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For precision, read requirement - if it's arty-crafty, it's probably not too much of an issue in most cases, if you're crafting something that requires laser cutting, it's a different matter. But I'll harp back to the five steps to snap something in AD ! Just unacceptable sadly. Yes, a really great feature if it's something you use, I don't find that at all useful - more of a hindrance really 🙂 I guess we all use these tools to completely different ends and occasionally, will have "conflicting features". As an aside, I had another yearly look around for alternative Illustrator-like apps this evening and came across "Amadine" - strangely, it does EXACTLY what is required - in one click too - and only 20 USD - maybe someone made it specially for me - it too has some "conflicting features" 'though 🙂 🙂 Happy Days Cheers Neil

Apologies for that, I seldom read further than the end of any post, in my defence, in most other forums I occasionally frequent, it invariably contains endless trivia about what toys the poster owns 🙂 OK, I've just watched the video by NPM (thanks for that BTW, cleared up a lot of my pre-conceptions of AD 🙂 )and see where my (?) issues arise. In AD, it seems that not all polygons are the same - a rectangle or a star (or whatever regular poly) are separate entities with their own super set of attributes particular to their design and NOT simple polygons with nodes - as in AI ! For instance, a rectangle created with the rectangle tool in AI is just a four sided poly and any of the nodes can be adjusted with the node tool - unlike AD where you have to "convert to curves" before being able to edit any of the nodes (of a "super poly" )- fine if you want the rectangle to stay as a rectangle, but painful if not. On the select all thing, I don't know what happened there, but the node tool was definitely changing to the move tool when within the bounding rectangle of the selected objects. In light of the above video and also the way AD handles 'super' polygons, I assumed that it may have been something to do with that - selecting all regular polys and created polys. I can't reproduce it this morning, it may be some low level bug - or may have been finger trouble on my part (couldn't possibly be that of course 🙂 ). I'll re-iterate the inferencing thing - I've just run through all my CAD applications and a few of my vector graphic applications and they ALL use inferencing at all levels, not just the bounding box of the object. I DO understand that you can do what I wish, but only with some effort to do something that should just be so ! I am of an age that has used graphic and cad apps for 40+ years, so have at least some experience with GUIs (and their foibles 🙂 ) Rather than one-click to move and snap in AD, it requires... 1 - Change to the node tool 2 - Select the object with that tool 3 - If it's a "super" poly, convert to curves 4 - Select all (this makes NO sense to me, Select All is a global command surely 🙂 ) to select all nodes of the selected object 5 - Click and drag the object either by the selected node (the node is highlighted, that in my book would adjust that node surely ??) and snap to the required node of the other object. For me, it's probably a deal-breaker, I can see where others that don't require this level of precision will find it perfectly fine for them - I really don't want to go through all the above steps simply to snap to a node - forty-odd years of muscle memory probably hasn't helped either in this case 🙂 Thanks to all for pointing out the "error of my ways" 🙂 , it seems that AI and I will have to be friends for some while yet /rant Cheers Neil

With respect, you must be using a different version of AD from me - 1.10.5 ? I'm on Mac, but do have a windoze version somewhere - I can't imagine there being any differences. Selecting all from the select menu (not the edit menu ?) - selects all objects - if using the node tool, the node tool changes to the move tool within the bounding rectangle of the selected objects, therefore, you can't subsequently select anything within that rectangle ?? There is no inferencing involved, so you can't snap to a node ? Maybe a screen vid would help, patently, I'm not getting the same effects you are. Cheers Neil

Ok, it seems I may not be explaining exactly what AD needs to be able to do (or may just what I want it to do 🙂 ). Here's a screendump of it using AI. For demonstration purposes, just a bunch of random polygons that require their nodes accurately snapped to other nodes. Cheers Neil AnyPoly.mov

TBH, the fact that you actually have to select the object first before you then choose another tool - say the node tool or point transform tool - to modify it or have to set a preference, makes it all just unusable for me - far too much faffing about. Simply mousing over an object in illustrator (or dare I say it, even the dreaded Inkscape 🙂 ) allows you to simply click the node or vector (using the move tool - which is more than likely, the tool you were using anyway) and instantly be able to drag and snap the object to any other object or node. I really don't understand why inferencing isn't a fundamental part of the core technology of AD. It's certainly a deal breaker for me and I don't see a way around it sadly - which is a real shame as AD is such a nice piece of software - AND the price is right - AND it's made in the UK 🙂. I guess that won't be addressed any time soon - I'll check back in another six months or so - maybe I'll get a surprise :-)) Cheers Neil

Actually, it 5 operations :-))

