Guides and Bounding boxes.

[jackamus]

Having complained over many years about bounding box handles disappearing when dragging or moving a guide I never actually offered an example file of what I meant. Attached is a file showing an number of groups A, B, C, D and E. I invite you to drag a vertical guides that will snap to the disappeared bounding box handles.

This is just a simple file - some of my technical drawing files have a great number of objects and the problem gets even worse. The only way that I can get a guide to snap to a bounding box handle is to zoom right in to the handle and drag the guide until it does snap or switch off snapping and do it by eye.

The problem is caused by there being a great number of places, out of screen view, where a guide can snap giving a false snapped position to the object in question.

I rest my case.

 

Guides and bounding boxes.afdesign

[walt.farrell]

You may have a better experience if you do 2 things:

1. Adjust your Snapping options to minimize the number of places it will choose to snap to; and
2. Select the object you want to snap to in the Layers panel. (You've probably done that, as you mention the bounding box.)

For 1, also try changing Snapping Candidates to "Current Layer".

[Dan C]

16 minutes ago, jackamus said:

Attached is a file showing an number of groups A, B, C, D and E. I invite you to drag a vertical guides that will snap to the disappeared bounding box handles

Thanks for your file provided, firstly these objects are grouped together, but are not in separate groups for each 'lettered' object and this may affect the snapping behaviour, depending on your settings -

Current layers setup:

'Separate groups' expectation:

21 minutes ago, jackamus said:

This is just a simple file - some of my technical drawing files have a great number of objects and the problem gets even worse. The only way that I can get a guide to snap to a bounding box handle is to zoom right in to the handle and drag the guide until it does snap or switch off snapping and do it by eye.

However with either document layout above, I'm able to snap dragged guides to any of these objects, as expected. For any object that does not immediately snap, if you hover your cursor with the held guide over the object for a second or so, you should see a pink highlight flash around the object below your cursor, indicating this is now being used as a snapping candidate and can be snapped to as required.

Please see my below screen recording showing this - 

Even without these bounding boxes being visually shown, either for the selected objects or other objects in the file, the guide snaps correctly - unless I have misunderstood your report?

[Old Bruce]

@Dan C, I do believe that @jackamus is wanting to snap to the bounding box midpoints of the rotated objects. In my experience this is not possible with rotated objects. We can snap to the middle of the whole thing not the centres of the edges.

Having said that I must confess that I have yet to figure out why I would want or need to have this ability. Four separate guides. Here is a mockup of what I think jackamus is after. Yellow highlight of the guides.

[Hangman]

Hi @Dan C,

I have long experienced this issue as well and I see the same exact problem with @jackamus's file regardless of whether I use the original layer panel layout or group the elements as you've shown in your second screengrab for the A, B, and C elements.

I've tried every possible snapping combination but it makes no difference. The only way I can successfully snap to the A, B, and C bounding boxes is to move the items outside the group entirely. I experienced this issue many times in v1 as well so it's not unique to v2 but I never figured out the exact cause.

The only potential common denominator I can see is that both myself and @jackamus are running Monterey.

[jackamus]

4 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

@Dan C, I do believe that @jackamus is wanting to snap to the bounding box midpoints of the rotated objects. In my experience this is not possible with rotated objects. We can snap to the middle of the whole thing not the centres of the edges.

Having said that I must confess that I have yet to figure out why I would want or need to have this ability. Four separate guides. Here is a mockup of what I think jackamus is after. Yellow highlight of the guides.

Hi Bruce,

Your are correct except that with the angled Item I want to snap a guide to the mid-point of the group's bounding box.

Regarding all the other work-arounds messing around with snapping settings is not a very convenient way to operate. Far and away the simplest solution would be for the developers to alter the code so that the handles do not disappear when moving a guide. They only disappear for a fraction of a second whilst the guide is being moved. What's so difficult about that?

[Hangman]

20 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

I do believe that @jackamus is wanting to snap to the bounding box midpoints of the rotated objects. In my experience this is not possible with rotated objects. We can snap to the middle of the whole thing not the centres of the edges.

I have no issue snapping to a rotated shape's midpoints, the issue I've always had with rotated shapes is that 'Snap to shape key points' doesn't work as I'd expect it to work. I've always assumed with this enabled it should allow snapping to all key points on the shape but it doesn't, i.e., all four vertices...

