Hi Friends,
After answering the umpteenth question about inability to control an object when moving it around the canvas, which I think is probably because they drew the object with Pen or Pencil in spiro spline mode; and remembering my own frustration about forgetting to switch back to regular mode, I had an idea. We need some kind of indicator that the Pen or Pencil is in spiro spline mode.

I'm thinking something like having the pointer change color when the tool is in spiro spline mode. Or.....well, I don't know what it's called, but the red line that is connected to the canvas on one end, and follows the pointer on the other end -- whatever you call that (rubberband?) have it change color according to what mode the tool is in. Say red for regular, green for spline, blue for straight line, purple for paraxial. That would be for the Pen tool. Pencil would only have 2. Something like that?

Any comments?

Thanks

Excellent idea Brynn!

When in outline mode, the green is set for the clipping, so colouring the path while drawing could be confusing, especially with green.
When hovering over the mouse, objects drawing elements are displaying in red.

That is, a bigger problem in my opinion: how spiro's are not presented as they appear.
Speaking of this:

The handles are totally useless to be displayed, they only modify that hover-over red core.
To be more confusing, when the draw path handles extension is run, it displays a totally different path's-
-the path's, which the spiro will turn if saved as plain svg.

For me, when I first experimented with spiro's, it would have been greatly beneficial to know that by simply adding in a bunch more nodes would make it more 'stable'. So maybe the issue is to tackle the problem, i.e., what if more nodes were created as you draw spiro's? Is that a possibility?

No, that has nothing to do with that issue.
Any nodes added to a non-flat spiro-spline have handles that only affects the core path wich gets displayed red in a hover-over.
Now taking some further look.
Adding more nodes gets the overall look closer to that core path -Why?
The good thing about spiro is it makes arches circular between nodes without the fuzz it takes to draw one by handles.
On what end would it be good to recreate ugly looking curves from clean circles?
I would expect from the add nodes option to ad nodes ON the displayed path, not on a core that is never really seen.

Here is a quick comparision.
The yellow is a spiro spline, the blue is the exact same of the spiro core, drawn with a normal path.
The handles are drawn with the darker shades.
Spiro spline's extenison drawn handles are representing how it would be drawn after saving to plain svg,
so no real chance of displaying how the core would mach that normal spline.

hmm. I didn't realize there was a difference in the kind of nodes that gets applied with spiro nodes, as I've never noticed any 'fuzzy' ones, or maybe I'm not understanding exactly what you mean. I do get that if you start adding in many nodes, that the beautiful arch that gets created changes dramatically, and not for the good (maybe that's what you mean by fuzz?). When I draw the spiro initially, the nodes are not uniformly placed, leaving too much space between some nodes and not enough in other places, which is why they start spiraling out of control, seems to me if that could be addressed by some sort of coding that it would help the issue.
How about if the nodes could have some sort of automatic align and distribute equally between nodes while drawing, not even sure if that's possible, but I do like to dream, lol.
oh, when I add nodes, I don't usually add them over the entire object, but just in the places where the nodes are too far apart (after using the undo option usually), so I don't get the dramatic re-shaping that you've shown above.

I meant the fuzz as the pain in the neck it takes to edit normal splines so they will turn into circular arches.
When you add new contol points to your spiro spline for more control, you place it in position manually,
thus you change the core spline as well by changing it's shape.
And, change those positions to make the new points fit to the spline displayed
-wich should been automated, but that's not how it works.

The automatic align and distribute based on point distance is not what would add more control on spiro splines.
The control is defined by what angle do 3 points next to eachother describe.
The closer they are to 180°, the more likely you will have to add new points/edit their position.

Lazur URH wrote:When in outline mode, the green is set for the clipping, so colouring the path while drawing could be confusing, especially with green.
When hovering over the mouse, objects drawing elements are displaying in red.

My use of green was only an example. I'm not proposing it as a final release. But even so, I don't see how they could be confused. When you're drawing with the Pen, one end of the theoretical green line would be attached to the canvas at the last set node, and following the pointer at the other end. A clipping path would never follow the tool's pointer, would it? You can't draw a path that's defined as a clipping path, before it's finished. It has to be completely finished before it can be a clipping path, right?

And actually, I just realized that the Pencil line IS green already. And for the Pen tool, the line that I'm talking about is red, but after you set another node, it turns green. So maybe green would be a bad choice all around.

Ooohh! I think you might be confusing what I'm suggesting, with the red path outline indicator. No, that's not what I mean at all. I mean the red line that (as I've said a few times) is attached to the canvas at the last set node, and follows the pointer at the other end. I'm thinking of something that would indicate, either just before you start drawing, or just after you start drawing, that you're in spiro spline mode.

And regarding certain handles turning red when the mouse pointer hovers over, that's not what I meant either. I mean the pointer, or cursor, I can't remember what the technical name for it is....and I don't think I can capture it in a screenshot.... There's probably an image of it somewhere in Inkscape, but it will take a while for me to locate it, since I don't know where to look for it.

The one for the Pen looks like an old-fashioned fountain pen....a nib, I guess, lying at a 45 degree angle, and with a tiny crosshair in the top left end. The Pencil looks just like a tiny pencil, again with a tiny crosshair at the top left end. That's what I mean showing up in some other color besides black. If that could happen, then the color of the line could be forgotten, as an example.

Well I tried, but I can't find the image of the pointer I'm talking about.

Brynn, I wonder if they could add a new icon for spiro lines when you start using it, like a ballpoint pen with a spiral at the end, anything different.... just a thought. Any of us could come up with a new icon.

Lazur - thx for your explanations! Too bad align tool won't help, I was hopeful, lol. I was just figuring that when my spiro goes haywire, I usually hit the undo key, then add a couple nodes to the crazy part, yes manual, and it does change the design just a bit, but it allows me to continue on with the design, it's the only thing that seems to work for me.
If it works on angles and how close to 180 degrees, is it even possible to re-code some new math into it? wish I knew coding, oh well, another thing for the wish list one day, lol.

I'm not sure what kind of new icon you mean.

Brynn, you had mentioned about there being a different color or that the nib or pen change somehow, so I was just thinking, instead of that, why not just have a new and different icon 'light up', that's all, just a random thought.

Oh, I see. Well the reason I think that might not work (at least for me) is because there already IS an icon that's at least highlighted, already on the control bar -- the spiro spline button itself. Since I always seem not to notice it, I was thinking of some other indicator, that would appear either just before, or just after starting to draw with the tool....like right where your eyes are focused when you start drawing.