[santra]

Hi. I'm working with parallelograms, and every time I change the width or height, the angles of the corners change in degree. How do I stop this? I want to extend my parallelogram upward so that it's taller, but I don't want the internal angles to change in degrees. Is there some key(s) I can hold down while dragging a handle? Locking the aspect ratio makes the angles stable when dragging handles to resize, but that changes height and width simultaneously (which I don't want).

Thanks for any help.

—Sandy

[santra]

Originally Posted by seanpual

Draw a diagonal. The result is two triangles. The sum of the angles in any planar triangle is 180o. Twice 180 = 360.
Hope this will be helpful to you...

I think you misunderstand the problem.

For instance, I can draw a parallelogram freehand, but then cannot get a parallelogram shape to exactly match it because of the problem I describe.

When I "elongate" UP a parallelogram shape (made with an OG parallelogram shape) that has exactly horizontal top and bottom lines, I need the two diagonal lines, on left and right, to lengthen; and I need the WIDE angles (on the inside of the shape) at the inside top left and inside bottom right to remain the same angle of degree.

It doesn't matter to me if the top line moves to the left or right. I don't care. Right now the program ensures that the line you're dragging doesn't drift laterally, at the expense of changing the degree of its vertices. I need the opposite: the angles to stay the same, and I don't care if the line drifts left or right.

I need ALL the angles on the inside of the parallelogram shape to remain at exactly the same degree as I either widen the shape or change its height. I don't care about lateral drift of the top or bottom lines (the non-diagonal sides of the shape).

Does anyone understand this? Please, I have already spent 3-4 hours trying to figure it out. If the program won't do it, fine; just someone please tell me that. But I know that often in OG holding down some combination of the Shift, Control, Alt, and Command keys before clicking the mouse (or trackpad) and then dragging an object's handle will change the behavior of the program.

If I'm not making sense, I will post screenshots with arrows and labels indicating everything.

[santra]

I discovered that if you flip the parallelogram either 90º or 270º, which puts it in a position whereby the three handles on each non-diagonal side are no longer parallel with the ground but now vertical, you can grab one of the corner handles on one of the diagonal lines and use it almost like a joystick to control resizing the shape.

Up and down movements, as I recall, keep the angles intact. Diagonal drags of the mouse/trackpad either squeeze or expand the shape, changing the angles one way or the other.