[Pšenda]

4 minutes ago, Hangman said:

The only way I can successfully snap to the A, B, and C bounding boxes

Personally (Windows) I have a problem with snapping horizontal guides - sometimes I can't snap to rectangle B, then "something" happens (I change the selection in the Layers panel, change the position of the Layers panel, ???) and more than once it snaps reliably, then again "something" happens and I can't snap to rectangle C, etc.

 

I find the snapping ability to be quite unstable with grouped objects.

[Dan C]

Thanks for the clarification all, my apologies as I had missed the specificity of the bounding boxes midpoint in the original post.

I agree that this does not seem correct, and I'm uncertain of the exact cause of some of the behaviours I'm seeing here currently. I'm going to raise this internally with the team and I will be sure to update you here with my findings in due course

 

[Hangman]

1 minute ago, Pšenda said:

Personally (Windows) I have a problem with snapping horizontal guides - sometimes I can't snap to rectangle B, then "something" happens (I change the selection in the Layers panel, change the position of the Layers panel, ???) and more than once it snaps reliably, then again "something" happens and I can't snap to rectangle C, etc.

That is pretty much the exact same problem I see as well and have seen since v1 but it's hard to track down the cause as it doesn't happen with all files even with identical layer panel layouts...

[jackamus]

12 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Hi @Dan C,

I have long experienced this issue as well and I see the same exact problem with @jackamus's file regardless of whether I use the original layer panel layout or group the elements as you've shown in your second screengrab for the A, B, and C elements.

I've tried every possible snapping combination but it makes no difference. The only way I can successfully snap to the A, B, and C bounding boxes is to move the items outside the group entirely. I experienced this issue many times in v1 as well so it's not unique to v2 but I never figured out the exact cause.

The only potential common denominator I can see is that both myself and @jackamus are running Monterey.

I can confirm Hagman that it has nothing to do with our OS. I complained about this years ago with V1. I had a lengthy forum and letter exchange with the developer and Patrick Connor. Their reason for not allowing the handles to remain visible whilst moving a guide was to reduce 'screen clutter'. How on earth can bounding box handles appearing for as fraction of a second be considered 'screen clutter'.

I think this problem, because of my incessant complaining, has become one that Serif refuses to give way on no matter how sensible my argument, and those of some others appears to be.

[jackamus]

10 minutes ago, Hangman said:

I have no issue snapping to a rotated shape's midpoints, the issue I've always had with rotated shapes is that 'Snap to shape key points' doesn't work as I'd expect it to work. I've always assumed with this enabled it should allow snapping to all key points on the shape but it doesn't, i.e., all four vertices...

 

Well done Hagman you've highlighted yet another snapping problem!

[jackamus]

12 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Personally (Windows) I have a problem with snapping horizontal guides - sometimes I can't snap to rectangle B, then "something" happens (I change the selection in the Layers panel, change the position of the Layers panel, ???) and more than once it snaps reliably, then again "something" happens and I can't snap to rectangle C, etc.

 

I find the snapping ability to be quite unstable with grouped objects.

So it seems that it is not just a problem of disappearing bounding box handles but a snapping problem! Looks like I've opened a can of worms!

[jackamus]

14 minutes ago, Dan C said:

Thanks for the clarification all, my apologies as I had missed the specificity of the bounding boxes midpoint in the original post.

I agree that this does not seem correct, and I'm uncertain of the exact cause of some of the behaviours I'm seeing here currently. I'm going to raise this internally with the team and I will be sure to update you here with my findings in due course

 

Thanks Dan. At last someone is going to try and do something about it.

[thomaso]

11 minutes ago, jackamus said:

So it seems that it is not just a problem of disappearing bounding box handles but a snapping problem! Looks like I've opened a can of worms!

The can got opened before occasionally, for instance …

[Pšenda]

2 hours ago, thomaso said:

The can got opened before occasionally, for instance …

... or this:

 

[MiWe]

Try to select the object with the point transform tool and drag a guide to the desired node.
Using Designer 2.11, Windows 10 the guide snaps … Or am i missing something?

