If I use the Find Outline tool to replace an outline segment with a shape copied to the clipboard, the replacement only works if a) the path direction is the same, and b) the replaced segment does not involve a start point. If either of these criteria are not met, then the result is a twisted path...

Wish: more intelligent outline replacement

or an offset segment:

Wish: more intelligent outline replacement

This makes this potentially extremely useful tool very frustrating to use, because one constantly has to check the path direction and start point position before applying it.

The path direction is relatively easy to set globally, so that requirement is not difficult to work around, but having made path direction largely immaterial elsewhere in the FLVI+ outline model, it is frustrating to find it so critical here.

The start point location is a lot more problematic, because very often the segment one wants to replace does include the start point, and having to relocate it before using the tool takes time. Failing to do so, then realising one needs to, then undoing the incorrect replacement, then moving the start point, then reapplying the tool takes a lot of time.

So my wish is for a more intelligent Find Outline tool that is able to detect and correct different path direction, and that detects and moves the start point in the found outline segment to either the first point of the segment when applying the replace function.

Well this has been a feature in TR since forever.



But in contrast to the Find and Replace it does not find anything it just replaces whatever you have in memory (clipboard / copy button clicked) with the current selection. And yes - here start nodes are out of question  Also node selection should hold the same amount of nodes as those you have in cliboard. It used to have overwrite mode (with Alt) and inject mode (with Ctrl), but i seem to have disabled them - could bring them back if needed

The find capability is pretty essential for my purposes. We’re working on width variants and have carefully made a small set of identical serif shapes so that after we instantiate a corner of the design space we can revise these shapes and then go through finding the other instances of them and replacing with the new revised shapes. 

[For a new project, something like TR Corner might be a preferred methodology, but we’re building out a big and old source, and want to keep things as tool-independent as possible.]

Thinking about this further, it would be nice for the FL Find Outline tool to have an alignment selection options like TF.