Various Snapping problems - incl. inconsistent candidate choice

[JakeStaines]

I recorded a short video of a snapping candidate choice problem as I'm not sure how I could easily explain it in words. Essentially it seems that after a couple of snaps, curve objects are losing their ability to be chosen and/or choose snapping candidates.

It's not especially clear until they overlap, and I appreciate that it looks at first like I must just not have the hexes in my default-6 snap candidates list until I select them to demonstrate they're curve objects and not special polygons, but all three hexagons shown here are definitely in the recent-objects-snapping-candidates list throughout the video, the purple outline is just not showing up very well on YouTube but was clearly visible at the time.

What seems to have happened is that it's somehow lost the ability to snap between these objects. In the video I open the snapping menu to show the current options and click on the objects a few times to demonstrate that they are indeed curve objects and no longer special editable shapes, but they refuse to register each other as snap candidates no matter where I approach them from or how they align or overlap. I then create a couple of rectangles, which snap to each other with no trouble, and snap to the hexagons, and then from that point onwards I can snap the hexagons again. This didn't actually last much longer than the video, unfortunately, before the ability was lost again in exactly the same manner, but again selecting the rectangles and then selecting the hexagons again seems to restore snappability.

 

 

 

Other issues I'm having with snapping that I'm not sure whether are defects or limitations:

• The "snap to object geometry" option just seems completely broken. Nothing I do seems to allow me to snap node-to-node or node-to-line, for example, which makes assembling an accurate hexagonal grid (as I was trying to do when I found the above problem) basically impossible. Or am I misunderstanding what 'snap to geometry' is supposed to do?
• It appears that snapping is dependent on zoom level, in that even when these hexagons are playing nice and snapping to each other, if I zoom out too much they stop doing so. Zooming in again restores the ability to snap. I'm talking the difference between 700% and 1000% zoom here, so it's not even like I'm whacking right the way out to see the page as a tiny postage-stamp in the middle of the screen. (Although these hexes here are about 5mm across so maybe that's a factor.)
• (This I know is a limitation, but the maximum of 20 previously-selected objects to snap to makes tasks like assembling a grid of objects pretty tedious - is there no way to raise that? I appreciate that it'd be a bit of a churn for snapping in left/centre/right alignment with potentially thousands of objects on the other side of the page, but it'd be nice if snapping would at least automatically consider overlapping objects or something.)

Edited March 31, 2021 by JakeStaines
Posted too early by accident via some key combination I don't understand

[Sean P]

Hi JakeStaines,

It definitely looks to me in the first portion of that video that the hexagones are not part of your snapping candidates - I can faintly see the magenta outline on the selected object but not on those. Are you sure the thin blue outline on those objects wasn't deceiving you into thinking it was the candidate highlight? In that situation I would switch from Candidate List to All Layers and then try and switch again without changing selection, or simply hover over the shape you want to snap to until it flashes the magenta outline indicating its now been made a candidate.

With regards to your other issues:
 

 

Quote

 

The "snap to object geometry" option just seems completely broken. Nothing I do seems to allow me to snap node-to-node or node-to-line, for example, which makes assembling an accurate hexagonal grid (as I was trying to do when I found the above problem) basically impossible. Or am I misunderstanding what 'snap to geometry' is supposed to do?

 

Snap to Object Geometry isn't broken - that is the intended way its meant to work. It requires the Node Tool to snap a selection of nodes to geometry. In your case it may have been the object you were trying to snap to may not have been a snapping candidate. 
See video: 
 

Quote

It appears that snapping is dependent on zoom level, in that even when these hexagons are playing nice and snapping to each other, if I zoom out too much they stop doing so. Zooming in again restores the ability to snap. I'm talking the difference between 700% and 1000% zoom here, so it's not even like I'm whacking right the way out to see the page as a tiny postage-stamp in the middle of the screen. (Although these hexes here are about 5mm across so maybe that's a factor.)

I'm unaware of this, however it could be related to the Screen Tolerance setting - this controls the distance you have to be to an object before snapping occurs. So it might be worth adjusting that value. The lower the value, the closer you need to be before it snaps. The higher, the further away it will snap. If this is still an issue could you try getting a screen capture showing the issue, along with a file that demonstrates the issue please?

Quote

(This I know is a limitation, but the maximum of 20 previously-selected objects to snap to makes tasks like assembling a grid of objects pretty tedious - is there no way to raise that? I appreciate that it'd be a bit of a churn for snapping in left/centre/right alignment with potentially thousands of objects on the other side of the page, but it'd be nice if snapping would at least automatically consider overlapping objects or something.)

 

You can change the Candidates from a Candidate List to All Layers, Immediate Layers or Immediate Layers with Children.

[rsmcguitar]

I find the snapping equally frustrating. Makes doing anything geometric impossible.
If I want to snap a square to a circle, it will snap to the edge of the circle if I'm resizing the square but NOT if I'm simply moving the square.
Same in Photo... I want to snap the brush in the centre to make a symmetrical pattern from the centre of my document, but the point won't snap to the centre line, or the geometry of any shape. Kinda useless.