snapping on Affinity Designer Mac

[Edward Goodwin]

When copying objects in Affinity Designer (on a mac), I'm finding that snaps don't work to the object copied from. I'll explain:

Let's say I have drawn a rectangle. I alt-click & drag to copy the object. I now want this newly created copy to snap to the object that I've copied it from (the original rectangle). It doesn't snap. If I click off the copy, select the original rectangle and then re-select/drag the copy, it will now snap to the original. This is a frustrating work flow as it requires 2-3 extra clicks. 

Do I have something incorrectly set-up in the snapping preferences that stops this from working? Or does this functionality not exist in Affinity Designer? Seems quite a basic function to me...

All guidance gratefully received!

Edward

[h_d]

Alt-drag (option-drag on my Mac) ignores snapping. If I option-drag to duplicate and then remove my finger from the option key while still dragging with my trackpad, the duplicated object snaps to the original.

Add - if you're on a Mac, cmd-drag 'Clones' selected objects and the clone will snap immediately. Might be worth trying with ctrl-drag on Windows.

Edited April 6, 2022 by h_d

[Edward Goodwin]

h_d - this is great! I am on a mac...

alt (on my keyboard, option on others) + click/drag doesn't do the snapping *unless* you release the alt key before unclicking. It's a step I'd not though to try but it works. So that's super. cmd-drag also works.

Out of interest, what's the difference between the alt/option and the cmd versions? Is that a difference between copy and clone? If yes, what is clone vs. copy?

Thanks for your help!

E

[h_d]

56 minutes ago, Edward Goodwin said:

Out of interest, what's the difference between the alt/option and the cmd versions? Is that a difference between copy and clone? If yes, what is clone vs. copy?

 

As far as I can see, cmd-drag gives an immediate snapping effect. But if you release the cmd key before you stop dragging, the cloning effect stops and it becomes an ordinary drag-to-move.

I don't think there's any difference at all between the final results of 'clone' (with cmd) and 'copy' (with alt/option). Both methods give you a duplicate object on a new layer, both methods can be followed by cmd-j to step and repeat.

The 'official' way seems to be cmd-drag:

 

 

Alt-drag may be more of a macOS-wide shortcut that 'just happens' to work in Designer.  

[Dan C]

27 minutes ago, h_d said:

The 'official' way seems to be cmd-drag:

 

 

Alt-drag may be more of a macOS-wide shortcut that 'just happens' to work in Designer.  

As I understand it, CMD + drag was the original shortcut, but certain firms we work closely with had expressed an interest in making this shortcut ALT + drag to match other creative applications they were used to - as to not change the process for our pre-existing customers, our developers decided to allow both CMD or ALT + drag to perform the clone action.

In terms of differences, the objects created using either key will be the same - the only difference is as you've found, the app ignores snapping when holding the ALT key, including when cloning with the ALT key.

I hope this clears things up