I am a fan of mathematical precision and uniformity and would like the following feature available in Inkscape which would give me more control over the control points.

When I click on a node in node editing mode, I would like to see not only the X, Y coords of the node as editable fields on the top toolbar, but also the angle and distance of incoming and outgoing control points (i.e. control points standing before and after this node in the path). This way I can manually edit the angle values and distance values if I desire.

Obviously for starting and ending nodes of the path the incoming and outgoing control point fields would be grayed out.

Note that the X, Y coords of control points are not of practical interest to anyone as the only function of control points is to affect curvature, where angle of entry and angle of exit are the interesting factors. If at all anyone wants to set the coords of control points (highly unlikely IMO), they can edit the source SVG using the XML editor.

I am aware that if I click-drag any control point, the status bar already shows me the angle and distance of that control point from its node. My request is to make this editable as a mathematical value since editing this using a pointing device has its own limitations (much like trying to align two nodes vertically or horizontally using the mouse alone).

Enabling such control would be a tremendous value addition IMO as it would enable one to acquire symmetry. Now of course one is able to set a node as a symmetric node, but one is not able to easily make two (or more) nodes mutually symmetric so that they have equal control point distances, corresponding angles, or such. There are many use cases of such symmetry, as for example designing fonts etc.

What do you people think? After hearing your thoughts I will go ahead and report this in Launchpad with modifications if necessary.

Could be great. I suppose you could manke a feature request on Launchpad?

Mathieu147 wrote:I suppose you could manke a feature request on Launchpad?

The feature request already exists:
Bug #172182 (sf1822559) “Individual Node Properties”

jamadagni wrote:Obviously for starting and ending nodes of the path the incoming and outgoing control point fields would be grayed out.

In closed segments, the "outward" control points are the control points for the implicit closing segment.

Thanks everyone. Sorry I didn't reply sooner but my UserCP setting for "Automatically notify me of replies" was switched off. [Now it's on.]

Anyhow, I've been thinking of this some more and have posted my thoughts to the LaunchPad bug.

ofnuts wrote:In closed segments, the "outward" control points are the control points for the implicit closing segment.

Can you explain? I don't get it. What is an "implicit closing segment"?