Dashed lines / stroke panel Improvements

[Hangman]

35 minutes ago, Ash said:

That looks like a bug on Windows for these controls - indeed with hover mouse scroll default behaviour should always be integers, alt/ctrl modify to decimals, shift modify to 10x (and that is how it currently is on macOS for dash/gaps).

@Ash and @Sean P, is there any particular reason why hover mouse scroll doesn't work with a magic mouse on macOS for stroke width and dash settings yet works with, kerning, tracking, baseline shift and leading override in the character panel?

Note: It also doesn't work with shear, horizontal and vertical scale in the character panel... is this a bug?

I appreciate this is slightly off topic for this thread but there is also an issue when using the arrow keys in the character panel, which I assume is meant to replicate hover mouse scroll, i.e., the arrow keys work correctly for stroke width and dash settings but neither Alt or Shift Arrow work at all for kerning, tracking, baseline shift or leading overide.

[Ash]

You are correct, there are some inconsistencies in behaviour here with arrow keys and Magic Mouse. Have to be honest it's unlikely we'll clear all these up for 2.1 release, but will definitely put a mini focus for 2.2 of tidying all these up - will create a dedicated thread for any mouse scroll / arrow key / label click/drag, etc. field adjustment issues to be reported and we'll get them knocked out.

[Hangman]

2 hours ago, Ash said:

will create a dedicated thread for any mouse scroll / arrow key / label click/drag, etc. field adjustment issues to be reported and we'll get them knocked out.

That sounds like a plan, would be great to see these resolved in 2.2 as there are currently many inconsistencies...

[Maxdanger]

I've been using balanced stroke in pdf exports with great success, but recently I've noticed some of the lines are not exporting correctly:
 

 

Sample file here: Balanced stroke not exporting to pdf.afdesign

It's displaying correctly in AD, but when exported to pdf the balanced stroke disappears. Some lines I export work, and some don't so I'm afraid I can't say exactly what is causing this behaviour.

 

I'm using latest beta - 1769 on M1 pro Macbook pro, Ventura 13.3.1

 

Thanks

Max

 

[Hangman]

Hi @Maxdanger, the issue is simply that the pdf spec doesn't support balanced dashed lines so the only way to maintain the balanced line appearance is to expand the stroke prior to pdf export...

[Maxdanger]

5 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Hi @Maxdanger, the issue is simply that the pdf spec doesn't support balanced dashed lines so the only way to maintain the balanced line appearance is to expand the stroke prior to pdf export...

My bad, you're quite right - the other lines I'd exported had looked balanced but on closer inspection I see they aren't. Ignore me 🙂 

[Hangman]

Balanced stokes change their dash and gap width based on the zoom level of the canvas...

The horizontal black dashed lines show the variable balanced dashes and gaps (which don't remain constant at different canvas zoom levels), the magenta dashed lines show the correct dashes and gaps (remaning constant at different canvas zoom levels)...

This results in a one fewer dash than the correct number of physical dashes which is both wider with a wider gap, though unsure if this is simply a screen redraw issue...

 

 

[Sean P]

On 4/22/2023 at 2:45 PM, Hangman said:

Balanced stokes change their dash and gap width based on the zoom level of the canvas...

The horizontal black dashed lines show the variable balanced dashes and gaps (which don't remain constant at different canvas zoom levels), the magenta dashed lines show the correct dashes and gaps (remaning constant at different canvas zoom levels)...

This results in a one fewer dash than the correct number of physical dashes which is both wider with a wider gap, though unsure if this is simply a screen redraw issue...

 

 

Hi Hangman,
Do you mind attaching a copy of your file please? I've tried it with the attached file and not getting that behaviour on both Mac or Windows.

Dashed.afdesign

[Hangman]

Hi Sean,

No problem file attached...

I'm not seeing the issue with your file and apart from the obvious difference in document dpi, line length, dash length and space settings, I'm trying to figure out the difference between our two files.

Curious to know if you see the issue with the attached file.

Balanaced Lines.afdesign

[Sean P]

Thanks for that! I am indeed getting behaviour with your file. I'll get that logged with development.

 

[Hangman]

20 minutes ago, Sean P said:

Thanks for that! I am indeed getting behaviour with your file. I'll get that logged with development.

If you take your file and simply change two things I see the same behaviour. I changed document units to Points (though I don't think that is relevant), changed your line widths to 600 pts around their centre point and the line weight to 4 pt.

After doing that I then see the same behaviour when zooming in and out.

[MickRose]

Hi @Hangman - I'm getting wierd things going on here with your Balanced Lines.afdesign file when I zoom in. I think it is caused by the very small page size and the very low dpi figure. It's okay in wireframe mode but not in Pixel view or Retinal pixel view mode. A generated PDF shows the same problem. I'd guess it's caused by the underlying units being pixels. If you simply change the document size to A4 you get the same problem.