Greetings

[Oufti]

On 9/4/2023 at 4:14 PM, jackamus said:

Having complained over many years about bounding box handles disappearing when dragging or moving a guide […]

Like here:

 

[Dan C]

Apologies for the delayed response here @jackamus, I can confirm I've logged the following with our developers for further investigation/consideration, as I don't believe this to be correct behaviour of the Affinity apps currently:

1. Snapping (including guides, groups and midpoints) is using the Regular Bounds to snap to, not the visible Base Box. I'm unsure if this is technically 'by design', however I personally believe the app should always snap to the visible bounding box being displayed, which by default is the Base Box. (AFD-6825)
      
2. Rotated bounding box midpoints snap in incorrect locations, or not at all. When snapping does occur, it does not seemingly match either the Base Box or Regular Bounds. In my testing I found that the further object is rotated, less likely it was to snap - though this was not 100% consistent.
   This also applies to Grouped objects that have a different Base Box / Regular Bounds bounding box. (AFD-6826)
   
   Rotated:
   
   Grouped:  
3. Dragging guides from off canvas/object does not always snap until guide is dropped over object and then redragged. (AFD-6827)
   This appears to depend on a number of criteria, such as rotation applied to the object, zoom level of the document and whether the selected object was transformed recently. I've not been able to narrow down the exact trigger, however I have replicated this enough times to report it to our team.
    
   
   Note how this works as expected in the first 2 examples, then in the third after I zoom into the canvas and transform the object, guides dragged from the ruler stop snapping to any midpoint for the shape. If I then 'drop' the guide over the object, reselect it using the Move Tool and drag the guide again, it will now snap to the midpoint (although still the incorrect location, as covered in point 2).

I hope the above addresses the concerns raised here, as this likely explains the inconsistent behaviour reported with snapping

[jackamus]

Hi Dan,

Thank you for showing the guide snapping problems which I wasn't aware of! I started this thread complaining about the bounding box handles disappearing whilst trying to drag a guide to snap to them. You have really highlighted this particular problem in your various videos above.

It seems that even you do not see my particular problem as being part of all the other snapping problems. Is there some thing wrong with me that I seem to be the only one who wants to snap guides to handles without the handles disappearing?

Do you not think that it is a good idea for handles to always be visible when moving guides to snap to them?

To me it is logical that if you want 2 things to interact together i.e.guides and handles, that both should be visible at the same time.

Imagine wanting to drag an object into another group but the other group disappears whilst moving the object and then reappears when you think you have moved the object far enough and discover that it needs to move just a little more. Logic dictates that the object and the group should both be visible at the same time whilst carrying out the move.

[Pšenda]

2 hours ago, jackamus said:

Do you not think that it is a good idea for handles to always be visible when moving guides to snap to them?

If snapping will work correctly, then there is no need to display handles - snapping will ensure position to the right place. If the snapping doesn't work, then showing handles won't help you to snap correctly anyway, because you'll only be doing it approximately "by eye". That's why your comparison with moving a group is not relevant, because it is already done in principle only approximately "by eye", and therefore the visibility of group objects is necessary.

P.S. The visibility of handles when placing guides could certainly be controlled in the same way as the visibility of object boundary when moving (Hide Selection while Dragging).

[jackamus]

8 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

If snapping will work correctly, then there is no need to display handles - snapping will ensure position to the right place. If the snapping doesn't work, then showing handles won't help you to snap correctly anyway, because you'll only be doing it approximately "by eye". That's why your comparison with moving a group is not relevant, because it is already done in principle only approximately "by eye", and therefore the visibility of group objects is necessary.

P.S. The visibility of handles when placing guides could certainly be controlled in the same way as the visibility of object boundary when moving (Hide Selection while Dragging).

I would agree if snapping was reliable nut it isn't because it can't be. A guide does not know which handle you want it to snap to. If the handle was always visible at least you would see if it snapped to it or not.

I believe you are only saying this because you do not want to admit the obvious - which is that it is much better and not worse to be able to see a handle when snapping a guide.

[thomaso]

3 hours ago, jackamus said:

If the handle was always visible at least you would see if it snapped to it or not.

Or vice versa: if snapping would work as expected it would be highlighted if snapped … and thus the hidden status of bounding box handles would not hurt at all.

