Inkscape

Snapping deactivation and rotation around opposite corner

Asked by Hachmann

Working on improving the German translation for the Tips and Tricks tutorial, I came across this functionality for the first time:

"When in the Select tool, <keycap>click</keycap> on an object to see the scaling arrows, then <keycap>click again</keycap> on the object to see the rotation and shift arrows. If the arrows at the corners are clicked and dragged, the object will rotate around the center (shown as a cross mark). **If you hold down the <keycap>Shift</keycap> key while doing this, the rotation will occur around the opposite corner.** You can also drag the rotation center to any place."

Isn't this confusing, as the more common 'Holding shift to prevent snapping' doesn't work when rotating objects like this (using 0.91)?
Maybe a different modifier key could be used? (this is also missing in the keyboard reference)

Snapping works (unexpectedly, for many, I guess?) while rotating using this functionality.
If you press Shift (to prevent snapping) after you started rotating an object, the center of rotation will change in the midst of the rotation.

Is this really intended?

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su_v (suv-lp) said : 		#1

Trouble is that usage of modifiers is inconsistent across tool contexts - Diederik has asked many times already for someone to create a spreadsheet with all modifier use cases in all tool contexts, in order to unify usage (e.g. of disabling snapping temporarily).

The conflict you noticed is not the only one …

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su_v (suv-lp) said : 		#2

Bug tracker comments:
* https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/538487/comments/7
* https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/170919/comments/9
* https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/519391/comments/12
* https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/1065931/comments/1
* https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/1209342/comments/2 -->
«That's because the shift-key is already reserved for selecting whether
the rotation occurs around the center of the bounding box around the
opposite corner (opposite of the rotation handle that is being dragged).

In many other places in the Inkscape UI the shift key is already taken,
and cannot be used for temporarily disabling the snapping. I'd like to
see that changed, but I'm still waiting for someone to step up and make
a proposal for an inkscape-wide consistent usage of modifier keys (ctrl,
shift, alt, etc).»
* https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/1460415/comments/1
* https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/1460415/comments/4 -->
«If only someone could fix this inconsistency in the modifier keys...»

Mailing list (inkscape-devel)
* http://sourceforge.net/p/inkscape/mailman/message/24332935/
«The most elegant way is to disable snapping when holding the SHIFT key,
as some tools do, but unfortunately the modifier keys are already
heavily contested so we will probably never get that implemented in all
tools.»
* http://sourceforge.net/p/inkscape/mailman/message/29137888/
«Problem: press-shift-to-disable-snapping isn't implemented in all tools.
That's my personal annoyance with Inkscape (more general: inconsistency
of modifier keys).»
* http://sourceforge.net/p/inkscape/mailman/message/29166602/

Inkscapeforum.com:
* http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=5886#p24973
http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=9860#p36757
http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=9860#p36772
http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=9860#p36788

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Hachmann (marenhachmann) said : 		#3

Interesting task... I'm might some day offer to make a start, using info from key-and-mouse reference, and things discovered while translating.

> The conflict you noticed is not the only one …
Just discovered another one... but that one will be more widely known (node handle editing, hold Shift to keep handles collinear).

Should this live in the Wiki (although Wiki tables are inconvenient to edit - hard to read, hard to know where you are exactly), then everyone could contribute and correct, perhaps?
Or was there any kind of specific format mentioned that would be more useful?
Any other requirements?
Or should this be started 'from inside the source code' (which I can't do)?

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su_v (suv-lp) said : 		#4

On 2015-10-20 23:16 (+0200), Hachmann wrote:
> Isn't this confusing, as the more common 'Holding shift to prevent
> snapping' doesn't work when rotating objects like this (using 0.91)?

JFYI (re "more common") - rotating about the opposite corner with 'Shift' pressed is much older: it already worked that way in Sodipodi (just tested with Sodipodi 0.34).

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Hachmann (marenhachmann) said : 		#5

Yes, snapping (and disabling it temporarily) is a 'relatively new' feature. I was referring to usage, not seniority ;)
Maybe some day a split between 'left shift' and 'right shift' could help with the sparsity of available modifier keys...