5.2 Context snapping

When context snapping is enabled, certain features of the objects of your current drawing become magnetic. There are three buttons to enable three different features of your objects: vertices, the boundary, and intersection points.

When the mouse is too far away from the nearest interesting feature, the mouse position will not be "snapped". The snapping distance can be changed by setting Snapping distance value in the preference dialog. If you use a high setting, you will need to toggle snapping on and off during drawing. Some people prefer to set snapping on once and for all, and to set the snap distance to a very small value like 3 or 4.

The features that you can make "magnetic" are the following:

 

vertices

are vertices of polygonal objects, control points of multiplicity three of splines, centers of circles and ellipses, centers and end points of circular arcs, and mark positions.

 

boundaries

are the object boundaries of polygonal objects, splines and splinegons, circles and ellipses, and circular arcs.

 

intersections

are the intersection points between the boundaries of path objects.