Feature req: Add option to use the Apple Arrow tool

First off, a little butt-kissing - I’ve been an avid user of Acorn for years and years; I think since v3 or 4 possibly? I’ve ditched Photoshop for Acorn and never looked back - but there is one thing I really need (and I believe I’ve mentioned it before) - bezier arrows, like in the Apple Preview tool.

I do a lot of prototyping before building in css, and the arrow tool supplied just is not good for business designs, especially when I have to show the flow of individual elements - straight, solid fat lines with small heads just doesn’t look professional. I end up exporting to PNGs and then either using Preview to do the arrows and texts or Sketch (depending on the design - zooming is easier in Sketch).

I’d really love an option to use a bezier arrow tool like the one in Apple’s Preview app, just to bend them around the page and be able change the line colors, styles, arrowheads/tails and line widths as needed. I’d love to keep it all in Acorn instead of swapping around.

Help me, Obi-Wan - you’re my only hope.

That’s a reasonable request, and something that is asked for now and again. I’ll see what I can do in a future release. (No promises, since it’s not a high priority - but it would be cool to have).

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A related request: I create and modify a lot of scientific figures using Acorn and would really like to be able to create basic straight arrows by simply adding arrowheads to the start and/or end of line elements. It’s a feature found in almost every other app that creates line elements, including all the Office and Apple productivity ones. I basically want to be able to quickly and easily create an arrow like this: →

I’ve tried the arrow tool, but the default tapered shape and complex steps needed to convert it to a basic straight line and small arrowhead make it impractical for creating a simple arrow. It’s frustrating that Acorn can do 98% of what I need, but then I end up having to add arrow elements in another app because there’s no practical way to do what I need in Acorn. That would be understandable it was some bizarre functionality, but this seems like a significant omission of a basic tool. To be honest, it’s the one thing that keeps me checking out alternatives to Acorn.

Hello, and welcome @ajcullum

Arrow improvements have been on the list for a long long time, and I’ll see what I can do about getting it done sooner rather than later.

-gus

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That would be fantastic, thanks! It’s an issue for the figure I’m working on right now.

I signed up just to say that I recently purchased Acorn and I am enjoying it. Being able to add an arrow head as an end cap to a line would be amazing.

Thank you for looking into this. Without more business-appropriate arrows, I need to move all designs to other apps, and I really don’t want to do that.