Solving soliton equations on the time–space scale has always been a challenging issue. In this paper, we firstly generalize the Ablowitz–Kaup–Newel–Segur (AKNS) method to the time–space scale, concurrently obtain the nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation on this scale, which unifies the continuous and the semi-discrete NLS equations. On this basis, the N-fold Darboux transformation is proposed for the NLS equation on a space scale. As applications, soliton, breather, and rogue wave solutions of NLS equation are derived from diverse seed solutions on a space scale. Specially, the rouge solution on a space scale is obtained for the first time.