Gear maker

Olumin4tor, another way is to in node tool: 1. Make sure there is a node where you want the line to start and stop 2. Insert a node between the nodes you want to be ends 3. With that new node selected press the "Break curve" Action icon 4. Drag a selection around the node you had added (because it's actually 2 nodes on top of each other after the break being done) 5. Press delete

morbandit, I so totally agree with you. I usually construct my drawing mostly from the top down, meaning I tend to draw a lot of the detail first then the background and that makes the layer's order be from the bottom up. So I keep having to drag the detail on top of what I just created to keep it visible. It's easier to drag and reorder 20 layers then it is to hit the toolbar icon before constructing each of 20 shapes. What I have gotten in the habit of doing is to work with my current layer invisible until the shape is what I want. Then drag it below the detail and turn the visibility back on to make adjustments and work with the color. It should be that if the Insert behind selection is clicked once it works for one entry, but if it's double clicked it stays selected until cancelled. Mike

It's the "Bake Corners" button in english. And yes it is nonreversible. Too bad the corner button doesn't have a scale with object option.

Raslolnikov, do you know of the cmd opt [ and the cmd opt ] key strokes. These move through the layers in the layer panel. But only within the group at the level of the original layer. Actually am I remembering reading in the forum that some counties keyboards do not have the [ or ] keys. Then these would have to be reassigned. I also wish the nudge distances were easier to change. In AP moving one or 10 pixels makes sense. But in AD it's so arbitrary, how much is a pixel in AD, that I would love to frequently change it. Going into preferences is a hassle.

That is truly amazing. I have tried off and on for a few years to draw a face that does not look like a cartoon. Each time I give up. Anything half as good as what you've done would have thrilled me. You have a very good eye to pick out the nuances between vector elements. Outstanding work. Congratulations on the arrival of Vesper. May your life experiences with him be even more amazing.

Oh that makes sense. I should have figured that out. Duh. Thanks.

It did kind of sound like that. But what I had been referring to was another corner tool issue that came up recently about it failing when the number of corners was over 4 or 5. Thanks for passing this on. Mike

There is still a problem with the corner tool. When a corner type is selected it stays highlighted only while the mouse button is down. Going back to None as soon as the button is released. Then as soon as the radius is changed the corner type for Rounded becomes highlighted, even if another type was selected. Then after the radius is changed the type can be changed to whatever is desired.

I have a rectangle with a stroke aligned to the inside of a rectangle. I wanted another rectangle that went from the edge of the stroke to the edge of the stroke. Seeing as snapping doesn't detect the inside of the stroke I zoomed in. But as I changed the zoom the width of the stroke kept changing as seen below. Of course there are ways to get around this problem. But it does show that there is a problem. Using beta 8 on a mac running Sierra.

Sean, I forgot to ask. I assume this statement is pertaining to my question about when Expand Stroke is used that in this case a copy is automatically made of the original, but other times no copy has been made. Is that correct? If I need a copy of the original of whatever shape being expanded I would assume one will not automatically be made and make a copy myself. Or is there some way to know if the current shape is complex enough to get an automatic copy so that I could skip making a manually generated copy? Otherwise I'd have to continue making a manual copy, then deleting one if an automatic copy is made.

Thanks Sean, FYI I'm still getting the time out doing it this way. So I'll use the expand stroke or even better I'll save a second circle with the same center or I can turn on the show rotation center and zoom in on it. At least now I know what's causing it.

Thanks Sean. You mean 84 nodes per tooth and 60 teeth on the gear might be a problem? Is there a known limit? Probably less than 5040 I'd guess from this. Unfortunately that's how the gear generator software builds the SVG file to get the proper shape. Just found that doing an expand stroke reduces this to 15 nodes per tooth. Also noticed that expand stroke makes a duplicate layer with the 900 node version and keeps the 5040 node version. I've never noticed it automatically make a copy before. What's causing that? At least there is work around. My current clock, which uses this gear generator has 9 gears, I shall try the expand stroke on each. Thank goodness Matt has gotten the expand stroke functioning pretty well. There is some slight distortion to the original, but less than I get when I cut out the gears! Mike

Callum, were you able to see the issue with the test file and figure out the cause? Snapping of course doesn't work when this message is showing. Just when it's needed.

