I'm an #engineer, not an #artist.

[cazabon@mindly.social]

I'm an #engineer, not an #artist. But every so often, I need to use graphics-related tools for something I'm working on. Today's example was trying to lay out some control panel #graphics, and I was using #Inkscape on #Debian.

What I did: created a circular object

What I wanted to do: when I select that object and type values into the #coordinates boxes, the circular object moves so that its *center* is at the specified coordinates.

What Inkscape actually does: moves the object so the top-left corner of the object's bounding box is at those coordinates.

Really not helpful when you want to #align multiple objects to the same #center.

Do some searching, find #forum posts of others asking how to do this exact thing. Answers range from "select the object and open the #XML editor..." to "do this specific thing which doesn't appear to have existed in the UI for a decade", to people suggesting workarounds (you need a #workaround for what must be an *extremely* common workflow?).

One workaround: "just create a #guide, move (or maybe it was 'align') the object's something-or-other to the guide". The word "guide" does not occur in the UI, FAQ or in the basic documentation for Inkscape. Searching for it is troublesome because of all the web pages that have "guide" in their *title* rather than their content.

Lots of other discussions with links to pages on the Inkscape site which are now 404.

Where's that "FFFFUUUUUUUU..." meme when I need it?

[pulsar17@mastodon.social]

@cazabon https://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/Release_notes/1.2#Selector_Tool - these are called anchor points. In your case you would need to click the object twice to get the rotation handle (which is at the center by default), then click on that handle to get very thin axis lines, and now all measurements are relative to the new origin. The UX is not that discoverable, that is why https://gitlab.com/inkscape/ux/-/issues/259 exists.

[cazabon@mindly.social]

@pulsar17

I tried about 73 things trying to make this work. And now you show me that all I have to do is click the rotation handle - just select it, do nothing else - and magically this fixes itself?

Damned if it doesn't appear to do just that. My question would then be, why isn't it already using that as the coordinate point if it's already there at the center of the object? Sheesh.

This does seem like it would be easier to activate accidentally when doing other things, than finding it by actually trying every button and menu in the program.

Thanks!

[doctormo@floss.social]

@cazabon

The selection tool uses the bounding box for every object, changing what "left" means just for circles would be "wrong".

What you need is a center coordinate in the circle tool. This is missing and could be added fairly easily.

@pulsar17

[pulsar17@mastodon.social]

@cazabon By default Inkscape has always used the top left corner as the origin to which to apply many transformations to. I'm assuming it's similar for other vector programs. I shouldn't have called it the rotation handle. The official name is "Center of transformation". No reason it can't use it as the default. I could see this being some sort of preference/button. I find myself activating it accidentally too, that's why I created the issue!

[cazabon@mindly.social]

@pulsar17

"Center of transformation" is a good name for it, and yes, it seems that would be a natural fit for its local coordinate origin. But what do I know...

I made some progress, and had it somehow reset its idea of the origin to the top-left of the bounding box, all by itself. Why? Mystery of mysteries...

Inkscape authors, don't get me wrong - I'm a free software author too, I get the challenges and whatnot. I just gripe about sharp edges that must hit a lot of newcomers, while people who are seriously into the tool don't think about them at all because of getting used to the surprising behaviour.

[pulsar17@mastodon.social]

@doctormo @cazabon the Mastodon UI is confusing as it didn't show me you already replied. The ability to set the center point of a circle (or any object) as the origin exists already though? You set it to the Center of transformation which by default is at the center. It's only when you move the center somewhere else that you don't have a way to now transform the object with its true center as the origin. I'm guessing you meant to have a "center" independent of the handle. (1/2)

[cazabon@mindly.social]

@pulsar17

I don't know what you mean. What I'm reporting is that "Create a circle, do nothing else, try to place it at a particular location by typing in coordinates, and see that it does not use the center of the circle as the reference point, so your thing ends up offset by [w / 2, h / 2] from where it "obviously should have gone".

"The ability to set..." That's what somebody else already walked me through, I think? It's the fact that it's completely non-obvious and undiscoverable despite being probably what 99% of users want of a circle.

[pulsar17@mastodon.social]

@doctormo @cazabon In which case, yes the linked UX issue should cover that. There are now 11 possible origins for an object, 8 from bounding box, 9th the immovable true center, 10th the flexible Center of transformation, and 11th any point on the canvas unrelated to the object. I'm initially inclined to think 9th and 10th should be same but that is a discussion for the UX issue probably. (2/2)

[cazabon@mindly.social]

@pulsar17

And FWIW, all of my circles (which are parts of groups) seem to have self-reset this property so they're no longer reporting the center of the circle as their coordinates. That's twice. Argh.

[doctormo@floss.social]

@pulsar17

Condensing feels instinctively right. Yet one workflow does not always replace another when the starting points and concepts in the design are so different.

There's no way to flow from draw circle, to position it's centre using the select tool's transform center.

[pulsar17@mastodon.social]

@cazabon if you're able to reliably reproduce it, we could use the report over at https://inkscape.org/report/