Resizing a line without moving connections
 

Hey folks!

I have a line in a diagram with a dozen or so other lines attached to it along its length. I would like to shorten this line without moving all the other connections.

If I just select the line and drag the handle at the end, the connections along it are all moved such that they remain proportionally spaced along the line. This might be a nice behaviour in some situations, but for me in this case, it's not what I want. I just want to trim some extra length off the end of the line without moving the other lines attached to it.

Is there a way to do this? I've gone through the manual and searched here on the forums, and can't find a way to do this.

Thanks!
-Veronica

Here's an approach that might work for you:

Select the incorrectly sized line. Duplicate it. Resize the new line to the length you want. Align it parallel to the existing line, in the position you want it, just displaced a cm or so toward the appropriate side of the canvas. Now one by one go through the lines connected to the old line, selecting each one in turn, then dragging its connection point from the old line to the new. When you've done them all, delete the old line, and shift the new one into place.

Thanks for the quick reply, and for the suggestion!

That did indeed work me, although it was mighty tedious. A quicker way to do this would sure be nice, because it's something I need to do quite often.

The application is drawing bus wires in electronic schematics. At the start of the process, I draw full-length lines, since I don't know how much room I'll need until later. Once the schematic is done, I want to shorten all the bus lines to clean things up, but now there are (potentially) dozens of things connected to the line.

If there was a way to shorten the line, or subdivide and delete a section of it, that would be ideal. Thanks again for the suggestion, though! It got me through this time.

Well, send in your request (and query) to [email]omnigraffle@omnigroup.com[/email] to be sure they see it. There may be a clever way to do it that has escaped our notice.