nudging

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Rose

Is there a way to adjust the nudge settings when using the arrow key?

I'd like to nudge more precisely and to be able to quickly change measurements as needed. For instance 1mm & 0.5mm.

I've seen the sh/alt/ctr keyboard shortcuts in the manual  and don't really understand where all the different measurements units are set up (inches, pixels, pts, etc.). Also the shortcuts don't appear to work for me in the way described -  shortcuts for regular and smaller jumps appear to move the same amount.

I'm using the latest Scribus Portable (1.4.7) on win 7. My document size is set up in inches but I prefer to nudge in mm. Is that an issue?

With thanks!

veronicathecow

I managed to find the settings once but could not find them again today so I would also love to know this. Thanks

dragonfly

I have Scribus 1.5.5 which might have different menus to your version 1.4.7.
But I see mm unit in Topbar > Windows > Measurements.

Rose

veronicathecow - I'll post details here when I find out how to do it! Good to know it's possible.

dragonfly - That's useful. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. However it doesn't change the nudge values.


a.l.e

on the one side the shortcuts normally do work!
no idea what is happening on your case, since you don't give any details on the shortcuts you've been trying.

for the (saner) metric world, the hint for more control is to use mm instead of cm...
take with your representative if you want your country to move into the modern times : - )

steven8

Wouldn't this be controlled by the snap distance?  If the snap distance is 10px, every time you nudge with the key, your object will grab the next snap point.  File>Preferences>Guides.  In the upper right corner is Snapping.  Snap distance and grab radius.  Version 1.4.7, but it'll be under preferences I imagine in any version.

I may be wrong but that's the only thing I can find that makes sense to me.
Scribus 1.6.0 Stable
Windows 11

a.l.e

i don't know what exactly nudging means... never heard that verb before. so i might be wrong.

but what i can say: when you resize or move an item with the keyboard, there is -- as far as i know -- no snapping.
this also applies to the editing you do through the properties palette.

afaict the snapping only applies to the mouse movements.

steven8

#7
This is from the manual:

Moving and Re-sizing Frames using Arrow Keys

The following are for points, millimeters,
picas*, centimeters, ciceros

Arrow keys Move item 1 unit
Ctrl+Arrow Move item 10 units
Shift+Arrow Move item 0.1 units
Ctrl+Shift+Arrow Move item 0.01 units

* Movement units for picas are points

The following are for inches

Arrow keys Move item 0.139 units**
Ctrl+Arrow Move item 1 unit
Shift+Arrow Move item 0.1 units
Ctrl+Shift+Arrow Move item 0.01 units

** This is about 10 points

Now, I use inches, and I did some testing.  The arrow key movement was not 0.139, but 0.0139.  I also found that with snap to grid off, the arrow key would stop just above, and just below my 1/2" border guide, but with snap on, it would snap to the guide.  Right at .500.

All that being said, nowhere in the manual does it give any instruction on changing the settings.

[edit] I just went back to Scribus, and using the keyboard did NOT snap to the guide.  Hmmm.

P.S. - In Indesign they call using the arrow keys 'nudging' and it can be customized: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/nudge-indesign-44317.html
Scribus 1.6.0 Stable
Windows 11

jack_cat

My workaround for this has been to use "control plus-sign" (as many times as necessary usually twice) to zoom in on the work space, and then I can move objects in smaller increments (by dragging with the mouse if the nudge is still too coarse?) - I am not sure if zooming in actually changes the arrow-key nudge distance which is probably in pixels and changes relative to the zoom? - I would have to do a controlled test, but zooming in does improve my ability to see what I'm doing, and things can be moved with the mouse too. I hadn't thought of it as a problem, I just zoomed in the first time I ran into it. I can set a guide, for instance, to align several separate items to, and then zoom in and adjust them all to the guide even though I can only see a little bit of the workspace. For text, it helps to set the style to "align to baseline grid" so that the text boxes don't have to align exactly horizontally, in the case of side-by-side text boxes. For vertical alignments to a guide, just zoom in. Then "control minus-sign" to zoom out again.

FYI "to nudge" is to poke the person next to you in the ribs (lightly) with your elbow when you want to draw their attention and it wouldn't do to talk about it out loud - it is intended to be a surreptitious gesture. The OED reports first use in 1675. From there it went to "pushing heavy furniture into place" by an inch or so, and thence somehow into computer slang? Nudging a text box around. Whatever.

a.l.e

yes, if i use mm as the units, then i get the movement as specified in the your post (and probably the manual).

concerning the inches, if there is a difference between the current behavior and the manual, the question is which of both is the correct one.
i can confirm that what you describe seems to be what happens.

you might want to submit a bug report to https://bugs.scribus.net to get one of both (you can pick the one that seems to be more useful...) to be fixed.

i don't know if you can modify the key bindings (probably not), but in scribus 1.4 you can change the current unit with the selector in lower left corner...