🚀 go-pugleaf

The reason the pen tool is so goddam retarded is that its developers are so goddam retarded. For example they actually believe the evidence that most Illustrator users don't use the rubber band feature. Can you believe that?!

Not only that, but a lot of them can't understand why someone would be drawing paths without at least a temporary stroke for visibility purposes. I mean, jeez.

Then, can you believe they would be confused when someone says pressing the alt key should switch to the direct selection tool... they should KNOW that the poster meant the command key, shouldn't they?! Retarded, man. Simple as that.

And as if this weren't enough, they've created an elaborate method for customizing shortcuts, but they didn't even have the dialog permanently posted right on top of the work area so intelligent users can actually find it! I mean, how retarded can you get?!

A little too much coffee this morning?

thanks for mocking me and teaching me something at the same time.

The stroke is not the path. It follows the path, it is precisely, a stroke of the path. Explain the logic behind the path disappearing and reappearing when one is in edit mode of the path without a stroke? Or if they choose to draw without a stroke on the path it disappears as points are added. It in fact disappears whether there is a stroke or not, the stroke simply serves as a substitution. Why should it behave like this? Why should I need to have a stroke there, which again is not the path, for visibility purposes? Why should it be that way? Why don't other applications with Bezier tools work this way? Is this a feature? Is there a benefit to it?

      Why don't other applications with Bezier tools work this way?




So far, this morning:

Adobe Fireworks does.
Corel Draw does.
Xara Xtreme does.
Inkscape doesn't.

That's all I have on this laptop. I'll try others when I get to the studio.

Here's the thing:

I understand wanting to trace raster artwork with a setting of zero stroke in a program like Illustrator that does not provide a proper hairline stroke width.

When I'm drawing--especially when tracing photos or sketches, I want to see the path as the thinnest representation onscreen possible (which is what Hairline is supposed to be). That way I can see what I'm doing, but the path I'm drawing obscures what I'm tracing the least, regardless of zoom. It also just feels more precise whenever drawing, even when not tracing something. That's why, in FreeHand it has long been my practice to set the default stroke/fill attributes to Hairline/NoFill.

When I'm rendering objects with shading, using paths that will be blended and filled (but seldom stroked), I very often want to draw with the fill set, but with no stroke. Upon closing the path, the fill appears (thus visually ensuring that the path is, indeed, closed). Other programs let me do that because other programs either do not display fills on open paths, or provide the user with an option to disallow it.

Illustrator provides neither a proper Hairline stroke width (even though it can be caused to display one by repeatable bugs in the program that have been known for years) nor provides an option to turn off its infernal fills on open paths.

So users employ Illustrator's Outline Mode to trace or draw with a hairline display. But that does not satisfy, because fills don't show when you close the path being drawn.

JET

I'd never had the issues James does. Illustrator's Outline view, nce the NLT way I edit, has alwas worked fine for me. I can give my tracing paths any fill or stroke I want without affecting how it is drawn in Outline view. A simple Command Y toggle will preview my path. My one complaint in this area is I wish I could hide the tracing layer with the same command.

Obviously it is in part a visual preference and in part depends on what you are used to. The behavior I'm referring to serves no purpose, it's faulty. James is right, you lose precision and gain distraction. Toggling views to compensate is another distraction. The stroke follows the path, it is outlining the path and it lags behind. There is this latency which I find distracting and the only reason one HAS to work this way is because the pen tool has this fault in its design. In my book, that's called a workaround.

      Why don't other applications with Bezier tools work this way?




Corel Designer does.

FreeHand doesn't.

Canvas doesn't.

InDesign does, when Show Frame Edges is off. (But doesn't hide the rest of the path while drawing the current segment; does hide the rest of the path when moving a segment).

Photoshop doesn't.

JET