affinity designer: how to join separate curves at non-endpoints?

Question

If I have a curve of nodes a,b,c. And another curve of nodes 1,2,3.... I can select both curves and hit join nodes and it will connect them at the endpoints c,3.

But how the heck do I connect them via ANY OTHer combination!?!! reversing doesn't seem to work sometimes, and sometimes it does....very screwy. But more specifically lets say I want to join them at node b, the middle of the first curve how do I do that...? selecting the two nodes to be connected seems to have 0 effect on how the join nodes function works.

Answer 1

A few hard facts:

1. There's no such thing as a single curve which has a branch at some node (=Y or T)

2. Join tries to convert 2 open curves to one open curve by creating as short line segment as possible between the curves.

Thus the joining curves A and B adds a straight piece between A and B and that line segment is the shortest possible one which connect the start or end point of A to the start or endpoint of B. You have no other control over the process than to edit the curves so that the shortest connection is the wanted connection.

If you need a connection line from the 2nd node of curve A to the 3rd node of curve B, you must draw it. You will have 3 separate curves when you are ready, but you can help them to stay together by grouping or locking them.

BTW. You cannot directly draw from node to node, it doesn't snap. You must draw approximately, then select all and drag the nodes. Have snap ON when dragging.

Answer 2

They dont need to be connected! It is important to understand that: Your mental nodel is not the mental model of your medium.

The only reason that 2D vector drawing applications allow you to join curve segments is that being able to fill arbitrary regions requires this. There is no T shaped join in a filled region. If you are modeling your objects as lines, then there is no need to model things as one object, each line is still conceptually separate anyway. You can use groups to logically organize these.

While there are cases where it would be useful to be able to model general networks. There is no need for this when drawing and the software is modeling drawing not your usecase. Your job is to turn your model into the drawing model. That is what drawing is even on paper.