Nicer ruler subdivision

[anweid]

Currently (as of Novembre 2018), the 'Affinities' display nice-looking and readable rulers (fine). Unfortunately, the subdivisions of these rulers are often a bit odd, so that seemingly obvious and important numbers are not shown (it's better than with some programs, but worse than with others). Let's take the millimetre rulers as an example:

• 
  Here, the 4 subdivision ticks appear at the values 44, 48, 52 and 56, which is not so nice. It would be nicer if there were only three ticks, at 45, 50 and 55.
• 
  Similar problem here: The large ticks appear as above, so that the number 50, which I myself would expect to be more important than 52, gets a short tick instead of a large one. In order not to get too many ticks, I would suggest a large tick at 50, and small ticks with a distance of 2.
• 
  Similar problem here: The large ticks show up as above, being 8 times the distance of the small ones. Powers of 2 work quite well with people who are used to work with inches, but all units that usually use powers of 10 yield strange results with halfening as shown. In this case, I recommend an additional number at 50 (there's lots of space for it), large ticks at 45 and 55 and small ticks with a distance of 1.
• Overall, more than 4 small ticks in a row more or less make my eyes glaze over in confusion...

Unfortunately, the algorithm for really nice ruler divisions is rather complicated and sometimes even depends on the preferences of the user. An old vector illustration program I know (Professional Draw from 1992) therefore even offered two subdivision styles for inches: Inches (with continuous halfening) and decimal inches...

Andreas Weidner