Fill and stroke gradient nodes always snap

[Daniel Rose]

1. Create a new document.
2. Set "snap to objects" to always.
3. Create an object (ex. a box or circle) with a fill and stroke.
4. Change the fill to a fill gradient (radial or linear does not matter).
5. Move the gradient start/stop nodes via the node tool (this works).
6. Change the stroke to a stroke gradient.
7. Move any of the gradient nodes via the node tool.

The nodes always snap to each other (ex. start to start) , no matter what is enabled/disabled in the snap bar. Only by changing the "snap to objects" to a value with a distance is it possible to unsnap the nodes.

[Daniel Rose (danrose)]

This is on Windows 7, with 0.48.4. AFAIR, this behavior occurs since the new snap settings were introduced.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Reproduced with 0.47, 0.48.0, 0.48.1, 0.48.2, 0.48.3.1, 0.48.4 - could be as designed though (not sure): when dragging a gradient handle, the handles of other gradients are 'objects', and the option to always snap to objects has been intentionally enabled.

<quote>
Any gradient handle, if dragged close to a handle of another gradient, will merge with that handle (drag with Shift to prevent merging). Dragging such a merged handle will adjust any number of gradients attached to it. To separate merged handles, drag them away one by one with Shift.
</quote>
<http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Release_notes/0.42#Gradients>

Merging of the gradient handles can be prevented by dragging with 'Shift'.

[Daniel Rose (danrose)]

If it is "as designed", then it is currently relatively annoying to use:
1. The snap bar does not allow disabling "snap to objects".
2. Dragging with Shift disables all snapping, so snapping to a grid (for example) is not possible.

[Diederik van Lierop (mail-diedenrezi)]

So, if I understand correctly then you have turned "always snap" on for objects, in the document properties dialog? Then this is indeed as expected. Under most circumstances, this option should only be enabled for grids, as you likely never want to not-snap to a grid when you're to far away from a grid line. A grid should simply always snap, which is not the case for objects as you just pointed out.

[Daniel Rose (danrose)]

If it is as expected, then the bug is in the snap bar. In the document properties there are three settings for snap:
1) Snap to objects.
2) Snap to grids.
3) Snap to guides.

In the snap bar, there are the following related settings:
A) Enable snapping.
B) Snap to the page border.
C) Snap to grids.
D) Snap to guides.

Disabling A disables the options B-D. I'll assume that C <=> 2 and D <=> 2. What is B (page border)? Is it an object? What other items are considered "object"?

I believe there are two possibilities:
#1) Add an additional toggle button "snap to objects" to the snap bar, and add "snap to page border" to the document properties.
#2) Change "snap to page border" in the snap bar to "snap to objects".

[Daniel Rose (danrose)]

I meant D <=> 3, of course.

[Ricardo Graça (devius)]

I'm pretty sure this is a bug in the snap implementation of gradient points or something like that. I have turned off snapping, I don't have "always snap" selected and still gradient points snap to each other for no apparent reason, and stay snapped permanently. No amount of dragging away from the point snapped to will change this.

I attached a gif demonstrating the problem. Again, all snapping is turned off. In the demonstration all I did was click on a gradient point, drag it near another gradient's point and it snapped automatically. I never released the mouse button, but it was impossible to release the snapped points after this. Only option is to undo the operation. Using shift+click will indeed circumvent the snapping and everything works fine in that case.

Inkscape 0.91 r13725 on Ubuntu 16.04.2