[Hangman]

3 hours ago, MickRose said:

I'm getting wierd things going on here with your Balanced Lines.afdesign file when I zoom in. I think it is caused by the very small page size and the very low dpi figure.

Hi @MickRose, that was my initial thought as well but I can replicate it using the 300 dpi file @Sean P uploaded by making a couple of small tweaks (see the post above yours).

I think, though I've yet to confirm, that the issue is possibly caused when there is divisibility between the line length and weight, I'm still testing and that theory seems a little hit and miss at the moment so could equally be wrong...

3 hours ago, MickRose said:

A generated PDF shows the same problem.

This is to be expected because the pdf spec doesn't support balanced strokes...

[garrettm30]

If the PDF spec does not support balanced strokes, shouldn’t Affinity automatically expand any stroke with balanced activated when exporting?

[Hangman]

1 hour ago, garrettm30 said:

If the PDF spec does not support balanced strokes, shouldn’t Affinity automatically expand any stroke with balanced activated when exporting?

Proposed in the first post on page 2 of this thread...

[Ash]

3 hours ago, garrettm30 said:

If the PDF spec does not support balanced strokes, shouldn’t Affinity automatically expand any stroke with balanced activated when exporting?

Sorry just to make sure I'm not misunderstanding. The expected behaviour is that any balanced strokes are automatically expanded on export to a vector format such as PDF. Is that not happening for you?
 

[Hangman]

23 minutes ago, Ash said:

Sorry just to make sure I'm not misunderstanding. The expected behaviour is that any balanced strokes are automatically expanded on export to a vector format such as PDF. Is that not happening for you?

They are, I have no idea what I was thinking having already tested this previously...

[lenogre]

----------    ---   ---   ------------   ---   ---   -------------- becomes true !

Before I used Apparence panel with 2 dot lines. A nightmare… 

[debraspicher]

Hopefully next update will support Morse code.

[garrettm30]

On 4/25/2023 at 9:27 AM, Ash said:

Sorry just to make sure I'm not misunderstanding. The expected behaviour is that any balanced strokes are automatically expanded on export to a vector format such as PDF. Is that not happening for you?

Thanks for clarifying. That is my expectation as well. My comment was me just getting mixed up by reading this thread in bits and pieces over several weeks and reacting to the post of Max Danger demonstrating a case where it is not working (which your team is looking into) and Hangman’s post that we should not expect balanced dash strokes to work in exported PDFs (which he has since corrected). I see we are on the same page, so I am sorry to complicate the thread.

[Maxdanger]

On 4/25/2023 at 3:27 PM, Ash said:

Sorry just to make sure I'm not misunderstanding. The expected behaviour is that any balanced strokes are automatically expanded on export to a vector format such as PDF. Is that not happening for you?
 

Hi Ash,

 

Sorry to reopen this after some time, but I am not experiencing this behaviour. When I export balanced strokes to pdf the strokes aren't being automatically expanded so I end up with normal looking strokes.

 

Happy to record a video or send source file if needed  

[Hangman]

Hi @Maxdanger,

A sample Affinity file and accompanying pdf would be really helpful...

For me, when exporting to a pdf file all the balanced strokes are exported automatically as curves so it would be helpful to understand which pdf preset or settings you are using as well.

[Maxdanger]

Hi @Hangman

Yeah it's curious as the project I'm working on does not expand the stroke for any of my balanced lines, but when I made a sample document to show you it did expand the strokes... Here are two files where one does expand and the other does not. Also a video showing what I mean.

Sample documents

Expand stroke doesn't work.afdesignExpand stroke does work.afdesign

pdf outputs

Expand stroke doesn't work.pdfExpand stroke does work.pdf

Screen record

Balanced lines not expanding on export.mov

Cheers!

Max

[Hangman]

Hi @Maxdanger,

For some strange reason on the version that doesn't work the balanced lines are being converted into unbalanced lines when exporting to pdf which I think is the reason why they're not expanding so I'm unsure if this is a possible bug.

[fjunk]

There used to be a very visible indicator of what this does "Dash".  It's missing in 2.2.  Always used it? Know what you're looking for and where?  Not a problem.

Also, in addition to playing math with strokes (or logic, take your pic) how about a simple dropdown list of example possibilities to choose from, comparable to Inkscape.  The option can still be there for those who want or need to play with the numbers.  For those of us just looking for a SIMPLE dotted or dashed line of one kind or another, there would be that.  Or, maybe better yet, just combine the two ideas, still provide the numerical examples, but, alongside the examples, as explained above.  Like, idunno, Styles, or QuickFX.  Something we're already used to. 

Maybe?