Pen Tool

[steve.ledger]

@JET
► http://www.chateaurouxairstation.com...gle,%20bob.jpg

[JET]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x15bwmzh7lg

7 minutes at a leisurly pace; less than half as much time. Note that corner/curve points are placed as you proceed; no point "conversions" by going back to a toolbar. No breaking stride with continual back-and-forth to bend every segment after an anchor is placed. No kinks due to corner points being left where there should be curve points. Sharp changes of direction are controlled and usually accurate without having to revisit handles. Overall, just a more fluid, continuous, and efficient way for someone who draws paths all day to work.

This was done in Illustrator. But the basic interface is ubiquitous. It could be done similarly in Draw (or Corel Designer), Canvas, Inkscape, FreeHand, SerifDraw. But not in XDP, because its Pen tool is not fleshed out with the needed momentary modifier keys.

JET

[bcire68]

That certainly seems to be an intuitive way to work with the tool. Of course I can't see all of the key modifiers that you are using but the work-flow seems fluid and strait forward.

[zaphodeist]

Now I can understand what you mean. Thank you Jet!

[Evilemil]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x15bwmzh7lg

7 minutes at a leisurly pace; less than half as much time. Note that corner/curve points are placed as you proceed; no point "conversions" by going back to a toolbar. No breaking stride with continual back-and-forth to bend every segment after an anchor is placed. No kinks due to corner points being left where there should be curve points. Sharp changes of direction are controlled and usually accurate without having to revisit handles. Overall, just a more fluid, continuous, and efficient way for someone who draws paths all day to work.

This was done in Illustrator. But the basic interface is ubiquitous. It could be done similarly in Draw (or Corel Designer), Canvas, Inkscape, FreeHand, SerifDraw. But not in XDP, because its Pen tool is not fleshed out with the needed momentary modifier keys.

JET

Thanks. Spot on. You really took your time on this job.
I was about to do a video as well, but do not have the setup to record...started using Freehand and PS professionally for path redraws in 1994. we were a team of two graphic slaves and did competitions, who was able to create exact clipping masks for shoes faster...what a nightmare to switch to Illustrator.

What i missed from the video (to be honest, i did not watch it completely, just the part with the wings, as this is the tricky part. perhaps it is in there) was the possibility to move the current point when the placement was not 100% without leaving the creation process (sticky keys in 2000 already).

[tonylondon]

An excellent illustration, JET. I wonder if Xara could add modifier keys to the existing shape editor tool. (At present I think only the Ctrl key is used.) That way we still have only one tool, and those that like the simple approach won't be affected. Won't need to resurrect the pen tool every upgrade, either.

[mwenz]

The comparison shouldn't be between how quickly Frances, me or anyone else can use the shape tool or the Xara not-so-pen tool. It should be how quickly you, James, can use Xara's shape tool to outline the same object.

I can guarantee that while it might take you longer to outline the same image, the difference would not be as proportionally great as if Frances (or perhaps myself) were to use Illustrator's pen tool. You have years of broad and deep exploration of vector applications and their workings. You using the Xara shape tool is the only valid comparative.

For what it is worth, it took me just over 9 minutes to use Xara's shape tool. It took me a skosh over 12 minutes using Xara's pen tool and its available modifier keys (C,S,Z,L).

[tonylondon]

For what it is worth, it took me just over 9 minutes to use Xara's shape tool. It took me a skosh over 12 minutes using Xara's pen tool and its available modifier keys (C,S,Z,L).

In the way these are applied to the pen tool I don't find these modifier keys much use. Perhaps I am using them incorrectly.

[mwenz]

In the way these are applied to the pen tool I don't find these modifier keys much use. Perhaps I am using them incorrectly.

They work as labeled...but not in an intuitive manner nor as well as they should.

[JET]

You have years of broad and deep exploration of vector applications and their workings...I can guarantee that while it might take you longer to outline the same image, the difference would not be as proportionally great...

