Hi Michael, thanks for the consideration and testing - okay I've tried C4D as well...

Now, I'm not sure if I did anything wrong initially but yes, after creating a curve in the top view, I then switched to the scale tool - typically what you'd expect is for the manipulator to pop up in the CENTER of the bounding box of the object.

In this case, it was as if I was in the axis manipulator mode; I was moving around the manipulator?? Switching back to object mode, I was able to scale the object as expected.

Moving on to point mode and switching to the move manipulator, it was acting normally; each point I selected, the move widget centered on the selected point - this is what you typically expect; if you select a point, that's your manipulator center, if you select the whole curve, the manipulator moves to the center of the complete object - this is pretty much standard for all 3d wares.

Also the manipulator doesn't change shape to match the object's new size, the >bounding box does< (at least I don't remember any of my apps having the manipulator change its shape??)

Where the candy comes in is with additional tools to move the manipulator around to set the object center - C4D has the object axis tool, Silo and XSI has keyboard shortcuts to switch to a mode for moving around the selected object's manipulator.

I'm not sure why you're considering the operations of strictly 2D applications when MOI is a 3D one - my guess is you're mainly after the feel of a 2D app (eg Illustrator) when using (drawing with) MOI.

I don't believe having a 3d manipulator ruins the drawing feeling when creating curves. The manipulator is typically used when editing the curve after its creation.

I see in C4D that yes, when you're creating curves, each point that is placed down, has a movement manipulator on it.

I was initially going to say that yes, that is a pain to have in the way but going back just now (I'm playing around in C4D as I type this) it is quite handy having that 3D manip when creating the curve because as I switched back to 4-view mode, I was able to position those points in the Z axis as they were created...

In XSI, there's only the points - the manipulator isn't shown until you start an edit/tweak session, which is what I think would be great for MOI.

Another thing with C4D's manipulators, I'll venture to say they're more of an eye sore than with other apps; of course that's subjective and perhaps with some adjustment of the size and transparency they're not as offensive?

I think it's safe to say we all understand you want MOI's UI to be elegant - we all do, I believe there should be a way for you to come up with an elegant manipulator, that's perhaps different than the majority. I know you were mostly thinking of the frame that you've mentioned.

I just don't see any problems with using 3D manipulators in other 3d apps when drawing curves which is the focus here other than subjective manipulator sizing / shape issues?

There was a whole thread on the Silo board dealing with the manipulators; the shapes, the screen space rotation ring; some felt less was more, some like rings, others hated them; some wanted to be able to create the manipulator in photoshop and have it installable into the application (sort of a nice idea IMO, how do you tag the different axes hotspots so the program knows which way to manipulate? Magic colors (Red/Green/Blue?) at each manipulation point?)

Again this falls back to your vision - but I was reading your post to Brian, pretty much agreeing with you but then I said to myself waiduhminute as remembered how I was learning XSI and C4D's curve tools and was using the manipulators to edit the curves in those applications...

Trying them again, I just don't see any issues being able to rotate & and scale curves in the 2d or 3d views using a manipulator.

-Will