I would love to hear an official response from Omnigraffle about this insane behavior (among many other insane behaviors in Omnigraffle, but that's another story). Maybe I'm just using this wrong, but I can't believe that there's only 1 thread with a few posts about this.
Anyhow, I *think* I understand how it works. I hope my post will be useful to others tearing their hair out trying to figure it out.
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There are
FOUR separate settings (major grid spacing, minor grid steps, snap to grid, and page setup scale)
plus per-canvas zoom level, that will affect the way using the arrow/shift-arrow key to move an object will work. This is completely insane. I can't believe this is actually how it works!
Major grid spacing & minor grid steps control how many pts an object moves by using the shift-arrow and arrow key, respectively.
- Example 1: Major Grid Spacing 10pt + Minor Grid Steps 1 = shift-arrow moves 10pt, arrow moves 1pt
- Example 2: Major Grid Spacing 10pt + Minor Grid Steps 2 = shift-arrow moves 5pt, arrow moves 1pt
- Example 3: Major Grid Spacing 10pt + Minor Grid Steps 5 = shift-arrow moves 2pt, arrow moves 1pt
But that's only true if your canvas zoom level is at 100% AND your page setup scale is also 100%. Canvas zoom level affects how much an object moves using the arrow key (but not shift-arrow). The relationship is inversely proportional.
Using the 3 examples from above, this is the behavior:
- shift-arrow will still move objects the amount of pts described in each example (either 10pt, 5pt, or 2pt), regardless of canvas zoom level
- @200% canvas zoom level: arrow key moves an object 0.5pt
- @50% canvas zoom level: arrow key moves an object 2pt
Page setup scale also has an effect. For example, a page setup scale of 50% means that all the canvas zoom level is halved. So if you are trying to fit your wireframes on to a page by using some weird page setup scale, using the arrow key to move objects will result in some incomprehensible distance!
For the purpose of this explanation, though, we'll use a page setup scale 50% to illustrate the point. So, continuing with our example:
- shift-arrow will still move objects the amount of pts described in each example (either 10pt, 5pt, or 2pt), regardless of canvas zoom level
- @50% page setup scale + @200% canvas zoom level: arrow key moves an object 1pt
- @50% page setup scale + @100% canvas zoom level: arrow key moves an object 2pt
- @50% page setup scale + @50% canvas zoom level: arrow key moves an object 4pt
- @50% page setup scale + @400% canvas zoom level: arrow key moves an object 0.5pt
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That covers 3 of the 4 settings. The last setting is 'Snap to Grid.' When this checkbox is selected, the behavior of the shift-arrow and arrow key in moving objects on the canvas is reversed.
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Clear as mud? :-D