Grid is killing me

The new grid model in 1.6 really bites. The rulers look a bit cool, but the user interaction is truly awful.

Pre-1.6 snap-to-grid was quite nice. I'd drag an arrow and SNAP the prim would align to the nearest grid line. Now, here's what happens. I drag an arrow, say red for X, and start moving the prim to where I want it to go. When I get close and want to align it, I move the cursor up to the grid ruler, and the prim jumps forward several meters so that the center of the prim is aligned with where the cursor touches the ruler. I pull the cursor down from the ruler and the prim jumps back so that the point where I originally touched the red arrow is aligned with the cursor. This means that if I only want to move a prim to the next grid position, it's a huge mess and instead of a little twitch of the cursor I now have to move the cursor a lot, but up to the ruler then over to get the prim back to where it started then a little bit more to get it where I actually want it to be.

Yeah, I took a quick look at the new grid model in preview, but didn't spend much time building because the things you build in preview are lost afterwards. I should have spent a few hours building and given more feedback, but really I only have so much time. In my job as a software developer I have been involved in user testing efforts. We actually *pay* test subjects to help us test our products. Does LL user test its new features? I can't believe anyone tested the new gridding, as it is nearly impossible to use well. What the heck was wrong with the old gridding? I see no improvement in the new gridding and lots of degredation in functionality. Maybe the new Welcome Area should have been built using the 1.6 tools - that would have given them a decent workout and some valuable user testing.

Here's a potential mod to the new gridding system that would solve my particular issue. Define A to be the distance from the center of a prim to the point at which I clicked on the arrow to drag it. When I start dragging a prim and the ruler appears, draw a low-intensity line from the center of the prim to the ruler to show the prim's position along the ruler (i.e. project the center on the ruler). When I move the cursor up to the ruler, re-draw the line to the ruler in high-intensity to show it's doing something. Do NOT align the center of the prim on the cursor, but rather snap-align it for the point that is -A from where the cursor is on the ruler. In other words, don't suddenly add A to the position of the prim just because the cursor is over the ruler.

I gave up on grid and now put things, sorta where they might should go. They really need to fix grid.

i thought it was broken before? it always snapped like 5.016, 5.266, 5.766, 6.016 for me and diffrent prims had diffrent "offsets". i'm kinda getting the feeling that no matter what bug comes along some people will be affected and some won't. not sure why but it seems that way.

by the way if you let go of the mouse button after you get your prim where you want it on the ruler it might avoid the jump you're talking about. it's like before you moved the prim and it snapped but now you point where you want it on the ruler and the prim just goes there. little bit diffrent way to think of it maybe.

The only time I got weird numbers like that was when I had Local Axis turned on, or was using some weird number for the grid size. Using a grid of 0.125 was rock solid for me.



No, I don't think it's just a different way of thinking about it. Making me move my cursor the opposite direction from where I want the prim to go is wrong. I spent years doing UI work, and the fundamental thing about direct manipulation is that the action of the object directly corresponds to the action of the user's hand. If I move my hand to the right and the prim moves left, that is wrong.

Basically grid is no longer useful:

1. Zoom out kills precision (going to a 1m gridsize) Zoom in isn't possible, as you can't see the edges of your work and move at the same time.
2. Selections now snap on the arbitrary centers of your selection instead of root prim. (Making any repositioning of selections to grid after rerezzing completely impossible, except by setting every object using numbers)
3. Linked objects have same behaviour as 3.

These things make the new grid functions useless for any precision building or placing of objects.

I agree.

One Linden employee desribed the old system as modal and the new system as modeless.

It is still modal, you just have to keep selecting the snap mode you want over and over each time you want to move to a snap position. I don't mean to be making a meaningless quibble over words, it just isn't modeless.

if one has to change the old behavior, How about an axis with two arrowheads , with distinctive shapes, on the axis, selecting one would move in non snap manner and using the other would move in snap manner, and make the display of the ruler toggleable.

The rulers do nothing for me. In many positions the ruler numbers are distorted by perspective and so small and overlapping or touching that they are totally illegible.

Eep! You're right, this new system isn't modeless. First off, you check Use Grid to activate the mode. Also planar move is distinctly modal, as you can't avoid the grid when draging a planar move handle. I would accept that the grid-sensitive ruler is modeless by some definition, but it is also largely useless by most builders' definition. Since there is no continuity of movement between gridded and un-gridded movement, it does feel more like a mode than not.

If we're going to have a mode, I'd rather have a non-sticky mode that was activated by a hotkey during move operations.

