On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 3:30 PM, Valerie <valerie_vk@...36...> wrote:
http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/416/toolbarmanagement1ov3.png http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/3712/toolbarmanagement2xb0.png
I agree that the tool overload problem needs to be resolved sooner or later, but do we really need it to be that complex? Why not just allow the user to add and remove tools from a "tool pool" onto a single toolbar? Sure that won't allow for as many tools as your proposal, but I'm really not convinced that we indeed need that many tools. Turning each mode or LPE to a tool is not the best approach IMHO. Each tool, ideally, must represent some specific way of working, a work paradigm, where many separate capabilities or modes may fit.
With a proper toolbox management system like the one above, LPEs can be incorporated as tools when needed. It saves one the trouble of applying one from a panel every time (it Really breaks the flow when you have a lot of lines to do, not to mention the LPE panel takes up a lot of space).
Many LPEs make little sense unless you can adjust their parameters, and while for some of them the params would fit into the controls bar, but e.g. for Sketch there's no chance to fit everything there.
More importantly, a tool is warranted when (at least) there's something different that it does when you drag on canvas. What would an LPE tool do on a drag? Draw a path? But we have Pen and Pencil for that. Why not, instead, add a simple LPE choosing widget to the control bars (now empty) of these tools?
This does not mean that LPEs don't need to be _editable_ on canvas. They do. But this is doable via handles, and is being done already.
release the mouse it becomes a Spiro line (by the way, any chance for "native" Spiro lines as opposed to a Bezier with an LPE on it?).
Not in the sense that SVG does not support anything but regular bezier paths. So at the SVG level, they will always be regular paths with LPE attached. But we can certainly make dealing with Spiros more convenient - for example, we can add to the Pen tool a switch allowing it to draw a spiro path directly.
http://img164.imageshack.us/img164/9302/widestrokeslpemx3.png
This widget is exactly what I would love to see, but not in its own tool - why? Its most natural place is on the control bars of Pen and Pencil, forcing these tools to produce paths with pattern-on-path with predefine profile paths. A profile width control would also be appropriate there.