Hi Friends,
This is one of those very interesting questions, something one would think Inkscape could do in a single step, but apparently can't. At least not that I've ever figured out . So I wanted to ask you all to share your ideas about how to do it. And also, would anyone else like to see such a feature? I doubt if I would submit a new feature request right now. But if there's any support, I might in the future. Oh ok, let me make up a quick screenshot, or even better, I'll make an SVG to make it convenient for you to try your ideas. brb....


What I want to do is make the 4 petals longer (or arms of the cross) (spokes of a wheel or star) without changing the centers. If I scale the whole thing, the centers get bigger too. In the case of the gold cross, it would be pretty easy to select the 2 nodes on the outer edge of each arm of the cross, and perhaps by snapping to a grid, drag them out. The cross' symmetry makes it easier. But what if the object had originally been created with the Star tool (e.g.) with 10 or 12 spokes. Even if it were symmetric, that would begin to be tedious to manually drag the 10 to 12 spokes out.

In the case of the flower in my file, it gets more complicated. If the object didn't have 4 parts, and was just.....let's say a short sock. I might select most of the nodes and use node sculpting, i.e. Alt + drag, to make a very organic looking stretched out or long sock. But I'd have to do that 4 times for the flower.

What I'd like is a way to radially scale the obejct, using only selected nodes. After selecting all the outer nodes, I want to be able to drag them out radially, in all however many directions as there are spokes or arms or petals. It's really the same thing as using the Selection tool to scale something, except with that technique, there's no way to have it affect some parts or nodes, and not others. (I tried it -- if I select the outer nodes of the flower, then switch to the Selection tool and scale, it does scale the whole thing.) The Trasform dialog can't do it either.

I didn't think of it earlier, but this could also apply to gears. I've seen some gears with deeper "gaps" (or whatever it's called) and some with shallower ones. Now that would seriously be a pain to do, without any type of.....I'm not sure what to call it....."selective scaling" or "radial scaling" maybe?

Here's the SVG file:

Thoughts, ideas, suggestions?

Thanks

Have a look at the right-hand end of the tool control bar when you've got the node tool selected...

Show path outline?
I don't understand. I actually turned that off because the outline annoys and confuses me. How could I use it in this situation? (I looked in the manual, but perhaps not in the right place.)

Not _that_ far right

(two buttons back: "Show transformation handles for selected nodes")

Oh yes, I have handles displayed. But I'm not talking about handles. I'm talking about nodes. Moving only selected nodes, radially, all at once. Or in fewest steps possible.

brynn wrote:It's really the same thing as using the Selection tool to scale something, except with that technique, there's no way to have it affect some parts or nodes, and not others.

Select the nodes you want to transform, and if "Show transformation handles for selected nodes" is enabled you should see a bounding box with handles, just as you would with the selection tool. You can drag those handles out, holding SHIFT (and probably CTRL too) in order to move the selected nodes out radially. You can even click on one of the selected nodes to switch to the rotation/skew handles if you want to apply those transformations to the selected nodes. This is on 0.48.x.

As for selecting the nodes in the first place, I would rubber-band select the ones in the middle (the ones you don't want to move), then press "!" to invert the selection.


Unless I've completely misunderstood what it is you want to do. Which is always possible

Maybe use the tweak tool ?

Xav wrote:Select the nodes you want to transform, and if "Show transformation handles for selected nodes" is enabled you should see a bounding box with handles, just as you would with the selection tool. You can drag those handles out, holding SHIFT (and probably CTRL too) in order to move the selected nodes out radially. You can even click on one of the selected nodes to switch to the rotation/skew handles if you want to apply those transformations to the selected nodes. This is on 0.48.x.

Nice trick.
Works fine for me.

Xav wrote:As for selecting the nodes in the first place, I would rubber-band select the ones in the middle (the ones you don't want to move), then press "!" to invert the selection.

invert selection didn't work (as intended) for me.
I draw a small star over a big star then use difference.
Now i got a star with 10 outer nodes and 10 inner nodes (inner nodes defined a starshaped hole)

I click this shape then F2 then I selected some of the nodes of the hole.
Then I invert the selection and this only worked for the 10 inner nodes.
Outer nodes remained unaffected.

I thought it would have reverted all the nodes

v1nce wrote:I click this shape then F2 then I selected some of the nodes of the hole.
Then I invert the selection and this only worked for the 10 inner nodes.
Outer nodes remained unaffected.

I thought it would have reverted all the nodes

My mistake. If only nodes on a sub-path are selected, "!" will invert the selection on that sub-path. ALT+! (i.e. ALT-SHIFT-1 on my UK keyboard) will do the trick for the whole path.


Another approach, Brynn, would be to use ">" (or "<" to shrink rather than grow). Having selected the outer nodes move the mouse well away from any nodes then use ">" to scale outwards. ALT plus ">" for smaller increments. If you hover the mouse over a node (whether it's selected or not), that node will be used as the centre point for the movements, which lets you make asymmetric changes.

Oooohhh!!
Wow, I was not aware of that feature at all. I thought you meant bezier handles. But I see what you mean! That actually works beautifully!!

I had seen that button there, of course, but I couldn't figure out what it's used for. I couldn't figure out why you would want handles for nodes when you can just move the nodes. That is amazing!! That's actually the feature I was thinking of requesting, although I would never have come up with this as a solution. That's fantastic!

Thanks Xav! You are indeed a master of Inkscape

Edit
There was a message recently about a paralyzed person who is having a hard time grabbing the nodes, because his accessibility software was hard to control. But these handles might help him quite a bit. He was looking into having someone change the Inkscape code to make the nodes larger, but this might help, until that happens! I'll have to find that topic, and post another reply....