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I came across this annoying moment while writing a how-to article and realized I didn't know the name of those white squares that surround views.
Here some images for clarification.
Windows PowerPoint:
Mac Xcode:
Omar Abdelhafiz
Posted 2017-02-09T16:22:12.467
Reputation: 921
104
Terms for these may vary from platform to platform, but on the Mac I believe they're called the "handles" on the "selection box"
Spiff
Posted 2017-02-09T16:22:12.467
Reputation: 84 656
4What spiff said. Or "selection handles". – Steve Rindsberg – 2017-02-09T16:45:43.130
11Pretty much everywhere I've seen them named, they're called handles (sometimes <thing> handles like "selection handles" but always some kind of handles). – Adrian – 2017-02-09T17:12:38.647
3They were originally called "grabber handles" on the Mac. I'm not sure if this terminology has changed or not. Those of us who learned the tech many years ago still refer to them as "grabber handles", but "selection handles" or "resize handles" sounds much more dignified. I don't like just "handles", because the word is too overloaded and thus ambiguous. Don't use it unless its very clear from context what you're referring to. – Cody Gray – 2017-02-10T02:00:12.193
7"...but always some kind of handles." Calling them love handles from now on. – Hashim – 2017-02-12T04:06:05.660
76
I would refine Spiff’s answer a bit and say they are the resize handles, since one typically uses them to resize the object of interest.
Per duplode's comment, this appears to be the nomenclature used by Microsoft – see, e.g., "Use resize and rotation handles" on MSDN.
hBy2Py
Posted 2017-02-09T16:22:12.467
Reputation: 2 123
8Spotted in the wild at MSDN (in particular, note the contrast with "rotation handles"). – duplode – 2017-02-11T20:23:04.373
15
I typically call them "control points".
Here are some web references that use similar terminology.
you can also use the onscreen control points to resize the rectangle
An article on resizing graphics in CS5
In the default scaling mode, the selection scales graphic elements from the control point opposite the one you’re dragging.
From Microsoft Office 2003 in 10 Simple Steps or Less By Michael Desmond
When you hover your mouse cursor over a cell or table edge, the boundary turns blue, indicating a layout area. Click this boundary and control points appear.... You can click and drag these points to resize....
I agree with the comment by Steve Rindsberg that mentioned that the preferred terminology might vary by application and will note that Microsoft's documentation on Powerpoint appears to use control point for Bezier curves and resize handle (as suggested by hBy2Py) for resizing.
user650881
Posted 2017-02-09T16:22:12.467
Reputation: 269
This may be true in some situations, but in graphics applications these are very definitely handles as control points refers to a way of constructing Bezier curves – Chris H – 2017-02-13T14:23:22.233
8
To me theses are anchors of the bounding box.
iXô
Posted 2017-02-09T16:22:12.467
Reputation: 231
1This is correct. It is definitely called the bounding box, especially in Adobe software (Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop). – None – 2017-02-10T15:50:31.107
4@FighterJet Disagree. The individual little white boxes at the corners and the centers of the edges are not themselves the bounding box, though they are components of the bounding box. The body of the question is vague; I've suggested an edit. – hBy2Py – 2017-02-10T16:13:06.557
1Exactly, the bounding box is the dashed line that is linking the smalls boxes that are in the corner and in the middle of theses lines. – iXô – 2017-02-10T16:14:56.487
Each application may have its own terminology for these things. And in the context of the original question (PowerPoint, X-code), what Adobe calls it isn't relevant. – Steve Rindsberg – 2017-02-10T19:33:30.517
Disagree. "Anchor" can meet something entirely different, especially if the handles are used to rotate the object. – jamesdlin – 2017-02-11T11:06:17.330
@Steve: PowerPoint and X-code are just examples. – None – 2017-02-11T18:40:11.370
4"Anchors" is not quite right either—I would give that label to points on a path. – None – 2017-02-11T18:40:49.583
@FighterJet: Possibly. But as OP mentioned writing a how to article and tagged the post with those specific apps, it doesn't seem reasonable to apply some other app's terminology. – Steve Rindsberg – 2017-02-12T17:23:59.623
I've seen the term "anchor" already used in some graphics libraries for different thing: 1) to describe points (usually on the bounding box) where lines may be connected to an element 2) as "anchor point" which is the center around which the element can be rotated. It would be confusing to name the handles shown in the question "anchors" too. – kapex – 2017-02-12T20:10:53.367
1Powerpoint definitely has "anchors" for 2-D shapes, to which the special 'connector' line shapes can attach and to which the connectors stay attached when the 2-D shape is repositioned/resized. They're marked by little red boxes when one is moving the endpoint of a connector -- definitely not the same thing as described by OP. – hBy2Py – 2017-02-13T04:37:47.623
-1
Anchor Points. Position the mouse pointer over an anchor, hold down on left mouse button to raise the anchor, drag the raised anchor to a new location, and release the mouse button to drop the anchor at the new point.
Bob Wire
Posted 2017-02-09T16:22:12.467
Reputation: 1
I think this would have been better as a comment on @iXô's answer. – Joshua Drake – 2017-02-13T19:22:47.680
Possibly relevant: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dn742466.aspx
– Der Hochstapler – 2017-02-14T19:25:49.777