GSoC2009 Node Tool Rewrite

This page tracks the progress of the node tool rewrite project which is a part of the Google Summer of Code 2009. This project is being implemented by Krzysztof Kosiński, and the mentor is Bulia Byak. This page will be kept updated with the current status of the student's code (it may not reflect the code in the trunk).

Feature Checklist

Feature	Description	Old tool	New tool
Selection
Object selection	Selecting objects to node-edit (incl. Shift-click, Alt-click); ignores groups	Yes
Selecting single nodes	Whether selecting single nodes with left-click works correctly.	Yes
Select segment	Click on a path segment to select adjacent nodes	Yes
Selecting multiple nodes	Shift-click to toggle selection of a node	Yes
Select all	Ctrl+A selects all nodes in subpaths that have something selected, Ctrl+Alt+A selects all nodes	Yes
Deselect	Esc or click outside of selected paths to deselect	Yes
Multi-path selection	Selecting nodes in two or more different paths	No
Prev/Next node	Tab to select next node, Shift+Tab to select previous	Yes
Invert Selection	! key inverts node selection in selected subpaths, Alt+! in the whole path	Yes
Nodeset selection cue	Whether a selection cue with transform handles can be toggled for sets of nodes (needs sensible behavior when one node is selected)	No
Transforms
Move	Moving selections of nodes	Yes
Move with keyboard	arrows, Shift+arrows, Alt+arrows, Shift+Alt+arrows	Yes
Scale with mouse	Scaling node sets with the mouse (needs selection cue)	No
Scale with keyboard	Both Ctrl and Alt keys + >, <	Yes
Rotate with mouse	Rotating node sets with the mouse	No
Rotate with keyboard	Both Ctrl and Alt keys and [, ]	Yes
Skew with mouse	Skewing node sets with the mouse	No
Skew with keyboard		No
Flip nodes	v for vertical flip, h for horizontal	Yes
Movement restriction	Ctrl to restrict movement to axes	Yes
Sculpting	Alt to move selected nodes depending on their distance from the cursor	Yes
Affect handles	Ability to specify whether handles should be transformed (toggle button)	No
Node actions
Add nodes	Double-click on path segment to add node	Yes
Delete nodes	Del to remove nodes while trying to preserve shape	Yes
Join nodes	Fuse two nodes into one	Yes
Multi-path node join	Joining nodes in different paths works sensibly	No
Join segment	Joining two nodes with a segment works correctly	Yes
Multi-path segment join	Join between subpaths in different paths works	No
Delete segment	Removing a path segment between two nodes	Yes
Align nodes	Alignment actions in Align and Distribute dialog	Yes
Snap nodes	Nodes snap according to snap settings when transformed	Yes
Display
Unselected path outline	Outline promptly flashes when hovering over a unselected path	Yes
Selected path outline	Outline of the selected path is drawn	Yes
Handles
Handle display	Handles are displayed on the selected nodes and their neighbors	Yes
Flip handles	v for vertical flip, h for horizontal	Yes
Lock handle length	Alt to move handles while preserving length	Yes
Move along handles	Ctrl+Alt to restrict node movement to the handle lines	Yes
Drag out handles	Shift + mouse drag to drag out a handle that coincides with a node	Yes
Restrict movement	Ctrl to restrict handle movements to ~15 degree angle increments from axis-aligned and the original angle	Yes
Snap handles	Handles can be snapped to other snap targets	No
Copy / paste handles	Ability to copy and paste handles between nodes	No
Copy / paste subpaths	Ability to add a subpath by pasting it into the selected path	No
Extras
Drag tolerance	Drags shorter than a configurable distance are regarded as clicks	Yes
Clip / mask editing	Buttons to edit the clipping and masking paths in place	Yes
Path effect param editing	Button to to edit the next path parameter of the selected live path effect	Yes
Prefs page	Node tool preferences page with various settings	Yes

Inkscape key guide for the node tool - more detailed description of the old node tool's features