Scale Tool, scale from the center

When I use the Scale Tool in Glyphs, can I just scale from the center of the selected object?
(Like in FontLab using ALT + SHIFT + Drag Corner)

You can place the transformation origin to wherever you like (just click with the Scale tool) and scale. If you want the precise geometric center, you may want to use the Palette and use the Grid for determining the transformation origin.

Okay, thanks.

So this is then a feature request. :wink:
It’s a common vector drawing app feature. Glyphs could have it too.

I second opentype’s request.

I often scale from the geometric centre (and other ‘transform box’ points such as top left, top centre, top right, left centre, centre centre, right centre etc) and more often than not I don’t know numerically how much I would like to scale.

Therefore I would prefer to to scale with the mouse and work dynamically with the tool (i.e WYSIWYG) to produce results which I can determine with my eye.

Being able to scale from other major ‘transform box’ points (i.e. snapping the Scale Tool to aforementioned points) would make shape scaling vastly easier – and like opentype said it’s also what’s most familiar.

Being able to scale from other major ‘transform box’ points (i.e. snapping the Scale Tool to aforementioned points) would make shape scaling vastly easier

+1

+1 make it a request for me too thanks!

This functionality is sweet, but I find what opentype requested much more useful.

Additionally, the problem here is that we need (Auto) center in the bounding box. Having to manually try to guess the middle of the box is extra work. Using the Scale in Transform is rather different fish altogether, because it uses precise measurements and lacks all the visual control of the Scale Tool.

If you open Illustrator and make a shape you will see that the bounding box always has a center. You can of course change it up like in the Scale Tool, but that auto center is crucial for convenience and precision.
Also good to mention that with any 3D modeling program, such visual scaling of a node from its center is always the norm.

Do you guys have a particular rationale for not having an auto center? I see that this post is 2 years old and feel that this might have been a deliberate decision, but I cannot see why.

If you step or enter the values, you get immediate visual feedback. And you are more precise, because you can scale to a precise width or height.

I wouldn’t exclude it for the future, but imprecise manual scaling from a precise selection center has not been on the top of our list for a type design software. Personally, I wouldn’t know an application for it. In 3D and illustration software, things like this may make more sense.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for precision when it comes to the final stages of production.

In the beginning of conceptualizing and even in the tweaking stages, I feel that this auto center will add to the already superior UX of Glyphs. And the main reason for this is that such small features may look insignificant, but are momentous in everyday use.

Ditto for adding a centre option in bounding box. You don’t always need precision (depends on which stage you’re at in design process or style), and the point of bounding box has never been precision in my opinion. Whenever I want to be precise, I just type the value in the info box.

So transformation origins except the center are possible now. Need to find a way to switch to center (maybe the option key?). The scale tool is not intended for transformation from bounding box points.

If you want to scale using a bounding box, transformation origin has to be the opposite corner of the clicked one, which should be overridden by option key which makes it centre. When you rotate a bounding box (which you can’t at present), the origin should be the centre.

2 Likes