Vector shapes snap in movement

[perrybrus]

I can't move vector shapes freely without them snapping in a set increment. So if I have two identical shapes and want to place them next to each other with one pixel distance it's impossible cause the one I'm moving snaps offset to the other. It's impossible to place it freely with one pixel increment. It's like one of them is minus and the other one is plus on a magnet and the destination is set in terms of distance and position. They won't connect. Since there are no snap function to turn on or off in XD then why is this occurring?

[Randy Edmunds · Accepted solution]

Hold down the Cmd key on Mac (or Ctrl key on Windows) to disable snapping while dragging.

Hope this helps,

Randy

[perrybrus]

Didn't change anything.

[Randy Edmunds]

You may be hitting a bug. What version of XD? What OS and version? What hardware are you using to drag shape? Can you post a GIF that shows the behavior you are seeing?

Note that you can also use keyboard arrow keys to move selected shape 1px at a time. Hold down Shift key for 10px movement.

HTH,

Randy

[perrybrus]

I don't know the version number of XD, where does that say? I'm always making sure there are no available updates, so I'm running last XD version for W10. Are you on a Mac?

- INTEL Core I7-7740X 4,3GHz LGA2066

- GeForce GTX 1070

- Corsair Vengeance LED DDR4 3200MHz - 32GB

[Randy Edmunds]

To find version of XD, start with hamburger menu in upper left corner > Help... > About XD

I have access to both Mac and Win10. On Win10, I just upgraded to 8.0.22.11.

When I hold down Ctrl key while dragging a shape with either mouse or trackpad, I don't see any snapping to artboard grid (square or layout), other shapes center/edges, or artboard center/edges.

What zoom level are you at? I suppose if you're zoomed way out you might not be able to drag to an exact pixel.

HTH,

Randy

[perrybrus]

8.0.22.11

No, it's the opposite. Movement works better at low zoom. I'm not talking about drawing, I'm talking about moving objects. I'm not able to move objects freely as they snap in increments on the screen, reminds me of some snapping function that you find in PS but in XD there are no such feature or property to alter. The keyboard nudge increments normally functions as expected but often manually movement with move tool is necessary and when I do that the object is trembling and it doesn't comply or correspond with my movement. It just forces into set increments. I never use grids and there's no guide functionality in XD.   

Zoom has always been unstable at best in XD. I can use the hand tool to move around the document as suddenly the max zoom is on and then I have to zoom out again and start all over again. This bug has been active since the first release I tried and my colleagues have the same issues. Together with an unstable space bar function that doesn't always works as its stuck at move tool / pointer.

[Randy Edmunds]

Regarding the original issue:

> movement with move tool is necessary and when I do that the object is trembling and it doesn't comply or correspond with my movement

"Trembling" sounds like this is not related to the snapping feature (you're not seeing any snap lines, correct?). I don't remember hearing any other bug reports like this. I am guessing either a bogged down cpu or a mouse hardware issue. Do you have any other systems that you can try this on?

Do you have any more details that may be relevant? A reproducible recipe would be the most helpful.

As for the other issues, make sure that focus is on the canvas. Other than that, please start a new thread for further discussion.

Regards,

Randy

[perrybrus]

Snap lines? What do you mean? With "trembeling" I mean an object that doesn't want to sit in a position so it seeks to another cause it is fixed in one set movement increament, just like in PS for instance if you have set the snap function to snap to nearest object, but in XD there's no snapping properties. The object I'm moving will not move freely, it moves in steps / increments. This happens when I'm trying to move the object next to another AND also when I'm trying to move it without any other object close. It doesn't move freely so there is something that's not working in XD for Windows 10. I had a check with a colleague on same setup and he observes the same issue.

Don't know if it's related or not but the same stuff happens when I'm dragging the handles on a vector object, for instance to match the width of another vector object that is stacked beneath, the object I'm trying to widen by dragging the handles won't match but always snaps into another width, either one "increment" shorter or one wider. When I say increment the only measurement I can think here is 1px cause there are no smaller increment on a desktop screen. I see that it's possible to enter decimals in size attributes in XD but I'm not sure what good that will do as there's no such thing as half a pixel.

[Randy Edmunds]

Your original post said "snapping" so that's why I thought you were referring to XD's snapping feature (which does exist ), but based on your latest details this may be something else.

Could the behavior that you are seeing be related to this bug reported on UserVoice?
Resizing, undo, layout grid glitches – Adobe XD Feedback : Feature Requests & Bugs

It's short on details, but I was able to hit it a few times on Mac (I haven't tried on Win10).

Randy

[perrybrus]

Don't know but I never use the layout grid that is mentioned as ON in that report. It seems like the scaling is totally off at times and the program doesn't calculate movement in the same manner as any other Adobe app. Of all the quirky oddities I experience I mostly see them occurring in XD. 

[Randy Edmunds]

That other post mentions layout grid, but it's disabled in the video, so I don't know if that's part of it.

Other than the other post, I don't know how to reproduce what you're describing. Please let me know if you come up with a set of steps that I can use to reproduce problem.

Thanks,

Randy

[perrybrus]

Ok, I will. In the meantime I think its safe to define this error as yet another XD bug. There's alot of them occurring. Don't know about iOS but the XD version for W10 is packed with instabilities. Has been since the getgo. Makes you wonder if the Adobe developers are in fact collaborating, cause seems like XD could use some pulling power from PS. The latter app seems to act way more stable on W10.

[yuanm10379624]

I am hitting the point that I cannot bear with the issue of XD. May try Figma sometime...

[SCJones]

This does not work in XD

[bfelda]

A little late but I've run into this and found that I was simply zoomed in too far.  When working with vectors, you can't easily see how small the vector actually is.  It looks properly shaped without pixelation even when a pixel is quite large.  To test this, use the pen tool set the stroke to 1px and see if that 1px border is about the same size as the stepping you are seeing.

[perrybrus]

I'm experiencing this independent of any zoom level. If I'm working at 100%, 200% or 50% the issue is still there. I was thinking this could have something to do with document purpose. Let's say if you start off designing in a document iPhone 5 and then copy a vector element from there to another document for Android mobile - but I'm having the same issues when I start from scratch with a new vector element I make myself from that new document, so it can't be differences in document setup that creates this.

[SCJones]

I ran into this issue making an icon like a clock face - a circle with two lines like the hour and minute hands. I wanted to align the innermost ends of the 'hands' to make a single shape. I could never get them to align by moving one or the other line because it didn't match up to whatever grid on the canvas that it was snapping to. But I found that by grabbing the endpoint on only one end of the line and moving that end while the other end remained anchored, I could move it without snapping.

[yuanm10379624]

I got the same issue. The objects are snapping to some increment. Can't even align things up. This is so frustrating, Someone please fix it...

[Orla_Dillon]

The presented solution did not work for me either, however there is a workaround that has worked for me. Simply select the objects that you want to align and while holding down the shift key on Mac drag the bounding box to align the objects as desired. This disables the snapping. You can then make sure everything lines up perfectly with the align panels. I hope this helps.