True customisable drawing 'angles' for all tools when using SHIFT key (pen, pencil, brush).
This is severely lacking in illustrator and has been developed by Affinity Designer with work arounds (that do not work in a suitably fluid way) by Astute Graphics for Illustrator.
Best case scenario something is implemented like Affinity Designer in which 'constraint angles' are replaced by ‘Grid and Snapping Axis’ you are able to set and save presets of angle settings.
These axis are set and then can be activated as a constraint on your current tool by holding shift.
Smart guides provides this in a VERY limited way right now, the UI is very rudimentary for a setting that is so important.
These settings need to be centralised in one place, not hidden!
Doug John Miller
shared this idea
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Related requests:
1. More fields to Smart Guides angles — http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/48960053
2. Smart Guides and the Rotate Tool: Incremental Rotation Angles — http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/39621259 -
I’d say smart guides happened after the initial 0-45-90 Shift constraints got added, and devs decided not to mix these together, so that Shift always worked as expected even with custom SG angles... After all, holding Shift is not 'Smart', it’s 'Forced'... but I get your idea.
Presets is clear enough as well.
Not sure if I get about the 'tool' though... accessing a section in Preferences is not a tool, and adding not a tool to a toolbar would be extra-cinfusing and wrong.
A customizable panel with various buttons for different commands is another thing (and there was a request about it around).
But perhaps it’s not what you meant... -
1. I think yes, my natural instinct is to be able to activate any constraint/ snapping to that constraint by holding shift, probably there is a reason the smart guides aren’t not bound to shift (?) but it would be great to have the option toggle if thats the simplest way of achieving this.
2. Yes the existing customisation of angles in Smart guides is absolutely the closest thing to what I’m thinking of (if it was able to be bound to shift). Its great to be able to set the angles, but frustrating not to be able to control it with Shift for all tools (pen, pencil, brush etc)
3. I think it would be nice to have the ability to create customisable presets you can easily save /load once you have set a group of angles.
4. Could this be accessible from the tool bar as an ‘Axis’ or ‘Plane’ type tool?
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DirectPrefs panel by Astute Graphics actually does not introduce new controls, but just eases the way to customize the existing parameter, Constrain Angle, accessible in Preferences > General, the second field from above. Zero by default, it makes Shift to follow horizontal and vertical axes.
If you set it to something like 15 — well, if you use DirectPrefs, you know how it works, axes get rotated by 15°.Assuming you know that — what do you suggest exactly?
Currently these snapping angles would still be 45° away from each other, that is just increased or decreased by said 15° or other value...
Do you want these to be completely custom? Smart Guides section, as you noticed, provides a way to define up to six angles — but these are not bound to Shift — do you mean to combines these with Constrain Angle parameters and make AI to follow set angles when Shift is held?