Currently, however, it still appears that the Transform Origin    is the most flexible substitute for lack of snapping: not only this marker snaps to far more nodes and curves than the available snap options with guides, … also this marker does not get hidden / remains visible when a guide is dragged.

Although the transform origin marker itself appears to snap precisely, visually positioning a guide at this marker can result in the same inaccuracy as any visual guide positioning without a working snap, regardless of the visibility of bounding box handles. The size of these handles may indeed disturb if one wants to position a guide at a bounding box corner for instance, especially in zoom levels that show more than just the relevant area but an entire object or page, as in this example:

[Pšenda]

8 hours ago, jackamus said:

you would see if it snapped to it or not.

Snapping is visually visible - it is always highlighted with a colored line.

https://affinity.help/designer2/English.lproj/pages/DesignAids/snapping.html

 

8 hours ago, jackamus said:

I believe you are only saying this because you do not want to admit the obvious - which is that it is much better and not worse to be able to see a handle when snapping a guide.

Hmm... 

8 hours ago, Pšenda said:

P.S. The visibility of handles when placing guides could certainly be controlled in the same way as the visibility of object boundary when moving (Hide Selection while Dragging).

 

[Hangman]

This is my interpretation of the 'issue' (rightly or wrongly)...

I originally queried this back in 2019 when the Affinity apps were updated from v1.6 to v1.7. At the time I was working on some very detailed and complex drawings which contained many layers with overlapping objects and I often had a need to position objects very precisely when zoomed into the drawing, so placing guides was the obvious approach to ensure accurate alignment.

In Designer v1.6 when dragging guides the selection handles for objects remained visible which meant if you wanted or needed to drag guides to the centre of a particular overlapping object it was very easy since you could do so visually as you could see the selection handles whilst dragging the guide. so you knew exactly where the centre of the object was...

Dragging Guides in Designer v1.6

 

In v1.7 and above you are to a degree guessing where the centre of the overlapping object is because there are multiple snapping points...

Dragging Guides in Designer v1.7 and Above

 

While snapping helps, in general, it perhaps falls down when you have lots of overlapping objects in close proximity because there are lots of potential snapping points and you can't visually see which is the correct one, so in the example above when I want to drag guides to the centre of the yellow rectangle, in v1.6 although I would get lots of snapping points owing to the overlapping rectangles, it was easy to determine where the centre of the yellow rectangle was because the selection handle was still visible. In v1.7 and above you start to play a bit of a guessing game because of the number of snapping points created by the underlying rectangles...

Crude Example Showing Multiple Snapping Points When Dragging Guides

 

In the event that I wanted to position the blue ellipse at the centre of the yellow rectangle, my approach might be to drag a vertical and horizontal guide and position both at the centre of the yellow box which was just that much easier in v1.6 and then drag the blue circle until it snapped to the guides.

In v1.7 and above positioning the guides in instances like this, i.e., with multiple overlapping objects in close proximity to each other has become just that little bit more difficult as it feels as though you are working blind when trying to position them accurately, something which was really easy in v1.6.

Note: The example shown above is massively simplified but hopefully demonstrates the point.

A second issue, which has already been discussed above is the lack of guide snapping when objects are grouped... to position the blue ellipse at the centre of the yellow rectangle, the obvious approach would be to drag a horizontal and vertical guide, position them at the centre of the yellow rectangle and then with snapping enabled, drag the blue ellipse until it snaps to the guides but this appears not to be possible when the yellow rectangle forms part of a group and even with snapping enabled it's not possible to snap the blue ellipse without the use of guides in the same way you can when the yellow rectangle doesn't form part of a group.

 

Back in a different post from 2019 the reason given for hiding the selection handles/box while dragging guides in v1.7 was to reduce clutter...

"Yes - in 1.6 we didn't hide the selection box when moving guides, and in 1.7 we now do. That has changed - along with a raft of other major changes in 1.7 to how most of the tools work.  All very carefully thought out, and intended to improve usability."

There are always going to be differing user cases and differing scenarios... For some users, having the option to show selection handles while dragging guides is beneficial for others it will likely never be an issue because they're not working on complex artwork where leaving the selection handles visible while dragging guides would be beneficial.

I guess the obvious option would be to provide a preference that allows the user to show or hide the selection handles while dragging guides but equally, I don't think this is going to happen as the removal of this option has been stated to be by design.