Gumball widget has a small square called ‘free move origin.’ When I hold Ctrl key down and drag the ‘free move origin,’ I can move the Gumball widget in one direction only. Sometimes the Gumball widget is motionless in the active viewport, but it moves in non-active viewports.
That will obey the same rules as other geometry in that viewport - if Ortho is on it will move only in ortho directions. And yes, difficult to move it vertically, as you already have the Ctrl key pressed… It will snap to any active Osnaps, though.
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It seems that Gumball widget goes into elevator mode when I drag its ‘free move origin.’ It does not go into elevator mode when I drag any of its ‘move arrows’ or its ‘axis plane indicator.’
If you need the gumball to move in the Z when reorienting it you can try one of these approaches…
1- hold down ctrl and then drag the arrow for the Z direction.
2- hold down the ctrl key and start reorienting the gumball with the center point. Then release the control key. You’ll still be reorienting the gumball so if you now hold down ctrl you’ll enter elevator mode.
3- run the command RelocateGumball and then use the standard elevator mode workflow.
If these aren’t working for you it might be the sequence of when you are pressing ctrl or an ortho or project Osnap mode being enabled as Helvetosaur mentioned.