This seems to me like a pretty basic idea, but I can't find it in the FAQs.

I often want to do something like draw a horizontal line to end on a vertical line. So I think, great: Bezier tool in paraxial mode, plus node snapping to paths ought to take care of that. However, if I actually do that, then as soon as the snapping starts, the paraxial restriction goes out the window.

This is just a generic example. I find the same behavior whether the action is drawing or moving, whether the restriction is coming from a pen mode or a keyboard shortcut. Snapping to guides instead of to paths seems less broken, and will only break the restriction if you wander near to a guide origin.

With effort I can usually find a work around in any given situation. But am I missing something here? Is there a general way to snap to paths without breaking restricted movement?

Thanks,
-- James

Hi.

I miss that too.
If it was all horizontal and vertical segments, I would set up a grid in the document's preferences.

Another workaround I would use is to duplicate the original path, move it's node
when pressing Ctrl until the two path's segments are overlapping eachother,
then the node of the original can be snapped to the intersection point.

Snapping in paraxial mode works just fine for me, i just tested that. What version of Inkscape are you using? Could you try one of the nightly builds?

If the bug is still reproducible in the latest builds, then please post what snap settings you have enabled, and provide a detailed step-by-step description and take a screenshot. If I can reproduce this, then I will make sure that this gets fixed!

Diederik

I don't use paraxial mode with the pen tool.
Here is a basic svg showing the problem: if you enable snapping, and snapping to paths,
then after selecting the node marked with red,
when you move it towards slowly to the other path's segment to the left while holding Ctrl,
it will jump to the path based on the cursor no matter of the Ctrl pressed.



Had to try out if it really works in paraxial mode.
Well it didn't, it just jumped again where the cursor was, resulting in a non-horizontal/vertical segment in the paraxial path.

All in Inkscape 0.48.4 r9939.

I know of some snapping issues in 0.48.3 / 0.48.4, don't know exactly which version, but I'm currently running rev. 127xx myself. If you could try to reproduce this bug in a recent nightly build, then I promise to fix this before v0.49 is released if this bug is still present. Do we have a deal ?

Diederik

Just tried out this on the Partha built 64bit version, where the same thing happens.
Will look around how to capture it in action.

Are you refering to ww.partha.com? Never heard of that site before, but I don't see anything newer than v0.48.4?

The newest nightly I can find for windows is http://www.oss-marketplace.com/index.ph ... versionen/, which is only two weeks old.

Ok tried it with Inkscape 0.48+devel r12742.
And with success!

There it works fine with paraxial mode, and with editing existing paths.

One small thing though is that you have to enable snapping not only to paths, but to the type of node you are editing too, which isn't necessary on the latest stabile version.

Good to hear, and thanks for testing!

The change in snap button behavior was on purpose, but I don't recall the exact reason. I guess that in general one wants to snap to cusp nodes, but not to smooth nodes. However, paths that have been drawn using the freehand tool or which have been traced from a bitmap have many smooth nodes, which would make it annoying if they would all snap.

Thank's for pointing to a version which can handle this!