Re - New Tool, 'Define Polyline widths per segment'

[Clive]

What a great new tool we have, excellent Andrew, thanks for this.

Suggestion, if I draw a random polyline with say 6 segments, it would be good to be able to select for example only the second segment so that I can define the start and finish width of that particular segment. Currently if I select my polyline it will select all of the segments it includes and there is no way of changing only the segment I need, in this example the second one. May I suggest an option to select only the segments I need to select, unless of course there is a very clever way to do this which I haven't been able to think of.

[Clive]

Ah, strange .As an experiment, I've just selected my '6 segmented' polyline and changed the start and end widths and indeed it did change them but only in the first segment - then exploded the polyline and now I have 6 polylines instead of just one
.... but when this is done on a polyline without attempting to define any start and end widths you get what you would expect - 6 lines instead of 6 polylines?

[andrew]

In the property editor, you can set the start / end width of any individual polyline segment using the index property:

Screen Shot 2015-10-06 at 15.58.26.png (86.52 KiB) Viewed 11371 times

Note that you can see a small blue circle in the drawing area indicating the currently selected vertex in the property editor. Start and end width refer to the next segment after the selected vertex.

It's not very comfortable as it is and there might be other ways to do this in the future.

[Clive]

Ah ha, I see, thanks I got it now .

Yes maybe some feedback in the command line or something like that that draws the users attention. Also The blue highlighter ring could be a brighter colour, maybe yellow?

[andrew]

Ah, strange .As an experiment, I've just selected my '6 segmented' polyline and changed the start and end widths and indeed it did change them but only in the first segment - then exploded the polyline and now I have 6 polylines instead of just one
.... but when this is done on a polyline without attempting to define any start and end widths you get what you would expect - 6 lines instead of 6 polylines?

Exploding a polyline with individual segment widths will give you the 'outlines' of those segments as new polylines. Segments without width are exploded into regular polylines which can be further exploded if needed.

Screen Shot 2015-10-06 at 16.09.08.png (33.37 KiB) Viewed 11365 times

[Clive]

Segments without width are exploded into regular polylines which can be further exploded if needed.

When I draw a regular polyline, say with 6 segments, with out any widths, once exploded I get 6 lines?

[andrew]

Yes.

[Clive]

Segments without width are exploded into regular polylines which can be further exploded if needed.

Sorry Andrew if I'm not understanding this properly, how does 'Yes' fit in with your previous statement?

[andrew]

Not sure I follow. There are two different possibilities:
- Polyline without any individual widths assigned to any segments -> explode -> lines and arcs
- Polyline with individual widths assigned to one or multiple segments -> explode -> polylines representing outline

I.e. nothing has changed for polyline which are not using individual widths for segments.

[Clive]

It's okay Andrew, I misunderstood what you were saying, but it's all clear now, thanks very much.

[Clive]

Also The blue highlighter ring could be a brighter colour, maybe yellow?

This option already exists - 'I can't see for looking'

Application preferences > Colours > Auxiliary shapes