How to transform an entire layer and not just the content within it?

[Toan Lish]

Say I have this purple banana shape:

I want to flip it horizontally related to the canvas, and not the bounding box. How do I do that? 

[Alfred]

Group it with a rectangle the same size as the canvas, flip the group and then delete the rectangle.

[Toan Lish]

That's a workaround for sure, but isn't there a simpler way? A button to press? An option to toggle?

Thanks in any case.

[Alfred]

1 minute ago, Toan Lish said:

isn't there a simpler way? A button to press? An option to toggle?

If there is, I’m not aware of it. I think we’re agreed that there should be!

[GarryP]

This sounds like a sub-functionality of a more generalised thing which has already been asked about, which is to be able to mirror layers about an arbitrary user-determined plane.

Searching the forums for mirror layer brings up quite a few threads on this.

I think one of the most important things, from a user perspective, would be how the user specifies/selects a mirror plane.

There are various options – select existing line, select existing guide, select from drop-down, in-the-moment user-drawn line, etc. – but not everyone will be happy with some of them.

[thomaso]

41 minutes ago, GarryP said:

I think one of the most important things, from a user perspective, would be how the user specifies/selects a mirror plane.

... whereas with the "Transform Origin" a visual user interface for setting a mirror point already exists – only a corresponding functionality is missing (while it works as a rotation point).

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

... whereas with the "Transform Origin" a visual user interface for setting a mirror point already exists – only a corresponding functionality is missing (while it works as a rotation point).

It seems logical to me that the Transform Origin only works as a centre of rotation, since it’s a single point. For mirroring we would need an axis, defined by two points rather than just one.

[Return]

12 minutes ago, Alfred said:

It seems logical to me that the Transform Origin only works as a centre of rotation, since it’s a single point. For mirroring we would need an axis, defined by two points rather than just one.

Xara

[Hangman]

I would have to agree with @Return here, to my way of thinking, flipping should flip around the transform-origin in the same way rotate, rotates around it. I've always considered this to be a bug in Affinity software or maybe it's just that we're missing a Reflect tool in the Affinity Suite...

 

[Alfred]

8 minutes ago, Return said:

Xara

Thanks for the video, but moving the transform origin horizontally or vertically defines a very simple scenario. What happens if you move it to (say) the upper right-hand corner of the image?

4 minutes ago, Hangman said:

I've always considered this to be a bug in Affinity software or maybe it's just that we're missing a Reflect tool in the Affinity Suite...

I would say the latter, but I don’t think either view is more valid than the other!

[Return]

More Xara:

 

 

[Hangman]

12 minutes ago, Alfred said:

I would say the latter, but I don’t think either view is more valid than the other!

In all fairness, we currently only have the option to Flip rather than Reflect so I think Reflect would be a great addition to the Affinity Apps. We do have Mirror in Photo but that only works with brushes rather than vector layers and doesn't really give us a workable option...

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, Return said:

More Xara:

Thanks again.

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, Alfred said:

For mirroring we would need an axis, defined by two points rather than just one.

Even without the Xara example also in Affinity the axis exists already: it is defined as either vertically or horizontally, as the button icons clearly indicate.

Although there is either no need for an additional UI item (because rotation can be used, too) it could get developed more complicated, either with a second point – or simply with a virtual axis, defined by the deviation from the object centre, so moving the point to the upper left could mean to rotate the axis accordingly clockwise and thus flip + rotate to the upper left. Possible, but not very intuitive (especially without the flipping axis shown as guide).

[R C-R]

7 hours ago, Return said:

More Xara:

FWIW, we can already do the rotation around an arbitrary center of rotation in exactly the same way as with Xara (but we have to find the spot where the corner handles  change to the rotation ones) but of course that is not the same thing as reflecting it across an arbitrary axis.