Symbol selection issue with new tools


  • Global Moderator

    @vectoradmin said in Symbol selection issue with new tools:

    @fde101 said in Symbol selection issue with new tools:

    However, I am sporadically seeing the "Symbol Painter Brush" paint a bunch of separate empty symbol sets instead of creating a single symbol set with symbols inside of it. Deleting them and trying again usually works when that happens.

    I could not replicate this part. If there are some more specific steps, and a resulting document, it would help a lot. Thanks!

    It seems to happen as follows:

    1. Create a new document
    2. Create a symbol, then delete it from the canvas
    3. Use the Symbol Placement Tool to place one instance of the symbol; keep the symbol selected in the Symbols panel
    4. Switch to the Symbol Painter Brush tool
    5. Click one time on the already-selected symbol in the Symbols panel
    6. Try to paint with the symbol

    I will email a file to you in which this happened to me; not sure if this will help or not


  • administrators

    @fde101 This issue should be fixed in the new build 1.1.002 (beta)


  • Global Moderator

    Yes, but I see a different set of problems now.

    If I follow that same sequence of steps, the symbol does not remain selected when changing tools - that is not optimal but it is a relatively minor annoyance...

    The first bigger problem is that once I start painting with the symbol spray brush I get an apparent small army of "extra" copies of the symbol beyond what I am actually painting. If I hover in place without moving the tool while still holding the button down, I would expect it to wait and not do anything until I moved again, but instead it is creating an army of copies of the symbol at various random offsets from the pointer position.

    This may be intentional given the nature of the tool as a "spray can", in which case it is actually understandable, but if that is the case then how can I limit how much of an offset the shapes are drawn at from the tool, and will there be an equivalent "brush" tool which will not have this behavior?

    The second bigger problem seems to be popping up somewhat randomly or maybe after some mix of tool changes or repeatedly using it (not sure what triggered it yet) but I can get it to the point were ALL of the symbols are being "sprayed" at a significant offset from the pointer - significant as in basically the opposite corner of the screen. They seem to follow the overall movement of the pointer, but they are being placed off in the distance instead of where I am trying to put them.


  • Global Moderator

    Actually, I would suggest (in addition to the bug fix for the second issue in my above post) that dragging after placement using the "Symbol Stamp Tool" currently seems to do nothing, which is useless.

    Neither the "Symbol Stamp Tool" nor the "Symbol Spray Brush" currently does anything to the context panel, leaving whatever was there from the previous tool intact (?).

    I would like to make the following suggestions:

    • The Symbol Spray Brush should have an option on the context panel to configure the maximum displacement of the sprayed elements (perhaps as a percentage of the size of the symbol being sprayed?) and an option to limit the rate at which new symbols are added when the pointer is held still.
    • The Symbol Stamp Tool should have three modes selectable using icons on the context panel:
      • Dragging after placing the symbol should move the symbol by dragging
      • Dragging after placing the symbol should scale the symbol
      • Dragging after placing the symbol should behave as a brush (spray tool with no "extra" symbols while held still and with no displacement from the pointer; possibly have a configurable option on the context panel to control the frequency over distance at which symbols are added along the dragged path)

    As an alternative to the brush mode of the stamp tool (and maybe this even makes more sense?), the Symbol Spray Brush tool could become the brush instead when the maximum displacement setting is set to zero.


  • administrators

    @fde101 The symbol stamp and spray tool has been improved in the new build 1.1.024 as requested. Options are in the context panel.


  • Global Moderator

    @vectoradmin , the new options for the stamp tool are awesome. Thank you - that seems to be working great.

    I am still having problems with the spray brush, now (.025) it seems to be placing symbols at a rather extreme offset from the mouse position when adding them after having already used the stamp tool?

    I haven't put much time yet into narrowing down the conditions under which that is happening - will try to see if I can come up with a recipe later.


  • administrators

    @fde101 said in Symbol selection issue with new tools:

    it seems to be placing symbols at a rather extreme offset from the mouse position when adding them after having already used the stamp tool?

    I will try to replicate this.


  • Global Moderator

    I am having difficulty trying to reproduce this issue now. It was definitely happening to me earlier, but I'm not sure exactly what series of events triggered it.


  • administrators

    @fde101 said in Symbol selection issue with new tools:

    I am having difficulty trying to reproduce this issue now. It was definitely happening to me earlier, but I'm not sure exactly what series of events triggered it.

    Was, by any chance, the symbol set scaled before using the symbol spray tool again?


  • Global Moderator

    @vectoradmin that is entirely possible. I just tried that (scaled the set of symbols then sprayed more) and it is behaving in a clearly undesirable way, but not the same way as it was when I had reported it.

    I should probably add that some of the symbols were actually showing up completely off the canvas when it was happening the first time, so I likely scaled the whole thing afterward to get them back on.


  • administrators

    @fde101 Replicated here too!


  • Global Moderator

    @vectoradmin said in update 1.1.026:

    • Adding symbols with the symbol spray tool inside transformed symbol sets placed them in wrong positions.

    The position seems to be fixed now, but the scale is still off. After scaling the symbol set, if I switch back to the symbol spray brush and start spraying more symbols, they show the ghosts at the original size, but the placed symbols take on the scaled size from the existing set.

    As I scaled the existing symbols in the set but am freshly painting the new symbols, I would expect the newly sprayed symbols to be at the original size (like the ghosts), not the scaled size from the existing set.

    I do see that if I switch to the transform tool, the symbol set is still selected (hidden while using the symbol spray brush) and if I deselect it then switch back to the symbol spray brush, they do spray at the original size. If there is a limitation that all of the symbols in the set must be at the same size, then the placement behavior while extending the set is understandable, but then the ghosts should at least match the reality of what will happen.


  • administrators

    @fde101 There is no limitation on have the same symbol size. What happens here is that the newly inserted symbols will get the same transformation form the symbol set.
    I will figure out some solution for this.