GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 766654
Support pivot point for scale tool
Last modified: 2016-05-20 08:54:35 UTC
The "pivot point" for scale tool is currently shown, but: a) you cannot modify it b) no action you can take seems to relate to it in any way (I've verified this both empirically and by reading the manual) Adding a modifier key or checkbox added that would toggle scaling around the pivot point, would help quick alignment a lot. Being able to modify pivot point would be nice but is a more niche use; just being able to scale around the centre point would make things a lot easier. At the 3 minute point in the video here: http://www.ctrlpaint.com/videos/free-transform-hidden-features there is a demo of this feature in photoshop, and how it helps to quickly align several different-sized instances of an object along an arbitrary axis.
To clarify, the main difference between 'with pivot support' and 'without pivot support' is a) symmetrical scaling and b) without scaling around a central point, you have to adjust both edges in each axis you want to scale on (2 drags / axis), and then check it's correctly centered, reposition it, possibly find your estimates were off and you have to adjust size again.. With pivot support, you just adjust one edge and the opposite edge adjusts accordingly, keeping the layer centre fixed in the same location; no need for realignment, you just set the size you want (1 drag for each axis)
Bug 164828 seems to be about a similar feature.
It's exactly the same bug, all other things talked about there is additional suggestions added after the original report. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 164828 ***