I have just upgraded to SS Pro and started a new website. After adding pictures to a page I find that pressing the CTRL Key and dragging one corner of the corner control points does not hold the original proportions of the image so you end up with a miss-shaped picture and have to guess the correct proportions.

Is there a way to turn this on or off?

I don't like the mixed up controls either. If you grab a corner handle and drag (no CTRL key), it performs a proportional resize, but a side handle drag does a non proportional resize. But if you hold the CTRL key, a corner drag does a non-proportional resize while the side handles do a proportional resize.

You'd think the CTRL key behavior would be consistent no matter what handle is being used.

quote:

Originally posted by larryd:
If you grab a corner handle and drag (no CTRL key), it performs a proportional resize, but a side handle drag does a non proportional resize.

Hi Larry,

Thanks for pointing that out... I hadn't thought to try it without Ctrl. The help file actually says, quote "Once you have added a picture to a page, you can resize it smoothly while maintaining its proportions. Click to select the image object, press the CTRL key, and then click and drag one of the corner control points to resize the image" unquote!

I hope you weren't too surprised about the documentation not being up-to-date. Programmers are notoriously terrible when it comes to tech writing. I figure that as long as VM keeps improving their products and Bruceee sticks round to learns all the ins and outs of them, we forum members are in good shape.

Couldn't agree more. I think we have to forgive VM these little misdemeanours. I like the new progam a lot... it will be even better when I learn to use it properly, with help from Bruce and yourself and the VM Team of course

I asked Harpo about this change, and this is his reply:

quote:

Yes, I don’t recall exact when that change took effect but the reason is that we were having people complain that images were being distorted when resized.

The idea behind it now is that a user can discover how to resize proportionately or change only one dimension without needing to guess about control keys. The corner grab handles change both sides together, the side handles only change the side. The CTRL key reverses that behavior for those that need it.

Of course for people used to the old way it may seem odd.

Also, you may have noticed that some geometries are resized when the handles are dragged but other are scaled. Which depends on the geometry type and the and to some extend the layout tab. Pressing the ALT key reverses that behavior.

That makes sense to me; hope it does for you too.

Thanks Bruce for the clarification from Harpo. Hope they will review & update the help files at some point

It took me about 30 seconds to figure the CTRL/no-CTRL picture resizing issue when I got SS Pro. That being said, I'm not sure that I agree with the decision by VM designers to reverse what had been done in WM, and SS since it would certainly lead to confusion for those of us that have or will update/upgrade to SS Pro. I'm not sure, but I think that the general approach for picture resizing in most software is to use the CTRL for proportional resizing.

Please note that this is simply an observation on my part and not a criticism (well not much of one anyway ) . I do hope that VM might learn that when making a 180 degree change like this that it is imperative to make sure that all documentation associated with the new release is updated to reflect the change.

I understand the change to the normal SS/WE behavior to appease a few customers, but something is not right when you need a cheat sheet with a matrix showing the possible keyboard-mouse combos and what they do.

Most paint programs I use allow the user to select whether the object's aspect ratio is locked or not during resizing. If this is the purpose of the CTRL key, then it should be the same for all handles.

Strictly speaking, the CTRL key modifies the current behaviour. So if you accept that the corner handles change both sides together and the side handles only change one side, then the CTRL key should modify (in this case, reverse) the behavior of both types of handle.

So the handles act the opposite way they do with the CTRL key not pressed. At least that is the thinking. Obviously that is not as clear as we thought so we are re-thinking it.

VM should add size adjustment for imported objects via the object editor. There must be a way to resize and choose to maintain aspect ratio by adjusting the size values numerically. I'm amazed this has never been incorporated.