tracking a path (ctrl) with Calligraphy too tricky to use

[Trinitysquare]

Please see the attached video to see how the line jumps around a lot when
CTRL is held down.

IMHO it would work really well for the user if the direction could only go
back and forward with the line and only when the user takes his/her finger
of the CTRL key would it behave any differently. It seems there may be more
complicated functionality built into the feature that makes it more
tricky.

BTW this will be a really nice feature for creating natural looking
parallel lines.

[Slogger (slogger)]

I've noticed on my Ubuntu install that the calligraphy track tool seems to crash inkscape after extended usage with a wacom, but not mouse. However, I agree with this poster. It's too easy for the tool to jump path. I think it would work much better if it locked to path unless some obvious condition occurs. As it is, it jumps out and won't reattach quite often.

[golorengo (golorengo)]

It doesn't take extended use; with my Intuos3 tablet, the calligraphy tool crashes the program when I start the first tracked line.
I have XP, using version .46

[bbyak (buliabyak)]

in recent versions, improved connection to guide path, added inertia, fixed erroneous flipping - overall it got much easier to use imho, please test

[laborator (thomas-j-schrader)]

Hi, everybody,

unfortunately it's not working at all any more. After more or less strokes with guide tracking inkscape *always* crashes with an "internal error".

This reproduces very well on Mac OS X and Windows - Linux I have not tested, yet.

I wouldn't mind if it just jumps around from time to time - but crashing the whole application without backing up the drawing is a *no go*. Please fix or revert this to the state before - it makes the app unstable.

Can you reproduce the crashing? How can I track down this for you? Is there anything logged anyplace?

Thanks for the great app, anyway.

Cheers

laborator

[su_v (suv-lp)]

on OS X:

A) console error messages:
1) open 'Applications > Utilities > Console', select 'All Messages' from the log list, clear the display
2) Restart Inkscape and reproduce the crash
3) Copy all console messages that are displayed in the 'Console' window, paste them into a new TextEdit document (in 'Plain Text' format) and save it

B) CrashReporter log file
4) in 'Console' display the log list again and go to
   'Logfiles > ~/Library/Logs > CrashReporter'
5) look for the related (latest) crash report for 'inkscape-bin', ctrl-click it and use 'Reveal in Finder' to locate it. The crash report contains a backtrace (I never got a better one when I ran gdb on OSX manually while reproducing a crash).

Attach both the crash reporter file and the saved console messages to your next comment here (please attach, don't paste ;-)

[su_v (suv-lp)]

oh - forgot to ask: any information about your input devices would be valuable too, as well as more info about the os versions used.

[laborator (thomas-j-schrader)]

thank you for the hints.

so, last things, first:

OS: Mac OS X 10.6.2, XQuartz 2.3.4 (xorg-server 1.4.2-apple45), Windows 7

Hardware: Mac Mini core duo 1.66, 2007 with Wacom Intuos 4 small on USB, driver 6.6.1-2

error log follows ...

[laborator (thomas-j-schrader)]

console message reads

lib2geom exception: Non-contiguous path

file attached

[laborator (thomas-j-schrader)]

diagnostic report

[laborator (thomas-j-schrader)]

and this time it *did* save an emergency file

[laborator (thomas-j-schrader)]

come back to me any time for more investigations. I'm keen to get this fixed ...

Thank you very much.

Cheers

laborator

[laborator (thomas-j-schrader)]

and I forgot to mention the scenario:

sometimes it works over 10 or 20 strokes before crashing but then it always crashes at the very beginning of the next stroke holding ctrl and when the pen touches the tablet

[su_v (suv-lp)]

@laborator - this crash has already been filed separately in bug #284546 “SVN, rev.19997: Crash on using calligraphy tracing tool with wacom tablet”: <https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/284546>

I propose you subscribe to that report and add a comment there summarizing what you have posted here.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

another related report could be
bug #324673 “Calligraphy tool crashes app when guide path used”:
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/324673>

[laborator (thomas-j-schrader)]

OK, I'll put it there.

So at least the original bug is gradually fixed, because it won't flip around too much as it did before ... just sometimes a bit in the end of the guide stroke. Seems OK to me.

Tested on Mac OS X and Windows 7

Cheers

laborator