Draw tool sticky settings?

[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?

[Ingolf]

@b77 said in Draw tool sticky settings?:

@Ingolf said in Draw tool sticky settings?:
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?

It is a much better and less intrusive idea but the right term would be sync brush/sync something. This option should be placed in the brush panel where it belongs and where there is more room for functionality.

The context panels are filled to the brim, and so the question is whether in the future you expect trial users or new customers to remove all the superfluous features, or think "this is too much for me" before it occurs to them. It would be more than naive to imagine thousands of new customers happily finding and using the opt-out. Not gonna happen.

And a context panel simply needs to be ultra-focused - not more chaos.

[Boldline]

@Ingolf
Everyone should be encouraged to share their ideas freely and any dissenting views should be respectful. One of the best aspects of VS and the forum is that ideas are encouraged and solicited and then are often added and tested. If they don't work well, they eventually get removed or modified until they do.

For example, none of this would be located here if I had my way - but for you and maybe others, this was something that was requested - so it got added and is being tested. There's a give and take.

@Ingolf said in Draw tool sticky settings?:

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.

@Ingolf said in Draw tool sticky settings?:

The context panels are filled to the brim, and so the question is whether in the future you expect trial users or new customers to remove all the superfluous features, or think "this is too much for me" before it occurs to them. It would be more than naive to imagine thousands of new customers happily finding and using the opt-out. Not gonna happen.
And a context panel simply needs to be ultra-focused - not more chaos.

You have offered many great suggestions and found many bugs over the years and those are appreciated. You have also preached about simplicity and avoiding chaos in the UI while being the major voice behind adding a ton of symbols and icons to the UI to avoid keyboard shortcuts. I don't see how one can request a more simplistic UI while at the same time asking for more and more icons and symbols that will inevitably cause the new user more confusion and look more overwhelming.

The fact that the developer is very involved and very responsive and willing to try new radical ideas to see a better VS result is a special thing. Contrast this with Illustrator or with Affinity, who do not engage their user base often and prefer to trust only a small handful of people. We don't always get what we want in VS, but we have the flexibility to try things and remove things (via the developer) and to see what works best... that is a major advantage over the competition

[VectorStyler]

For what I see, in these discussions, the pencil as a brush is not a good way to go. Luckily this is still optional, and basically has no impact on the code.

The Pen using a brush would be an option (if enabled in preferences). Here, the question is that if the last selection was a brush then what would the Pen tool do (again if the option is enabled)?

I think the default (and preferred) mode of functioning should be what already exists in other apps.
Anything else should be accessible (if supported) through options.

[Subpath]

@VectorStyler said in Draw tool sticky settings?:

The Pen using a brush would be an option (if enabled in preferences).

Here, the question is that if the last selection was a brush then what would the Pen tool do (again if the option is enabled)?
.
.
In my Opinion:

If the Option for "Vector Brushes" is activated for the Pen Tool
it should stay with Vector Brushes.
(e.g. the last ones used).

If this option is disabled, it should work as usual.

[Dazmondo]

@Subpath said in Draw tool sticky settings?:

If the Option for "Vector Brushes" is activated for the Pen Tool
it should stay with Vector Brushes.
(e.g. the last ones used).
If this option is disabled, it should work as usual.

Yes please ------ for me that would be a great solution when working on jobs similar to the examples shown earlier in the post.

[b77]

@VectorStyler The idea was to have a visible checkbox (no Prefs involved) that locks the contour type
so that if you enable it and switch from the Brush to the Pen tool, the Pen tool continues with
the same contour.

@Ingolf argues that this Lock/Sync checkbox should be placed in the Brush panel (to avoid cramming
the context bar), while me, myself and I don't mind it being visible and easily accessible in the
context bar (preferably after the Line/Brush dropdown).

Maybe he's right, or maybe being visible helps less experienced users figure out faster
what happened to the Pen tool if they forgot they clicked it.

But I think both of us agree that having this as an option in Preferences is not practical — you need this
sometimes to enable it quickly, not to go to the Prefs to find it.

[Dazmondo]

@b77 said in Draw tool sticky settings?:

having this as an option in Preferences is not practical — you need this
sometimes to enable it quickly, not to go to the Prefs to find it.

[Ingolf]

@VectorStyler said in Draw tool sticky settings?:

I think the default (and preferred) mode of functioning should be what already exists in other apps.
Anything else should be accessible (if supported) through options.

Damn right.

[Subpath]

would also plead for a way
where this option can be switched on and off
in a quickly accessible way

e.g. Brush panel or something similar