Hi Scott,

re:
> Is there a script or a (duh!) way that allows you to enter an distance versus a scale
> factor? I want shrink a closed curve by say 1mm instead of a scale factor. While I can
> visually do that on the grid, I'd like to be able to enter a number. Or, am I as
> missing something as usual.

If you want to use Scale1D for this, you can use "distance constraint" while you are in the command to work with distances instead of scale factors.

To do that, while you are in the stage for picking the first line where the prompt says "Pick scale direction", type in your "start" distance and push enter. Now when you go pick the direction you should see that the line is constrained to that length.

After you pick the direction you will now be in the last stage where you can either pick a second reference point along that direction or enter a scale factor. You want to again activate distance constraint for this second pick, but there is one trick to it this time - because this command has an edit field in the command options area if you just type in a number directly your typing will go into that field. You need it to go in either the XYZ or "distance" field on the bottom toolbar. So before you type in your second distance, either push Tab to put focus in the XYZ field, or click in either the XYZ field or distance field on the bottom toolbar before typing in your second distance.

Then once you type in your second distance and hit enter, when you go to pick the second reference point you'll see it will snap to that second distance.


But another way that may be better for length based scaling is to use the bounding box sizing option, which you can access by clicking on the size line of the properties panel here:







Uncheck the "Maintain proportions" option if you want to change X and Y sizes independent from one another. That will use the object's bounding box center as the scale origin though, with Scale1D you are able to specify the origin if that's important.

Hope this helps!

- Michael