Designer How do i 'pull' nodes

[ahnay]

Note:  see last post, maybe found a workaround but designer crashed while trying.  My question is not answered anyplace in the help that comes with it, if its there i could not find it!  I consider it a basic design function.

 

I cant find this in the 'help'  because i dont know what they call it in this software.  I have them selected with the node tool, and just want to pull them further to the right.  In other software i just would move the cursor and they would move with it, and i could move it in any direction and the nodes would follow. 

Thanks.

[markw]

A small detail but in your description you do not say if you clicked on one of your selected nodes prior to trying to move them?
In the normal course of events, after selecting multiple nodes, a left click and drag on any one of them should result in all the other selected nodes moving with it.

[ahnay]

 

50 minutes ago, markw said:

A small detail but in your description you do not say if you clicked on one of your selected nodes prior to trying to move them?
In the normal course of events, after selecting multiple nodes, a left click and drag on any one of them should result in all the other selected nodes moving with it.

yes i have them selected.  I just tried what you said, i was afraid to click on it again and have it only select that one.  Ok I did what you said and they moved, lol. but they separated from the rest of the curve?  blank space lol.  Just too funny.  The curse should extend out with them, in any direction.  

Thank you, so how on earth do you keep them as part of the curve and not make them a new segment? argh.

[ahnay]

At 24:30 he shows moving those points with the corner tool, i understand he is sizing the corners, but no matter what i do i cant do that either to one or more like in the video.  I have tried several times, I get the correct cursor with the moon under it, and then drag, and all that happens it a red circle around the node, nothing else happens.  Serif has made this too completed for something so simple and dragging two nodes to a new position. 

 

[ahnay]

Ok, i see now what is happening.  The geometric merge, doesnt merge the points, or i dont know, I thought i put them all on as one unit, but they were all separate lines, which id did not have selected.  I used the node tool and when i moved one node out, it disconnected for the others and a node was left behind in its place, duplicate nodes.  So I joined them. 

I would think a merge would join all the nodes and not allow duplicates.  I dont know.. Now i tried to select two nodes, and move them together, and the program crashed.  o.0

 

[Ron P.]

3 hours ago, ahnay said:

I would think a merge would join all the nodes and not allow duplicates.  I dont know.. Now i tried to select two nodes, and move them together, and the program crashed.  o.0

Not good, the program should not crash. You might to upload a Crash Report.

I found this guy very knowledgeable, and good at tutorials. The tutorial you linked to, I stopped watching soon after starting, because he's constantly moving the cursor all over the place. To me that's very annoying, since we instinctively want to follow the cursor to see what the person is demonstrating.

 

[firstdefence]

Are you making a box for cutting out?

[markw]

It sounds as though you have a lot of non connected nodes overlaying each other. Thus giving the illusion that you have made complete objects.
If you could post some screenshots which also include the Layers panel with a description of what you are trying to make that might help.

Looking at your first screenshot that could be:
1: Two solid objects, with the triangle on top of the larger shape.
Or
2: Three separate trapeziums with their corners touching.

[R C-R]

17 hours ago, ahnay said:

Ok I did what you said and they moved, lol. but they separated from the rest of the curve? 

Note that in the screenshot in your first post, there are 3 red nodes. That means you have 3 different curves, not just one curve. 

[ahnay]

On 2/22/2022 at 10:25 PM, Ron P. said:

Not good, the program should not crash. You might to upload a Crash Report.

I found this guy very knowledgeable, and good at tutorials. The tutorial you linked to, I stopped watching soon after starting, because he's constantly moving the cursor all over the place. To me that's very annoying, since we instinctively want to follow the cursor to see what the person is demonstrating.

 

Yes, i agree, most of the tutorials i find are frustrating to learn from, the cursor gets wobbled back and forth over something as they are talking, or moved so fast you cant follow it and must use the 'wheel' to slow the speed down, wasting time, interrupting the learning proces, etc etc.  But alas thats what i have to do for help.  Frankly, im not recommending this software to anyone on my fb groups. I have 6k or more members in my groups and will not recommend this software to them.   Not till the tutorials are more realiztic.   So many ask for help in this area too.  Sorry i digress.  Thank you i will watch this later, i think i saw this one too, but stopped because it wasnt answering my question. 

 

[Washishu]

Hello again ahnay. I think Markw is correct. I created a triangle (Triangle tool) and I can't duplicate what I see in your screenshot. I can however move the nodes quite easily (which is what you say you were trying to do) by—

first converting the object to curves. Then choosing the node tool and clcicking on one or two of the corner nodes. They move as they should.

If you have that triangle created from three seperate paths, then that's what you have; three seperate paths. Select the node of the topmost path and it will move…the node of the topmost path ONLY.

