Curve handle questions

From:

After placing and editing a few handles on a curve, I keep running into a couple of problems.

1. When a curve have multiple points (all white squares, *not* black squares), I have a hard time clicking on one of them precisely to re-edit. Is there a way to snap to a point precisely, so that the neighboring points are not disturbed?

You can cycle thru the points with ctrl-tab. This is probably the most precise way to access a point on the curve.

Bill

1. When a curve have multiple points (all white squares, *not* black
squares), I have a hard time clicking on one of them precisely to re-edit.

I believe you mean "path," not "curve."

If you make a path with many, many points that are close together, chances are that you aren’t making the path properly. For example, a circle should have 4 points, no more; a quarter-circle should have 2 points. often, people will make a path by clicking many times with the Pen tool, not really understanding how to follow a curve.

1. Once in a while, a curve with multiple points will have more than one handles on them (black squares and white squares). When dragging on one handle, the other handles move along with it.

Yes, that is correct.

There are 3 kinds of points on a curve: Connector points, which you make just by clicking with the mouse, and which have no handles; Corner points, which have 2 handles that move separately; and Smooth points, which have 2 handles that move together.

You click, hold down the mouse button, and drag to create a smooth point. You turn one kind of point into another kind of point with the Convert Direction Point tool–it looks like a caret, or you can access it with the Pen tool selected by holding down the Command (PC: Control) key on the keyboard.

You use connector points to make geometric figures with straight lines–for example, a square. You use smooth points to create smoothly flowing, curved lines. You use corner points to create a corner where two or more curved lines come together.

—
Art, literature, shareware, polyamory, kink, and more:
http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

Bill Hilton wrote:

From:

After placing and editing a few handles on a curve, I keep running into a couple of problems.

1. When a curve have multiple points (all white squares, *not* black squares), I have a hard time clicking on one of them precisely to re-edit. Is there a way to snap to a point precisely, so that the neighboring points are not disturbed?

You can cycle thru the points with ctrl-tab. This is probably the most precise way to access a point on the curve.

Bill

Thanks, I’ll try that.

I do mean "curve", not "path".

Tacit wrote:

1. When a curve have multiple points (all white squares, *not* black squares), I have a hard time clicking on one of them precisely to re-edit.

I believe you mean "path," not "curve."
If you make a path with many, many points that are close together, chances are that you aren’t making the path properly. For example, a circle should have 4 points, no more; a quarter-circle should have 2 points. often, people will make a path by clicking many times with the Pen tool, not really understanding how to follow a curve.

1. Once in a while, a curve with multiple points will have more than one handles on them (black squares and white squares). When dragging on one handle, the other handles move along with it.

Yes, that is correct.

There are 3 kinds of points on a curve: Connector points, which you make just by clicking with the mouse, and which have no handles; Corner points, which have 2 handles that move separately; and Smooth points, which have 2 handles that move together.

You click, hold down the mouse button, and drag to create a smooth point. You turn one kind of point into another kind of point with the Convert Direction Point tool–it looks like a caret, or you can access it with the Pen tool selected by holding down the Command (PC: Control) key on the keyboard.
You use connector points to make geometric figures with straight lines–for example, a square. You use smooth points to create smoothly flowing, curved lines. You use corner points to create a corner where two or more curved lines come together.

—
Art, literature, shareware, polyamory, kink, and more:
http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

I have a related path question. If I want a curved path between two points, with a single centerpoint with an symmetric curve thru both sides of that point, i.e. a smooth curve between two points, is there an easy way to achieve that?