Drag guides from ruler with any tool

[rui_mac]

Being able to only drag guides from the ruler with the Move Tool is not desired.

We should be able to drag guides from the rulers even when using any other tool.

Being able to create guides (while using other tools) with Alt+click on the ruler is nice but not accurate enough and doesn't work with snap.

[MEB]

This was already requested and closed by design.

[Nichod]

Which I think is wrong. Right now I'd say it's one of the most frustrating limitations. You have to constantly switch to the move tool to access guide creation. Illustrator, Sketch, etc don't require the move tool to be active. It's a weird quirk that is a bad design choice, and UX.

[MattP]

I've also been very frustrated by it when trying to use the program - but I do completely agree with the reasoning behind why it is the way it is. I can't accept that I would start editing a guide in the Shape tool just because I started my drag near it. There would have to be a modifier to say that I intended to drag the guide now - and we don't have any modifiers left across all tools!

 

I'm definitely open to hearing ideas for resolving this.

 

Thanks,

Matt

[Raskolnikov]

It makes sense Matt, sometimes, some tools are in need of "working outside the main panel" and finding that new guides appear everytime... can be annoying.

[Matthias]

Here comes an idea: You may drag drag guides from the ruler within any tool you’re in but changing them on the canvas is only allowed with the move tool.

 

Have a nice day, Matt

[MattP]

We were just talking about this - but with the additional extra of being able to edit the position of the guide if you start dragging it from the ruler area.

[Raskolnikov]

By the way... would be great being able to change the guide's color. I don't mean one by one (multicolored guides) but , all the guides at a time.

[MattP]

Yes, that's not a bad idea! :)

[Ben]

The only thing I'd say to counter that idea - snapping uses colour coding to show when you've made a snap in either the X or Y axis, so red and green are used to show that a guide has been used in a snap.  I went with blue because it isn't one of the colours we currently use to denote snaps (red, green, yellow and purple).

 

Arguably we could have all of that fully customisable, but where do we stop?

[Nichod]

We were just talking about this - but with the additional extra of being able to edit the position of the guide if you start dragging it from the ruler area.

 

This was my original idea, and how I presented it in my feature request. (linked to above) I'd also welcome the guide appearing on hovering over the corresponding ruler. This is incredibly useful to quickly check alignment without having to create a guide, and unnecessary visual clutter.

 

I've attached a gif that illustrates the guide on hover, and it also shows the pixel guide (as requested here: that Sketch provides that are incredibly useful. The tool + ruler guide feature, and the distance based guides are probably the two tools I'd miss the most if I switched to Designer from Sketch. And would probably prevent me from using Designer at work since precision is key with UI design.

[Raskolnikov]

I understand Ben, it was just an idea. I can wait 6 versions for that to come :D

 

That looks fantastic Nichod :D would be a dream come true!!!  :)

[B4ttleCat]

+1 from me. This is infuriating, along with guides not snapping to a marquee (of which I made a separate post about).

[Raskolnikov]

I've attached a gif that illustrates the guide on hover, and it also shows the pixel guide (as requested here: that Sketch provides that are incredibly useful. The tool + ruler guide feature, and the distance based guides are probably the two tools I'd miss the most if I switched to Designer from Sketch. And would probably prevent me from using Designer at work since precision is key with UI design.

 

+1, it's a new and higher level for rulers and guides... :)

[evtonic3]

What do I do if I need to place a guide on a node?

[Alfred]

What do I do if I need to place a guide on a node?

 

This has always been one of my greatest frustrations in DrawPlus. You can only see the nodes on a line or a shape when the Node Tool is selected, and you can't move a guide when in that mode. I can understand the rationale behind placing limitations on the movement of guides, but I think we should be able to move them with the Node Tool as well as the Move Tool.

[Ben]

Ability to edit guides in other tools will be coming soon.  When it is done, you'll be able to place a guide on a node when in the Node/Pen tools.

[Wiredframe]

Also guides should snap to the grid as soon as I drag them out, that's not the case right now. And yes, locking guides is really important  ;)

 

Any plans to add customizable layout grid overlays (like bootstrap) to artboards like in Sketch?

 

Thanks.

[Ben]

Just to be clear - the thing that is not working is snapping when creating a new guide - any kind of snapping.  It's an area of our tool framework that needs to be reworked.  Due to the way we separated our back end and front end code for cross-platform, the action of creating a guide is front end driven, whereas everything else done by tools is back end driven, and it is the back end that does the snapping.

 

We are going to address this in the future.  Until then, there's no point in describing every way in which a new guide doesn't snap.

 

It'll also be the same for dropping symbols from the UI onto page, or for drop placement of image files from outside Affinity.

 

Once you have a guide, it will snap to anything that other objects can snap to - same as with all other objects that already exist on the spread.