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Removing a side of shape (scissors tool)


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Is there any easy way to remove one side of a triangle (or any shape) to make an arrow? 

 

See attached image

For example, in Sketch you can go to Layer/Paths/Scissors and then click the side you want to remove.

 

 

Thanks!

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Hi Moto,

Welcome to the forums.

 

Insert your shape and then and click Convert to Curves on the Context Toolbar or use Layer > Convert to Curves. Now switch to the Node Tool and select one of the shapes nodes. On the Context Toolbar select the Break Curve action, now reselect the node and press Delete.

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... Now switch to the Node Tool and select one of the shapes nodes. On the Context Toolbar select the Break Curve action, now reselect the node and press Delete.

When you break a node, the result is two nodes, one on top of the other. Depending on which node you select to break, the "top" node you select may be the wrong one afterwards, resulting in the wrong side of the shape being removed.

 

But in another topic Lee (I think) explained how to resolve that. If this happens, undo the delete, then draw a marquee around both nodes with the Node tool to select both of them. Shift clicking on the pair will select just the lower one.

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When you break a node, the result is two nodes, one on top of the other. Depending on which node you select to break, the "top" node you select may be the wrong one afterwards, resulting in the wrong side of the shape being removed.

 

But in another topic Lee (I think) explained how to resolve that. If this happens, undo the delete, then draw a marquee around both nodes with the Node tool to select both of them. Shift clicking on the pair will select just the lower one.

 

Or rather, Shift-clicking will deselect the top one of the pair, leaving just the lower one selected. ;)

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I always insert a new point to the line segment I want to delete first - then select the new point - break curve - marquee select the two points - hit backspace to delete. No switching tools necessary.

 

All these methods require switching to the Node tool to break the curve, so I'm not sure what you mean about no switching tools being necessary.

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No switching needed because "Convert to Curves" will do this already for you.

Not always. If you select the shape with the Move tool, "Convert to Curves" also is available from the Context toolbar, but clicking it leaves the Move tool selected.

 

This difference has caused me a bit of confusion when I am working quickly, rearranging shapes & then converting one or more to curves. I expect the Node tool to be selected afterwards but since it is not, I end up moving a curve or wondering why I can't select its nodes or something until enough brain cells fire to figure it out.  :wacko:

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Thanks for all the replies. It seems like this task could be made much easier and more intuitive with some sort of scissor tool like Sketch and Photoshop.

A knife tool is on the roadmap, but no ETA for when we will get it.

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Not in the case the user asked in first place.  :D

Certainly that would be true if one wants to remove a side of a shape immediately after creating it, but I don't think it is clear if that is what Moto had in mind when the question was asked.

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Or rather, Shift-clicking will deselect the top one of the pair, leaving just the lower one selected. ;)

In this case I am not sure if that is any different from saying that shift clicking on the pair will select just the lower one, but consider what happens when three nodes are coincident. I played around with this by first using the break curves action on a corner node & then adding a node on one of the segments & snapping it to the same corner.

 

Shift clicking after selecting all three with a marquee selects just one node ... but I am not sure if it is the bottom node or not.  :unsure:

 

We really need some way of knowing how many & which nodes are selected. I have suggested that the Node tool's Context toolbar show this, similar to how the Move Tool's Context toolbar shows the number of items selected, but that still would not indicate which node is selected when a number of them are coincident.

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Shift clicking after selecting all three with a marquee selects just one node ... but I am not sure if it is the bottom node or not.  :unsure:

 

Interesting: that's not what I would expect. As far as I'm aware, you can only click on one node at a time, and Shift-clicking should toggle the selection state of the clicked node. So if three nodes are selected and you Shift-click the top one, it should deselect that one but leave both of the others selected.

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In general, shift-clicking on any single node with the Node tool toggles it between the selected & unselected states. But when two coincident nodes are selected, the behavior is slightly different: shift-clicking twice deselects both nodes. So there is some difference in the logic -- it isn't a two state toggle anymore.

 

Exactly how that logic is applied when more than two coincident nodes are selected is unclear (at least to me) but I suspect that has something to do with the unexpected behavior.

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  • 1 month later...

Why not just allow selecting the line segment between two points by clicking it, and then hitting delete to delete that segment?

 

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, oranjoose. :)

 

How would you distinguish between selecting a whole line and selecting just one segment between two nodes? :unsure: Even if we could do that, it would be very tedious if you were trying to remove multiple short segments instead of one or two long ones.

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Clicking on a line/curve segment while a modifier key is pressed could be the easiest way of deleting it, without previously breaking/cutting it [idea for a new feature].

Also, just dragging a node to another one which is on another line/curve end, joins two nodes [another idea for a new feature].

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