This is one of the reasons. The main reason is that the gesture is the most convenient, quickest and intelligent way to switch between “Smooth dragging” and “Snappy dragging”, while keeping the OSnap settings intact.
I can easily reply your question. When the OSnap is on, using the Gumball with “Smooth dragging” is the best way to move objects and control points around without the disturbing accidental snapping to other objects and wireframe. This is especially important in tight spaces with nearby objects or while working in Wireframe display mode (but also in other display modes).
The active OSnap lets the user snap one or several control points or objects to another control or object when the used picks the origin of the Gumball. That’s it, the origin of Gumball is in permanent “Snappy dragging”, despite that the Move/Rotate/Scale/Plane handles are in “Smooth dragging” mode.
As for changing the “Smooth dragging” and “Snappy dragging”, in my earlier post I already explained what’s the best solution for that. I’m very confident that many Rhino users will find it very convenient if you put it on a public test in the next Rhino 9 WIP. Especially it it’s customizable, so that the user could enable or disable this function from the settings.
One of the settings could be about the behaviour: Do a gesture to switch between “Smooth dragging” and “Snappy dragging” as one-shot or permanently.
- One-shot (executing the gesture switches to the other dragging mode until the LMB is held. It switches back to the initial mode as soon as the LMB is released. This is the best approach for anyone who works with control points or general modeling and keeps the Gumball in “Smooth dragging” mode all the time. Switching to a one-shot “Snappy dragging” takes just a fraction of a second needed to make a simple “away-from-the-handle” gesture while dragging it with the LMB;
- Permanent switching. Executing the gesture switches to the other dragging mode permanently. To switch to the other dragging mode, execute the gesture again. This is more useful for moving many objects, such like bricks or lines.
Just by adjusting my SubD model control points I also use:
_Align _Pause _ToLine
_SetPt
_CPlane _3Point
… but also any other transformations like Rotate, Scale, Move.
Nothing of above works without OSnap!
But you are not considering that, even if working with control points was fine (which, now, is NOT) , every time the user switch from “control points editing” to “something else” he have to remember to switch OSnap!
Seriously?
OSnap is always active for me! In a full day of work I rarely even press ALT key to disable it, and I never fully disable it at all!
For me the “default status” of Rhino is OSnap enabled (without Near, Perp and Knot).
Now you are asking me to add literal hundreds of toggle or keypress every day, every hour!
It is the most common workflow, for me, to drag some “important” points and then use
_Align _Pause _ToLine to a buck of other points because of that, and that command is always the last used, so I recall it with right-click and go!
My hands are not on the keyboard! (but even if they were, why ask the user for additional inputs?)
Random example on a simple geometry (I can’t share my actual projects).
Imagine this, all day long.
This is the usual scenario where the developers don’t know how users use their software.
I’m not criticizing, happens everywhere. Luckily McNeel devs listen to us!
Thanks @maje90 that’s the exact reason why we test these things out in our public WIP releases and ask for feedback.
Can’t wait for you to test the new Gumball gesture control in a few days or weeks maybe. 
Hey, I use onsnap alltime & toggling smooth/snappy dragging a lot, removing it and counting on Onsnap workflow, for me as a veteran Rhino user, bad idea, sorry, please, let us users choose 
I don’t know if I will be able to test it.
WIP Gumball “Align to object” already is good enough to push me using WIP daily for SubDs …
(but it still lacks the gumball arrows when connected control points are more than 4…)
I am now interested on how to revert back to a previous WIP where gumball have smooth dragging… until it is re-implemented.
@maje90 to revert to an older build you need to uninstall the current first. Let me know if you need a download link to an older version.
Yes please, the last one with Smooth Dragging, something mid-late February maybe?
I meant the future Gumball that will include a gesture control to switch the “Snappy dragging” and “Smooth dragging”. It will happen, sooner or later.
what ever has happened to the Gumball, it doesn’t seem to be an improvement
Sometimes it is good to break things to get a better understanding. I do think that this experiment has helped to find a couple of changes that are worth keeping:
- indication for snappy dragging
- no initial snap to cursor in snappy mode
- on the fly toggle for snappy/smooth while dragging
There’s no problem if we wanted to align and move the gumball along the different control net directions when a single extraordinary vertex is selected. If you have a selection of multiple vertices containing an extraordinary vertex we can’t figure out consistent directions for the entire selection. So if you’re fine with this only ever working on a single vertex selection we can get it done.
maybe for you
I was just digressing, I reported this in other threads already
.
We are OT, my fault, sorry.
That make sense, not a problem for me, consistent directions only when the selection is consistent.
Currently if an extraordinary vertex is selected together with other non-extraordinary, you only have normal/blue arrow. That’s fine for me.
I don’t fully understand (my english still sucks) … you mean it’s possible to do that? Then please do so. A complete Gumball also for extraordinary vertex please… when only single point selected, alright.
Yes, it is possible. I will add a note to the YouTrack issue Gijs created.
I’m also confused and dissatisfied with the recent changes. The Gumball experience I’ve wished for since a long time only worked for a few WIP versions.
I’m one of those users who always has Osnaps enabled, but when I move something with the Gumball, I don’t want object to stick to anything unless I tell it to “stick now.” It also needs to be very easy and convenient to activate.
I’ve done many comparisons… the simplest one, however, is the difference between smearing something with glue and then having to force your way through a crowded area to stick something, or to smear something with glue only after you are already at the place.
Very unpleasant experience is when you want to move something with the Gumball and it immediately snaps to something random in the crowded scene. So even if you decide to turn it off right away, you got that unpleasant hiccup.
@maje90’s examples clearly demonstrate how, even in simple scenes, unwanted Gumball Osnaps can do more harm than good.
We’re still refining this. The current behavior is not set in stone. I’ll revert the change for tomorrows WIP then during the next week try again. Just for reference the issue corresponding to this change is RH-93850.