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Yesterday I tried to walk on the wild side of Affinity Photo and draw a straight line. I knew beforehand I was venturing into dark waters. Per what I am starting to call my "American Rule of Thumb for Affinity Photo," whenever I need to accomplish one--uno, одинune--task on Affinity Photo, it turns out to require knowledge of a feature about which I am clueless. 

I do not want video suggestions. I want to know how to start a line at point "A," drag my mouse to point "B," and have no tentacles, levers, optional lines, appear. "Just a line, ma'am" type of thing.

Thank you.

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A single straight line can be achieved by the click at point a. then at point b. if that is the end of the line press esc to deactivate the node you ended at.

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
B| (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum)

Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions

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@firstdefence  Thank you, firstdefence, but it doesn't work for me. I just tried your instructions again, and the same thing happened: a line begins at the node where I click (Point "A"), but then stretches out in the opposite direction. When I pressed Escape, the entire thing disappeared. I'm not giving you a line... :P

EDIT: And when I choose the "Line" icon in the Context Bar, it is CURVED.

SECOND EDIT: Okay, now it is working. I did not know you had to choose not only Pen Tool but also "Line" from the Context Tool Bar. Simply clicking on the Pen Tool will NOT give a straight line. 

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@Guest-354025 on macOS I mouse click first point, hold shift and click on end destination point. On iPad Pro, touch first point, hold one finger on iPad, then touch end point.  Both achieve a straight line.  

Cecil 

iMac Retina 5K, 27”, 2019. 3.6 GHz Intel Core 9, 40 GB Memory DDR4, Radeon Pro 580X 8 GB, macOS,iPad Pro iPadOS

 

Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection 

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@Cecil Thank you, Cecil. I'm kind of too old to learn how to use Affinity Photo on the IPad. I'm to blame. But editing a photo without a mouse and the ability to click... And I had an "old-school" tablet laptop, too, back in Serif days, the kind you see in doctors' offices, and I never once used its stylus to edit a photo.

It is counter-intuitive, I know, but editing with a touchpad and the ability to click is, for some of us who are up in years, just easier. Alfred, who seems not to be around, and I discussed this in the fall. I do not know why photo-editing on an Ipad with an Apple Pencil seems too... troublesome. Perhaps because you just get tired of having to re-learn entire programs. 

Such are the burdens of old age. :o xD

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For the Pen Tool:

  • Pen Mode gives you all of the bells and whistles for creating curves (I think of it as “Expert/Artistic Mode”);
  • Polygon Mode lets you draw a series of straight lines that are joined together;
  • Smart Mode is like Polygon Mode but you draw with curves and not just straight lines;
  • Line Mode lets you draw a series of unconnected separate straight line layers without needing to change tools.

The Pen tool will give you a straight line in any of these modes but you need to click at each end and not drag. If it your preference to drag from the start point then you might prefer Polygon Mode.

I hope this helps.

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@GarryP  But you need to click at each end and not drag.

You da man, Garry! (Don't know why your underlined parts here didn't get "cited" in the same size font.) 

Some day when I win the lottery, which I do not play, come to think of it, I will put you on retainer. xD I will have to marry my last Duchess, and then I'll have the chicken-feed.

No one answered my question last week about repositories of video-GIFs such as yours (on the Pie Tool), which I asked so that one need not even speak the language of Canadians :P in order to learn how to use Affinity Photo. Some nice person, @haakoo , referred me to a site with GIFs, but they were upper-level GIFs and mostly illustrating bugs in Affinity.

I want an "All GarryP, All the Time" Forum. 

 

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@Guest-354025, I think maybe more than anything else you need a brief refresher course on some mouse fundamentals.

For example, you may think of a "click" as a single step, action, or event. But it is really two separate & distinctly different events: the first is to press the mouse button (the "mouse down" event) & the second is to release the button (the "mouse up" event). Similarly, a "click & drag" is three separate events: pressing the mouse button down, followed by dragging the mouse, followed by releasing the mouse button.

Keeping that difference in mind when you read somebody's step-by-step instructions should help avoid some of your confusion.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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@R C-R Yes, definitely, you're right. I was lax in using the terms. I have worked exclusively on laptops since buying my very first--or maybe downloading my very first xD PhotoPlus 6. While you describe the actions of a physical mouse (which of course *can* be connected to a laptop), I was thinking of a touchpad and left "button" (on Windows 7) (which, like Mrs. Micawber, I shall never desert). 

In any event, however, I would never, as in NOT EVER, have realized that to draw a line, ye cannae shove yer granny aff a-- hold down the left button OR drag. My new hero du jour, "G.P.," gets sincere thanks, because honestly, that Pen Tool is... whack. :P

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At least for me, the only significant difference between using a touchpad & a physical mouse for things like this is it is too easy to move one's 'touch' finger slightly during the 'mouse down' action of what is intended to be a simple click, producing a click & drag by accident instead.

This can result in nodes with elongated control handles so short they go unnoticed until later when it is realized that the curve is not perfectly straight.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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3 minutes ago, R C-R said:

It is too easy to move one's 'touch' finger slightly during the 'mouse down' action of what is intended to be a simple click, producing a click & drag by accident instead.

Absolutely. I'd be interested in knowing how many Affinity users who gained their experience (to whatever degree of competency) with either physical mice or laptop touchpads have abandoned them in favor of Ipads and stylus/pencils. I'd also be interested in knowing what drawbacks users of stylus/pencils encounter.

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I loved having a tablet such as the XP-Pen Dec03 but the biggest step I took is having a display tablet, working on the actual surface and seeing a drawing develop under the stylus was almost a zen moment. The hardest part were the buttons on the stylus, the application and placement of them feels decidedly clumsy and that was for any stylus I've used, I'd go as far as to say it's just bad design, even today I avoid using them, I do have the luxury that my display tablet has plenty of buttons to accommodate all the things I need. 

Movement is different when using a stylus, more so on a display tablet than a tablet, on a display tablet movement is "exaggerated" or it feels like that. At first you feel like you are doing a poor imitation of Magnus Pyke, but on a basic tablet movement is scaled down so it's not dissimilar to a mouse.

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
B| (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum)

Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions

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Here is a fun link, pen tool practices sheets.

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
B| (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum)

Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions

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