Straight line mode for Pencil tool



  • I love the feature in the shape sketch that I can switch to creating straight lines with the TAB key and easily switch back and forth. Is there any reason not to have the same option in the pencil and/or brush tool? I am mostly hopping back and forth between the shape sketch and the pencil and it irritates me that the straight line option is unavailable there.

    Thanks!


  • administrators

    @postdes There is one, but a bit different. Start painting with the Pencil tool, and hold down the Control key.
    It is important to press the mouse first, otherwise the Control+Click will open the context menu.



  • I tried this, but I can not get it to work, or at least not in a way the feels logical.
    When I try to toggle straight line mode I have no visual indication of it. At first I tried to create straight lines by tapping once for the starting point and a second time for the end point, as I would in other software. This only produces dots and no lines. Once I understood I had to drag to put a dot down, then press CTRL and keep it pressed while dragging the line and not release CTRL until I have finished the line I could get it to work, but it is very unintuitive. I also run into the problem that after I created one line and have CTRL still pressed I can not create another one, because when I tap the mouse (or stylus in my case) I get the contextual popup menu instead. When I release CTRL after a line, it does not draw at all: I have to click and press CTRL again to make it to draw normally again. I think this proves this is a very bad workflow...

    The straight line toggle in the shape sketch tool work much more intuitively, so I do not see any sense in it being completely different in two otherwise very similar tools? Please reconsider this approach for the pencil tool.


  • administrators

    @postdes The Tab key switches (back and forth) to straight line mode in the Pencil tool.



  • That's much better, just makes more sense!



  • @vectoradmin Cool! Would be an idea to also use Tab to switch from object mode to node-editing mode?

    Hmm… everybody is used to A as the shortcut for that. Nevermind.