Draw tool sticky settings?

Subpath

appreciate your Idea, but i am not really shure
if i get it right.

If i use the Brush Tool it looks already that way
like in your Picture.

And your Idea seems that the same should show up
when we use the Pen Tool, its fine for me

b77

@Subpath Conflict of ideas are inevitable because we have different priorities — scales with different weights.

Time permitting, I would also like for @Ingolf to expand a bit the part about GiMP and Inkscape.
Is it the way things are organized or just the general look of the UI (which I dislike as well)?

VectorStyler

@b77 said in Draw tool sticky settings?:

There you go — show the Brush dropdown in the context bar when picking the Pen tool, before even placing the first node:

I added this to the backlog.

Subpath

@b77

...Conflict of ideas are inevitable because we have different priorities
— scales with different weights....

I totally understand that and i appreciate @Ingolf Ideas
and Knowledge about Ui Interfaces.

But should we really stay on one point, just for the sake of a Paradigma ?
Sometimes it makes more sense, in my eyes, to overthink Rules and Paradigmen
or put them aside for while.

I must say that I am very open to unusual / creative UIs.
as long as they are useful for creativity.
I have seen and used many programs that would make
UI designers pull their hair out. But I appreciate all of them.

b77

I have seen and used many programs that would make
UI designers pull their hair out. But I appreciate all of them.

Tell us which was the worst.

Subpath

@b77

You won't believe that I never liked the Adobe Illustrator UI.
(Well, I don't use Illustrator since version 8, that was a while ago).

Liked Corel Draw UI from the beginning because of its configurable UI and other features.

Kai Krause plugins back then, was nice from a creative point of view.
But the UI was so tiny and not scalable, it was terrible.

Corel Painter could also be mentioned - I would say
it gets the award for the worst UI

Paintstorm Studio gets a positive special mention
because of his resizeable and very configurable UI
and thats in a App for 20 $

Subpath

@b77

A very interesting Vector Graphics App
( apart from VS of course )

Is "Cavalry" very unique UI, because of the animation capabilities.
but you can also create still images with it.
Kind of Mograph (Cinema 4D) for Vector Graphics.

There is a free Version where you could render (save) your
Result as SVG. You need to create a Account.

Here a short but impressive Video Example:

Some of this would be doable in VS but not all

Ingolf

This is seriously the worst idea in a long time.

With the brush enabled in pencil and pen mode - How exactly would you explain the difference between

the pencil tool
the brush tool

in the documentation? They look identical to me.

And why mix and confuse the Pen tool with those instead of merging them and adding a bit of pen control options as well?

UX assistance is seriously needed in this project - and more than ever. I've just had a professional one at my screen to reality check my own claims (he's an Illustrator user). Not disagreeing with me.

b77

@Ingolf Just to clarify my opinion:

I don't like the Pencil-as-a-brush idea either — it's confusing because these tools share the same drawing method (drawing strokes with the mouse/trackpad/stylus), so where is the differentiation then?

However, since the Pen tool works differently than the Brush and Pencil tools, I don't see where is the problem (the confusing overlap) in being able to draw with a brush contour directly.

It's a long thread now, so I'm re-including the context bar mockup for the Pen (not Pencil) tool, just so it's clear what I'm referring to:

(The idea is to display the Brush dropdown in the context bar when picking the Pen tool, before even placing the first node, so you can choose a brush contour if you want to).

VectorStyler

@Ingolf said in Draw tool sticky settings?:

This is seriously the worst idea in a long time.
With the brush enabled in pencil and pen mode - How exactly would you explain the difference between

I respectfully have to disagree. I would say it is an experimental idea.
The thing is that the VS is complex and one way to tackle complexity is customization.

In the future there will be much better workspace management features and it will be possible to easily switch between various working modes.

This would be a bad idea if it would be the default mode of operation, but it will not be and there will be settings to control these tools.

Subpath

Its seems a bit absurd to me.

As I already wrote, the Pen Tool could already be used
with Vector Brushes long before this Discussion.
As i show in a Video above.

In the End I'm just arguing for easier use. So that one
can instead of having to adjust the size of the vector brush.
Someone could start right away with the right size.

b77

@VectorStyler and @Subpath
I'm trying to see both sides here.

@Ingolf doesn't say it, but one possible UX glitch with the Pencil-as-a-brush idea is that if the previously selected object has a brush contour and now you want to draw in simple lines, will switching to the Pencil tool reset the contour to simple line?

If it doesn't switch, it breaks the convention that the app draws new objects with the attributes of the previous object.

If it does switch, most users forget that the Pencil tool is now in Brush mode (well, basically…), will draw the first line then have to go to the dropdown menu and switch to the plain line they needed in the first place.

That's why differentiation is better between these two. IMO, of course.

@Ingolf Do you think the same confusion can happen to the Pen tool with a direct brush contour?

Subpath

@b77

I must state here, that i have nowhere in this thread pleaded for the Pencil Tool.
As can be read in my posts.
Only for the Pen Tool.

b77

@Subpath Oh… all right. Well, it's a long thread.

Subpath

@b77

thats right

Devil Dinosaur

Cool design !

Ingolf

@Ingolf Do you think the same confusion can happen to the Pen tool with a direct brush contour?

Absolutely. Only confusion can result from this. And the most complex preferences in the universe.

And moving the lab to the production environment won’t make the product sell better. Or better.

Subpath

All I hear is that everything ends in confusion.
And it sounds like the world will coming to a bitter end.

So honestly, I can only shake my head. If this is already causing so much confusion,
what about the other features of VS ?

I can say that I don't feel any confusion about the fact when the pen tool works in this way,
even though it can be turned off.

But I do feel a lot of confusion about this kind of discussion.

Ingolf

Let’s not ask five die hard year long users about it. Power users. Let’s ask the new users or trial users that didn’t buy a license. Several people.

Yes much of the user interface is confusing because there are way too many options everywhere. Complexity. And looking at much of it I know it will almost never be used. But we will all see it in the interface.

I can handle it but I positively know from my 25 years in software development as a customer where both novice users and professional users draw the line. And how many features we retired after customer feedback revealed it was rarely used.

I like that the software can be configured. But it still is an acquired taste. And it doesn’t make a program more usable. Only for us. And we are ever so few.

You can shake your head all you want. The market decides. Lets see how that turns out.

b77

@Ingolf said in Draw tool sticky settings?:

@Ingolf Do you think the same confusion can happen to the Pen tool with a direct brush contour?

Absolutely. Only confusion can result from this. And the most complex preferences in the universe.

And moving the lab to the production environment won’t make the product sell better. Or better.

Ooh-kay… I cannot disagree.

I feel like @Dazmondo's initial idea of having a checkbox that locks the current stroke type (plain, brush or pattern) for the other drawing tools would be good and avoid any confusion — I mean, if the user clicks it he knows what to expect, right?