Affinity's unintuitive snapping grid

[FreshSashimi]

I have used Inkscape for a long while and switched over to Affinity recently. While Affinity is a lot smoother in terms of loading times, a couple things are convoluted and many things are not explained very well.

One gripe I have with the Affinity UI is the snapping grid. I don't see use cases where the possibility to snap between grid lines is beneficial. If I require more accuracy than the grid lines offer, then I need to refine the grid. To fix the issue of snapping between gridlines somewhat, one can turn up the "screen tolerance", whose function is not intuitively clear and explained nowhere. Turning it all the way to the maximum value of 50 constrains the clipping to only halfway in between the gridlines. Isn't a maximum value of 100 much more sensible?

So, I would like to request the ability to visibly refine the grid, as an alternative to turning the "screen tolerance" down, as well as the ability to turn the "screen tolerance" all the way up to 100.
 

Edited August 18, 2024 by FreshSashimi
I wanted to edit my post before submitting it, but it got automatically posted after finishing the registration process.

[Hangman]

Hi @FreshSashimi and welcome to the forums,

The snapping options are explained pretty well in the help file...

https://affinity.help/designer2/English.lproj/index.html?page=pages/DesignAids/snapping.html&title=Snapping

As are Grids and the relevance of different settings...

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

Along with Isometric and axonometric grids...

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

15 minutes ago, FreshSashimi said:

I would like to request the ability to visibly refine the grid

You can create custom grids using as much refinement as required...

16 minutes ago, FreshSashimi said:

as well as the ability to turn the "screen tolerance" all the way up to 100.

You can type 100 in the Screen Tolerance text entry field to achieve that...

[FreshSashimi]

When I previously hovered the "screen tolerance" no info box came up. After restarting the program it does, stating a similar explanation as in the help file. Odd. Maybe I had the mouse at the wrong position? Anyways, thanks, that cleared things up for me, thanks. However, you cannot enter 100 into the text field. But now that I understood the function better, it isn't really necessary.

You can set custom grids. That is neat and thank you for pointing it out. But zooming the default grid with a slider would be much more convenient for most cases than manually defining one.

 

 

[Hangman]

@FreshSashimi, glad that helped...

2 minutes ago, FreshSashimi said:

However, you cannot enter 100 into the text field.

I'm guessing you're on Windows in that case... For some reason, it's limited to 50 on Windows, on Mac it's unrestricted...

7 minutes ago, FreshSashimi said:

But zooming the default grid with a slider would be much more convenient for most cases than manually defining one.

I'm slightly unsure how that would work in practice in relation to the document itself but it's an interesting thought...

[FreshSashimi]

I see, indeed, I'm using it on Windows. Very strange limitation.

Thanks again : )

[Hangman]

Just now, FreshSashimi said:

I see, indeed, I'm using it on Windows. Very strange limitation.

Possibly a bug on the Windows version...

[Pšenda]

7 hours ago, FreshSashimi said:

But zooming the default grid with a slider would be much more convenient for most cases than manually defining one.

Isn't that what Automatic mode does?

Help: "Grids can be automatic or fixed—the former (as default) changes the frequency of grid subdivisions as you zoom in/zoom out, the latter always keeps the grid frequency constant (irrespective of zoom level)." 

[MikeTO]

Screen Tolerance isn't documented well and as you've pointed out there is no tooltip. I've written about it for the next edition of my Publisher manual and here are a few notes:

• The units are a screen measurement and not document units so snapping is relative to the current magnification level. On macOS with the default display magnification set in System Settings, a value of 8 corresponds to 8 pixels on a non-Retina screen and 16 pixels on a Retina screen. Changing the display magnification will change this ratio but it's too complicated to explain which is why I suspect Serif just left it undocumented. This feature might be better without any numbers and just a slider with qualitative labels at the ends such as "Snap More" / "Snap Less" or "Snap Closer" / "Snap Further". Plus a label for a Default tick mark.

• The default value of 8 is suitable for most purposes so I recommend not changing this unless you have to. The valid range is 3 to 50 which is what the popup slider on macOS will give you. macOS currently lets you enter values greater than 50 which is a bug. It will work but if you enter huge values then snapping will be broken.

[carl123]

8 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

Screen Tolerance isn't documented well and as you've pointed out there is no tooltip

The tooltip appears when you hover over the box containing the value you set for screen tolerance

 

Windows 11

[Hangman]

3 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Screen Tolerance isn't documented well and as you've pointed out there is no tooltip.

Likewise on Mac...

4 hours ago, MikeTO said:

macOS currently lets you enter values greater than 50 which is a bug. It will work but if you enter huge values then snapping will be broken.

As far as I can tell values above 50 make no difference on Mac, i.e., to snap at different zoom levels tops out at 50, increasing the value results in the same minimum required snapping range...

Snapping Tolerance - 50 (and above) on a 2,056 px x 1,329 px screen

Zoom | Snapping Tolerance 50 (i.e., the cursor needs to be less than the following px value from the object to snap, it halves with each time the zoom level doubles)

500,000 % | 0.015625 px
1,000000 % | 0.007813 px
2,000000 % | 0.003906 px
4,000000 % | 0.001953 px
8,000000 % | 0.000977 px
16,000000 % | 0.000488 px

[MikeTO]

6 hours ago, Hangman said:

As far as I can tell values above 50 make no difference on Mac, i.e., to snap at different zoom levels tops out at 50, increasing the value results in the same minimum required snapping range...

I found that higher values do continue to function. Set the grid to basic, not automatic, and the grid spacing to 4 inches. Turn off snapping for everything but the grid.

Set tolerance to 50 and drag a guide out, dropping it at the snap point. Set tolerance to 100 and drag a guide out - it snaps at twice the distance from the grid as the previous guide.

But it doesn't matter, you shouldn't be allowed to set it higher than 50. A screen tolerance of 2147483647 (the max value) is a tad high. 🙂 

[Hangman]

17 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

I found that higher values do continue to function. Set the grid to basic, not automatic, and the grid spacing to 4 inches. Turn off snapping for everything but the grid.

I was running a different test based on snapping to the pixel grid (I should have been more specific in my earlier post) which is where I saw the results...

35 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

But it doesn't matter, you shouldn't be allowed to set it higher than 50. A screen tolerance of 2147483647 (the max value) is a tad high. 🙂 

I see little disadvantage in allowing a higher tolerance since it permits less precision when snapping objects to a grid but either way, if 50 is the correct limit it's not going to be a big issue but why limit it, give the user the choice to set it according to their needs...