Star script for OmniGraffle

Instructions

1. Download star.zip (6 KB).
2. Install the script.
3. In OmniGraffle open a new document and select > Star.
4. In the first window that appears, enter the number of points your star is to have, like it says.
5. The following window asks for 'star pointiness'. Something between 0 and 100 is what it's looking for. 50 makes for a nice sensibly pointy star, not too sharp, not too blunt. Small children should be supervised when using any star with a pointiness of more than 70.
6. Hit OK... tada!

Tips and other uses

To easily re-size a star, duplicate it (Copy then Paste), then select them both. You'll now get the usual eight little resizing handles. When you've got it the size you want, delete the extra one. Complicated... I know. (This is no longer a problem in OmniGraffle version 4.)

A classically-shaped star, where every fourth side is parallel, can be had be setting 5 points, and a pointiness of 62. This matches very closely the standard star shape provided in OmniGraffle. Their one is a lot easier to resize, but with mine...

You can delete arbitrary points. Go on, go nuts. This leads us to...

If you draw a 'star' with around 30 or so points, and set the pointiness to zero, you end up with what looks like a nice smooth circle. The interesting thing about this is that you can delete points from the 'circle' to make flattened areas. Mmm. Flat circles. All your snow-globe drawing fantasies come true at once.

Enter some number of points (probably best with less than 7) and again, pointiness of zero and you'll end up with a regular polygon with twice the number of sides as the number of points you entered. (If you want odd numbers of sides, I have an OmniGraffle stencil with polygons galore.)

Putting in values larger than 100 for the pointiness has somewhat unpredictable results. They still look a little star-like I suppose.

Known 'features'

• Some people have noticed that the script may not run when selected from the menu when using OmniGraffle 3.1.2, and only works when opened from the Finder. This was due to a change in the way Script Editor and OmniGraffle work together. Using OmniGraffle 3.2 or later fixes the problem.
• There is no error checking. As such, if you do anything out of the ordinary the script will almost certainly give strange—or no—results. Obvious things which come to mind which will confuse it are putting in negative numbers, or words. If you do do something funny, OmniGraffle will give you the option to edit the script. Feel free! Let me know if you come up with anything great.
• Multiple stars are always drawn in the same place. Best to move your star once it's been drawn if you are doing more than one.

Things to maybe get around to some nice day

• Maybe some error checking here and there might be a good idea.
• Make multiple stars not all draw one on top of the other.
• Other suggestions and comments are more than welcome.

Acknowledgements

• Applescript sine function from the Applescript Guidebook [no longer online]

Version history

1.3 (2008-04-30)

Now works with both OmniGraffle 5.0.

1.2 (2005-07-06)

Now works with both OmniGraffle 3.2 or later and with 4 beta 1 and hopefully later betas. Needed modification for version 4 to support the changes to drawing shapes with the addition of the Bezier curves feature.

1.1 (2005-04-07)

Pointiness is now a percentage (i.e., 0–100) rather than a ratio (0–1) like it was in the previous version.

1.0 (2005-04-06)

Initial release. Apparently works with OmniGraffle versions 3.2 beta 1, 3.2 and 3.2.1. Should also work fine with corresponding Pro versions of OmniGraffle.