Dashed line (dots)

[exorchrust]

Hello everyone,

 

I've been using Designer for some time now, and it is brilliant i must say, but I recently found a problem i can't solve by myself, or search it on the net. I am trying to create a dashed line, made of dots to be exact, and i need it to have specific count evenly placed between the two points. For example, on the attached image, i need exactly three dots evenly placed on the path. Is there anyway to attain this effect, or i have to count the spaces manually and copy/paste circle shapes? Thanks for response.

 

John

[gdenby]

Hi, exorchrust,

 

There isn't anything built in that allows just typing in a number of dots.

 

There are 3 ways of doing this.

 

One could create a dashed/dotted stroke w. just 3 dots over the length, but doing the math would be tedious. I.E. what point width is the stroke, how many times does that go into the span length. Subtract 3, set the open space to 1/4 of the remaining intervals, mess w. the phase to get them right.

 

Make a dot, duplicate it, and move whatever distance is needed. repeat 2 more times. delete the 1st.

 

Make a dot, copy, paste a couple times to make 5 dots over the span. Use distribute on centers for the group, and then delete the 1st and last. This pretty much does what a blend tool will eventually do, but really, the amount of time entering the data into the tool for so small a quantity isn't much help/

 

Now, if you needed, say, 345 dots over 17 inches, having a dedicated tool would be useful.

[exorchrust]

The problem is i need different counts of dots for my project several times, so it seems like i will have to spend some time trying to perfect it manually.

 

Thank you for quick response and have a good day.

[gdenby]

Oh, 1 other method. Set up a grid w. however sub-intervals per unit. With snapping turned on, Command/Windows keys, drag copies, snapping along the way. The grid intervals can be quickly changed to suit.

[R C-R]

Have you considered using text for this? You could use either the bullet character • (Unicode U+2022) or the Black Circle character ● (Unicode U+25CF) in a suitable font & style. Type the required number of dots & then by changing the tracking value in the Characters panel (with or without using typed spaces between the dots) you can adjust the spacing as desired.

 

This also sort of works with curves converted to text paths, although the spacing isn't preserved if the curve is too abrupt.

[ndr3svt]

A trick I just came up with:

reduce the length of your dashed line bellow 0.2, I am using 0.1 as length of the dashed line with a stroke width from 2pt. The dashed gap I set to 2, and that's it.

This not ideal but as long as dotted line is not implemented will be using this for mockups !!!! Would be thankful if the Affinity Development Team would implement this soon!

[JimmyJack]

On April 17, 2017 at 7:33 AM, exorchrust said:

The problem is i need different counts of dots for my project several times, so it seems like i will have to spend some time trying to perfect it manually.

 

I don't think you need to think too much here.

Just once really. The only math you need is the ability to subtract 1 .

 

My two dots, er, I mean cents  :

1) Pick a stroke width (This, sort of, can be adjusted later... but with limits. Best to do it first.) and make sure all fields are Zeros in the dash settings.

2) Now adjust the second number field so there are just two dots. One at the beginning and one at the end of your curve. Takes a couple seconds.... I went to two decimal places (see the first curve below. My number ended up being 23.74).

--- the hard work is over ---

3) Whatever X# of dots you finally want, just type into that second field "/" and X-1. So, for three dots: "/2", for four dots: "/3", for five dots: "/4", for seventeen dots: "/16" etc. All will be evenly spaced.

(the number you are dividing by is actually the number of spans in between points)

 

 

 

[gdenby]

Hey, JimmyJack,

 

Way way too clever, he says with envy. Bit of fuss to get the 2 dots at start and end only, but after that, yeah, works great as long as the base curve isn't reshaped.

 

 

[JimmyJack]

34 minutes ago, gdenby said:

Hey, JimmyJack,

 

Way way too clever, he says with envy. Bit of fuss to get the 2 dots at start and end only, but after that, yeah, works great as long as the base curve isn't reshaped.

 

 

 

Ha! Thanks . 

Yeah, reshaping will knock things out of whack. For that, the text option mentioned by @R C-R does much better. With that method, I just can't get the dots to go all the way on either end. They get close but not all the way (which makes sense). Certainly something that can be worked around though.

[Lorox]

On 2/1/2018 at 11:40 PM, JimmyJack said:

2) Now adjust the second number field so there are just two dots. One at the beginning and one at the end of your curve. Takes a couple seconds.... I went to two decimal places (see the first curve below. My number ended up being 23.74).

If I see it correctly you're basically estimating the length of the path here by trial and error (coming up with 23.74 [pt]). If the second value in the dashed strokes panel equals the length of the path [in pt] you're dealing with (and all other values are set to "0") you will get just one dot at each end of your path (one round cap ”pointing inward” and the other round cap pointing ”outward“ – between these points (whose caps do NOT count) you have the "gap" that you found out (the length of which happens to be equal to the length of your path).

If you by some means could easily calculate the length of any given path even reshaping and readjusting wouldn't be too difficult – but alas...

However, with sort of "perfect" closed paths like circles and squares it is considerably easier as the circumference of those (= length of the paths) can be calculated qickly using basic math.