On Dec 13, 2007 11:21 AM, Maximilian Albert <Anhalter42@...173...> wrote:
When using the pencil tool I sometimes find myself just clicking on the canvas to mark a spot with a single dot (like a single node, but a bit more visible). Since curves containing just a single nodes are not possible, I thought it might be convenient to create a small circle instead. The mentioned patch makes this possible; simply Ctrl+clicking on the canvas while in the pencil tool creates a circle with the last-used style and a fixed (hard-coded) radius.
I think it's a good idea, but why in the pencil tool? OK, I understand that it's good to not interrupt the workflow when drawing, but then I would think pen tool is more appropriate. But anyway, since ctrl+click is not used anywhere but in selector and node tool, I would propose the following:
- enable both pen and pencil to create fixed-size shape on ctrl+click; preferences page should let you select which shape (ellipse, square, star - why not even spiral? or arbitrary shape which is on the clipboard?) and the size either fixed or proportional to the stroke width, by default e.g. ellipse twice as big as stroke width. The style of the "point" will be the stroke style of the tool but applied to fill, not stroke.
- add the same functionality to all 4 shape tools, each creating its own shape of course, and add preference setting on their common preference page (tools > shapes) for setting the size (which can then be different from that of pen/pencil). The style in these tools will be the same as that of the regular shapes they create.
If no one has strong reasons to keep this, I'll remove it again because it gives the tool a kind of a "childish" feeling.
Childishness is good, actually, when it's done properly - not by restricting or adding noise, but by expanding possibilities and making things simpler.