@Max - Thanks a lot for this. These are exceptionally useful tools - I purchased a license straight-away. Precisely the functionality I was after.

@Egor - The big distinction here is that AG Offset isn't really a tool in the classic sense - it's a live effect, which means you have to expand it after each interaction to work with the resulting paths. That makes it sluggish for simple uses compared to a focused tool, like the ToolShed/Moi ones.

I do love AG Offset, I use it every day, but I would also like to have a barebones tool that can quickly create a new offset path with no frills, no need for non-destructive editing, no need for complex results with easing and fill/stroke modulation, and no need for reproducibility as a style. Just activate, click, drag, done. This ToolShed one fits the bill, but again, it's another thing I now have to monitor for version compatibility and licensing.

I feel it's better to compare vs. Illustrator's native Edit>Object>Path>Offset Path command...
Or, more pertinently, to the lack of a native interactive offset tool.

To get a sense of what the Moi offset tool does you can look at the ToolShed one, there's a gif of it here:
https://rj-graffix.com/images/plugins/toolshed/offsetOpenPathDemo.gif

This is even more featured than what my request is asking for, but the UX is fairly transparent so the extra functionality is non-intrusive.

Thanks all!
Hope this makes sense.

This is also a paid option, but it could be useful.
https://rj-graffix.com/product/toolshed/

Anyway, I believe something similar should be a native tool in Illustrator.

I can’t say using AG Offset is harder than in Plasticity and Moi 3D... but I don’t use these professionally, and I don’t recall exactly how they do it now — but it’s easy to have only one offset AG’s tool — select and drag. If you had other values set previously, hitting a dedicated key while dragging should reset them, giving you that one offset...
But yeah, it is paid, I know.
Can you make a short GIF or a video to demo how Moi 3D handles it today, please? I doubt the Ai team uses Moi 3D.

Hi @Egor, indeed, and I do use AG Offset, but besides being a separate paid product it's a different beast altogether imo, best suited for more complex effects. A native tool where you can simply click-drag a single offset path would be an incredibly useful addition due to its speed. Moi 3Ds offset tool is a great example of how this could function.

Meanwhile you can use AG Offset tool that has all of this and more, from AstuteGraphics plugin pack. Super handy to use.