Kurt

Hi all. Is it generally the case that when you are doing freehand sketching, say with a tablet, then one should use the Vector Brush Tool? I ask because the following attributes of the pen and pencil tool suggest they are suboptimal for sketching: Pen Tool: Of course, the pen line doesn't follow the path of the tablet pen, but connects the down- and up-stroke points according to the node mode. Pencil too: When you lift up the pen, the nodes in the stroke become highlighted. This is distracting. (Unless, is there a way to prevent the nodes from being auto-selected when lifting the

Thanks John. Alfred, John's use case of a map is a good one. Imagine you are making an imaginary map of countries and bodies of water. Each country/body borders several other countries/bodies, as you would expect with a map. Oh, and the borders are not straight, but wavy. What I'm looking for is a way to shift the borders around (eg, dragging a border to make one country bigger and another country smaller WITHOUT having to ensure, for example, that the layer for the country that I'm making larger is above the layer of the countries that are becoming smaller. How can this be done without c

I'd like to see a feature that allows a shape to share its border(s) with one (or more) shapes. This would allow a user to change the borders of adjacent shapes quickly, and without having to worry about making one border exactly lie on top of another border after a reshaping, or managing which shape's layer positioned relative to the layer of other shapes. Or maybe I'm missing this feature. I'm new at AD. Plz let me know if such feature exists. Thanks!

I'm looking at curve node options. Each node has two handles. I see how it's possible to make the node handles work independently by holding down the Alt key when moving a node handle. But i'd like to know: Is there a way to DELETE a handle on one side, thereby making the node "half-sharp"? Is there way to lock the handles so that they always have the same length? (Inkscape has this.) Thanks

Thanks all. I'll try these ideas.

...Also, the current symbol system doesn't have mirror functionality where if you move object A towards object B, object moves towards object A. Positional symmetry isn't maintained.

Nice tip, thanks. However I see that alter the SCALE of one symbol, the other instances aren't affected. Suppose I want to scale the size of an eyeball on the x and/or y axis? How can I get other instances to scale as well?

I think one useful modification for the Forums would be to force those who post a topic to select one or more of the products (Photo, Designer, Publisher) instead of relying on the user to specify a tag. This would make searches much more efficient. For example, I recently was wondering about a mirroring feature in Designer. But when I search for "mirror(ing)" I got a lot of unwanted hits for AP. Thanks.

Hi. Is there a way, in AD, to invoke real-time mirroring, such that when I add objects to one side of one or more (grid- or user-defined) lines, it's mirror object(s) is displayed on the other side of the line(s)? There is scattered mention of mirroring in other comments, but I can't find mention of this feature, if it exists. Real-time mirroring would be great when creating symmetric images, such as the initial drafting of human faces, custom symmetric symbols, etc. Thanks.

Ah! Alt clicking on the subtract option is the key, still in v 1.8. Thanks. It would still be nice if this type of subtract feature could be integrated with the Mask function, as sort of a "Negative Mask" option. In this way, all the cutter tools could be made to be on the same layer.

I've just learned how to create a layer, then set it as a mask layer for the layer underneath it, by selecting the with the Mask to Below option. I've found that interiors of shapes I draw on the mask layer allow the display of pixels from the masked layer in the shape I've drawn. But I want to do the opposite of this. I want to all pixels of the masked layer to come through except where I've drawn shapes on the mask layer. Is there a way to do this? Thanks in advance. Kurt

Hi. Just found this thread. Question: Despite the scaling questions in this thread, when using AD to design a floor plan, is there a way to have line lengths and angles automatically display alongside lines and arcs. Of course these would update when the line length is changed. Thx. Kurt (prospective purchaser)

Hi. All I'm trying to do is save a rectangular selection (made with marquee too) to a file. However when I follow the instructions, repeated below in blue, the only file type that available is "afselection". I don't know what that is, but all I want is to save it as a JPG or PNG file. Please advise. Thanks. To save a selection to a file: With a pixel selection in place, from the Select menu, select Save Selection. Adjust the dialog settings as required. Click Save.