i2blue
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MODS: I'm not sure where this falls under so please feel free to move this thread.
I come from working in Sketch. After doing tuts and trying out both Affinity Designer and Illustrator, I chose Designer because it felt easier to pick up. For a beginner, it's not as intuitive as Sketch but still feels better than Illustrator (great job!).
I do have one huge gripe though and that's the Pen Tool.
I can't change node functions between a Smooth Node to Sharp Node on the fly as I'm drawing. If I created a curve and need a immediate sharp point, I must backtrack and alt click. In Sketch, it's simply holding the command key and clicking. Even Adobe Illustrator is much better in this regard.
This video starting at the 3:50 mark illustrates what I'm talking about. There's a lot of back tracking work if you look closely. Is there anyway to improve on this workflow?
The pen tool kinda feels like an engineer built it for an engineer to use.
(Do please educate me if I'm wrong!)
https://youtu.be/UDVuI0BPFgo?t=229
Pen Tool UX improvements?
in Pre-V2 Archive of Affinity on Desktop Questions (macOS and Windows)
Posted
Thanks for the prompt reply Matt!
I’m learning from multiple sources, it’s the one thing that sticks out the most in all the tutorials I learn from.
Currently in Designer(v1.5):
1st approach:
With the 2nd approach, as you’ve politely described, I suspect the cognitive load would be higher without necessarily increasing efficiency. The prognosticating of a node! To calculate 2 segments + 1 handle in return for one correct node placement (all without a path preview!). I suppose this approach makes accuracy higher on the first pass through but kinda feels moot. In my humble observation, more often than not, fine tuning the handle happens regardless (unless you’re a spatial genius, hehehe).
The additional of a Ctrl Key modifier (yes please!!) greatly reduces the work and cognitive load to:
It’s a ‘proactive’ (high cognitive load) vs ‘reactive’ (low cognitive load) method of performing an identical task, I guess. No flow disruption and a huge time saver IMO!
A great man once said to Larry Kenyon that by making the boot time of the original Mac faster he would be saving dozens of lives because of the compounded time saved. Please save lives, it’s worth it. Hehehe.
https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Saving_Lives.txt
P.S. I apologise if there was any ignorance above and thank you for reading. The more I use Designer, the more I like it!