The program Blender allows the user to work with auto nodes when first creating a bezier curve. This makes drawing detailed curves extremely easy, as long as the user is willing to place enough nodes, because the node handles are taken out of the equation for the user to have to play with. Does a feature like this sound doable? I will post a screenshot from Blender using this feature later.

Hi.

Something similar: switch to spiro-mode at the pen's toolbar, which will make segments circular if the nodes are smooth -so for each node, click and drag a small bit.

http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Paths-LivePathEffects-SpiroSpline.html

You can just click to make polygonal shape and then switch to the nodetool, select all - or some - of the nodes, and convert with shift A (autosmooth) Shift Y (symmetric) and shift S (smooth). Blender's curve drawing is only fast if you want one kind of node. Inkscape allows you to switch between the node types while drawing (except for auto, sadly) making the end result much more detailed.

@ LazurURH:
Spiro-mode looks very nice. There was just one issue I had, though: When converting the stroke to a path, the new object followed the contours of the bezier underline, and not the Spiro stroke. But I very much liked how the stroke was predictable based on the points I laid out.

@druban:
I enjoy using those shortcut keys to make quicker work of the points once I have them laid down: I was just hoping that you could get the preview of the autosmoothed curve before you even lay down a node, much like extruding from an existing autonode in Blender. "Previewing" the autosmoothed curves by extruding the autonodes felt very intuitive in Blender, and I just thought it might be a feature people would enjoy in Inkscape as well. You can try in Blender by creating a Bezier curve, switching to Edit mode, making one of the nodes "Auto" with the V key, then extruding it with the E key. It's extremely helpful if you are trying to trace a sketched curve.

Well then, before converting the stroke to a path, convert the object to path (Ctrl+Shift+C).
That will apply the spiro live path effect to the path, so then you can run the stroke to path without such problem.

yellowdee wrote: "Previewing" the autosmoothed curves by extruding the autonodes felt very intuitive in Blender, and I just thought it might be a feature people would enjoy in Inkscape as well. You can try in Blender by creating a Bezier curve, switching to Edit mode, making one of the nodes "Auto" with the V key, then extruding it with the E key. It's extremely helpful if you are trying to trace a sketched curve.

I know what you mean... the Autosmooth nodes were added much later as an enhancement of the nodetool, and so I guess were never incorporated into the Bez Pen tool. Could happen anytime, though if you are used to the way requests work in Blender's development things are very different at Inkscape.