Scenario:
let’s say you are trying to visually line up something vertically along a user created guide edge, having already created some elements.
Sketch Version:
1- you look roughly at where the guide should fall and click on the top bar roughly where you need it.
2- you grab the guide (already roughly where it needs to end up) and move your cursor a few centimeters on the screen, and can snap it to a shape edge quite quickly.
Figma/Penpot Version:
1- you look roughly at where the guide should fall and trace your cursor across the screen to the left edge.
2- you grab the guide from the left vertical measurements bar [note: you alsorun the somewhat risk of grabbing the edge of the left panel instead of the measure bar, albeit rarely] and drag back towards the center of the screen, till it snaps to an edge.
The sketch version is slightly faster and in my opinion equally if not more intuitive than the penpot/figma method. I think this is a good point of distinction away from Figma, which I might imagine the PP dev community might appreciate (?)
Ok I see that clicking (Sketch) instead of dragging (Penpot) could be a bit easier to use, but the difference seems to be so light that might not justify the change of pattern. Could it be a matter of familiarity? In that case the change could hinder users used to the current pattern.
In any case, snapping grid to objects is something that we want to do but as I just checked it was not at our backlog, so I’ve created the story (thanks for the reminder).
I agree it is small, but that small can add up. I could see how you would bring up familiarity, but tbh its bugged me ever since my switch to figma from sketch over the past several years. now working (work work) in figma 100% of the time I never touch sketch and I still miss it. It is small but again, if a small improvement plus a delineator away from Figma (what a great idea! ) … I think that’s awesome and proves Figma might not always get it “right”
and, again, there is no chance of accidentally grabbing the left panel edge, which is only separated by what appears to be a few tens of pixels. Cheers.
While I understand @deee’s argument for the Sketch-like behavior, I think the guess familiarity is a very good predictor of preference here (as usual– “intuitive equals familiar”). I find the figma-behavior subjectively “better”, and upon checking, this is the behavior of the apps I use (Affinity, Inkscape, Figma…)
Actually, “Familiarity over new patterns” is one of the explicit design principles that we follow (or at least try to follow) at the Penpot team. We have a lot of evidence that show that this is helping us to reduce the learning curve of new users.
However, @deee made a reasonable point and it is always worth considering if there are options to create new, better familiarities.
) … I think that’s awesome and proves Figma might not always get it “right”