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pen tool’s ability to join points


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Hi guys

 

It seems that I am not able to join nodes from different curves with the pen tool, like I am used to in for example Adobe Illustrator. I think it would speed up my work enormously if I were to be able to join different curves’ nodes with the pen tool instead of drawing extra nodes, selecting these and applying the action Join Curves every time.

 

I hope you will consider this.

 

Thank you!

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  • 1 month later...
I am not able to join nodes from different curves with the pen tool, like I am used to in for example Adobe Illustrator.

 

 

Please, no.

 

The auto-join behavior of Illustrator's Pen Tool (which cannot be turned off) is one of the classic examples of its horrible interface design.

 

The Pen Tool is not a selection tool. It has no business altering unselected paths. That interface element violates the fundamental meaning of selection.

 

The behavior can seem like a convenience in certain scenarios. It just as often becomes a stumbling block. It's just as  common to need to start or end a separate path at the same location as a pre-existing unselected path. So to facilitate that normal and proper behavior, Adobe had to provide a workaround. You have to:

 

1. Mousedown somewhere you don't want to start the new path.

2. Press and hold the Spacebar.

3. Drag to where you do want to start the new path, hoping Illustrator's unreliable snap-to-point behavior works.

4. Mouseup.

5. Click elsewhere to continue the new path you just started.

 

That is so convoluted it is just laughable. All that just to momentarily disable the infernal auto-join behavior which shouldn't be affecting unselected paths in the first place.

 

No, the proper way to extend a pre-existing unselected path without breaking stride while drawing with the Pen Tool is to simply press a keyboard modifier (Ctrl in the case of Affinity) to momentarily invoke a selection tool, click the endpoint to which you want to join so it is selected, release the modifier (automatically resuming the Pen) and then click the selected endpoint with the Pen.

 

I can see I'm gonna need a T-shirt: "Illustrator IS NOT the program to emulate."

 

;-)

 

JET

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Illustrator IS NOT the program to emulate.

 

I agree. I wouldn’t want Designer to emulate Illustrator, but it serves as a good example for this particular functionality. I agree the best solution would be a keyboard modifier to toggle a join paths functionality.

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I managed to join the end points of two pen curves like this:

 

1. Select node tool

2. Select both curves using shift

3. Command+click TWICE on the end points you want to connect (thus selecting both end points)

4. Select Join Curves from the Actions box

 

Hope it helps

 

Thank you for the suggestion Electrofied. However, this only works for end points and I seem unable to change a paths end point.

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