Hey SD team,

Wondering when the beloved paste array will array the products so that when drawing the cables they don't require deselecting the snap to grid function to tediously get them to line up? I'd like to get rid of the crooked lines on my drawings. Attached is a screen shot of what I'm just now going in to try and fix... Would appreciate this being on a future update, and knowing estimated time to when that could happen.

Thanks,
John

Hi John,

To ensure that pasted arrays snap to the grid, simply set the paste offsets to a multiple of the grid size. In Block Schematic drawings the default grid size is 2.5mm.

Kind regards,
Rob Robinson
Stardraw.com

Thanks Rob - to this day you are still King of prompt reply! Much appreciated. How do I (quickly) set the paste offsets to a multiple of the grid size? Is there any way that this can be automated?

John

Hi John,

It would be tricky to automate, because it all depends on the drawing, but I tend to work on multiples of 10 (mm), being 4 gridpoints; easy math

Kind regards,
Rob Robinson
Stardraw.com

I can appreciate that and yes it is pretty straight forward. But it takes more time than a check mark; especially when redo, redo, redo.... Couldn't a simple checkmark on pasting arrays confirming that I'd like the connectors to line up with the grid of the page on the paste of the array? It simply has to refer to the page grid size to automate the distribution of the shapes - for both horizontal and vertical array distribution on page?

Hi John,

It's an interesting thought, but not that simple to implement.

Presumably you still want to determine the spacing or offset of the members in the array, i.e. you don't just want the array to snap to the next gridpoint.

So, in the situation where, for example, you want about 20mm between array members, AND you want them to snap to the grid, you'd still have to set an offset value.

What happens if the offset you enter is not the same as a multiple of the grid size? Would it be treated as the minimum offset, or would the array members snap to the nearest gridpoint (which might be more or less than the offset). Either case could lead to an uneven array.

Do we include UI to allow the user to decide whether the snap should be to the next gridpoint (treat offset as minimum) or the nearest gridpoint? Either could be appropriate, depending on the use case.

Or, do we take the offset value and round it to the nearest multiple of the grid size and apply that to all members of the array? Or do we round it UP to the nearest multiple? Either way, although the array would be even, it could have spacing that is very different from the offset value you've entered.

Do we include UI to allow the user to decide whether to round, or round up? And UI to choose whether the same offset be applied to all members?

Is there a checkbox for X and Y? Remember that the grid might not be square, e.g. in Rack Layout drawings, and the user might care about grid alignment in one axis, but not the other.

Is it (they) checked by default? In all drawing types, or just some, or none?

Should we have UI to decide the 'granularity' of the snapping? Why only snap on gridpoints, why not halfway between gridpoints, or 5 snap points per grid space? Or 1 snappoint every 2 gridpoints, or every 9.5 gridpoints (useful for arraying halfrack devices)?

Once we've figured out the answers to all of these questions, the question still remains: does the proposed solution add to or detract from usability and the overall user experience?

Or, we could leave it as it is. The downside is that the user has to do some maths (grid size x offset in number of gridpoints, e.g. 2.5 x 10) but the upside is that the UI is very simple and the user can define exactly how the array he wants should look without UI clutter or confusion.

Kind regards,
Rob Robinson
Stardraw.com