How do I select/resize a layer?

[MJW]

The way it works now, the position control specifies where the center of the view rectangle is. That's simple and intuitive, but if the position is moved to the edge or corner, part of the rectangle is outside the window. That seems rather useless. I'm considering changing it so that moving the position control to the edge would move the rectangle to the edge, so the guideline would go off screen by a pixel, but the rectangle would be completely within the window. That would make the relationship less direct between what's shown by the control and what occurs in the window, but it would position the rectangle in a more useful way, and it would increase the precision of the positioning. (I think the position control should use three places instead of two. Two places only allows for about 200 positions, which means for windows of any reasonable size, the positioning isn't within a pixel.)

 

I'm also considering adding a Guideline Width control, so that the guidelines can be widened when zoomed out on a large window.  Currently, when the scale value is small, the guidelines can nearly disappear.

[Eli]

The changes you propose would be great enhancements. Specially the Guideline Width control.

[MJW]

I posted a new version of the plugin with the changes I mentioned. They are: allowance for wider view windows, width specifications for the guidelines, and constraining the view window to the canvas. The plugin is in comment #48.

 

I'll allow a few days for any change requests before I publish a final version.

Edited August 21, 2015 by MJW

[Eli]

Thanks MJW,

 

It works pretty well! I did not find any issues.

Edited August 22, 2015 by Eli

[toe_head2001]

Here is a beta version of the plugin Eli suggested. It allows the user to frame a rectangle within the canvas.

 

This is fantastic! I know I'll be using this from time to time.

 

I always have a hard time resisting adding every option I can think of, but that tends to make the plugins more difficult to use.

 

In my opinion, having many options is fine as long as you have good default values (which you do).

 

I can think of yet another option that could be added: linked Height and Width sliders. Of course, you'd have to move it over to VS at that point. I think it would be worth it though, considering it would also let you set the max values dynamically rather than hard-coded to 8,000 (and dynamic default value; max / 2 perhaps?). My 2 cents.

[MJW]

I may make it a VS project. Initially, I considered it such a minor plugin that I didn't think it was worth adding the extra bells and whistles; but now I think it's actually very useful. I used it myself recently, and was glad to have it.

 

EDIT: One thing I don't know, and will have to look into, is whether the height and width can be set independently, and then locked to that ratio. I'm not sure that's possible, and if it's not, I don't see locking the controls as being especially useful. I suppose I could add a ratio control, and a choice of whether to lock the controls to the ratio.

Edited August 22, 2015 by MJW