[-][SUG][ED] Right click & drag an object to bypass snap to grid

[Silken Healer]

My suggestion is, even if snap to grid is on, you can hold down right click and move an object or piece of terrain around freely without it snapping to the grid. This wouldn't toggle snap to grid off, however it would bypass whether snap for grid is on while right click is held down. This could be useful for instance if you used snap to grid mode, but had to align the trigger area of an object precisely and didn't want to turn it off just to turn it on again in a few secs.

[WillLem]

Before I go ahead with this, @Silken - did you know it's possible to move pieces by 1px even when the grid is active*? I wonder whether moving the piece with the mouse to a location that's close enough to the desired position and then fine-tuning with the keys is sufficient?

(*Arrow keys in SLX Editor (by default, can be re-mapped), Ctrl + Arrow keys in NL Editor).

[Silken Healer]

I'm not sure why this thread has been moved from it's original board. I thought NeoLemmix was still accepting editor suggestions.

Anyway, to answer your question, I'm sorry, but I can't remember if I knew this when I suggested this, nor can I get in the frame of mind I was in when I initially suggested this to figure out if I would've still considered the feature nessercary when considered with the fact they could be moved with the arrow keys. I suggested this three years ago. I haven't had interest in making NeoLemmix levels for ages either. I suppose being able to use the arrow keys to fine tune would supersede the need for this feature though. You're making your own improved version of the editor now right with custom hotkeys? Maybe it would be a good idea for the future too add "escape snap to grid" as a something that can be changed by a hotkey. I don't know; I'll leave it up to you.

[WillLem]

I'm not sure why this thread has been moved from it's original board. I thought NeoLemmix was still accepting editor suggestions.

Namida had closed all NL suggestions, including Editor ones. I think it's safe to assume he's done with the Editor as well, then (although I could be wrong).

Meanwhile, I'm continuing to develop the NLEditor alongside CE. So, I thought I'd re-open a few old suggestions to see if people might be interested in these features being added. It seems more appropriate, then, to keep the suggestion topics on the NL-CE board.

Maybe it would be a good idea for the future too add "escape snap to grid" as a something that can be changed by a hotkey

F9 is the default snap-to-grid hotkey, but it's a toggle rather than a hold key. I guess I could add a hold key for the grid, but it does seem a bit superfluous given that there's already a hotkey to quickly toggle the grid on and off, plus (as agreed) the arrow keys can be used to fine-tune position after a piece has been dragged.

[namida]

I'm not sure why this thread has been moved from it's original board. I thought NeoLemmix was still accepting editor suggestions.

To elaborate here: This was more a matter of that I allowed suggestions to be made, because unlike NL itself, the editor doesn't necesserially need to ever have a "final" version, so it's not a problem to have more suggestions floating out there in case someone wants to take on the project of further work to it someday... which is pretty much exactly what WillLem is doing here. Moving the topic to this board is simply his choice regarding how to organise such suggestions.

[WillLem]

I did consider adding this, and explored whether it would be possible.

Since NLEditor now supports horizontal-only and vertical-only drag (as well as the other various drag actions already supported), it would be more complicated than it's worth to add a 'bypass grid whilst held' hotkey; the mouse-related hotkeys would need to be able to stack in this case, so that the other hotkeys could also take effect alongside it: not trivial, and potentially very messy.

Or, it could be an independent hotkey to just bypass the grid whilst held, but since it's easy to toggle the grid on and off with F9 (and, we now have a visual grid in the background to let us know whether it's currently active or not), this overrides the need for a bypass key to exist anyway.

So, this one can be closed. Thanks for the suggestion anyway @Silken - if you start making levels again, feel free to post with any other ideas you might have to help improve Editor workflow.