Hi all,
was wondering if anyone has had the same issues I've had
with the path tool.

I would like at least one particular option that is
available in both Inkscape and PS: to be able to 'lock'
the control points of a single point such that the line
joining the two control points intersects the point
itself (i.e. the two control lines are parallel)

The reason is VERY simple and should be EXTREEMLY obvious
to anyone who has ever used The GIMP path tool.
You don't get a smooth line/curve across a point
unless the two tangents are the same (or very similar)
When trying to make a smooth curve with more than 2
points, the 2 control points for each non-end point must
be in a straight line that also intersects the point
itself.
It's a real PITA to have to adjust them by hand since it
isn't always easy to judge by sight.

Myself, I ended up writing a little Java program that
you export a path to an SVG and feed it into the Java
program and it spits out a slightly modified SVG where
any control point tangents that are within a specified
tolerance are corrected so they are the same.
Only problem is that you end up with paths that are not
really where you wanted them in the first place.
So I don't use it.
This actually came from firstly writing a little Java
app for generating a perfect gradient perpendicular to
a path (you have a path that has two colours on either
side and you draw a perpendicular line of chosen length
that starts as one colour and finishes as another colour
then spit out a PNG to be loaded as a layer.)
Yeah paths have become rather of interest to me
(and also somewhat of a bane)

Now, I'm not really asking anyone to implement this,
rather, I'm wondering if anyone could save me a lot of
time and help me with where I would change this in the
code and of course which version I should be looking at.
I can program as well as anyone (well better than most
actually) but of course I really don't want to start on
a life path of understanding The GIMP code inside out
to work out what is needed to be changed and what odd
preferences the programmers have (yes we all have them,
myself included - I really do understand a lot on the
subject of programming)

Anyway - is this worth me spending time on ...
or is it already going to be part of 2.4?
(I assume 2.4 is where I'll end up looking to change if
necessary)
Anyone with helpful info greatly appreciated.

AND - if it is possible to do from some sort of script
I guess that would be OK - but I find the scripting
language code I've seen not very easy to read (and I
will add that there are VERY few programming languages,
and TYPES of programming languages, that I haven't used)
- so I was surprised at my complete lack of understanding
of the scripting language without any background prior
knowledge of it.

-Thanks for any help

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