When I want to rotate something very precisely with the gumball, I want to create a long “tiller” for the gumball rotater by dragging it away from the gumball.
But while doing that my object starts rotating before I reach the desired lenght of my “tiller”.
That makes it hard to see a small difference between the original and the rotated position.
So most of the time I end op using the rotate command, that allows me to define the lenght of the tiller before anything rotates, or I enter a number after clicking on the gumball rotation ring.
I think it would be very useful to be able to select the rotating ring +Ctrl, create a tiller as in the rotate command, and after releasing Ctrl rotation of the object starts.
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you can change the drag strength of the gumball, this will allow you to have much finer control of the rotation.
set it super low like 2-5 to get really fine control.
Hi @PodoTools
I agree that the actual behaviour of the Arc lacks some finesse.
*This only concern the dynamic rotation *
Makes sense for me not only regarding the finesse but also to be able to manipulate the arc outside the the region of the selected object(s).
Regards
Rodolfo Santos
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Have you tried zooming outwards after clicking the Gumball arc? While holding the left mouse button.
What is the expected behaviour by performing the suggested manipulation ?
I am using a Mac with a Magic Pad ( a bit tricky here ).
Regards
Rodolfo Santos.
Anyone using CAD professionally would suggest the use of a 3 button mouse…
Zooming out allows the mouse to be further away from the center of rotation therefore it is easier to manipulate compared to having the mouse close to the center of rotation.
Please…
That’s indeed one way.
What is you opinion regarding @PodoTools wish, does it makes sense ?
Regards
Rodolfo Santos.
I’m using the following devices:
Delicate modelling with my right hand on the mouse but everything else I can do left or right depending on what I have to click on the keyboard and generally to reduce stress on my right arm / wrist / hand
Thank you for sharing these informations, but I it seems we are not on the same line here.
Devices is not my concern in this topic, the relevance of the wish is what is questioning me.
Btw I used SN during 10 years and agree with you.
Regards
Rodolfo Santos
Hi Kyle,
The reason I see myself using the rotate command instead of the gumball is not only the finesses of the rotation. I miss the second click that defines not only the length of the rotation arm, but also a second reference point.
I need that to align the rotated object with another! point.
In this simple example I want to rotate a line to align it with another line.
Easy task with rotate, impossible to do with Gumball.
I also do not understand the idea about how the gumball snaps to locations when dragging the gumball with Ctrl. to move it before moving the object.
It is certainly possible with the Gumball.
You need to make sure the Gumball is set to snappy dragging.
Relocate the Gumball with pressing CTRL and start dragging the Gumball either on the plane icon or Gumball origin. Let it go where you want it.
Press CTRL again and drag the blue circular segment so it is aligned with your first curve.
Then finally pull the blue circular segment to the target curve.
You can streamline this workflow with shortcuts to align the Gumball to Object, World, C-Plane or View.
Below is a quick screen capture of me rotating a line to match another line with the Gumball. In the beginning the Gumball was aligned to Object.
Thanks Martin.
Yes that makes it possible, but it feels cumbersome compared to the rotate command.
Change the settings of gumball first (normally I do not want a snappy Gumball), remember to grab the gumball at the plane icon (grabbing the Gumball origin does not work here) instead of the origin that you want to snap to something, and in the mean time keep in mind what was your second reference point that you want to snap to something. (Rotate shows the path the second reference point will follow, not gumball)
So yes it is doable, but I keep using the rotate command, although I have always the gumball activated.
But maybe I miss something here.
No doubt working with the Gumball takes time to get used to it but it has many benefits for direct editing of all sorts of geometry and especially SubD.
The only thing I find a bit complicate is when I have to make a line parallel to the coordinate system without changing the length.
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Is not it more straightforward to just use ! _Orient for this operation? 
This way, you can even snap the object to another object or to the CPlane grid.
I also think that this idea for expanding the ark handle is great, especially that the extension of the scale handle length is already implemented in the exact same way with using the Ctrl key and dragging.
I would suggest to have an option to keep that extended secondary arc handle permanently shown on the gumball by default. And make it work so that it will rotate the object at 1 degree increments if “Grid snap” is on, whereas the main arc handle will still be able to rotate the object at 5 degree increments if “Grid snap” is on (this is its current behaviour anyway).
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…this is what concerns me
Why a specific manipulation that can be done with the Scale Handles cannot be reproduced with the Arc Handles ?
From my humble point of view, If a specific manipulation is made possible with the Scale Handles, it is probably because it has been judged relevant in terms of uses.
Then, this logic of use should apply to all handles…
Regards
Rodolfo Santos
The Gumball size can be adjusted in the settings.
The ability to increase the size of the arc on the fly is obsolete since you can already just move your mouse pointer further away from the center of rotation.
But currently we can’t simultaneously have rotation increments divided by 1 and 5 degrees. 
Or, one arc handle to use incremental rotation, while the other is totally free.
Unless you activate “Drag strength” at 20% and “Grid snap” simultaneously. However, that causes annoying problems with how Gumball operates at angles above 35 degrees. 
Yes, but the difference with rotate is that with gumball the object is already rotating before the endpoint of the handle is picked.
And that is what I miss the most, being able to pick the endpoint of the handle before anything starts to rotate
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