Shortcut to stretch bitmap horizontally using fill tool without using handles

[Forumarian]

This is not so much a problem as I am just wondering if there is an quicker/easier way to do this.

I have a bitmap mapped to a rectangle and I want to stretch it horizontally using the fill tool but I have already stretched it so much that I have to zoom out a long way to see the handle and then I can't see the actually bitmap on the rectangle very well because it's so small.

Does anyone know if there is a shortcut or easier way to stretch it without zooming out to see the handle?

I know I could crop the bitmap because I'm not using all of it, but I like to move it around so I might use all of it on different copies of the image, so I'd rather keep it in full.

Thanks

[gwpriester]

I select either of the outside control handles (the small boxes at the ends of the fill path arrows) then use the arrow keys on my keyboard to increase or decrease the image size.

One click is one pixel, which is a bit slow. Hold down the Shift key and each click is 10 pixels. Also if you want to really resize the image a lot, just hold down the appropriate arrow key.

[Egg Bramhill]

There is another way but it's probably not as good as it sounds.

Window/New View

Window/Arrange Views

This now gives you two views of the same page and you can zoom out on one, change the fill using the fill handles and the second window will update. Never really used this in anger.

[Forumarian]

Thanks some good ideas here. The arrange view idea works well but it takes a bit of time to find the object I'm working on in both views (I have hundreds of objects, many of which look similar at a distance).

The first method using the arrow keys almost works, I need to stretch only in the x direction, I can't seem to find a way to constrain to one axis when expanding the bitmap using the arrow keys, is there a way?

[Egg Bramhill]

Yes, you can, select the object you want to concentrate on in one window, click on the top title bar of the other window and select Zoom to Selected in that windows drop down.

Can't find any way of using Shift, Ctrl or Alt with the arrow keys, they just resize the fill keeping the original aspect.

[Forumarian]

Oh ok, by adding the window options icons to the menu.
Thanks that will work.

I would slightly prefer the arrow key method though if I could constrain it to the x axis.

[steve.ledger]

Do you really mean stretch horizontally? Because this implies you don't want to keep the aspect ratio.
This being the case, the quickest way I now is to disable the aspect ratio lock on the info bar then type in a new horizontal size [W].
This will stretch the image horizontally.

[Forumarian]

Yeah I could resize the whole rectangle but ideally I just want to resize the bitmap within the rectangle. ie by clicking the fill tool then clicking on the rectangle then using the handles to resize the bitmap within the rectangle.

[angelize]

Instead of filling your rectangle use a clipview instead. create your rectangle and the drop your bitmap on top of it select both and press q on your keyboard. Now you can right click the clipped group and from the context menu select clipped object. Once you have done this you can disable the lock aspect ratio like Steve suggested and type a width in the box on the info bar