Stroke not applied to shape after selecting & change stroke width or using Paint Bucket

[andrewgohlk]

Hi,
I am new to Moho.
Recently bought Moho 14.1 & followed the Tutorial to draw a tree.
When creating the trunk, I forgot to turn on auto stroke, and when I completed the tree trunk shape, it didn't have the black color stroke.
I tried to select the shape & change the stroke width, but it doesn't work. This is not expected like other graphic software. If the shape is selected, changing any attributes should effect the change.

Then I used the Paint Bucket to paint the trunk, but the stroke was not applied.
However, I noticed that when the leaves were over the trunk & I applied the Paint Bucket, it worked by creating another shorten trunk up to the leaves portion over the original trunk shape. Is this a bug?

[Greenlaw]

If Auto Stroke was not enabled when you created the shape, you need to enable Stroke for that shape manually. To do this, select the shape with the Select Shape tool, and then enable Stroke in the Style window.

Alternatively, you can also enable Stroke from the Select Shape tool's options bar. This might be quicker when you're in the drawing stage. They both work the same, but when I'm in the styling stage, it's better to work with the Style window.



Hope this helps.

[jtscribbles]

To follow up briefly on another part of your query, as recently discussed elsewhere on the forum, the paint bucket in Moho functions differently to what you might initially expect.

Instead of changing the colour of the shape you thought you were changing, it actually creates another shape. This is why it perhaps looked a little different in size/shape, too.

Hope this helps answer another part of your mystery!

[andrewgohlk]

If Auto Stroke was not enabled when you created the shape, you need to enable Stroke for that shape manually. To do this, select the shape with the Select Shape tool, and then enable Stroke in the Style window.

Alternatively, you can also enable Stroke from the Select Shape tool's options bar. This might be quicker when you're in the drawing stage. They both work the same, but when I'm in the styling stage, it's better to work with the Style window.



Hope this helps.

Thanks for the reply.
I used the Select Shape & change the Fill, the color of the tree trunk did change.
Then I tried the stroke, ensuring it's checked, & even change the color to Red, but the trunk did not have the stroke when I preview it.

[Greenlaw]

I'd have to see the project file in question because this really should work.

Maybe, for some reason, the shape really has no stroke property to edit and you will need to create it as a separate shape. To do this...

1. select the shape using the Select Shape tool
2. choose the Create Shape tool
3. disable Auto-fill and enable Auto Stroke
4. press Enter to create the stroke shape.

Now, you should be able to select the stroke shape and edit it.

The above really shouldn't be necessary, though as any valid shape with a fill should have the option to show the stroke. The only time I've had to create a separate stroke-only shape is when I need to animate segments of the stroke or to change stroke properties using animated shape order.

If you can post an example file, that would help because all I'm doing now is guessing.

Regarding jtscribbles post, he is absolutely correct: the Paint Bucket is not a tool for editing styles, it's a shape creation tool The proper way to change a style (Fill or Stroke) is to use Select Shape and the Style window to edit it.

IMO, it's better to create shapes with properly closed paths using the Create Shape tool. For example:

Use Create Shape to create shapes, and Select Shape to edit Style...



Paint Bucket should be reserved for creating shapes for a closed area that is not a closed path (i.e., overlapping paths.) Note about the Paint Bucket in 14.1: This tool seem to have a problem with creating optimal shapes compared to Moho 13.5.5 and earlier. IMO, I'm submitting a report to LM with details, but for now, you might try the 'hack' I posted in this thread:

Temporary Paint Bucket Fix for Moho 14.1

I'll demonstrate the difference if I have time later today. But to repeat, Paint Bucket is meant to be used as a shape-creation tool, not a Style-editing tool.

[Maestral]

While speaking of re-activating the stroke to the shape...
Sometimes it happens to me that I can't just click on the unchecked stroke box, neither on the top bar nor in the style panel, and add/check a stroke. It simply does not apply and remains greyed.

I've just tried to replicate it, by creating a shape in various ways, but I couldn't. Could be it was imported files (moho or other), I'm not sure. However, usually, I'll delete the shape and create a new one, on the existing path.

Thought somebody could have a clue about this and how to prevent it.

[Hoptoad]

While speaking of re-activating the stroke to the shape...
Sometimes it happens to me that I can't just click on the unchecked stroke box, neither on the top bar nor in the style panel, and add/check a stroke. It simply does not apply and remains greyed.

I've just tried to replicate it, by creating a shape in various ways, but I couldn't. Could be it was imported files (moho or other), I'm not sure. However, usually, I'll delete the shape and create a new one, on the existing path.

Thought somebody could have a clue about this and how to prevent it.

