In WIP (9.0.26076.6305, 2026-03-17), the Smooth setting in the Gumball settings doesn’t seem to work at all. It’s always snappy.
@phcreates in current WIP we’re experimenting with tying the state to Osnaps
This means when you have Osnaps enabled it will snap unless you press and hold alt and vice versa.
I think that’s a great idea.
Are you telling me that “Snappy dragging” is on when “OSnap” is on? That’s a horrible idea. If I understand correctly, this will make the life of 3d mouse users a real nightmare…
I keep “OSnap” on all the time, but my Gumball is set to “Smooth dragging”. And I do use a 3d mouse… At least provide an option to keep the classic behavior with separate settings.
@Rhino_Bulgaria the only way to find out how good or bad something is, is to test it.
That is what WIP is about. Joshua has made a change to the gumball to prevent the initial snap to the cursor, so this means you can now make smooth transforms even when Gumball is snappy.
Changing Gumball from smooth to snappy is not obvious and by default takes too many clicks. Disabling Osnaps is more obvious and takes only one click, and can be toggled on the fly.
Btw you do have an alt button on your 3d mouse, correct?
I’m using a 3D mouse and my gumball is always in snappy mode.
The Space Mouse Pro has an alt button
I was using WIP this week and saw this too, I tought it was simply a feature not yet added or being reworked…
Neither of the two is obvious.
Why should we have to toggle OSnap on/off (or press ALT) hundreds of time each day if we can have “Smooth dragging” and save time?
Why create a new problem out of thin air? 
Modeling nice SubD require micro-managing control points, without snapping to anything at all, “free sculpting”… but often I also use _Align or other commands that instead do use OSnap.
It’s extremely common to continuously drag freely and use OSnap.
You are expecting users now to add countless extra clicks or keypresses to achieve the same workflow that was possible until 8.
For … ?? … reasons… we now have to work slower? Please no 
Please re-add back the option for “smooth dragging”.
Or at least let us have it as a advanced option.
Feature changes like this should be tested in complex projects, packed, with many geometries.
Ghosted or wireframe, having the gumball forcefully at “Snappy dragging”, simply means you must disable OSnap anytime you drag something, otherwise most of the time the gumball will teleport out-of screen because it is snapping to some far geometry but aligned with the camera view.
Doesn’t make any sense at all.
Without “Smooth dragging” Gumball and OSnap will become mutually exclusive for any project with minimal complexity.
I never used Snappy mode once in my life, even when I don’t have my 3d mouse with me.
Optional feature - nice, good for everyone!
Removing a feature - nice for … ???
OSnap is on with , which is common.
This is Shaded view, if it was Ghosted or Wireframe it would have been already 2x worse, as you would snap to elements on the other side of the cube, through it.
This is a empty document with just a SubD cube, and it’s already a total mess.
Using Gumball and OSnap are now mutually exclusive.
Hi Gijs, I tested this on Friday quacking doing some V9 Patching and editing for that, and if I remember correctly, smooth dragging a gumball away was snapping to each grid increment, because I had Osnap off, but Grid Snap on. And I thought that was pretty cool. Did I get that right? Or was I confused?
I think following GridSnap makes sense. Following Osnap doesn’t, for the reasons @maje90 showed.
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Me too and it works perfectly, but I’m not a fan of shortcuts.
It’s also true that the initial jump of the gumball is very weird and not friendly.
The actual solution need test and practice but it’s good that McNeely are taking care of this.
It’s fairly easy to press ALT to override snaps, but if I pre-press ALT then I get a copy, and if I post-press ALT then the cursor jumps to the gumball center, making it really hard to use for doing any point-moving, especially when you are moving more than one point at the same time. Am I explaining that well?
I do have an Alt button on my 3d mouse (Space Pilot, a model from 2005), but since it’s a discontinued model for 13 years now, I’m forced to use a very old driver for it (3DxWare 10.3.0), along with replacing Rhino’s plug-in with the one from Rhino 6.3. That makes the use of the Ctrl, Alt, Shift and Esc keys of the 3d mouse not working correctly. The 3d mouse do not register holding any of its buttons (they only work as a single-tap buttons instead), thus I’m unable to temporarily disable the OSnap by holding Alt on the 3d mouse.
Also, the keys of my 3d mouse do not work when the LMB or RMB of my regular mouse is clicked, so I can’t run any macro to toggle OSnap or Snappy/Smooth dragging while dragging the Gumball. If I do not hold the LMB or the RMB of the regular mouse, I can use the 3d mouse’s buttons to run a macro to toggle the Snappy/Smooth dragging, but that comes with about 2-3 seconds lag, which causes a temporary freezing of Rhino.
I’m aware that my case is quite rare since most 3d mouse users own a modern model, so maybe they don’t experience the same lag or inability to hold their Crtl, Alt, Shift and Esc keys on the 3d mouse.
As a Rhino 7 user I can’t test the latest Rhino 9 WIP. I will have to wait a few months to buy the final version of Rhino 9.
This post pretty much explains why keeping “Snappy dragging” on by default is bad, and how to find a solution for combining both modes that works flawlessly. If the developers are wise enough to try it internally and then release it in the next Rhino 9 WIP build for anyone with a license to test it personally.
Don’t let the word “gesture” scare you. I used it in that other post, because it’s exactly that - a gesture. In fact, anyone who uses a “Snappy dragging” already makes almost the same gesture to snap to other objects that are away from the active axis of the Gumball. The only difference is that my proposal is for using that gesture as a trigger for activating the “Snappy dragging” as a one-shot snap until the LMB is held. Once you release the LMB, the Gumball immediately switches to “Smooth dragging” again.
The principle of that gesture is pretty easy to implement. As soon as you hold the LMB and start to drag any of the Gumball handles, moving the mouse pointer away from the Gumball handle (by a set amount of pixels, customizable by the user) will activate “Snappy dragging”. However, if you do not move the mouse pointer away from the handle, the Gumball will remain in “Smooth dragging” mode. There is no disadvantage of the gesture control compared to the current flawed behaviour.
Those who prefer to use “Snappy dragging” all the time, could use the same gesture to enable a one-shot “Smooth dragging”, too.
That’s a highly damaging approach in my workflow, because:
- I often work in tight spaces with plenty of nearby objects, so I don’t want accidentally snap while using the Gumball;
- I’m a heavy user of fine control point adjustments. The sudden “jump” of the Gumball with “Snappy dragging” on is killing me;
You described the very problem with the “Snappy dragging”. Unfortunately, (most?) Rhino developers are not full-time 3d modelers on actual projects packed with lots of geometry in tights spots, so they don’t experience the actual problems that come with some tools or functionality. “Snappy dragging” is a nightmare while working in Wireframe mode, too. That’s where the “Smooth dragging” is a billion times better.
In true Rhino fashion we should be able to choose between two modes.
-
Gumball smooth and snappy how it was before the last update
-
Gumball osnap driven
And option #3: 
- Super Gumball with a gesture switch between “Smooth dragging” and “Snappy dragging”.
You’re asking for a gesture because your hand is on the Space Mouse, correct?
@maje90 I understand that you don’t want a snappy Gumball while you are working with control points. But what I would like to understand is, why Osnaps need to be on when you are aiming to work with your Gumball in Smooth mode.
Let’s be clear: I am not saying that what we changed in the current WIP is there to stay or even close to being a perfect solution.
The way Gumball works in all previous versions of Rhino isn’t flawless either. I find myself having to switch Gumball smooth and snappy mode fairly often. I need both, but changing the mode is both not obvious, and tedious.