Snapping

[jackamus]

How do I make sure that a guide will snap to a page centre and not an object that is close to the centre? I have all snapping options open except the 2 connected with pixels. Snapping candidate is set to 1. I assume that a 'Candidate' can also include a group.

Referring back to my disappearing bounding box thread, would decreasing 'Screen tolerance' help me?

[lepr]

If you have 'Only snap to visible objects' enabled, you could temporarily hide the interfering object so it stops being snappable.

When you are using Candidates List mode, selecting the interfering object will make it not a candidate for snapping.

When a guide snaps to the page centre, the guide becomes green (vertical) or red (horizontal) across the entire page.

[firstdefence]

You can also take the guessing out of it by using View > Guides... and using percentage as the unit. You'll be surprised how 'off' you can be even with snapping enabled, in most cases it would be a percent or two even though it appears to have snapped to the centre. Something I've noticed is the red horizontal snap indicator goes beyond the bounds of the canvas but the green vertical indicator does not, at least not in Affinity Photo v2 on mac.

I also think they are missing an opportunity to have better snapping by not having a "To selection" option, this can be a singular object or multiple. I'll make a request for this.

[jackamus]

Thanks for this and your observation. IMHO snapping get in the way most of time for me and I'm constantly turning it on and off.

The percentage option is interesting. How is it supposed to work as opposed to the alternative? When I opened my Guide manager and selected Percent it shows the guides as percentages. What does the percent figure represent?

'

[GarryP]

The percentage value is the percentage of the spread/artboard size measured from the top-left.

For example, a horizontal guide at 25% would be a guide at 25% of the way down the spread/artboard.

Similarly, at vertical guide at 60% would be a guide at 40% of the way from the right of the spread/artboard (60% from the left = 40% from the right).

It’s easy enough to check this for yourself by creating a new blank document, creating a guide, changing the value, and seeing what happens.

[jackamus]

Hi Garry,

Thanks for the heads-up on guide percentages. It seems a bit complicated and how would you use it in respect of accurate snapping?

[GarryP]

What about it seems complicated?
Is it the creation of the guide, or the percentage calculation, or both, or something else?

You original question was about getting a guide to be at the page centre.
firstdefence gave you the solution to that, which was to create a guide at 50%.
Then you set “Snap to guides” ON (when needed) and then snap to the guide.

[jackamus]

OK Gary. I was just trying to clear up in my own mind what percentages did and why!

I still think it complicated in that there is too much information/features as there is in the snapping functions. That was one of my complaints about the Text tabs in AD v1.

[AffinityMakesMeWonder]

19 minutes ago, jackamus said:

OK Gary. I was just trying to clear up in my own mind what percentages did and why!

I still think it complicated in that there is too much information/features as there is in the snapping functions. That was one of my complaints about the Text tabs in AD v1.

What’s complicated??

To use this kind of program (Affinity Suite) it must be a little complicated if we should have all functionalities that we demands…

Just accept that things must be a little hard to understand without some education…

[Old Bruce]

11 hours ago, jackamus said:

How do I make sure that a guide will snap to a page centre and not an object that is close to the centre? I have all snapping options open except the 2 connected with pixels. Snapping candidate is set to 1. I assume that a 'Candidate' can also include a group.

The way I work is to use my home made All Off Snapping Preset and then I turn on only what I want. In this case I would have only the Spread and Spread Midpoints enabled.

[firstdefence]

A percent = 1 part of 100, Using multiple percent is called a percentage. Imagine your document width and height divided into 100 bits, to get a guide dead centre either horizontally or vertically simply use 50 which is half of 100 so 50%.

Using Guides Manager... for centre lines is very easy, simply check the Percent option, then click on the new guide icons for both vertical and horizontal guides and it will automatically create new guides at 50%

[R C-R]

11 hours ago, jackamus said:

I still think it complicated in that there is too much information/features as there is in the snapping functions.

You do not need to use any of the snapping options if you find them too complicated to understand. Just make your own snapping preset(s) using the ones you like or need, & choose among them as needed.

[jackamus]

5 hours ago, R C-R said:

You do not need to use any of the snapping options if you find them too complicated to understand. Just make your own snapping preset(s) using the ones you like or need, & choose among them as needed.

Thanks RC I have just found this out from another member. How do you set-up  personlised snapping?

PS Do you think you still have COVID?