Thanks for this, but this is more of a workaround than a solution - it DOES work - and well thought out !, but that's four operations (I'd have to swap from the move cursor) just to snap an objects node when it should really be one :-)) To put this into perspective, if I have 30 (or much more!) items to move, that's 120 operations ! You get a quarter of that cigar though, thanks :-)))

I'm desperately trying to move away from Illustrator (and have been for a number of years since purchasing AD 🙂 I attempt to get to grips with AD every six months or so, but to no avail. I've trawled the help files and this forum, seen a few requests, but other than that, nothing. For the life of me, I just can't get AD to snap to object nodes - I don't mean during the creation of another object, that does work, but subsequent to the object creation - which may be on some other part of the page or even part of another project (I have no interest in aligning to page edges/centres/grids/bounding boxes). For a start, AFAICS, there seems to be no inferencing (ie node or line highlighting when your cursor passes over an object) - that in itself is a serious issue (for me at any rate 🙂 ) as you don't know where any orphan nodes may be (other than an obvious change of vector). In illustrator, the cursor changes from black to grey (Mac) and the underlying node is highlighted as you pass over. A really simple scenario is say a rectangle and a star - without actually selecting any of the objects (to be fair, in Illustrator, you pull the object along by one of it's nodes without previously selecting the complete object) , snap one of the star points to a rectangle corner. This is just child's play in Illustrator and something that I use constantly to ensure precise object positioning. Practically all the work I do has to be precise - not artistic 🙂 I do have snap to shape key points and snap to object geometry selected in the snapping manager along with all layers and visible objects. I'm sure some expert will have a simple solution to this that I have stupidly overlooked 🙂 Cheers Neil

I wouldn't hold your breath, we've been promised an offset tool for around 5 years - zilch, other than an awful stroke expansion thang :-(( I come back and do a forum search every 6 months or so to see if anything has happened (not sure why I bother really) - but sadly, no, the endless subs to Adobe have to keep going.

LOL, I come back to the Designer forum every few months to see where this wonderful tool is that is to arrive 'one day soon' and here we are in late 2019 - 5 years later - and the 'contour tool' (AKA Offset Tool) is nowhere to be seen. Buying Designer for both platforms has literally been a waste of money for me for this very reason - I should have put the funds to good use and put them to a subscription to Illustrator for yet another year What's even more annoying is that there is no mention of it in any future release either (AFAICS ?) - real shame, I had really wanted to ditch the adobe connection forever, but never to be it seems

That was in 2017, it's now 2019 + - I've pretty much dropped the notion that AD will ever produce a working offset tool (and I _don't_ mean the mess that is expand-a-stroke). For that reason, I've just had to move on and assume that the money I spent buying AD for both platforms has been wasted - REALLY sad about that, not the money loss, but the fact that nothing has moved on this front :-(((

I came back after a long layoff (still using AI ) to AD to see if anything had moved on the offset/contour tool front (something that completely stops me from using AD) - here's the quote from 2014 ... Five years is a loooong time to be waiting for a basic major feature to be incorporated. I really thought that AD was going to be pro-active on this front, but it seems that 'bells and whistles' rather than core features seem to be the order of the day. Maybe in another five years when I've fully retired ... /rant

I bought AD (both platforms) in the hope that one of my absolutely-must-have (and promised) features (an offset tool) would be incorporated. After 4 yrs, nothing - contrary to the promises - I'm quite sad about that as I had hoped to move away from $$$ Adobe $$$ products :-((( I see lots of completely impractical (for me at least) bells and whistles added, but not quality basic features fully available in illustrator or even coreldraw. I keep coming back at regular intervals to see any improvements, but I suppose that you get what you pay for. There must be thousands of laser/cnc - even vinyl cutter users DESPERATE for these features and wanting to get away from adobe. Anyone want my copies ? (are they even transferable licences ???) - currently (and it seems, the forseeable future), they're cack all use to me.) /rant

LOL, except for snapping while rotating All of the above offer truly accurate rotation, but not the precision of snapping to previously drawn parts that I require. At least I gained a few nice things from this post - every day is a earning day some say - thanks all that provided the info, it's appreciated Talking of cars, I see they are changing to driving on the right hand side of the road here in Scotland - probably something to do with brexit, it's to be done over the whole of next weekend. On Saturday after 1:00pm, all commercial and public transport will move over to the right, then on Sunday, all private cars and manually propelled vehicles will follow suit. Road signs will be removed and changed over the following weekend - if required. Cheers Neil