This happens when you have a Style name appearing in the "Name" box. NOT a Shape name, but a Style name.

The very first box of the Style window is "Name". It can be the name of a Shape (like S2) or the name of a Style, like "Grass."

Imagine if you named a Style "Grass" and made the Fill a grassy green color. Now, whenever "Grass" appears in the "Name" box, the FILL and STROKE boxes stop working. This is because Moho thinks you want to edit the colors of the "Grass" Style. Maybe you want the grass to be greener or whatever?

That's all that is happening. When the checkboxes stop working, Moho thinks you want to edit a Style because you selected a Style from the menu.

Just select a Shape (or multiple Shapes) and the checkboxes will work again.

[Maestral]

Thanks!
Most likely it was on imported files. Otherwise, I'll be aware of the applied style.

[andrewgohlk]

Attached is the Tutorial 1.02.moho file that I'm having problem with the stroke for the tree trunk.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/p60dt285 ... uf6ns&dl=0

[Greenlaw]

Hi andrewgohlk,

You're right; something weird is going on with the tree curve in your project.

I can create a new curve and shape in that layer, and it will display a stroke as normal. I can even create a new shape with Auto-Stroke disabled and display the stroke by checking the option in the Style window as previously described.

But I can't do that with the existing tree curve. It just refuses to display its stroke property. I can't even create a stroke-only shape on top of the existing fill shape without weird stuff happening. I checked that the tree curve was valid, and it appears to be. This is very puzzling.

I don't know how this can happen, but maybe it's related to what the guys described above? For now, I would create a new curve with a stroke and move on...but save a copy of this file and note what's wrong with it to show the developers. Can you confirm you created this curve as described in the tutorial? If anything differently was done, it would be helpful to know.

I don't have time this morning to look further, but I'll examine this tonight. Hopefully, someone here can take a look sooner.

[Greenlaw]

I tried one more test: I redrew the tree curve next to the existing tree in the same layer, created its shape with Auto-Stroke disabled, and then selected the new tree's fill shape and enabled Stroke. The stroke appeared as expected.

I even tried the Paint Bucket with Auto-Stroke disabled, and, even though I wouldn't normally use the Paint Bucket in this situation, it created a shape that I could enable Stroke for too.

I think the existing tree curve is somehow broken in this project. It would help to know if anything unusual happened when that curve was created. If you're unsure, I'll try recreating the faulty curve when I have time.

BTW, I didn't follow the tutorial. I just used Moho the way I normally use it. I'll look over the tutorial steps later to see if there's anything incorrect about it.

It's probably fine and this might just be a random glitch. (Hopefully.)

[Greenlaw]

Just wondering: was the tree curve drawn by you or is it a curve that came with the stock tutorial project file? If it's the latter, I suspect you ran into the import issue described by Stan.

I've seen other problems when importing files from importing files from older versions of Moho, so maybe the old tutorial project files need to be correctly updated for Moho 14.1 by LM.

Update: I took a quick look at the tutorial you're following, and I see a couple of questionable instructions. It's an old tutorial, so maybe the instructions need to be updated. I'll ask LM about it.

However, I didn't see anything in the tutorial that could cause the stroke error you discovered. Very strange.

[Hoptoad]

Thanks!
Most likely it was on imported files. Otherwise, I'll be aware of the applied style.

I see this problem a lot, I don't know why. I'll be making vector art and then suddenly I'm wondering, "Why can't I select the checkbox?"

And then I look and the Style window will have a Style's "name" in it. Oops.

It's like fingerprints appearing on the lenses of my glasses. They just appear, even when I'm careful.

[andrewgohlk]

I created the tree trunk on my own.
This is my 1st time using Moho, so I dont have an old project to import from.
OK, I'll recreate the tree trunk & try if the stroke work as expected.

Thanks for the help.

[Greenlaw]

Yesterday, I was using Moho at work and finally ran into this issue. I don't know what caused it, but I created a shape for which Stroke could not be enabled no matter what I tried. Every curve and shape I created up to that point worked fine. Quitting and relaunching Moho didn't solve the problem. Rebooting didn't solve the problem. Deleting and re-creating the shape didn't work. I ended up deleting the curve entirely and re-drawing it, and then the shape worked fine.

This is really weird. In 10 years of using Moho, I've never seen this happen.

I think Moho 14.1 occasionally creates a bad curve that can't have a shape with Stroke enabled, only Fill. I wish I knew what caused it, but I was just drawing as normal with the Freehand and Add Points tool in an FBF layer. Since all three features had significant work done for 14.1, I wonder if this is a memory-related issue.

I'll let the devs know, but since there's no clear cause, this might be hard for them to solve. But they're really smart, so fingers crossed.