for the Bridge panel launch Bridge in the background and be able to use this one application within all of the Adobe applications.

By: Bob Levine

Bob Levine — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:28:32 +0000

Welcome to the party Ted. Maybe we should start a bridgesecrets.com.

The really neat thing about switching modes in Bridge is that it remembers where it was on your desktop. So even if you go from full screen to compact and move the window, when you return to full screen it moves right back to where it was.

By: lauren

lauren — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:03:09 +0000

I think a Bridge panel is a great idea, whenever that happens. But for now, I’m comfortable with using it in compact mode.