Yes, but my whole point is that it shouldn't :-))) If you want custom values, then simply typing in the transform panel would suffice for now in lieu of a custom panel, this is not the 'norm' - that's why I couldn't understand how it was 'working' - I do now tho' - I think "someone" once said that 'it's good to be different' :-) It's a bit like moving the clutch to the brake position - they'll still do their same job, but we've moved them (maybe not, that's probably a tad extreme, but you get my drift :-) It's not as if I haven't been doing it this way (wrongly?) since 1984 :-))

@firstdefenceHi, yes, I understand that we can snap the rectangle to the poly nodes, the issue is rotation constraint operation - normal mode is to constrain to the currently selected angle - whatever that might be, not to the cartesian position. So, if your rotated rectangle is currently at 27deg, it WONT (shouldn't :-) constrain to an orthogonal position, only to currentAngle+ (or -) constraintAngle ??? it should never get to an orthogonal position. You can try this in say AI/inkscape/ or just about any other graphics/CAD application - that's the way it will work. I'm not saying that they are all right and AD is wrong, but how do you then shift 45 deg say from your current position ???? (without a modification popup panel). Not unless you add ANOTHER modifier on top - say cmd+shift - if that were implemented - that would allow that mobility. It's a useful 'feature', perhaps it would have been better implemented as 'normal' tho' (as if any of us are normal LOL :-)) Cheers Neil

I had to look at your GIF over and over to see how that worked - what I couldn't understand was how the rectangle could possibly be shift constrained to go to 90deg ! In any other app, if the rectangle starts at say 23 deg off the horizontal, then shift constraining rotation would take you to 68deg (assuming constraints are set at 45deg :-) ie, 45 deg from the starting position - which is what you want, not how AD does it by snapping to the perpinzontal and horpendicular :-))And you're right, this really needs to be a feature request and they need to fix that constraint 'feature' :-) Cheers Neil

@gdenby - yes, you're right, so I'm not alone then :-) I need to take a step back from it all and take a second look rather than just expecting tools to work the way that AI does. However, tools really should be completely intuitive and NOT require a half hour delving through forum posts to find out where you are going wrong - the whole 'node tool' snapping scenario is a case in point. Different doesn't make better. The 'rotation centre' (called a 'fulcrum' back in the 20th century - and probably further - why change it to two words :-) ) can actually be snapped to a guide - only using the 'move' tool - however, as it disappears using the 'node' tool, contrary to public opinion, you then can't rotate and snap another node to the/a guide. OK on the 'attributes picker' - I've had a look at the styles option and it will work OK for me for what I do - thanks for that. However, not nearly as simple and tidy as the 'eyedropper tool' in AI :-) @Aammppaa - thanks for taking the time to create all the wee gifs, it's appreciated - must find out how to do that on my mac ! Perhaps my choice of a regular rectangle wasn't the best concept, the issue isn't with the snapping of bounding boxes which is inherently easy in AD (whether the object is rotated or not). Try rotating some odd shaped polygon using say opposing polygon points - one as the 'rotation centre' the other as the point that requires to be snapped to the guide. Yes, the 'rotation centre' can be snapped to a (say) a guide, but while that is wonderful, you are back to the problem in the previous paragraph, you can't snap an opposite (say) point to a guide. On the rectangle on the PDF solution, that doesn't work, in principle, it looks like it is working, but on the final rotation, it is not snapping to the guide (afaics :-) ) Sadly, with a rectangle, you can't even use the node tool to do it - not that you can rotate with the node tool anyway :-) I have photo, but I'm looking for a one-stop process, not a multilateral set of tools :-))))) I can do it all in AI with 2 clicks - why would I choose to open photo to do it :-) Neverthless, I really do appreciate the effort ! BTW, while delving into your solution, I came across a really annoying 'bug' - guides only show on the artboard and not on the background - arghh! I then found that to remove guides you drag them off the artboard - even worse :-) However, if you actually draw guides on the lower half of the background - they still exist but you can't see them - you CAN see them if you attempt to move a previous guide from the artboard - they highlight as soon as you move a guide. Further, you CAN actually snap to them if you know where they are ???????? Cheers Neil

