scaling/rotating node without leaving pen tool

I'm not sure I understand the request, but if it is to be
able to append new points to a line, I believe that was
implemented recently and should be available in the 0.42.2
release. Try it out and report back here one way or the other.

Thanks for taking the time to suggest ways to improve Inkscape.

Please help us by checking the latest version of Inkscape to make
sure this feature has not already been added and there are no
duplicate requests for this feature.

Im thinking about drawing not editing existing shape, when
Im draw something with pen tool in other soft I have option
when I click and node/point isn`t in correkt place I can
move it wthout changing tool just press key and move
node/point to another place and draw again it is small but
wery honey option.

English isn`t my native leanguage and mayby I can`t write
clear sorry

ok Im Get Latest development pack of Inkscape and I don`t
find these option, but maybe I cant Find it ? :/, I think
the change log isnt clear and easy to read for me, it must
be better fromating.
So Im keep eye open :) and wait for every change of lovely
Inkscape.

What he means is the possibility of temporarily changing to
the "edit nodes" tool while still in the process of drawing
a path. This feature exists as a convenient hotkey in most
commercial vector drawing software.

I tend to use that feature a lot when I draw complicated
Béziér shapes, because it is often hard to tell exactly
where amn anchor point should be placed along a smooth curve
until you follow through and drag out the tangents. The need
for thinking one step ahead while placing control points is
greatly reduced by having such a "quick tweak" option.
Without it, if you place a point in the wrong place and need
to move it, you can either move ahead and try to remember
for later that you need to go back and edit the curve
(that's how I do it now in Inkscape), or else you need to
close the path, leave the curve tool and select the "edit
node" tool, move the point, go back to the curve tool,
append to the line and continue drawing. Compared to one
quick click-and-fix, this is very slow.

This is the feature I am missing the most from Inkscape. I
can live without it, but it is a very handy shortcut indeed,
and it would really make the "curve" user interface more
efficient for both free-form and traced drawing.

I hope that makes the question clear. A fix is perhaps not
that easy, as it involves mixing the functionality of two
tools in the toolbox, but if you can find a solution it
would be very useful.

I have put some more thought into why I feel that the curve
drawing in Inkscape to be a bit awkward and slow compared to
Illustrator. Here's another small but important improvement
you might want to consider.

It is quite common to have paths that are built from both
straight line segments and curves. This is unnecessarily
hard to do in Inkscape: you have to right-click to stop
drawing and then shift-click to append to the path to go
from a smooth segment to a straight line, or vice versa.
This could be improved and speeded up with the aid of a
modifier key that would be accessible during curve drawing.
If you pressed some modifier key like "alt" and clicked
again on the last node, you could drag out a new tangent, or
not draw a tangent at all to start a straight line segment.

The very same modifier would allow users to draw corner
points on curves. Now you have to draw smooth curves, break
the corners afterwards and rotate one or both handles into
place.

If you have trouble understanding what I mean, look closer
at how the curve drawing tool works in Illustrator. I use
the "alt" key there all the time when I am drawing
complicated shapes, and I rather miss that functionality in
Inkscape. It not only saves time, it allows me to draw
significantly better and cleaner paths.

This, and perhaps also the previously mentioned "move/edit
node" modifier hotkey ("ctrl" is the key used in Illustrator
for this) accessible while drawing curves, would speed up
and improve the workflow in Inkscape quite a lot.

stegu Im with you.

What I'm planning to do to address this is to implement most
of the Node tool keys in Pen tool also, applying them to the
last created node. That is, while creating a path, you will
be able to press:

Arrows, Alt+arrows, Shift+Alt+arrows to move the last
created node

<, > with or without Alt/Shift to scale the bezier handle(s)
of the last created node

[, ] with or without Alt/Shift to rotate the bezier
handle(s) of the last created node

Shift+L to make the current segment line (i.e. retract the
bezier handle of the last created node)

Shift+U to make the current segment curve (i.e. extend the
bezier handle of the last created node)

I think even if this only applies to the last created node
only, it will still make Pen a lot more convenient to use,
as well as more consistent across tools. I hope this will
cover the issues in this RFE satisfactorily.

This would solve 99% of the problems I have with the pen
tool, and it seems reasonably straightforward to implement.
Good thinking!

The keys explained in comment #8 are now implemented (tested with 0.47).