As usual over the last couple decades, it only takes me seconds to find bugs and problems with latest Corel release. 2020 is no exception. The behavior of the pen tool is awful. I don't remember if it was always that awful, of if this is new. I select the pen tool and just start drawing a shape. I go back over the line that I'm drawing and place a node on a random place on the line. Here is where it fails instantly. I hold control, grab that node and move it's position. Then I press undo......nothing happens....I press undo 10 more times and nothing happens. So I hit the escape key, or click on the artboard, then press undo again and now it's working. I repeat this set of steps a few more times in order to be sure of what I'm seeing and the steps that are required to do it.
Furthermore, when using the pen tool, the pen tool unexpectedly changes form pen to some kind of node selector tool. What I expect to happen is that I can switch to such a tool by holding the Control key or some key modifier. But what Coreldraw is doing is, it is switching to that tool on it's own. So, I'm holding the pen tool, and I'm needing the pen tool because I want to place a node on the line, but it can't because Coreldraw has arbitrarily switched to a node selection or editor tool. In order to get the pen tool back, it seems that I must click multiple times on the line and get completely out of the flow of what I was actually doing. This behavior is unbelievably bad for software that professionals need to rely on for a living.
I found all of that within the first 1 minute of installing the demo. I wonder if I should check to see if some of the traditionally broken stuff has been fixed in this release. It would be shocking if it has.
If I keep looking, I'm going to find many more bugs.
KuttyJoe said:the pen tool unexpectedly changes form pen to some kind of node selector tool.
Doesn't happen here.If "Automatically add or delete nodes" is activated in Property Bar, it adds or deletes nodes as I click along an already drawn curve.If deactivated, clicking just keeps adding nodes to extend the line I draw.Please give us more details because I think it is working as designed.
When I hold the ctrl key the tool changes to the shape tool and allows the node to be moved, when I release the ctrl key it returns to the pen tool. The if I click on the on the page that returns control over to the pen tool I can undo or what ever.
It automatically should return to the pen tool without a click.
David Milisock said:When I hold the ctrl key the tool changes to the shape tool and allows the node to be moved, when I release the ctrl key it returns to the pen tool.
I select the pen tool. I create a path with a few nodes on it. I hold control key and it switches to the node editor while I’m holding it. So far so good. If I let go of control, it switches back to pen tool. This is still good and sensible behavior. But if I select a node and move it a centimeter, then release the control key, it does not go back to the pen tool to allow me to continue with what I was doing which was drawing a path. Now, if it is as Ronny Axelsson suggests, Corel is insisting that I MUST wish to edit nodes at this point rather than continuing to create the path. Once I move a node, the node tool becomes permanent. To make matters worse, undo does not work at this point so. It’s disappointing to find that Corel just can’t seem to get it right. Year after year. Decade after decade, their software is buggy.
KuttyJoe said:Once I move a node, the node tool becomes permanent.
I believe there may be a reason why shape editing mode becomes permanent, and that is because the Ctrl key is used to constrain movement (Shift can also be used nowadays but Ctrl was the original key) and to select additional nodes.If the Pen tool should get active as soon as we release Ctrl, it wouldn't be possible to work freely with shape editing any more.You may not like it but I can assure you that it is useful, it only takes a little time to get used to it.And an extra click to immediately get back to Pen tool isn't too bad, is it?I do agree that undo should work though, but it's no big deal to me either.
Ronny Axelsson said:If the Pen tool should get active as soon as we release Ctrl, it wouldn't be possible to work freely with shape editing any more.
If you wish to continue editing nodes, then you would simply continue to hold the control key. That is the nature of key modifiers and that's also the nature of key modifiers within Coreldraw....except here where it's clearly not making sense, or it's buggy. That temporary switching behavior is exactly how key modifiers differ from ordinary keyboard shortcuts.
It's not a matter of getting used to it. It takes more time to execute and without reason. It's like telling me that a bug that doesn't crash the software just takes some time getting used to. Sure, that's true. We all work through bugs and problems, but they still waste time.
Ronny Axelsson said:And an extra click to immediately get back to Pen tool isn't too bad, is it?
That logic can be used to forgive bugs too, can't it? It's just time. Or maybe, it's just a little bit of time. So maybe, we shouldn't worry ourselves over bugs, or anything else. To directly answer that question though, I would say it depends on the user. For me, it's not too bad because Coreldraw is not my main software, and when I do use it, I never use the pen tool since it's inferior to Illustrator even if it's working the way it's supposed to work.
Ronny Axelsson said:I do agree that undo should work though, but it's no big deal to me either.
LOL OK. The comment I made about how even bugs can be explained away as "not too bad" is perfectly illustrated in your response here.
Honestly, my point here was not to say that this was killing my workflow. It was to point out how Coreldraw never improves. Why shouldn't people expect better for their $500.00? They come here to vent to have you and others say, "no, it's not bad, you just don't like it."
After more experimentation, it gets much worse. I mentioned how the tool gets permanently changed when you select and move a node. But check this out. At first I was just moving the node once, but if I take that same node and move it, then again, again, (between 2 and 10 moves), it will suddenly go back to the pen tool! It's doing this over and over without fail. I can find two variables that helps to create this unpredictable behavior. The first is a matter of which thing you let go of first, the control key, or the mouse button. I'm finding that if I let go of the control key first, it might go back to the pen tool after 2 or 3 movements of the node. If I let go of the mouse button first, it might stay on the node tool for many more moves. Does this still seem like something that was created on purpose?
What happens on my systems is that when I hold the ctrl key I get the shape tool and it remains until I click the desktop then the pen tool returns, it does not matter 1 move or 50.
I am of the opinion that the pen tool should return as soon as you release the ctrl key.
Your system is certainly doing something different than mine and I've seen another system perform differently than mine with zooming the freehand mask tool.
I'm wondering if there are custom work spaces in play here?
No customized workspaces, it's just demo install. But what you describe about clicking on the desktop is what I've already said. You can get the pen tool back by clicking on the desktop, or by hitting the escape key. But what I'm saying is that, if idea is to switch permanently to the node editor tool, then it should remain on the node editor tool, and moving nodes around should not suddenly switch it back to the pen tool. The fact that it will switch back to the pen tool after some random amount of node tool usage really points to it being buggy rather than some kind of "feature" put there on purpose.
No way Dude this is a bug for sure, even a Canadian can't explain this behavior and make it stick.
KuttyJoe said:The comment I made about how even bugs can be explained away as "not too bad" is perfectly illustrated in your response here.
Wrong. I agreed that it should work = the bug should be fixed.For me personally though, it is not a bug that affects me and I don't think I have even noticed before, that's why it's no big deal to me.Regarding the extra click to get back to the Pen tool, that's how it is designed.Being able to let go of Ctrl and still continue in node editing mode is important, for reasons already mentioned, so the click to return is needed.The fact that it suddenly goes out of node editing is most likely a bug though.