Please add knife tool to Inkscape

[Shriramana Sharma]

The knife tool is a very useful one while working with vector images. Inkscape should add one.

In the case of a path (whether enclosed or not) or object without a fill, you run a knife across a path and it splits into two at the exact place(s) where the knife touched it. While right now we have the toolbar button to break path at selected point, it requires that there be already a point at the precise location where we wish to cut the path. The knife tool OTOH *creates* the point or rather two endpoints of the two resultant paths with anchors of course. This would be a huge usability improvement.

In the case of an enclosed path/object with a fill, a knife need not work unless it traverses the entirety of the path/object. That is, if you drag a knife from outside a path to its center, it need not work (at least I don't see any point in it). But if you drag a knife across an enclosed path with a fill or an object, it should split that path/object into two enclosed paths / objects with fill, with the path of the knife from the entry point to the exit point being added as an additional straightline segment to both the two resultant enclosed paths.

(Note that I am not sure about what to do for open paths with a fill. Basically it just appears like a closed path with the endpoints of the open path being joined by a straight line when filled. I am not sure what the feature of adding a fill to an open path is in aid of in the first place. So I leave that case to the devels to decide.)

A step above from straightline cutting would be freehand cutting, but I leave that for later. At least straightline cutting would be tremendously useful.

Refs:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/illustrator/cs/using/WS714a382cdf7d304e7e07d0100196cbc5f-6455a.html#WS714a382cdf7d304e7e07d0100196cbc5f-6452a

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/illustrator/cs/using/WS714a382cdf7d304e7e07d0100196cbc5f-6246a.html#WS49B38026-E630-4b8e-8ABF-2AA6C629AE59a

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Duplicate of Bug #170132 (sf880099) “Add razor tool”?
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/170132>

[Shriramana Sharma (jamadagni)]

Correct, chronologically speaking this is a duplicate of that, but commonly (as in Illustrator and other apps) the tool is known as the "knife" tool and not the "razor" tool. (Obviously, as a knife "cuts" whereas a razor "shaves"!)

This is also why it didn't show up in the search results before I reported my bug.

Now as I have also provided more details about the desired behaviour of the knife tool here, I am taking the liberty of marking *that* bug as a dup of *this* one.