Draw Mesh - Perpendicular to workplane

Create a workplane

Set navigation space to workplane

Set view > perpendicular to workplane

Use draw mesh to draw lines, they do not end up on the workplane.

If I use snap views ALT+SHIFT to align my view perpendicular to workplane it works OK.

You can turn on the Plane snapping to achieve that. This gives user an option not to draw on workplane. The program will set the point position base on either camera focus point or previous point on the line.

Plane snapping worked well when using perp to workplane, thanks.

The program will set the point position base on either camera focus point or previous point on the line.

I think this means it kind of creates a temporary workplane without the user having to spend time setting it up and thus a faster and more intuitive workflow ?

Yes it does use a temporary workplane. Create a new spline starting from an existing mesh vertex and you will know how it works.