Ok, I tried searching and didnāt find, I hope this hasnāt been asked/answered already. Is there a way in Ribbuild to switch from the current line you are editing to the next or previous without clicking out of the current line and clicking into the new line? I was hoping Tab and Shift+Tab would do it, but it did not
If anyone knows of a faster way, please let me know. If not, is this something that could be added to a future update @Ribblr?
as far as I know, out of one and into the other is the only wayā¦ I have found the ribbuild to be beyond tedious to work with. I wish it worked more like canva, but wishing doesnāt get it listed here. At the moment, the rewards of the safety in testing and copyright protection still outweigh the dreadful experience of using ribbuild.
Iām glad Iām not the only one that finds it tediousā¦ I wouldnāt call it difficult, but definitely not as fast as I can go when making a PDF
I can churn out dozens of canva patterns in the time it takes me to enter pretty much any pattern into ribbuild
donāt get me wrongā¦ribblr is still unsurpassed in the testing features and the interactive tools and I certainly feel safe about patterns purchased here not being distributedā¦but it is not very user friendly for most of my needs
Itās certainly something we can look at!
Can you share more about your experience?
Are you creating a new design or copying and old design in? Are you editing on a PC or mobile?
Generally speaking Ribbuild is a pattern builder, so itās designed to be used whilst you create your design. You have Ribbuild open and type each instructional line as you do it.
The idea is to save you time and minimize errors when typing or working the pattern multiple times.
Thatās why itās line by line based, much like patterns and very different to Canva which is a design tool or word which is a text editor.
including hot keys is definitely something that could add value in adding new lines or jumping between previous lines, for desktop only, of course.
Hope this helps! Weāve logged your suggestion in the meantime
I donāt think you were asking me, but Iām going to answer anyway.
The larger my projects get, the more tedious ribbuild becomes, so Iāll take you through the process.
First, I find the process impossible on my phone. I always use my laptop.
Iām going to use my latest sweaters as an example.
I have a top-down sweater with chevrons. I have the sweater in 4-6 sizes depending on which chevron design I want to use. Each size requires a differing number of chevrons, differing rates of increases, and differing lengths. I also wanted to include options like an a-line or straight body, along with tapered, straight, or bell sleeves. Each of these options are a different pattern while also requiring the differing amounts of chevrons, and differing rates of increase or decrease.
Seamless construction is not something you can make up on the fly as you go, it must be planned out before you start. It is a completely different process than creating flat pieces that get seamed up once you are done. And it is a very different process than a toy that can be frogged and reworked if the shape isnāt quite right.
Each one of those patterns took at least 8 days to enter, that is not 8 days of working and typing as I go. That is 8 days of data entry from the time I wake up till my hands hurt too bad to go on. This should have been easier. I have gone into great detail about the editing process many timesā¦ but here it goes again
If I realize that I have forgotten a step, or got the math wrong and need to change a line. I then have to go in and manually change every number on every line for every size after that change. It does not reorder for me, even if I try as a batch. This could be as high as 100 lines.
If I want to do a batch edit, like the size it pertains to, I go in and click every box, change the size then make the agonizing choice of going in and unclicking the boxes or exiting the pattern and hoping I can find my place again because only certain actions will unclick the boxes.
If I want to repeat an instruction for several lines, I can do the collapse thing so that , for example, the next 5 lines are identical. But if I have a 4 row repeat that changes for each size and changes with each increase/decrease the traditional way of writing these types of patterns is not supported in the ribbuild format. I have to write them out one line at a time for each size or write each size in one line that can not be tracked as the program was intended. The program pretty much forces me to write each size as a separate pattern. So each sweater , as typed, was actually entered as 20-30 individual patterns overlapping each other.
And lastlyā¦if I am in testing and there is a typo or an edit needed.
sigh
If there is a typo on line 7 of the body of size 3 , I have to open the pattern, find the mistake, decided what needs to be fixed, then open the edit mode and SCROLL and SCROLL and SCROLL looking for the body section, then pinpointing the size then finding the line.
