How do I snap a circle to a path based on the location of the circle's center point? I have grids turned off. A few days ago I had gotten the center point to snap to the path minus the circle, but now I can't remember how I did that. Regardless, what I want is the circle itself to remain in position over its center point while being snapped or jump to the point of snapping between the path and the center point.

Thank you for your quick response -- I read the page that you linked to.

First of all, what I was calling a "center point" was really a "rotation center".
The button that I had selected was "snap to paths".
I also had deselected "grids on".

Second, I could move the rotation center outside of a circle, snap it to a line (a type of path), and then slide it along the line. However, when I moved the circle over the rotation center (which was snapped to the line), I got a "quadrant point to path" message on the drawing. The snapping was not to the center of the circle, it was to one of either four points around its perimeter.

Thanks,
Craig

scruffydog wrote:First of all, what I was calling a "center point" was really a "rotation center".

You are right, in that you were actually dragging the rotation center away from the center of the circle. But you were also right that you wanted the 'center' of the circle to snap to the path! Normally the rotation center and the center are in the same spot. You can drag the rotation center away (in rotation view, with the curved arrows) and make it invisible by switching to the scale view (diagonal arrows). The center of the object can neither be seen or moved. Sort of like the Tao.

The problem here is (I think) that in Inkscape you cannot drag or grab an object by its center point - in fact you can't ever see it EXCEPT when it is snapping or being snapped to!

You have to enable this snap in the snap control bar (as well as snap to paths) and then drag the circle until the center is over the path, at which time you will see the popup message telling you of the snap.

One more tip - are you trying to do this snap with a stroked but not filled circle? Or are you trying to do this in outline view?

Make life easier for yourself - fill the circle, and do it in normal view. This allows you to grab very close to the center of the circle when dragging, giving top priority to the center snap. If you try to drag from the edge, there are so many snap targets closer to the mouse cursor that getting a center snap is very very difficult. (You can get rid of the fill after you have positioned the circle.)

Thank you very much. I enabled the button "snap to or from centers of objects" and the circle snapped by its center to the line.

The next question is a continuation of the above, but slightly different. For example, I have a circle already snapped to a line, and then I want to snap another circle to the line, but at a certain numerically specified distance apart from the original circle. How do I do this?

Thanks again,
Craig

Additional question: for example a circle is snapped to a line using a mouse. Is it possible to use keyboard entry to then move the circle along the line, even if the line is not completely horizontal or vertical? If the line was completely horizontal or vertical, one could use the arrow keys. If Inkscape has the above feature, I imagine some key combination would be necessary to activate it.

I'm just wondering if, when trying to snap more than once circle, and not move the other, if you could 'lock' down the first one, so it won't be able to be moved, makes life easier.
To try this (and I don't promise it will do what you want), is select the object then go to Object/Object Properties, then go to the bottom of the screen and click on 'lock'. I love this option, just remember to go to Unlock All to get it back to normal.

Dee, I don't understand what you're saying. Do you have 2 circles grouped and you only want to move one? You could select one circle out of the group, by using Ctrl + click, then move with arrow keys. Or you could just ungroup them temporarily.

scruff, if I understand what you're asking, no it's not possible.