tangential snap function

[ChristAlix]

Tangential snap, e.g. in Designer becomes a game of patience and the result is everything else, but not tangential. There are already a lot of snap functions but they don't help when, for example, two different circles have to be connected tangentially by a line. It would be a very helpful addition to the already existing snap functions to add tangent, quadrant and parallel snap. Finally, these belong to the basic geometric constructions.

[Aammppaa]

Tangents have been discussed a few times over the years - I can't remember whether there was any suggestion that they would be added or not, but a quick forum search might be informative.

I do recall this post, which shows how to construct tangents by hand…

Of course not as convenient as snapping, but will get the job done for simple cases at least.

[awakenedbyowls]

On 3/31/2020 at 8:33 PM, ChristAlix said:

 

 

Is there a tangiential snap feature yet?

I just looked at the drop down menu and couldn't fund any of these options.

[GarryP]

I don’t believe that there is.
We can snap to a point on the circumference of a circle/ellipse but not tangentially.

Aside: I remember some kind of ‘construction mode’ being available in an earlier beta version of Designer (maybe 1.7.x or something) but that functionality only got partly-subsumed into a later commercial version. I can’t remember if that had tangent snapping or not.

[awakenedbyowls]

That's a bit disappointing. Trying to create a light effect eg. and can get it fairly close enough by eye but I'm a perfectionist + I'd like to have some functionality to be able to easily move all of the bottom circles around and resize (and they comprise two layers)

lights.afdesign

[GarryP]

I can see where tangential snapping would come in handy for that sort of thing.
Someone else was recently asking about a similar thing, but for the ellipse at the end of a cone:
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/164746-ad-making-two-shapes-match-edges-exactly/