Unify point tangent, angle\length\direction
Short rationales:
Point Angle - I need a way to control the exact angle of point handles to unify them across a design. Currently the only way to control the angle is to constrain it to vertical, horizontal, or 45 degree angles.
Point Handle Length\Direction - If you grab a point handle and make it a different length or direction than the handle on the other side of a point, there is currently no way to re-unify them besides re-drawing the curve.
There is also no also no way to scale handle length along the direction or angle you’ve already set.
More information:
Point Angle - There is currently no way to control the exact rotation of a point, so if for example, I need one point at 29 degrees and another at 82 degrees, there’s no way to specify this. Also, if I have a series of points across a design and I want all of the tangent angles to match, there’s no way to do it. This is especially troublesome when drawing type. Very often you want points at 0 degrees, 90 degrees and then an italic angle across all of the letters. The closest you can currently come to specifying that is creating a series of guidelines, but that can become very cumbersome and they don’t often aline with the exact point coordinates.
Point Handle Length\Direction - Every single design that I use the pen tool on, I come across a situation where I either uncouple point handle directions, or lengths. If I want to get the perfect angle and direction set on one side and then want to match it on the other, I can’t. I have to use the Anchor Point Tool to redraw the curve, which causes the line to reset. This is also an issue when drawing things like type. If you use, for example, the Direct Selection Tool, and drag a handle out to create a shape, there’s no way to then drag the other handle out on the same line, or to unify it’s corresponding handle’s length.
Michael Wilson
shared this idea
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Michael, this should exist in Ai from the box, I agree.
But there is a beautiful plugn that does exactly that — PathScribe from AstuteGraphics. It worth every coin they ask for it. While Adobe implements the feature, just don’t wait. It allows to do many more than what you ask :)
