[Ipe-discuss] Linejoin default value

[Otfried Cheong]

Johan Ingvast wrote:
> I don't understand how the linejoin works. It seem to be have the
mitered
> property by default. However not exactly.

"Default linejoin" uses the default settings in Postscript PDF, which is
  to use a miter join, unless the angle at which lines meet falls below
a certain limit (the miter limit), in which case a bevel join is used.

The miter limit is the Postscript standard value - Ipe does not
currently allow you to change this.

> Anyway this really does not matter that much for me because I prefer to
work with rounded linejoins.
> Is there any way I can change the default behavior so that I don't have
to change this for each line I make? I tried a long shot by adding 
<path join="1"/> to a stylesheet but that did not work.

There is currently no way to change the default setting, but you can 
still save some work: after finishing your drawing, select all, and 
group. Change the settings of the group object to Line cap: round and 
Line join: round, then ungroup again.  (However, this will destroy any 
layers you might have in your figure.)

I like your suggestion of allowing the style sheet to determine what the 
"default" option for line join and line cap should be. This would also 
allow for a way to change the default miter limit without burdening  every
single object with it.

> Then a small bug:
>     The pop up menu always show "Line join: default " independently of
the
>     state of linejoin.

Indeed.  Only after you set the line cap to round as well, it displays 
both settings.  It's also strange that you can't actually set either  back
to "default" (perhaps because default always meant the same as  mitered,
unless you were inside a group object, where the group setting  applies if
an object has the default setting).  As you can see, this is  a feature
that hasn't really been used or tested by users yet.

Otfried