[jackamus]

5 hours ago, R C-R said:

You do not need to use any of the snapping options if you find them too complicated to understand. Just make your own snapping preset(s) using the ones you like or need, & choose among them as needed.

 

18 minutes ago, jackamus said:

Thanks RC I have just found this out from another member. How do you set-up  personlised snapping?

PS Do you think you still have COVID?

 

9 hours ago, firstdefence said:

A percent = 1 part of 100, Using multiple percent is called a percentage. Imagine your document width and height divided into 100 bits, to get a guide dead centre either horizontally or vertically simply use 50 which is half of 100 so 50%.

Using Guides Manager... for centre lines is very easy, simply check the Percent option, then click on the new guide icons for both vertical and horizontal guides and it will automatically create new guides at 50%

Thanks for explaining how guide percentages work.

How do I set up snapping so that a guide will snap to a curve node. I notice that snapping does include bounding boxes and their handles but not nodes.

[R C-R]

11 minutes ago, jackamus said:

How do you set-up  personlised snapping?

You can create snapping presets by opening the snapping panel, setting whatever snapping options you want & clicking on the 'burger' menu to access the Create Preset item in that popup menu. name it as you wish.

[firstdefence]

5 hours ago, jackamus said:

How do I set up snapping so that a guide will snap to a curve node. I notice that snapping does include bounding boxes and their handles but not nodes.

Select the node tool and make sure on the node tools context menu under snap: the first icon is selected, zoom in on the node and simply drag a guide to the node it will snap to the node. This doesn't require the main snapping option to be active either.

 

 

[jackamus]

10 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Select the node tool and make sure on the node tools context menu under snap: the first icon is selected, zoom in on the node and simply drag a guide to the node it will snap to the node.

Thanks for the instruction. This is what happens when I tried this. I created an ellipse QS, changed it to 'Curves', created a node on the ellipse, selected in the context menu, 'Align to nodes of selected curves' then still using the node tool, dragged a guide from the left rule bar and it worked!

But what doesn't work is that I couldn't drag an existing nearby guide with the node tool. Is this to be expected? This is one way of creating more guides than you need.

[Old Bruce]

8 hours ago, jackamus said:

But what doesn't work is that I couldn't drag an existing nearby guide with the node tool. Is this to be expected? This is one way of creating more guides than you need.

I too would love to be able to work with guides using the Node tool but we need to use the Move tool when working with guides. Having said that, there has been some improvements made in the latest betas regarding the use of guides. My favourite is the Double click on a guide, this will open the Guides window with the guide which was double clicked highlighted and therefore selected for deletion.

[firstdefence]

Even in version 2.0.4 you cannot reposition the guide, which is damned annoying, very illogical and counter-intuitive. 

I stand corrected...  but the method is still damned annoying, very illogical and counter-intuitive. 

[lepr]

10 hours ago, jackamus said:

But what doesn't work is that I couldn't drag an existing nearby guide with the node tool. Is this to be expected?

You can reposition a guide with Node Tool: move the pointer to the little bit of the guide that's visible in the ruler and start the drag from there. You can do that with just about every tool, as far as I know.

Edited March 30, 2023 by ,,,

[lepr]

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

Was about to post the same and this was even possible in V1

I verified that for jackamus before replying to his message.

 

[firstdefence]

Not the same and seems rather illogical and still counter-intuitive.

[lepr]

12 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Not the same and seems rather illogical and still counter-intuitive.

It works and is a heck of a lot better than the 'cannot be done' that you claimed. 

And you gave NPM a 'thanks' for showing the very thing you didn't like from me. WTF!

 

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Not the same and seems rather illogical and still counter-intuitive.

Personally, I find it quite logical that the Node Tool can't be used to drag a guide in the workspace window because it has no nodes!

It also makes perfect sense to me that guides can be dragged on the ruler with (almost?) any tool. I see it as a nice, time-saving convenience.

As always, YMMV.

[firstdefence]

1 hour ago, ,,, said:

It works and is a heck of a lot better than the 'cannot be done' that you claimed. 

And you gave NPM a 'thanks' for showing the very thing you didn't like from me. WTF!

 

I thanked him for enlightening me and probably others on that odd method, but nevertheless, it's still not logical that you can then move the cursor, guide in hand, onto the canvas so why can't it be done from the canvas like the other tools that can manipulate guides.  A lack of consistency makes for a counter-intuitive UI. Why you find that hard to understand is a WTF moment indeed.