Transform Objects Separately Inside Symbols

[hawk]

If the same synced object is selected inside multiple instances of a symbol, there is an issue with the Transform Objects Separately option: Transforming the objects with this option enabled, applies the transform delta multiplied by the count of selected objects, causing the bounding box to diverge from the actual result. (if the transform/constraints attribute is linked)

While it is true that this can be avoided by deselecting the object in all but one of the symbol instances, that can be inconvenient. For example, consider this scenario:

1. You've got a bunch of symbol instances in your document.
2. Some of the symbol attributes are unlinked (e.g. Text*).
3. You make a multi-selection and start editing a bunch of those unlinked attributes.
4. At some point throughout this process you need to tweak the size or position of the object inside the symbol.
5. Now you need to click to select only one object, transform it, and then reselect all of the other copies, before you can get back to editing the unlinked attributes.

That's at least 3 extra clicks, and some cognitive friction.

Furthermore:

1. There's no special capability that is unlocked by this behavior. If you want to transform proportionately to the number of objects selected, you could just do that manually.
2. If there really is a great need for this behavior, why is it limited to symbols? Shouldn't it also be available as a general modifier/option on regular groups, layers, etc?
3. This seems like something that could and should be better served by custom scripts if and when those become available.

Therefore I consider this a bug which should be fixed by treating the transform/constraints attribute as temporarily unlinked when using Transform Objects Separately.

Exact reproduction steps:

 

* Aside: it would be great to have more fine-grained control over unlinking text attributes (and the ability to re-link attributes).

[NathanC]

Hi @hawk,

Thanks for making us aware, I can confirm i've been able to replicate this issue and it has now been passed on to the developers for resolution. I had found whilst replicating this issue that selecting the symbol layer instead of the objects contained that the bounding box stays with the object.

[hawk]

Thanks! It just occurred to me that this happens without the Transform Objects Separately option too. So it's just about transforming objects inside symbols when the transform/constraints attribute is linked.

My next question would be: how should this actually work without Transform Objects Separately? I don't think there's a correct answer... maybe the current behavior is more logically consistent after all?