Unexpected behaviour, or just a plain bug ...

OK, here's something I have been struggling with since some time but I finally can pin-point and reproduce. So please Xara, correct this behaviour.

I do a lot of designing using maps and aerial photographs. So I have to make shapes on top of bitmaps. Sometimes it's more handy to use the pen while holding the Alt key. In that case you'll get a nice straight line. I get used to holding the alt-button and releasing it shortly whenever I need to make a point, pressing the alt-button again will produce a straight line immediately after placing that point. So, to make a shape consisting of straight lines I choose the freehand/pen tool, press the Alt-key and follow the desired object while making intermediate point while releasing the alt-key for a moment. Very satisfying and a quick way to produce clean shapes with very little point and still have maximum control over the shape,

But, very often, while manually tracing bitmaps, the moment the pen gets near the starting point of the shape (the plus sign appears near the pen and sometimes even the magnet) the whole shape disappears! And then you will have to start over again.

Fix for this is not closing the shape. Then deselect, select, and start from the last point again.

But, IMHO, it is a bug (and a nuisance)Attachment 128675

Hi Michael

When the cursor shows a + it indicates you are close to the start point and if you add your line to the start point you will have a closed shape.

I have never had the entire line disappear. I wonder if you switched to the Selector Tool and then tried to delete a point?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

When the cursor shows a + it indicates you are close to the start point and if you add your line to the start point you will have a closed shape.

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That's the expected behaviour, yes. That's just what I wrote....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

I wonder if you switched to the Selector Tool and then tried to delete a point?

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There's the catch; there's no line at all!!!

Hmm? Strange.

Michael, what Line Width and Fill Colour are you using?
i have tried a number of configurations and i don't get the crash out.

You could try Run as administrator the once.

Acorn

Independent of attributes used.

It should make no difference if ran with admin rights. But, just in case, I followed your suggestion. Alas, still the some behaviour.

Oh, and for your idea; on different machines with different hardware ...

I'm intrigued as to why the bitmap has handles showing whilst you are freehand drawing...?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by handrawn

I'm intrigued as to why the bitmap has handles showing whilst you are freehand drawing...?

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The background image has inadvertently been selected - easy to do and I can replicate the issue by doing so. You can temporarily lock the image and then you definitely cannot select it. Unlock afterwards as necessary.

Gary

sorry why are the some of the handles showing - the bitmap cannot be selected whilst freehand dwawing - right ?

Well I'm not sure HD, but when I select the Freehand tool and then click on a bitmap I see what looks like 4 small handles on the corners? Having looked again the main handles on the bitmap do disappear, but the four smaller handles stay, maybe this is what should happen? When I lock the bitmap I do not see the smaller handles, which maybe are not handles at all? I'm now mystified, because I can't recreate the problem either.

well locked or unlocked I don't think the handles should show... so I too am confused

I should have been more specific: where I have an image and I select the Freehand tool, I see the object handles of the image, not the selection bounds handles (v17.0). When I use the Alt key in combination with the Freehand tool over that image, I get a straight-line as you would expect and I can connect a sequence of straight lines.

However, if I inadvertently press the Alt key out of sequence (and it may be my operator error here), the line does not appear. Where I lock the image, I have no issues drawing the lines over that image and when connected they form a shape - all works as expected.

So I'm sorry to say no help whatsoever to the OP and a learning curve for me!

boundary handles with my version 16 - but as soon as I start drawing [or lock] they disappear - but they are there all the time in the OP's video, and only two on the left, so are they not handles at all but part of the image, or are they indicative of something else we are not seeing?

T cannot reproduce this issue either....

PS the gallery thumbnail does not seem to be keeping up with the drawing to begin with at least, which also gets me wondering what else may be going on