15 Replies Latest reply: Aug 6, 2014 3:30 PM by sinrise RSS

    Illustrator CC 18.0.0 Snapping/Smart Guides STILL Broken?!

    sinrise Community Member

      I know this issue has had some coverage but I'm still extremely frustrated that with all the new features in AI, snapping to guides, anchors, lines, or whatever, is still not precise. I just don't understand why they can't seem to get this right. What is the point of snapping if it's always going to be off by a few thousandths of a pixel? Working with what is supposed to be the world's best illustration application, I still have to make adjustments with the transform panel. Isn't it about time they fix this issue, or am I the crazy one?

        • 1. Re: Illustrator CC 18.0.0 Snapping/Smart Guides STILL Broken?!
          sinrise Community Member

          Am I the only one who is just totally fed up with trying to join paths at their anchors only to find that it's not just one point, it's 3 on top of each other, even though you snapped anchor to anchor? I mean, it seems like a really, really basic thing to be functioning properly and in my XP, having used AI since v8, it has never worked reliably. It's accounted for dozens of cumulative hours wasted, dealing with this bugged tool every time I'm working on even the simplest projects. What gives, Adobe?

          • 2. Re: Illustrator CC 18.0.0 Snapping/Smart Guides STILL Broken?!
            sinrise Community Member

            I don't know about the rest of you but I pay good money for this software, and I expect its' most basic features to be working properly, or actively being fixed. Seems to me that the simple process of holding 'ctrl' (windows) and snapping an anchor to another anchor, and/or using smart guides, then "joining" them would create-- you know-- a joint and not an average between the 2 points, creating a 3rd anchor in the process and breaking the illustration.

            • 3. Re: Illustrator CC 18.0.0 Snapping/Smart Guides STILL Broken?!
              sigtm Community Member

              It is absolutely insane, and it is making Illustrator damn near unusable. It's not just off by a few thousandths either, when I try to snap to my 16px grid it is often off by 5-6 pixels – absolutely mindboggling.

               

              It's like Adobe doesn't have a single actual designer on staff to test their products before release. Being able to scale a rectangle and have it snap to the grid is about as basic and essential as it gets, and I cannot for the life of me understand how it wasn't caught.

              • 4. Re: Illustrator CC 18.0.0 Snapping/Smart Guides STILL Broken?!
                Larry G. Schneider CommunityMVP

                The new "Live" rectangles are exempt from snapping to the grid in CC2014. Use Expand Appearance (or Expand, whichever shows) before snapping or use the Polygon tool with 4 sides which acts as it previously did.

                • 5. Re: Illustrator CC 18.0.0 Snapping/Smart Guides STILL Broken?!
                  sigtm Community Member

                  Sure, but then:

                   

                  a) Why do live rectangles snap to the grid (not pixel grid) but miss,

                  rather than not snap to anything? If I have a grid line at 80px, why does

                  it snap to, say 77.032px? It makes no sense.

                   

                  b) Why is the default rectangle one that is "exempt" from adhering to

                  grids, one of the most fundamental features to most graphic designers?

                  Expanding every rectangle to a rectangle so it works properly is extremely

                  tedious and unintuitive.

                   

                  Seems to me that this is at worst a massive bug, or at "best" a case of

                  losing sight of what's actually important and useful.

                  • 6. Re: Illustrator CC 18.0.0 Snapping/Smart Guides STILL Broken?!
                    John Mensinger Community Member

                    sinrise wrote:

                     

                    Am I the only one who is just totally fed up with trying to join paths at their anchors only to find that it's not just one point, it's 3 on top of each other, even though you snapped anchor to anchor? I mean, it seems like a really, really basic thing to be functioning properly and in my XP, having used AI since v8, it has never worked reliably. It's accounted for dozens of cumulative hours wasted, dealing with this bugged tool every time I'm working on even the simplest projects. What gives, Adobe?

                    I dunno if you're the only one, but I've also been using Illustrator since version 8, and I can't say I've ever experienced what you seem to be describing. Maybe if you delineate one specific example, and explain exactly how the result differs from your expectations, someone can spot the problem. Screenshots never hurt.

                    • 7. Re: Illustrator CC 18.0.0 Snapping/Smart Guides STILL Broken?!
                      Larry G. Schneider CommunityMVP

                      Do you have Use Preview Bounds checked in the Preferences?

                      • 8. Re: Illustrator CC 18.0.0 Snapping/Smart Guides STILL Broken?!
                        sinrise Community Member

                        I gave a couple of examples but I'll go ahead and repeat it:

                         

                        Say you have 2 points that aren't joined and you want to join them. So, you grab an anchor, drag it over (holding 'ctrl' so it snaps to other anchors) and as you get close it snaps and says 'anchor', then you select both points with a fence, then join them. Now deselect then select the new point and drag it. At least 25% of the time, it doesn't join two points, it averages them, creating a third point. This is especially frustrating when joining paths that have curves, and that mask or reveal other objects. I do a lot of designs that must be pixel-precise and that is a lot more work than it should be in AI.

