Affinity Designer - Distance in between nodes?

[TomSDM]

Hi there,

I'm new to the forum and hope that everyone is doing well.

I have a question in regards to dynamic guides in Affinity Designer. As I looked around on YouTube searching for a guide on how to create vector brushes in Affinity Designer I came across the following tutorial: 

After a straight line is created with the pen tool, at the 1:35 mark it shows nodes being added with the node tool and you can see pixel measurement displayed of how far apart consecutive new node is from the existing nodes. I'm using the latest version of Affinity Designer for Windows and snapping is working but no measurement gets displayed. Only when I place the nodes on the line first, then select one with the node tool and drag any of them on the line does the measurement display. But according to the video this should also happen when you just hover the mouse over the line with the node tool selected prior to placing a node. What am I missing?

Thanks in advance,
Tom

[thomaso]

Hi @TomSDM,
welcome to the Affinity Forums!

Unfortunately I don't know how to get the distance displayed just by hovering – but maybe another option can make it easier to align nodes on a curve. It either distributes the nodes automatically (evenly) …

… or by a specific distance you choose (via slider or type):

… while it affects the selected nodes only and always aligns from left to right:

[v_kyr]

9 hours ago, TomSDM said:

But according to the video this should also happen when you just hover the mouse over the line with the node tool selected prior to placing a node. What am I missing?

Check your snapping settings, I too get this hover over line effect as shown in that video.

[thomaso]

44 minutes ago, N.P.M. said:

It must be snap to grid selected and this option in the nodetool.

Yes, this works for me, too. The video tutorial seems to have a 10 px grid set.

So it requires first to set a grid with the wanted spacing & divisions … and change that for different node distances. This appears cumbersome compared to the Alignment options window from the Toolbar, especially if I want to use it for just 1 line, or maybe several lines but with nodes in different distances for each line.

[TomSDM]

@thomaso: Thank you for your reply and the tip about the alignment. I didn't know about this and think it's great to have in your arsenal.

To all others that have replied also thank you for sharing your insight which pointed me in the right direction. I did some experimenting in case someone runs into issues with this in the future so here are my findings. First, the "Snapping" (magnet icon) needs to be checked on the main toolbar, the snapping needs be enabled within its settings (accessible by clicking arrow next to magnet icon), within settings "only snap to visible objects" has to be unchecked, the "snap to grid" needs to be checked.

Second, with the node tool selected and on its tool bar under Snap: "Align to nodes of selected curves" also needs to be checked.

Now with a line drawn by pen tool selected when hovering over it with the node tool the measurement will appear. By default it snaps to a predetermined number of pixels ex: 10 pixels. You can change this by going into "View" and "Grid and Axis Manager...". Then switch the mode from "Automatic" to "Basic" and type in a number for "Spacing" for example 1 which will result in showing the measurement per pixel.

Thanks again all,
Tom