Sometimes I just find Designer infuriating in the way that things (don't :-) work. I have a process where I drag in a scanned pdf plan in the background as a drawing guide. Occasionally, it's not orthogonal to the drawing limits due to some scan misalignment - whatever. The issue is that in Illustrator (my daily tool of choice unfortunately), the process is simply clicking on the scan, hit R to rotate, click a point to rotate by then pick a point on the scan to snap to that horizontal guide you created - simples, done - lock it and your ready to go. I can't find ANY way to rotate an object and snap a point to a guide using designer. Here's the test, pull down a guide, create a rectangle (as the object to rotate instead of a pdf scan) and rotate it manually - any angle. Grab the top LH corner and snap it to the guide (that in itself is a royal PITA - select the node tool, click a node, select all then snap that node to the guideline - arghhhhhh, give me strength, who thought that up, just SO unintuitive ). Ok, we now have a corner snapped to the guide. Let's say we want an opposite node to be orthogonal to the guide - no way. You can eyeball rotate it, but you can't snap. Even the rotate is a PITA, use the move tool, select the rectangle, then move the rotate axis object to the node that is on the guide (the node having been snapped to the guide in the previous process), then pick whatever opposite node you want snapped to the guide (without resizing the object of course - that is absolutely IMPERATIVE !!!!!). Before I die, I'd like a simpler way for this to work :-))))))) Actually, I'd just like this to work - simply like illustrator if at all humanly possible. I thought I only had a couple of issues before I could make this my daily routine - but now it's three :-)) An offset tool, an attributes picker (not a colo(u)r picker) and rotation with snap :-) Oh, and a snap redesign using the move tool, NOT the node tool /rant :-) Cheers Neil PS Apologies if I come across as being annoyed, it's just that I am, I really want to make this my one app and not have to keep jumping back to $$$$$$illustrator :-)

Yes, another +1 for this extremely important feature - from R12 thru to the latest 2018 would be nice

LOL, there you go then Alfred, I'm forever doomed to using 'Layer - Convert to Curves'- I'll be castigated for not reading the manual and I've never read the licence agreement either (I'm kidding, OF COURSE I've read the licence agreement, I signed it didn't I :-) I'll just put a sticky label on my monitor that says 'Type/Create Outlines - cmd+return' that should be OK for the software police - it doesn't expressly state that you can't do anything with sticky labels - or perhaps I missed that paragraph too. As you're resident in Scotland too, I expect you'll be around to check that I haven't done anything that would incriminate me :-) I do notice that Designer doesn't have applescript support - shame really, I could have maybe done something really naughty there :-) Anyway, I'm off to add to my licences by purchasing a Windoze copy too - wonder if they'll give me a refund on my (really) old Illustrator licences ???

Ha, Ha - if all else fails, read the manual :-))))) Yes, I should really read the manual, but if the GUI was just a bit more 'intuitive', I wouldn't need to :-)) I can live with it for now I think - TBH, the only shapes (layers :-) I need to convert to curves are text :-) There's nothing to stop me editing the app menuitems and changing them to anything I want of course :-) Once an offset tool is available, that will be the final nail in the coffin for Illustrator (for me at least).

Again, my apologies for these delayed replies - I did mention this as probably my last showstopper - and again many thanks for pointing out yet another menuitem 'easter egg' :-) This is exactly what was required - and again, 'layer/convert to curves' makes no logical sense to me whatsoever when what we are doing is converting a truetype/PS outline to a path (or curve if you must) LOL Patently it makes full sense to the folks who create the menuitems 'though :-) Either way, it works and short of that decent offset tool - that's my list ticked off :-) Not sure what the reference is to the Infinity Kat 'though :-) Cheers Neil

AAMMPPAA - Sincere apologies for the delayed reply - vacation got in the way, yep, the node snapping definitely works, thanks a lot for that, it's solved a major problem here - however, perhaps just a wee bit unintuitive - more of an 'easter egg' than an implied function LOL :-)) There's no way I would have figured that one out :-) It does work 100% of the time though (unlike Illustrator :-) Having to use the node tool - especially using command/ctrl A to select all the nodes while using it doesn't jive with the function of moving objects around - it's the wrong tool - that really does need to be fixed? Oval - Yes, 'offset path' is what was intended - apologies - in my case, essentially a small offset to create a toolpath. Illustrator has perhaps one of the best offset algorithms I've seen - far better than many of the ultra expensive CAD apps out there. Thanks for the great help - I really still can't believe how good affinity is - for me, just a few minor tweaks and it's there - 'text to outlines' maybe is the only showstopper :-) Cheers Neil

I've scanned as many posts on snapping as I possibly can, but still can't get this part of snapping to function. With the pen tool selected, the pen will snap easily to object nodes and will highlight the node correctly - as well as any other snapping selections made. However, if you pick up a previously created piece of geometry by a node (which really doesn't indicate that you've actually picked it up by that particular node anyway) and attempt to snap it to a node on another piece of geometry, there is no snapping function available ? No node highlighting or cursor context changing is shown (a la Illustrator)? I'm just about ready to change over to AD from Illustrator, this and an object offset tool are the only real things stopping me (well maybe text to outlines :-) Cheers Neil