When you move a prim with the Local Axis selected, the grid applies based on the prim's current position. So if the starting position is 5.016 and you move the prim 1m, the new position would correctly be 6.016.

As for the new grid feature... well, I like everything about the new build tools so far except the grid rendered onto the screen. I don't need the numbers, just give me really tiny see-through lines (if you absolutely must) when I snap-to-grid. I have the numbers at the top of my screen already, and I'm very good at visualizing such things in my head.

Even worse, is the grid that draws when I want to move a prim using the x/y, x/z, or y/z handles. What's the purpose of this grid? Again, I know what I'm doing, I don't need a grid. This grid totally blocks out my view of the environment I'm trying to position a new object into.

I'd like to challenge the Linden responsible for this new feature:
How quickly can the Linden place all the chess pieces evenly onto a chess board with that giant white grid rendered over everything. This is especially difficult with small objects.
Do the same with an old version, and compare results.

Being a new player (since February), I have no idea what any of you are talking about. Or what the "snap to grid" is supposed to do.

However.

Before 1.6, the grid made NO SENSE WHATSOEVER TO ME. Now, with it and the rulers, I seem to be able to get the prim to actually line up with the grid, and very easily, too. Before, it never did. Never before did my prim bear any relation whatsoever to the so-called grid. And I can make one thing 3 m in length, and get another thing the exact same size.

Maybe that's not what you're supposed to do with it. But before 1.6, it was totally useless to me. Now, it has some use for getting things certain sizes. Anybody want to explain that?

coco

Basically, you are right. The pre-1.6 visible grid was mostly useless. That's why a lot of people had the visible grid disabled and only used the 'snap to grid' function, which behaved like the the snap you get when moving you pointer over the 1.6 gridlines while dragging/resizing etc.
This allowed them to drag and 'click' prims into place, like building with Lego blocks. Snap to grid was used to lower the 'working resolution' of the SL building tools, as most people weren't able to drag items into place with a precision of 0.001m but were with a precision of 0.125m (mostly used 'small' gridsize).

The 1.6 grid now basically combines the pre-1.6 visible grid (which hardly is useful and blocking your view) and the snap functions (which are essential for quick precision building). A lot of builders have issues with this combination, or with the negative consequences of the decision to combine the visible grid and the snap function, especially when moving/dragging prims.

On the other hand the adding of snap to grid when resizing is a huge improvement over the old situation. As it finally allows for precision resizing of multi prim objects. Also the snap to grid on rotate is an improvement over the old snap.

I just use the numbers as a rule, but I know I'm unusual that way.

I'm a bigtime numbers builder myself, but it sure is easier to move 50 objects at a time by dragging...

I'm actually rather fond of the new building grid. Setting the rulers to Local and getting the ability to move or scale an object in increments of its own length has been enormously useful to me while I build a large-scale project based on weird angles. Add to this the fact that they seem to have fixed the rounding errors that used to plague moving objects in Local mode, and I've been able to build far more quickly and precisely than I could pre-1.6.

The only improvement I'd like to see to the current system is a hybrid between Local and World modes, where the object may be moved along its own local coordinate system, but in the standard grid units you've set up (0.125m is also what I use). Sometimes I just want to nudge something an eighth of a meter along its own local X axis instead of moving it half its own length.

I was told by a Linden programming staff employee that he was too busy to read this forum and specifically was unaware of any complaints regarding name tag behavior and the snap to grid and rulers issue. He said they just read the bug reports that come through the inworld bug reporter, and that if it wasn't filed as a bug it wasn't going to get fixed.

Well, the new grid function is not a bug, it's a feature that many like and some don't like. If the Linden programmers only rely on bug reports to see what people like/don't like, then there's a problem. Bug Reports should be renamed something like, "Suggestion Box/Bug Reports." I would never file a bug report like the following:

"Hey, I found a bug... the new grid function isn't the same as the old grid function. The old grid function was much better, so this must be a bug."

I can live with all the rulers etc. But the fact that when I want to go left and right I can also go up and down by a little twitch really messes me up. Also when I want to move multiple objects on the grid it goes by all those objects center of mass and not a root object. Thats useless when I am trying to line up boxes in the store. Matter fact its useless when I am trying to line up anything other than a single prim.

Suzanne, thanks for the tip. I filed a bug, and Richard Linden showed me the fix this afternoon. OK, I had to go down to LL and show him the issue in person, but it worked!

Perhaps you would like the ideas for a control system proposed by Tiger Crossing.

They need a bit of work - just rewriting in the form of a proposal - and would make an excellent proposition.