There is no menu or size filter for edit mode. It is just a wall of code. Like back in the day when buying a computer game required you to type in an entire book of code manually then attempt to find the broken line 2 weeks later when you finished and it didnāt work.
I mentioned canva, because I can just type what I want to say in docs, then paste it into text boxes, and POOF it is a formatted pattern , just as I wanted by using either the html prompts or spaces and indentations. I can not do this in ribbuild. I still have to go in and do all the wall of text scrolling and editing and clicking boxes and changing numbers. I have found no way to format the pdf that will allow me to simply copy paste a pattern into it.
So sadly my reply to your questions are yesā¦
Iāve tried new design, copying previous designs, phone (Android), iPad, and laptop (Mac only so far I think, I canāt remember if Iāve tried on PC desktop)
Like Tiphani, I find designing into Ribbuild difficult at bestā¦ I will get half way through a project to realize that I have to start over, so I either need to fight to edit all of the numbers or delete everything and retype each line
The editing numbers is definitely where the hotkeys would be niceā¦
As discussed in an earlier topic, being able to repeat a set of rows (like a 2 or 4 row repeat) without having to retype them or duplicate and move/change numbers or write āRepeat (Rows 2-4) 5 timesā which is then all that it says instead of the actual instructions
Again for the duplicate, move, & change number method, using hot keys would be helpful
I donāt use canva so I canāt comment to that, but Iāve used word, Acrobat, and Illustrator to create my patterns and 1 click right where I need to edit is so much faster than click the line, click the location of edit, click out of the line, and repeat for EVERY edit neededā¦
As for hot keys, I would only expect them on desktop/laptop, and is where I was trying originally
Thanks for looking into this, canāt wait to see what yāall can do
Thanks for sharing both of you.
@OBabyNMore
To be more specific this is more about the line numbers for you, and you feel that itās a tedious process vs word (for example) as you have extra clicks. Is that fair?
By the way, for fixing mistakes, did you try our undo/redo and find & replace features? Those are super handy for editing patterns.
none of those features will address the issues I mentioned, and Iām not sure they are very useful at all when I enter a pattern. I can see where the program is great as a method for taking notes as you go on a small itemā¦but it is decidedly unfriendly if you already have patterns you want to list or if you have large/complicated patterns you would like to listā¦or the editing
This specific topic was originally pointing out the extra steps to get to each line/ create a new line, yesā¦ not just the line numbers, but the actual lines, tooā¦ If I have to change the numbers for sizing in 5 lines, I have to (click each line then click where, then change, then click out of the line) 5 times! And I never have only 5 lines to doā¦ Using hot keys then using my arrows to move in the line would be faster (honestly I rarely use a mouse, but have to constantly use it for Ribblr and it slows me considerably)ā¦
have you also found it impossible to find a single line that needs to be edited?
Like if you are looking at the pattern and see that a line needs to be edited then you go into the edit mode and spend forever scrolling to find that one word in the one line?
Probably not a bad a yours since currently I have smaller patterns listed, but a little bit as Iāve been trying to get this new cardigan design in (which I started designing in Ribblr and due to needing to edit so much, just deleted everything and Iām using a text editor that I can switch between my phone and laptop and iPad, then Iāll transpose again)
I have tried over and overā¦ the more complex the pattern is or the larger it is, the more of a hindrance ribbuild becomes. A block of text in a docs file copied and pasted āelsewhereā will generate an ordered pattern pdf with numbered lines and headings and subheadings. All I have to do is highlight a section and hit āboldā, āitalicizedā, or alter the font size and Iām done.
Again, I appreciate the safety features and the user side of the patternsā¦ but the designer end has made me start to rethink my plans on which patterns I will and will not list on ribblr due to not wanting to have to use the ribbuild.
So I was switching between different programs on my computer and forgot when I got into Ribblr that I couldnāt tab to go to the next line (I was in excel right before), and I hit tabā¦ much to my surprise, it went to the next line/created the next line and had it open for me to start typing!!! YAY!!! Thanks @Ribblr, this is one change that will be a big help to me! (In my hurry to come post, I forgot to check if itāll go to the next line if Im working on editing)