Using nodes pairs to resize, rotate, skew shapes

To me the best way to do is:
when selecting a path with no subpath open the bounding box handles to skew, rotate and scale, show a knot at extemes to preform the operation, Also another approach is the use of transform center of rotation.

Selecting a node as the center of rotation is useful.

But beeing able to use it as center for resizing the whole shape too and with the additional ability to use another node in the shape as handle of rotation and resizing (a node which you can snap on anything) should be perfect !

Some precision because my previous comment was a little bit weak :

1° in my mind whenthe two handles nodes are chosen every time you click an drag every of the two nodes it becomes the handle and the other one becomes the center of rotation/resizing ;

2° rotation and resizing aren't separated actions ; you do the two togheter ;

3° one should have the ability to keep the proportions or elongate or shrink (elasticize) the manipulated shape ; there should be an option (activated with a key ?) to toggle between the two.

Here is a new picture to show what I mean and with some precision about the vocabulary I used before :

Where I wrote "resizing" one should understand "scaling".

And I think the idea of elasticizing or skewing was a little bit confusing. Thus I prefer abandon this idea at the moment. But on the other hand a suggest an idea for resizing the object or shape on its own vertical or horizontal axis.

Based on your latest image, aside from reassigning the location of the nodes, how does this differ from how the "Bend" LPE works if you have the "Width in units of length" box checked?

The difference is that it uses nodes selected on the shape itself. This should be much more precise to adjust it and fit it exactly inside gaps of other shapes for example.

Otherwise that could be a feature of the Bend LPE.

I just read the ScislaC post when starting to develop the LPE.
Ivan if i understand well you need a easy way to conect/join paths with proportional scale/rotate. For other things we can use the bend LPE way.

I expose another UX design:
LPE only works with paths, not groups with a min of two subpaths.
A numeric input to give the subpath to scale/rotate.
After scale/rotate join the result and close path if start node is near end node.

What I propose exactly is the possibility to use two nodes selected inside a shape as handles to resize and rotate it. After the two nodes are defined every time you drag one of them it acts like a handle to scale and rotate while the other one stay in place and becomes the transformation center.

Of course numeric entries could be interesting too but they are not the most important.

Joining paths and closing is also very interesting but not indispensible. That could be one of the possibilities.

Here are a branch to do it:
https://code.launchpad.net/~inkscape.dev/inkscape/transform_by_two_points
Here are a private video -to not disturb 0.91 launch- with the feature:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21C3tsYdBEI

Amazing ! Thanks a lot !!! At this stage it would be already extremely useful ! Does it work only with start and end nodes or (in a second step) could it be possible to choose any other pair of nodes inside the path ? The demo with the banner is perfect too !

Here a new video with this feature implemented.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLmYdWoXXIw

Merged into trunk in r14320 - thx a lot!

I add just a document to show some uses. I point also that one can precisely snap any path to the internal nodes of other path effects or even clones ! Very effective !

And here is the SVG file for those who work with Trunk.

Here is also a file describing some welcome features for this already very efficient LPE.

And here they are and they work like a charm !