CunningTurtle00, welcome to Affinity. Glad it helped. That's what makes this forum so valuable, there's an answer to just about every question. At least questions regarding the Affinity products. Mike

Hangman, I agree that this feature would be extremely handy. I have never found a way to do it in the Affinity products. Other programs allow it but not Affinity. Mike

Callum, AD is doing the "Snapping timed out" again. Different drawing, attached. And this time I don't have to have the mouse button down to have it happen. I'm using the 1.6.0 beta 8. In the attached drawing file have snapping turned on. Select the circle tool. Select either layer group. Move the cursor into the bounding box for the layer selected. I've tried restarting AD which stopped the problem before, but not this time. It is doing it with all drawing tools. Test.afdesign Mike

The W and H do work also. This is slick. Where I will find the most use is compound shapes like when something that was subtracted from another. Just the area subtracted, or just the outside shape can now be rotated, stretched and shrunk. Which is fantastic! Just like the dynamic boolean operations, without it being dynamic. Thanks again guys. Mike

Glossarium, there is a possible way to get something closer to what you are asking about. In the Grid and Axis manager turn off the Automatic grid (automatic gives you center points also) and set up the grid you desire. Then in the Snapping preferences turn off all snapping except Snap to Grid. Set the screen tolerance (upper right corner of snapping preferences) to some high number. For a 1" grid anything higher than 80 seems to work. Don't forget to set it back again when you are done as normal snapping will act weird. I hope this helps. Mike

I don't know toltec, the transform anchor point really has nothing to do with the placement of the first character in text. I guess under just the right circumstances the upper left could be handy to use when scaling text. Once or twice every eclipse or so I guess. Do you personally use the upper left position more than the center position? Mike

For almost 3 years now I have wondered about something and I finally remember to ask. Is there a reason that the default anchor point in the Transform Panel is the upper left point? I know for myself that at least 90% of my usage is the center point, so at least for me it would make sense that the center would be the default. I would guess that I am fairly normal in that sense. Does the upper left have really that much more common usage than the center?

Recently, I believe only since 1.6.0 beta 7 was installed, I have been having a problem. I'll have a couple/few layers selected using the layer panel. I then click inside the bounding box to move them. But when I left click with the mouse, with no modifier keys held down, inside the bounding box and inside one or more of the selected objects, AD selects a layer that is below that and my move ends up moving the wrong object. I don't think I've ever had it happen if one of the selected layers is a group. It only happens every so often. When trying to get it to happen I was successful once when my other hand was in my lap so I know no modifier key was touched. I'm NOT using a magic mouse. It's happened about 8 times today and about 5 yesterday. Is anyone else having this issue?

Timo, in the Preferences-Tools there is a Move tool aspect constrain that lets you decide how the shape is to be constrained. Mike

Matt, the expand stroke is sooo much better. I really appreciate all the hard work you put in to improve it. One of the many tests I have tried was just a rounded corner rectangle. In the original stroked image there was a slight bow to the stroke on the 2 vertical members. But after expand stroke the bow was gone. Back in 2015 I had noted that a rounded corner rectangle went from 8 nodes to 47. Well today this one went from 8 nodes to 16. That's perfect. Thank you. Now I just need to remember to go back to using the command. Mike

Hi Callum, the message disappeared each time I released the mouse button. So I wasn't able to get a screen print with it. Ever since I did a forced quit and restarted AD it hasn't done it to me again. I couldn't find anything in the Help files on it. I could send you a file of it but I've added a lot of layers since then. So it's changed a lot. Someone must have programmed the message "Snapping timed out" maybe they could give a clue what was going on. Glad I'm not the only one surprised by this.

Here's one I haven't seen before. I was moving several nodes, in the node tool of course, when suddenly a note "Snapping timed out" appeared by the cursor. Snapping was disabled by AD when this note was showing even though it was turned on. What caused this? What does this actually mean, other than snapping has been disabled by AD? How can I get these nodes snapped? It only happens when I get the nodes near the center of the drawing which I have marked by 2 guides. Do I have too many selected or are there too many nodes in this area, etc.? The center of the drawing is the center of perspective so I have several guide lines meeting here. This is in 1.6.0 beta 5 on a mac running Sierra. Minutes later... Okay then to try to get the nodes aligned seeing as snapping wasn't available I held down opt and spun the mouse wheel to zoom in. I've had a spinning beachball for a good 15 minutes now. Surprised AD hasn't crashed, never had a beachball last that long. This drawing isn't all that large, yet. Looks like I'll have to do a forced quit. Yup I did. When I reopened the drawing I didn't get the Snapping timed out again.