Wire: Ability to "tie" some parameters and dedicated Scale node

[webel]

Case: Transform has separate 'scale' for X and Y.

Scaling in both directions is very common.

It's a bit tedious to have to create a Float to set them both equal if they aren't being driven, just set once, and it makes the patch larger.

Maybe there is already a way to do this; it would be nice to be able to "tie" the X and Y together in the Node view (so the aspect ratio does not change).

There are lots of candidate parameters for this.

In the case of 'scale', it would also be nice to have a dedicated simple Node that always (and only) applies a single value across both X and Y.

[Arvol]

Using a single float into to the scale will scale both equally, otherwise using a 2 floats into a pack with give you control over each individually.

[webel]

@Arvol:

> Using a single float into to the scale will scale both equally.

I wrote that myself. I clearly know already how to do that. I am asking for a feature to have them optionally bound together in the Node view (only), for cases where they do not have to be dynamically driven, but only occasionally tweaked.

[edwin]

We just fixed an issue which allows you to use the shift key while dragging the values in a float2, float3 or float4 view to set them all to same value in one go. We are also looking into using the shift+enter key combination when editing a value to apply to all fields of the float2, float3...

Is that along the lines you were thinking?

[webel]

@Edwin

> Is that along the lines you were thinking?

If you mean using a separate node driving, for example, the scale of a Transform node? Then no. I just mean within one Node.

What I am describing is a very common feature in image editing software. I've attached first a screenshot from Mac Preview. There is similar in PixelMator Pro etc. In the case shown there is a little lock near the Width and Height parameters; when the lock is active (they are "tied"), they always change together in fixed ratio. If the lock is NOT active (if you click once on it), they change independently. For Wire, it would make sense to make unlocked (not tied) the default.

2022-03-25-09-02-34-Monosnap.jpg (16.79 KiB) Viewed 3809 times

The 2nd attachment shows a mockup of how it might look in Wire. Notice how I have exactly one node (the Transform node). Just one. There is no Float driving the scale parameter. In the Node view any parameter groups (with more than one parameter) would have tiny lock symbols. In the mockup shown, only the scale parameter is tied. If you now changed either of the scale values (X or Y), both would change in sync.

This is very handy for many parameter groups. Once you've set, for example, an aspect ratio you can change either of the parameters and be assured they change in sync preserving that aspect ratio; if you did that driving the inlets you'd need to do some upstream maths.

Again, this is intended for the case where the parameters do not change much and are not to be driven via their inlets.

(And concerning the dedicated Scale node suggestion, it's just for convenience. It would only every handle the aspect ratio 1.)