Curve tool question

[raviel lord of phantasms]

Question summed up: Can I have the line/curve tool work like that of ms paint (no nubs on the drawn lines) as an option or with the help of some plugin?

 

Upon drawing a line/curve four control nubs appear on the line allowing for manipulation by clicking and dragging if a curve is desired. To me the four nubs are impractical as opposed to ms paint approach where a line is drawn and if a curve is desired you click away two times towards the direction you want the curve at and its done, no nubs whatsoever. Now, I don't hate the nubs per say but here is the deal: I need to draw many curved lines in succession while the new line should begin where the previous line ends. In order to commit a line/curve to the active layer we have 4 options, 1. Press the enter key (which is okay but when you have to draw hundreds of lines in succession, clicking enter every time is really a hustle and not having to do so like in ms paint would be liberating), 2. Click outside of the bounding box of the current line (which is also an extra step, plus it results in an unwanted dot painted), 3. click finish in the tool bar (another extra step) or 4. Draw a new line/curve (that is the ideal but since the next line should begin where the previous ends, a nub at the edge is always preventing me to draw the new one which will have me resort in one of the 3 time consuming alternatives). Is there a way to at least have only the two middle nubs appear when drawing a line? From what I've searched I understand its probably not possible but thought I'd take a chance here anyway. In fact if there is no such thing I would like to encourage someone experienced to make happen! I recognize that the nubs do have merits but I imagine it shouldn't be that hard to have an option of having less of them on the line and I bet others would find it useful as well!

 

Paint.net offers many advantages over ms paint but just because I love the latter's curve tool I'm using it for certain things going back and forth between programs which is time consuming so I'm looking for possible solutions.

Edited December 23, 2020 by raviel lord of phantasms

[Pixey]

Hello @raviel lord of phantasms and welcome

 

We do have a Plugin in paint.net for just this:

 

 

It takes a bit of getting used to, but here is a great tutorial on how to get started:

 

 

Also, you may find this subject helpful on downloading Plugins:

 

https://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/InstallPlugins.html

[raviel lord of phantasms]

Wow thank you for that! Experimented a little with it and its highly interesting so I'm glad to discover it, however its not what I'm looking for now.

Let me rephrase what I need in retrospect and what bothers me with the paint.net line/curve tool so you can possibly enlighten me with another alternative: Upon drawing a line four control nubs appear on the line allowing for manipulation by clicking and dragging if a curve is desired. To me the four nubs are impractical as opposed to ms paint approach where a line is drawn and if a curve is desired you click away two times towards the direction you want the curve at and its done, no nubs whatsoever. Now, I don't hate the nubs per say but here is the deal: I need to draw many curved lines in succession while the new line should begin where the previous line ends. In order to commit a line/curve to the active layer we have 4 options, 1. Press the enter key (which is okay but when you have to draw hundreds of lines in succession, clicking enter every time is really a hustle and not having to do so like in ms paint would be liberating), 2. Click outside of the bounding box of the current line (which is also an extra step, plus it results in an unwanted dot painted), 3. click finish in the tool bar (another extra step) or 4. Draw a new line/curve (that is the ideal but since the next line should begin where the previous ends, a nub at the edge is always preventing me to draw the new one which will have me resort in one of the 3 time consuming alternatives). If there is a way to have only the two middle nubs appear when drawing a line that would be good. From what I've searched I understand its probably not possible but thought I'd take a chance here anyway. In fact if there is no such thing I would like to encourage someone experienced to make happen! I recognize that the nubs do have merits but I imagine it shouldn't be that hard to have an option of having less of them on the line and I bet others would find it useful as well!

I'm open to any other alternative I may be unaware of.

[raviel lord of phantasms]

2 hours ago, Pixey said:

Hello @raviel lord of phantasms and welcome

 

We do have a Plugin in paint.net for just this:

 

 

It takes a bit of getting used to, but here is a great tutorial on how to get started:

 

 

Also, you may find this subject helpful on downloading Plugins:

 

https://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/InstallPlugins.html

Wow thank you for that! Experimented a little with it and its highly interesting so I'm glad to discover it, however its not what I'm looking for now.

 

Let me rephrase what I need in retrospect and what bothers me with the paint.net line/curve tool so you can possibly enlighten me with another alternative: Upon drawing a line four control nubs appear on the line allowing for manipulation by clicking and dragging if a curve is desired. To me the four nubs are impractical as opposed to ms paint approach where a line is drawn and if a curve is desired you click away two times towards the direction you want the curve at and its done, no nubs whatsoever. Now, I don't hate the nubs per say but here is the deal: I need to draw many curved lines in succession while the new line should begin where the previous line ends. In order to commit a line/curve to the active layer we have 4 options, 1. Press the enter key (which is okay but when you have to draw hundreds of lines in succession, clicking enter every time is really a hustle and not having to do so like in ms paint would be liberating), 2. Click outside of the bounding box of the current line (which is also an extra step, plus it results in an unwanted dot painted), 3. click finish in the tool bar (another extra step) or 4. Draw a new line/curve (that is the ideal but since the next line should begin where the previous ends, a nub at the edge is always preventing me to draw the new one which will have me resort in one of the 3 time consuming alternatives). If there is a way to have only the two middle nubs appear when drawing a line that would be good. From what I've searched I understand its probably not possible but thought I'd take a chance here anyway. In fact if there is no such thing I would like to encourage someone experienced to make happen! I recognize that the nubs do have merits but I imagine it shouldn't be that hard to have an option of having less of them on the line and I bet others would find it useful as well!

