Edit nodes
Use node-edit when a path or shape is almost right and you want to fix it rather than redraw it: round a curve, sharpen a corner, drop a stray point, mirror half an outline, or fill the hole in a letter. You reshape it point by point and the stitches follow.
Enter it by double-clicking a vector with the Select tool, or with Edit shape in the floating action bar. Commit with Enter, cancel with Esc.
While you are in it, the essentials bar and the Properties panel carry the curve, node, and segment operations, so you don't have to go looking for them.
Select
| To select | Do this |
|---|---|
| One node or segment | Click it |
| Several | Shift-click each one; Shift-click again to drop one |
| A box of nodes | Drag across empty canvas (Shift adds to what is selected) |
| Every node | Ctrl/Cmd+A |
| Nothing | Click empty canvas, or Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+A |
In node-edit, Select all and Deselect act on the nodes, so you stay in the shape. Selecting several nodes, box selection, and everything below that acts on a selection are new in v1.3.2.
Move
- Drag a selected node or segment and the whole selection moves with it, as one piece. A single node drags as before; hold Alt to pull out its tangents.
- Arrow keys nudge the selected nodes: 0.1 mm, 1 mm with Shift, 10 mm with Ctrl/Cmd. Holding a key down is one undo step.
Slide a node along its lines
Hold Ctrl/Cmd and drag a node to slide it along the lines it sits on. The segment that guides it keeps its curve. Other selected nodes slide with it, so on a satin column a selected rung slides as one; a node outside the selection slides alone.
While Ctrl/Cmd is held, the selected nodes change color to show the mode, and no tangents are shown, so you cannot grab one by mistake. (On a Mac, Ctrl-click no longer opens the right-click menu here.)
Move, rotate, and scale with G, R, and S
With nodes selected, three keys transform them with the pointer, about the middle of the selection:
| Key | Does |
|---|---|
| G | Move |
| R | Rotate |
| S | Scale |
Then:
- X or Y locks movement or scaling to that axis; press it again to free it. (Rotation has no axis.)
- Type a number for an exact value: millimetres, degrees, or a factor. A move needs an axis locked first. - flips the sign, so S X - 1 mirrors the selection left to right.
- Hold Ctrl/Cmd to snap: 1 mm, 15°, or 0.1×.
- Click or Enter applies it, as one undo step. Esc or a right-click cancels. Pressing another of the three keys switches to it.
A readout shows the value as you go: "Move 2.0, 0.0 mm", "Rotate 15°", "Scale 1.5×".
- Double-click the leaf to enter node-edit.
- Drag a box across the nodes at the tip.
- Press S, type 1 . 5, and press Enter. The tip grows to 1.5× about its own middle.
- Press Shift+→ twice to push it 2 mm right, then Enter to leave node-edit.
These keys belong to node-edit only while something is selected in it. The rest of the time S picks the Individual stitch tool as usual.
Change several at once
With more than one part selected, a Selection view replaces the single-node controls: "3 nodes, 1 segment selected".
- Node type (Corner, Smooth, Symmetric) and Segment type (Line, Curve), applied to everything selected.
- Smooth selection curves the selected segments, and the segments at each selected node, into one smooth flow.
- Delete selection removes the selected nodes. With only segments selected, each one becomes a single node at its middle. It is all or nothing: if a contour would be left with too few nodes, nothing is deleted ("Can't delete: a contour would be left with too few nodes").
Tangents are hidden whenever two or more parts are selected.
Add and remove nodes
- Double-click a segment to add a node exactly where you click. On a satin column it adds a whole rung, with both ends selected.
- Insert anchor at midpoint, in the panel, adds one halfway along the selected segment.
- Smooth segment curves one selected segment to flow through its neighbours, leaving those neighbours as they are.
Delete nodes one after another
Deleting a single node (Delete, or Delete node in the panel) selects the node before it, so pressing Delete again keeps walking back along the curve. On a closed curve, deleting the first node wraps round to the last one. Deleting a segment clears the selection instead, and so does deleting a multi-part selection.
Whole-curve tools
With nothing selected, the panel shows tools for the whole curve:
- Close curve / Open curve connects the last point back to the first, or breaks that connection again (at least 3 points to close).
- Smooth curve re-fits every node into one flowing curve.
- Simplify is a slider that previews live on the canvas and commits only when you release.
- Fill holes, on a shape with holes (see below).
Holes
A shape with a hole in it, such as an imported letter "O" or a ring, can be filled in:
- Remove hole appears when the selected node or segment sits on a hole. It deletes that hole and all its nodes, so the shape fills there.
- Fill holes removes every hole at once, so the shape fills solid. It is in the whole-curve tools (with nothing selected), on the right-click menu, and in the floating action bar when the one selected shape has holes.
Both are one undo step, and both work on plain paths only: a rectangle, ellipse, star, text, or satin column is never offered them. A shape sitting inside a hole (an island) is not a hole and is left alone. New in v1.3.1.