alignment

[Anthony1]

good morning, I'm having a hard time with alignment , for instance if i use the box tool to draw a box and then draw another box inside of that one , then move the smaller box to line up with one of the corners of the larger box , it doesn't snap into place , i do have the magnet thing selected and i have tried ticking and unticking various boxes but i can't seem to get the one that allows me to snap to the objects i've drawn  unless i put guide lines all over the shapes that i want to align, what do all the tick boxes do and which ones should i tick to align things i"ve drawn?

thank you

[GarryP]

First, please right-click the each of ‘problem layers’ in the Layers Panel and make sure “Exclude from snapping” is not ON. (You should also see a ‘crossed out magnet’ icon under the layer name if this was the case.)

Then, if that doesn’t help, can you show us a full-screen (whole application UI) screenshot where we can see your Snapping Settings while the smaller rectangle is selected and visible in the Layers Panel?
 

[Anthony1]

where can i find the "exclude from snapping" command

[GarryP]

Right click a layer in the Layers Panel and see if “Exclude From Snapping” is checked (ticked) in the menu.
If it is, select it to make it unchecked (unticked) – see attached image where the layer has that setting ticked.

[Anthony1]

thank you , no its not ticked, i think i have to many selections in the magnet tab and its snapping to lots of different things which makes it hard to snap to just the stroke of the object if that makes sense, is there a description of what all the snaps do, somewhere?

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, Anthony1 said:

good morning, I'm having a hard time with alignment , for instance if i use the box tool to draw a box and then draw another box inside of that one , then move the smaller box to line up with one of the corners of the larger box , it doesn't snap into place ...

Another way to do this is to use the Alignment choices from the Toolbar. 

 

As far as snapping goes I have only one homemade preset it is called All Off and I use it a lot. I'll hit that and then turn on the one or two selections I want to be on. In other words; less is more.

[Oufti]

27 minutes ago, Anthony1 said:

is there a description of what all the snaps do, somewhere?

Yes, under Snapping in the Help:

https://affinity.help/publisher2/en-US.lproj/pages/DesignAids/snapping.html 

[Anthony1]

thank you, this is perfect

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

As far as snapping goes I have only one homemade preset it is called All Off and I use it a lot. I'll hit that and then turn on the one or two selections I want to be on. In other words; less is more.

I was checking something about my presets in V2.5.3 & discovered that not only do I no longer have any custom ones, I cannot create any or access the burger menu to manage or create new ones -- it is aways greyed out even if I turn off every snapping option in any of the built-in presets & then enable just one or two. This is true for all 3 Affinity apps.

Anybody else seeing the same thing?

[Old Bruce]

I don't see that on Mac OS 12.7.6 With 2.5.3. Maybe an OS difference.

25 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Anybody else seeing the same thing?

 

[R C-R]

3 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

I don't see that on Mac OS 12.7.6 With 2.5.3. Maybe an OS difference.

I can't imagine it being just because I am using Catalina. I guess I should try resetting something to factory defaults but I hate doing that if not necessary, & I don't think it would change anything since all 3 apps are affected.

[Old Bruce]

52 minutes ago, R C-R said:

... I guess I should try resetting something to factory defaults ...& I don't think it would change anything since all 3 apps are affected.

I  agree with you about your doubt, if all three applications are affected I can't figure out what would be triggering this. Perhaps some other Catalina OS user could check this.

[R C-R]

18 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Perhaps some other Catalina OS user could check this.

I'll wait a day or two but if nobody replies here, I'll start a new topic about this (which I probably should have done to begin with).

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

discovered that not only do I no longer have any custom ones, I cannot create any or access the burger menu to manage or create new ones -- it is aways greyed out

That usually indicates corruption in one of the .propcol files. Is anything else odd? Assets, Brush categories, etc?

And yes, when that happens you generally need to figure out which of the Clear User Data options is the relevant one, and reset it. This usually minimizes the trauma which would occur if you reset everything.

Luckily, there's a specific one for snapping options presets, so just check that one, and uncheck everything else, and Reset.

 

[R C-R]

35 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

That usually indicates corruption in one of the .propcol files. Is anything else odd? Assets, Brush categories, etc?

Not that I have noticed.

35 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Luckily, there's a specific one for snapping options presets, so just check that one, and uncheck everything else, and Reset.

I will try that soon but I wonder if I will have to do it for all 3 apps or if just one might fix it. I will report back either way.

Rats! I just tried it with AD & nothing changed -- still nothing happens when I click the burger menu.

EDIT #2: I just checked with the 2.5.5 beta & I see the same thing -- a 'dead' burger menu that won't respond to clicking. However, in V1 everything works as expected.

I'm stumped.

Edited August 30 by R C-R

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

Rats! I just tried it with AD & nothing changed -- still nothing happens when I click the burger menu.

Odd. Maybe it is Catalina?

[R C-R]

9 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Odd. Maybe it is Catalina?

Maybe. Hopefully another Catalina user (maybe a staff member) can see if they get the same thing that I do.