I'm open to any other alternative I may be unaware of.

[ardneh]

If you ignore the end nodes they will not move.

 

Quickly clicking once off-canvas will "kill" the line.
 

[Ego Eram Reputo]

6 hours ago, raviel lord of phantasms said:

Upon drawing a line/curve four control nubs appear on the line allowing for manipulation by clicking and dragging if a curve is desired. To me the four nubs are impractical as opposed to ms paint approach where a line is drawn and if a curve is desired you click away two times towards the direction you want the curve at and its done, no nubs whatsoever.

 

Have you tried using the Bezier option in the toolbar when drawing curves?

 

Default type is cubic spline

The other option is Bézier

 

2 hours ago, raviel lord of phantasms said:

I need to draw many curved lines in succession while the new line should begin where the previous line ends.

 

Use ShapeMaker. Seriously. It has an option to begin the next curve from the last end point & will even snap to it.

 

The workaround:

1. Draw a line
2. Add a new layer with Ctrl + Shift + N
3. Draw the next line.
4. Use the Move Tool (Keyboard shortcut: M) to adjust the start position of the new line to match the end of the previous line.
5. Merge the layer down with Ctrl + M
6. Repeat from 2.

 

 

2 hours ago, raviel lord of phantasms said:

In order to commit a line/curve to the active layer we have 4 options, 1. Press the enter key (which is okay but when you have to draw hundreds of lines in succession, clicking enter every time is really a hustle and not having to do so like in ms paint would be liberating),

 

Press enter. There is no click. You're not going to find a simpler option of committing to the canvas. This action is very common in PDN.

 

 

 

[raviel lord of phantasms]

55 minutes ago, Ego Eram Reputo said:

 

Have you tried using the Bezier option in the toolbar when drawing curves?

 

Default type is cubic spline

The other option is Bézier

 

 

Use ShapeMaker. Seriously. It has an option to begin the next curve from the last end point & will even snap to it.

 

The workaround:

1. Draw a line
2. Add a new layer with Ctrl + Shift + N
3. Draw the next line.
4. Use the Move Tool (Keyboard shortcut: M) to adjust the start position of the new line to match the end of the previous line.
5. Merge the layer down with Ctrl + M
6. Repeat from 2.

 

 

 

Press enter. There is no click. You're not going to find a simpler option of committing to the canvas. This action is very common in PDN.

 

 

 

Yes I have tried the Bezier option it still has nubs at the line's edges preventing me from immediately drawing a new line, not to mention that with the nubs you have to click and drag when in ms paint you just click 2 times to form a curve which is faster. The whole point to my quest is for speed and efficiency.

The ShapeMaker doesn't cut it albeit a cool plugin.

Adding a new layer for every line would be also too much, I'm better off hitting enter as you suggest at that point (by the way I meant "pressing" the enter button when I wrote "clicking enter"). I understand its common but its still inconvenient to hit enter after every line when you could immediately begin a new one, its cutting the flow so to speak and in the grand scheme of things is wasted time along with the click and drag..

Ideally there could be something like a "ms paint style curve tool/plugin" or an option for less nubs on the lines but I guess there are no such things after all and I will either have to use both programs back and forth as always or make due with hitting enter every line. Thank you for answering though.

 

 

Edited December 23, 2020 by raviel lord of phantasms

[BoltBait]

Since you like MSPaint so much, I would recommend using that. 

[raviel lord of phantasms]

11 hours ago, BoltBait said:

Since you like MSPaint so much, I would recommend using that. 

I do use both but its time consuming and the only reason I use ms paint is the curve line that's why I'm looking for possible alternatives within paint.net to use it exclusively but it seems they don't exist at least for now. In some older posts I read from people needing something similar to me, Rick Brewster mentioned that he will probably improve the line/curve tool at some point but it wasn't a priority then, so helpful changes will possibly occur. How about this: Is there at least a way to change the key that commits the line to the active layer, from "enter" to something else? Because where enter is on the keyboard I have to keep my left arm internally rotated in order to have it there at all times to get the job done. If I could change the key to, say "ctrl" arm would at least be in better position.

[Djisves]

The time it took you to type the above, you could have tried all the keys on your keyboard and see what works and what not.

I usually hit the Escape (Esc) key. That should suit you as it's on the left side of the keyboard.

[ardneh]

Also:

 

Quote

Quickly clicking once off-canvas will "kill" the line.

No keyboard action required.

 

(And when I say "kill" I mean, of course, Finish.)
 

[raviel lord of phantasms]

43 minutes ago, Djisves said:

The time it took you to type the above, you could have tried all the keys on your keyboard and see what works and what not.

I usually hit the Escape (Esc) key. That should suit you as it's on the left side of the keyboard.

Wow thanks! Esc is definitely more comfortable, who would've thought it works as well.   

 

3 minutes ago, ardneh said:

Also:

 

No keyboard action required.

 

(And when I say "kill" I mean, of course, Finish.)
 

Thanks but that would also be an extra step since I'd have to move away the cursor after every line which doesn't seem like a big deal but in the grand scheme of things is a lot when you have to draw hundreds of lines.

 

Keeping left hand on the escape button and hitting it after each line seems to be the most viable option. Thank you all for your input! If anyone has other alternatives in mind that we may have overlooked you can still share them here.