Ideas for the future of the shape builder tool

[Squeaky]

Funny. I have been thinking on moving away from Xara for my Illustration work and going bitmap just because there wasn't a tool like the shape builder to quickly add detail. These days budgets are going down so anything that can speed things up is vital so this really will add a new lease of life to XDP for me.

A couple of requests for this fantastic new addition.

1. No nodes while drawing but they show when a previously drawn tool is selected. This would make sketching and roughing out possible.

2. A smoothing tool so that we can draw over a previously drawn area to smooth it - Build up the smoothing gradually by repeated application. (Quicker and more organic than selecting the nodes and using the smoothing slider to do this)

3. a fill tool that can fill enclosed areas created by the the shape builder tool.

Huge Regards
Dave

[handrawn]

agreed as follows:

1] - as 'auto deselect' appears to be a simple registry change, could that not be incorpoprated in the UI ? -that would be a manual toggle and if keystroke assignable it would cover all aspects of this problem I think [bearing in mind sometimes you might want nodes while drawing with the shape builder tool]

2] +1

3] since the areas 'enclosed' are actually 'open space between shape' rather than enclosed by outline that would be a completely new function I think, but useful sure - menawhile break shape can work well in some cases

[steve.ledger]

2.

Is this not already there?
Select your shape then with the shape tool marquee select a group of nodes to smooth - use the smoothing slider on the info bar.

[handrawn]

(Quicker and more organic than selecting the nodes and using the smoothing slider to do this)

freehand drawing steve - you know, the quick way

[steve.ledger]

So the current method is slow???

[handrawn]

the whole point of the shape builder tool is not to have to manipulate nodes individually - what squeaky is proposing is an extention of this

all manipulation of nodes is slower than freehand - more technically accurate maybe, but slower - the key word here is 'organic' I think, 'artistic' rather than 'design'

[Squeaky]

all manipulation of nodes is slower than freehand - more technically accurate maybe, but slower - the key word here is 'organic' I think, 'artistic' rather than 'design'

I couldn't have put it better myself. :-)

The marquee selection would work a little better for me if we could have a freehand selection. As it is it does do the job but is a little unwieldy for us speed demons :-D

[Squeaky]

agreed as follows:

1] - as 'auto deselect' appears to be a simple registry change, could that not be incorpoprated in the UI ? -that would be a manual toggle and if keystroke assignable it would cover all aspects of this problem I think [bearing in mind sometimes you might want nodes while drawing with the shape builder tool]

I'm hoping for not seeing any nodes at all when drawing. But yes. another button on the tool bar next to the pressure and sketch mode would be the ideal.

[PhilM]

I'm not sure that auto deselect is the whole answer to getting rid of the blobs because by deselecting you are preventing the builder from joining the last shape you drew with the next one.

Phil

[handrawn]

hopefully both camps can be kept happy that work in different ways, those who want to manipulate the nodes in the builder tool [and elsewhere] and those who don't

thats why although the point for me is 'no nodes' I don't think they should be surpresed automatically, because others will work differently

auto deselect on the infobar