Hello
I am just learning Inkscape, and am having great difficulty in trying to edit lines made with the pen/bezier tool.
Specifically, I cant seem to move a straight line segment between two nodes so that it curves. when i click on the line using the node edit tool, the line just moves and keeps as a straight line. I dont know how to move it into a desired curved line. When I look at tutorial videos, they seem to be able to move a straight line segment into a curved line just by touching the line with the curser and pulling it into a curve.
I am using a wacom pen, with a Mac.
Can anyone suggest what is going wrong?

Thanks for any tips.

Select your node tool (instead of your select objects tool) and then try bending it.

heathenx wrote:Select your node tool (instead of your select objects tool) and then try bending it.

Thanks for your response heathenx.

To give you a simple example of my problem. I draw a single line with the pen tool, which has a node at each end.
I select the line with the node tool. The nodes are grey squares, without handles. If i click a node it turns red, and I can move the node - which moves the line.
I find that if I click on the line between the nodes, nothing happens at all.
As I said earlier, I am using a wacom pen with Mac.
I have no idea how to bend the straight line segment between the two nodes.

Grateful for any advice.

Regards

What ver of Inkscape? Do you have spiro instead of bezier selected in your pen control bar (mode buttons, top left)? If that.s not it, try drawing a rectangle, convert object to path (path menu), switch to the node tool and try dragging a segment. Does it bend?
also, does this happen when using a mouse instead of the wacom?

druban asked a good question. What version of Inkscape are you using? I happen to be running the latest version, 0.48-1.

Again, if you want to bend a segment with only two nodes then first select it with the node tool. Once selected left mouse-click and hold down somewhere between both nodes on the segment and drag. You'll be able to bend it any way you wish. I would hope that behavior would be the same on a Mac.

I'm not sure how much difference there is between using a mouse and using the Wacom pen. But with a mouse, if you click on the line and release the mouse button, you've selected the segment and both nodes. If you click and drag, the line should be dragged into a curve, and the handles will automatically appear.

Alternatively, you could select a node, the Shift + click and drag to draw out a handle. Then you can drag the handle to manipulate the curve. But click and drag on the segment should be drawing out the curve and handles all at once.

brynn wrote:I'm not sure how much difference there is between using a mouse and using the Wacom pen. But with a mouse, if you click on the line and release the mouse button, you've selected the segment and both nodes. If you click and drag, the line should be dragged into a curve, and the handles will automatically appear.

Alternatively, you could select a node, the Shift + click and drag to draw out a handle. Then you can drag the handle to manipulate the curve. But click and drag on the segment should be drawing out the curve and handles all at once.

Thanks to everyone who gave me advice.
I'm delighted to say I have now resolved the problem.
Other newcomers to Inkscape might have a similar problem, so this is what I did.
In Inkscape preferences>input devices, I put all windows to "disabled" rather than "screen". That seemed to do the trick.
bending lines with the node tool is now effortless.
I use a wacom 4 with Mac.

Best wishes