One issue I'm having a little difficulty with is that in AffDes it appears that after having created a closed-path object (eg triangle) I must convert it to curves before I can select individual nodes (rather than just change my tool as in Illustrator). I don't yet understand the reasoning behind this but, once I know it, I may find it annoying but I can live with it.

[R C-R]

8 hours ago, Washishu said:

One issue I'm having a little difficulty with is that in AffDes it appears that after having created a closed-path object (eg triangle) I must convert it to curves before I can select individual nodes (rather than just change my tool as in Illustrator). I don't yet understand the reasoning behind this but, once I know it, I may find it annoying but I can live with it.

All the shapes like triangles, cogs, stars, & so on have one or more adjustable parameters that affect their geometry. So for example, triangles have an adjustable top point position, which can be changed at any time. So like in this triangles.afdesign file, each of the 4 triangles can easily be reshaped to be identical with any of the others simply by changing the top point parameter. 

So basically, the geometry of these shapes are not defined by nodes, which means their geometry can be adjusted nondestructively. Converting them to curves redefines their shapes using nodes, which means they can no longer be adjusted by changing a parameter.

Of all these shapes, triangles are the most limited, having only one adjustable parameter, but consider for example Cogs, which have 6, making it possible to create thousands of different shapes & change any of them nondestructively.

EDIT: It took me a while to find it but check out this old AD Shapes video tutorial at https://player.vimeo.com/video/113375504 that demonstrates some of the many shape variations possible with these tools.

[ahnay]

On 2/23/2022 at 1:13 AM, firstdefence said:

Are you making a box for cutting out?

No, just a line drawing on a transparent background.

On 2/23/2022 at 4:03 AM, markw said:

It sounds as though you have a lot of non connected nodes overlaying each other. Thus giving the illusion that you have made complete objects.
If you could post some screenshots which also include the Layers panel with a description of what you are trying to make that might help.

Looking at your first screenshot that could be:
1: Two solid objects, with the triangle on top of the larger shape.
Or
2: Three separate trapeziums with their corners touching.

Yes, this was true, as before your post i found out the problem, and posted:

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Posted Tuesday at 07:18 PM

Ok, i see now what is happening.  The geometric merge, doesnt merge the points, or i dont know, I thought i put them all on as one unit, but they were all separate lines, which id did not have selected.  I used the node tool and when i moved one node out, it disconnected for the others and a node was left behind in its place, duplicate nodes.  So I joined them. 

I would think a merge would join all the nodes and not allow duplicates.  I dont know.. Now i tried to select two nodes, and move them together, and the program crashed.  o.0

On 2/23/2022 at 12:06 PM, R C-R said:

Note that in the screenshot in your first post, there are 3 red nodes. That means you have 3 different curves, not just one curve. 

Yes that true, the geometry combine, or whatever its called, did not combine the nodes, i didnt know that, thinking a function like that would of course combine all nodes making one curve. shaking head back and forth, but you cant see that.   So when i grabbed the two nodes and pulled them out, it looks like it made it into a separate curve, instead of extending it.  I finally realized that, in a post above yours:

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Posted Tuesday at 07:18 PM

Ok, i see now what is happening.  The geometric merge, doesnt merge the points, or i dont know, I thought i put them all on as one unit, but they were all separate lines, which id did not have selected.  I used the node tool and when i moved one node out, it disconnected for the others and a node was left behind in its place, duplicate nodes.  So I joined them. 

I would think a merge would join all the nodes and not allow duplicates.  I dont know.. Now i tried to select two nodes, and move them together, and the program crashed.  o.0

9 hours ago, Washishu said:

Hello again ahnay. I think Markw is correct. I created a triangle (Triangle tool) and I can't duplicate what I see in your screenshot. I can however move the nodes quite easily (which is what you say you were trying to do) by—

first converting the object to curves. Then choosing the node tool and clcicking on one or two of the corner nodes. They move as they should.

If you have that triangle created from three seperate paths, then that's what you have; three seperate paths. Select the node of the topmost path and it will move…the node of the topmost path ONLY.

One issue I'm having a little difficulty with is that in AffDes it appears that after having created a closed-path object (eg triangle) I must convert it to curves before I can select individual nodes (rather than just change my tool as in Illustrator). I don't yet understand the reasoning behind this but, once I know it, I may find it annoying but I can live with it.

in a post above yours:

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Posted Tuesday at 07:18 PM

Ok, i see now what is happening.  The geometric merge, doesnt merge the points, or i dont know, I thought i put them all on as one unit, but they were all separate lines, which id did not have selected.  I used the node tool and when i moved one node out, it disconnected for the others and a node was left behind in its place, duplicate nodes.  So I joined them. 

I would think a merge would join all the nodes and not allow duplicates.  I dont know.. Now i tried to select two nodes, and move them together, and the program crashed.  o.0

 

After the crash i opened the file again, and joined the nodes and was able to 'pull' the two nodes out as one would expect.

Thank you all.