Move/Copy Using Tab | Can Coordinates Be Locked?

[PitMan71]

Morning all.... I use tab a lot to move and copy things to directly input distance. I like the fact that it automatically will update the direction and distance from where the cursor is currently. Makes things fast and efficient. Inevitably when I get going I fail to look at the actual angle of direction and it will bite me with some sort of random unlocked direction even though it would seem that it should be -180, 90 or whatever. I know that likely has something to do with Object Snaps. Is there a way to force the input angle to snap to a certain angle increment like say 15 degrees?

[DBCooper]

When you get into the "enter coordinates" dialog, try checking "polar" and then you can set the angle you  want.

 

You can also use the "transform/replicate" dialog to do this.

 

 

 

[PitMan71]

21 hours ago, DBCooper said:

When you get into the "enter coordinates" dialog, try checking "polar" and then you can set the angle you  want.

Thanks for the reply. that is what I use.....Generally it will grab the angle you move the cursor in. BUT on occasion for some reason it will be a random angle. For instance if I grab and object and move the cursor to the left it will prefill 180d in the angle field. Sometimes though it will be 178.65d or something and I can't figure why it will vary like that. especially when you move the cursor in that direction and it seems locked. I use the tool a lot and I would rather not have to check the angle every time.

I was hoping there was a setting somewhere that I didn't know about.

 

Thanks again.

[DBCooper]

Maybe you snapped to something else before the dialog opened and it threw off the angle?  You could try turning off all snaps except angles but that might not make it any easier.  You could try always dragging out far enough that you don't pick up any other snaps because the distance doesn't matter since you are going to type that in.  I still like using the transform/replicate whenever I know exactly what I want.

 

[PitMan71]

23 hours ago, DBCooper said:

Maybe you snapped to something else before the dialog opened and it threw off the angle?

This is what I am thinking too.

 

 

23 hours ago, DBCooper said:

You could try always dragging out far enough that you don't pick up any other snaps because the distance doesn't matter since you are going to type that in.

This is actually what I do.

 

Thanks for providing some insight on this.