                         

                        I have used several other vector programs and none of them have this weird, inconsistent behavior.

                         

                        Here's another example: Create a rectangle 100x100. Then drag a guide to one side, then the other. The guides should be exactly 100px apart, right? Maybe. Delete the rectangle and draw a line between the two guides. Chances are they are no longer 100px apart. They are 99.003 or 101.003 or something, making AI the worst tool ever for doing website mockups. It's actually less trouble for me to bang out CSS in Brackets and do mockups that way... but not because Brackets is meant for that, but because AI sucks for it, and that's idiotic.

                         

                        I am seriously considering ending my CC subscription and going with a combo of open source apps. I mean, if I'm going to struggle with something, I'd prefer for that effort to go to learning something new, not fighting the same fight over and over, for years and years, on something that should be easily fixed.

                        • 9. Re: Illustrator CC 18.0.0 Snapping/Smart Guides STILL Broken?!
                          Larry G. Schneider CommunityMVP

                          For your join problem just use Cmd(Ctrl)-Opt(Alt)-Shift-J which will do what you want.

                          • 10. Re: Illustrator CC 18.0.0 Snapping/Smart Guides STILL Broken?!
                            sinrise Community Member

                            I don't understand how that is the solution... as opposed to Adobe fixing the coordinate bug. How is the average command going to be any more reliable than join?

                            • 11. Re: Illustrator CC 18.0.0 Snapping/Smart Guides STILL Broken?!
                              Larry G. Schneider CommunityMVP

                              I don't know. Everytime I've used this it returns a single point instead of 3.

                              • 12. Re: Illustrator CC 18.0.0 Snapping/Smart Guides STILL Broken?!
                                sinrise Community Member

                                Well, thank you for the advice, and I'll certainly try that going forward.

                                • 13. Re: Illustrator CC 18.0.0 Snapping/Smart Guides STILL Broken?!
                                  John Mensinger Community Member

                                  sinrise wrote:

                                   

                                  Say you have 2 points that aren't joined and you want to join them. So, you grab an anchor, drag it over (holding 'ctrl' so it snaps to other anchors) and as you get close it snaps and says 'anchor', then you select both points with a fence, then join them. Now deselect then select the new point and drag it. At least 25% of the time, it doesn't join two points...

                                  Okay, well I suppose our methods differ. When I want to join 2 points, I don't drag anything. I direct-select both and issue the Join command. Illustrator draws a connecting path between them. If I don't want them both going forward, I tap the minus key and click whichever one I want gone.

                                  Here's another example: Create a rectangle 100x100. Then drag a guide to one side, then the other. The guides should be exactly 100px apart, right? Maybe. Delete the rectangle and draw a line between the two guides. Chances are they are no longer 100px apart. They are 99.003 or 101.003 or something, making AI the worst tool ever for doing website mockups.

                                  Well again, that's something I just can't reproduce, perhaps because our methods differ somewhat. I might agree that Illustrator isn't the best tool for website mockups, and I certainly would always avoid using pixels as a unit of measure, but if Illustrator-born, pixel-measured, on-screen-destined content is your end-product, why wouldn't you use Align to Pixel Grid? Also, if precision is paramount in your work, it might be a good idea to avoid dragging things. There are numeric controls for pretty much everything. Even if you do drag out a guide, just holding Shift while you do would prevent your dropping it on anything but a whole-number measurement.

                                  • 14. Re: Illustrator CC 18.0.0 Snapping/Smart Guides STILL Broken?!
                                    sinrise Community Member

                                    I've found that zooming in seems to help a little. It makes it easier to get things to snap to where it says they are snapping while zoomed out. Sometimes I have to zoom down several times. While this is by no means an acceptable solution, at least it's something, which it is a LOT more than I can say for Adobe's attention on this.

                                    • 15. Re: Illustrator CC 18.0.0 Snapping/Smart Guides STILL Broken?!
                                      sinrise Community Member

                                      I wish it was limited to just rectangles but I'm talking about literally every element snapping could apply to, and I'm not talking about the pixel grid (which isn't perfect, either) I'm talking about guides, anchors, edges, etc. While zoomed out, you can snap something to something else and the UI feedback says you are snapping to that element but when you zoom in, it's totally not where it's supposed to be-- like, hardly ever... at least 75% of the time.

                                       

                                      I guess precision is just not important to the Illustrator community at all, judging from the lack of replies and/or views on this topic, and the fact this has been the way Illustrator is for the last few versions, at least back to CS2.