Difficulties with aligning an object to a group of objects and vice versa.

[Davide Barbonaglia]

Hi everyone, I'm here to underline a problem that I have been trying to fix for a long time now: I have difficulties with aligning objects. Let me explain real quick:

If I start with the objects separated, i have absolutely no problem with aligning the nodes and edges to each other. As I show down here.

 

And even if I group two of them together it all works fine.

The problem comes when I duplicate the group, as you can see the little square cannot distinguish the 2 objects inside the group anymore:

And if I want to align the big grey square in the group with the little one outside it doesn't work.

To keep the alignment working I need to separate everything...

Is there a way to keep the alignment working in these last two situations?

These are the snapping set ups that I have:

[NotMyFault]

As far as I know there is now direct way to move a parent layer and let it snap to other objects based on child layers.

You can use multiple alternative approaches:

• snap the single rectangle, which considers nested child objects
• Create helper objects,

1. e.g. a square which covers the area between lower edges of grey and magenta rectangle.
2. Then move this helper below the small grey rectangle,
3. Snap the parent layer against the lower edge.

[Aammppaa]

Alignment Handles can be very helpful as they can be used to target specific objects within the group.

Point Transform tool can be used in the final example. Drag the transform origin to the top of the inner square, then drag the outer square, and it will snap to the external square.

[DWright]

I have logged this issue with our developers.