jiho wrote:
I think there is a usability argument behind this decision of not snapping to invisible grid lines, beyond the surprise effect. If you set grid lines to small distances (e.g. 1px) and zoom out a little, they become so close to each other that even snapping to those does not give you the impression of snapping at all: the next pixel is so close to the position your mouse is in that the effect of actually "snapping" is not visible anymore.
Not visible, but that doesn't mean not present. If I set the snapping for all points to be on mm boundaries, then, when I have a full A4 page in my window I'd expect to be able to create objects at any screen pixel, but when I zoom in have them all on the mm (also useful for px, pt) grid. Currently, I can't do this. If I have snap sensitivity high then it'll only place points on 5mm positions. If I have snap sensitivity low then it will place points between the lines but when I zoom in they're not on the grid.
I don't suggest that snapping to invisible lines should be the default, just that it be an option. Perhaps, if the lack of user feedback in the operation is really an issue, then it needs some sort of indicator that it is activated in the UI. Personally, the fact I've had to go and hunt down the option in the Document Prefs is enough reminder for me.
A solution would probably be to set the threshold under which minor grid lines disappear to something smaller (or to give a preference for this), as Ted Gould suggested. Typically this cannot be smaller than at least a few screen pixels for the snapping effect to be visually noticeable. How is this threshold computed/set currently?
Threshold for grid line hiding might be an option, but I'd need *at least* one line per screen pixel. I could then set the grid lines transparent to see the drawing. But that's not as simple as an option for invisible snapping and 100% transparent grid lines would suffer the same usability issue.
John