making a grid of straight lines with pen tool (Photo Mac)

[dcortesi]

I would like to make a grid of straight lines as a single object that I could then stroke. The grid would have 7 verticals and 22 horizontal lines.

I select the pen tool. I set the Mode to Line mode and also select Add New Curve to Selected Object mode -- thinking this will allow me to make multiple lines in one object. But when I draw (or paste) a second line, AffPhoto makes a new Curve layer. If I continue I will end up with 29 Curve layers, which will make Stroking a bit tedious.

How can I create a grid of discontinuous lines as a single "curve" object? Or can I at all?

Thanks for your help!

[Gear maker]

2 hours ago, dcortesi said:

But when I draw (or paste) a second line, AffPhoto makes a new Curve layer. If I continue I will end up with 29 Curve layers, which will make Stroking a bit tedious.

How can I create a grid of discontinuous lines as a single "curve" object? Or can I at all?

There are a few ways to do this, you can select all your lines then do from the menu Layer>Geometry>Merge curves.  This will as you ask combine them all into a single curve.  But I would recommend just selecting all the lines then create a group by pressing cmd + G (or Menu Arrange>Group.  If the group is selected then any change made to the stroke, fill, move, etc. will be done to all layers in the group.  But if you want to do something else to one or more of the layers in the group they can be selected and changed or moved without affecting the rest.

[h_d]

You don't actually need to create a single continuous object or group if you don't want to.

If you select all the curves and use the Stroke and Colour panels (under View - Studio) you can adjust them in one fell swoop.:

 

(Also - Power Duplicating is a quicker way of creating a grid than repeatedly drawing or pasting.)

Cheers,

H

Edited April 26, 2021 by h_d
Added screen shot (sent first response before it was completed).

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, dcortesi said:

I set the Mode to Line mode and also select Add New Curve to Selected Object mode

FWIW, Add New Curve to Selected Object does not seem to work if the Pen Tool is in Line mode. It works OK in the other 3 modes, so as a lame workaround, you can use the Pen Tool in the default Pen mode & press Escape after each second node is placed to start the next line segment in the same layer.

[loukash]

14 hours ago, R C-R said:

Add New Curve to Selected Object does not seem to work if the Pen Tool is in Line mode

This is only logical because the Line mode is Affinity's "Line Tool" whose line in the "other" apps also only ever has two nodes.
If a "line" has 3+ nodes, it becomes an "open polygon".

Essentially, I like it this way because it reduces the tool clutter in the Tools panel. (Yes, I'm looking at you, AI CS5, with your 74 tools!) (Yep, I just counted them!) (And I haven't even counted tools added by 3rd party plugins!)

The "bug" here is that "Add New Curve" should be grayed out in the Line mode.

And the annoyance is that there's no keyboard shortcut to change the modes!

[lepr]

13 minutes ago, loukash said:

This is only logical because the Line mode is Affinity's "Line Tool" whose line in the "other" apps also only ever has two nodes.
If a "line" has 3+ nodes, it becomes an "open polygon".!

From that statement, I think you misunderstand what Add New Curve To Selected Curves Object does and why it exists.

First, the thing it does not do is join the next drawn path to an existing path. See final paragraph.

It enables the next drawn path to be included in a currently selected Curve or Curves object so that multiple separate paths can be drawn inside one Curves object instead of a stack of multiple separate Curve objects being created. The result is the same as selecting a bunch of Curve objects and then doing Merge Curves. For that reason, the functionality should not be disabled when the Pen Tool is in Line Mode.

Note that If a single node of an open path is pre-selected, then Add New Curve To Selected Curves Object is ignored and the usual extending of that path happens when new nodes are drawn.

 

[loukash]

2 minutes ago, anon2 said:

I think you misunderstand what Add New Curve To Selected Curves Object does and why it exists.

You're right, and I stand corrected.

8 minutes ago, anon2 said:

The result is the same as selecting a bunch of Curve objects and then doing Merge Curves. For that reason, the functionality should not be disabled when the Pen Tool is in Line Mode.

True.

[dcortesi]

Thanks to all for clarifying. I used Layer>Geometry merge to make a single curve layer.

So I gather the "Add" mode should have worked with "Line" mode? Would it be worth reporting that as a bug?

[loukash]

2 hours ago, dcortesi said:

the "Add" mode should have worked with "Line" mode? Would it be worth reporting that as a bug?

Yes please!

Been there done that, more or less. Boolean operations with open paths are broken, and from what I can say, they always were. The issue is logged however, so Serif is aware of it

 

Edited April 27, 2021 by loukash
see below

[lepr]

2 hours ago, loukash said:

Been there done that, more or less. Boolean operations with open paths are broken, and from what I can say, they always were. The issue is logged however, so Serif is aware of it:

 

Boolean problems are completely unrelated to the issue of Add New Curve To Selected Curves Object being non-functional when Pen Tool is in Line Mode.

[loukash]

2 minutes ago, anon2 said:

Boolean problems are completely unrelated to the issue of Add New Curve To Selected Curves Object being non-functional when Pen Tool is in Line Mode.

Eh…
And you're right again, of course. I misread @dcortesi's question, seeing "Add" and thinking of boolean Add.