Think through what you're saying, M. Your backhanded "complement" is rather patronizing, isn't it? If you truly respected my "years of broad and deep exploration" then wouldn't I also know that which you so humbly "guarantee" to be true? If so, then why would I be trying to foist upon you something I know to be false? So which is it? If you truly respect my knowledge of the subject, then you must think I'm a lying cad. Otherwise, why would I be arguing that there is a very significant efficiency difference between using the click-click-bend method (XDP's Shape Editor) only as opposed to using the click-or-drag method (far and away the defacto standard among mainstream drawing programs)? Why would I do that?

Are you saying that my "years of broad and deep exploration" do not include exposure to the click-click-bend interface? Maybe you overlooked my explanation that I am, in fact, long experienced with that. I've often championed it. I actually like it. For some things. But it is not a suitable substitute for the more widely used interface. Not by a long shot.

So just forget the demonstrated time difference. Even if there were no time difference at all (which there certainly is), anyone with an objective eye can see by the foregoing exercise that the predominate interface is--again--simply a more fluid, continuous, and efficient way for someone who draws paths all day to work. If that were not so, I wouldn't be arguing in favor of it. Prove me wrong.

...it took me just over 9 minutes to use Xara's shape tool. It took me a skosh over 12 minutes using Xara's pen tool and its available modifier keys (C,S,Z,L).

In my copy of Designer Pro, the C, S, Z, L shortcuts (corresponding to Curve, Smooth, Cusp, Line) work when using the Shape Editor Tool, not the Pen Tool. C and S do nothing; Z invokes Zoom and L invokes the Ellipse Tool. After all, you wouldn't need the L or C with the Pen Tool, because it places a corner point when you click and a curve point when you drag. The problem is, that's where the Pen Tool stops. It's completely missing all the other elements which would make it better than half-baked.

Moreover, though, even using those shortcuts with the Shape Editor tool falls far short for at least two reasons: First, they are not momentary modifiers at all. In other words, they don't affect during keypress and stop affecting at keyrelease. They are key taps which make "hard switches" to put the Shape Editor tool into different behavior modes; you have to tap another of the keys to escape the current mode.

Second (and even worse), setting the Shape Editor to Curve mode does not give the user control over the lengths and directions of the curve handles. Instead it uselessly creates the curve handles by some automatic algorithm which is only very rarely correct by pure happenstance. That's exactly why XDP users tend to default to the L mode; they're going to have to go back and perform the handle adjustments anyway. Click-click-bending is at least just as easy and is more predictable than mucking around with the lame auto-created curve handles.

Look: I'm not emotionally devoted to or against any particular drawing software. I'm quite pragmatic about this. Contrary to Xara's marketing, I just see nothing 'breakthrough' about its Shape Editor tool. As already explained, the click-click-bend method dates back to early FreeHand. And again, I'm not saying it's not a marvelously useful technique. Sometimes. But it is absolutely substandard as the only choice. It does not measure up to the broader utility of the defacto standard click-or-drag interface with appropriately and elegantly integrated momentary modifiers. Remember: FreeHand and DrawPlus can do the click-click-bend just as well as XDP--but in fact much better, because it can be done with the very same tool as is used for the much more often needed and practically universal click-or-drag interface.

Further, while it's bad enough that XDP's Pen Tool is so anemic, Xara acts like it's practically ashamed of its very presence. It's now even absent from the default interface, buried in a tool picker dialog. When dug out and positioned in a toolbar, it then fails to survive a relaunch of the program. Maybe that was an unintentional bug. But Xara's own documentation practically comes right out and says what amounts to 'yeah, we've got a pen tool, but it's crap; you should use the primary drawing tool; our glorious Shape Editor tool.' That's certainly not unintentional.

Clearly, Xara doesn't believe in the practically universal click-or-drag interface (which is practically universal for good reason). Clearly Xara thinks it has "discovered" something superior. So Xara needs to demonstrate what's so dang special about it, because with all my "years of broad and deep exploration of vector applications and their workings" I sure don't see it.

And neither will proficient users of the historically dominant applications whom Xara should be targeting if XDP is ever to live up to its "Pro" moniker.

JET