Why is it so hard for Libreoffice draw to create polygons?

I click the polygon tool, drag to start it (why does it not start with a click?) and then click around to add some points.

Then i try:

  • Pressing Enter. Still editing
  • Clicking the original point. Still editing
  • I click the tool button to
    finalize, and it undoes everything!!

This is in 3.6.0.4. From the wiki, the solution is double-click on the original node. Is there a bug report about this being hard to use?

Agreed. Behaviour should be more like that in Inkscape, when drawing “freehand lines” or “Bezier curves / straight lines,” IMO. For the clarity of others, this is the polygon tool in Draw:

polygon tool

Unfortunately this problem appears to affect many tools e.g., line, line with an arrow, all the curve variants, all the lines and arrow variants. It is indicative of the click-n-drag use of the shape tools (e.g., rectangle, ellipse, basic shapes, etc.) being employed for all tools. Drawing any kind of line (or in this case curve, which is the toolbar button category) should be based around the Bezier-point and show these points while drawing.[1]

This is a list of currently open enhancement requests reported against Draw. It is a fairly short list but there does not appear to be one related to the issue raised in this question.

Please file an enhancement bug and provide as much information about this new feature as possible. Provide a link to this thread if necessary and indicate a different type of usage by reference to a tool where the behaviour is preferred e.g., Inkscape. Don’t forget to mark your bug as an ‘enhancement’. The QA team will be happy to help you triage your feature request in the bugtracker.

Please post a link to any bugs you file in a comment below using the format “fdo#123456”.

Thanks!

[1] I have not examined whether there are limitations within ODF v1.2 that preclude or inhibit the method of drawing being more Bezier-point based.

draw_path (for Bezier-curve and others curves), draw:polyline and draw:polygon are different elements in ODF. But you can convert between them in the UI.
To draw a Bezier-curve use the tool “Curve”. If you want to edit Bezier-curves you should enable the option to show all control points; that makes it easier.

@Regina, thanks. I presume the ODF use of draw:path, draw:polyline, and draw:polygon was defined for reasons of compatibility with the SVG <path>, <polyline>, and <polygon> elements?

I do not think, that polygons are difficult to draw. There is a simple rule: continue drawing → single click, last point → double click.
If you are in sub-path mode (ALT modifier), you can double-click everywhere to finish.

Regina, thank you very much for your advice!
But it is not obviously for me and, probably, for many other people to double click to finish polyline.
I did

  • press enter
  • right click
  • press Esc

And after your help

  • double click