OK I know this is going to sound dumb, but I just had to share...
 
I just randomly tried the To/By switch... and my whole world has changed. I mean seriously, my whole brain is shattered.
 
Switching to "By" fixes so many issues that normally were such a pain in the butt that I'd just work around them and have to limit myself creatively. As a matter of fact, I had posted a question about quantizing a few months back that led to some interesting ideas that I've implemented, but never quite helped what I needed... But if I had known about switching to "By" I'd have not had to rely on quantizing anyway! Of course using "To" is still the most common way I'd want it to be (there's a good reason it's the default), but "By" makes it so much easier to move things around and keep things in position when they're not meant to be lined up with the start of a bar, but still need to stay in time with where they originally were within a bar.
 
I know this all sounds ridiculous and "duh" haha, but I just had to share. I don't even know at which point this switch was implemented (I've been using Sonar since pre-Sonar, Cakewalk 5.0)... But I'm so excited. 

 

polarbear
OK I know this is going to sound dumb, but I just had to share...

 
Permit me to sound dumber, because I can see absolutely no difference in snap behaviour whether the switch is set to To or By.
 

Paul P
Permit me to sound dumber, because I can see absolutely no difference in snap behaviour whether the switch is set to To or By.

 
Haha Ok so... and this is just one of many examples where this will prove useful to me... But lets say I came up with a bass riff or drum loop, or something that fits nicely in between the bars so i would be able to say "oh it's at bar 2 and I want it at bar 4, so I'll just drag it over" right? Great. Works fine... BUT... Lets say my little riff has a little spill over before the bar, like some kind of lead couple of notes before it... Now it starts a little BEFORE bar 2... So if I try to drag it to a little before bar 4, it will actually make those little lead in notes start right at the beginning of bar 4, making the whole thing off.
 
In the past, in the above situation (which happens all the time for me), I'd have to:
 
1) chop the clip right at bar 2.
2) drag the part of the clip that starts at bar 2 over to bar 4.
3) the part that was before bar 2, isn't a complete bar, so I can't move it by the grid, so I'd have to extend the clip to the left enough so that it extends to the beginning of bar 1 so it's at an even spot.
4) then drag it to bar 3, so those extra notes happen in the right spot, right before bar 4.
 
And it gets way more complicated with audio!
That's just one example of a situation where the default "To" option will move things directly to the start of the bar when I might not want them to (again, MOST of the time I will want it to behave that way, but there's these situations where I don't). When I switched it to "By" instead of moving and snapping to the next bar, it moves it one bar down, but still in the exact positioning it was previously.
:-)
 

Good point. I was overlooking advantages of the "BY" too. Now I can't live without it.

Thanks. I used to do this "a long time ago", but forgot all about it. Good tip for saving time.
All the best.

To/By has been a feature of global snap for ages, but was only added to the PRV sometime in X1 IIRC.
 
One caveat: Projects created before the PRV option was added will open with the PRV snap mode defaulted to By, which can be really confusing since it's hidden in the snap resolution menu.

polarbear
But lets say I came up with a bass riff or drum loop, or something that fits nicely in between the bars so i would be able to say "oh it's at bar 2 and I want it at bar 4, so I'll just drag it over" right? Great. Works fine... BUT... Lets say my little riff has a little spill over before the bar, like some kind of lead couple of notes before it... Now it starts a little BEFORE bar 2... So if I try to drag it to a little before bar 4, it will actually make those little lead in notes start right at the beginning of bar 4, making the whole thing off.

This is how I expect things to be, but I can't get it to work.  I just entered four 1/32 notes at the end of a 4/4 measure leading to a 1/2 note at the beginning of the next measure.  I have all snap settings set to 1/2.  I select the five notes and whichever note I click on to drag them is the one that is used to snap the 'riff' to the grid at 1/2 measure boundaries.  If I select the first of the 1/32 notes, it's the one that'll snap to beginnings or middles of my 4 beat measures.  If I select the half note, it's the one that'll snap.  Setting snap to either To or By has no effect on this behaviour either in the PRV on inline in the track.
 
I would expect, as I believe you're saying, that if I grab the first of my 1/32 notes with snap set to By, my riff will snap to a 1/2 note's distance from the position of that 1/32 note, with no regards to measure (or half measure) boundaries.
 
I get the same lack of difference when snapping the beginning or end of a note when changing its duration.  I seem to be permanently stuck on To.
 

brundlefly
To/By has been a feature of global snap for ages, but was only added to the PRV sometime in X1 IIRC.
 
One caveat: Projects created before the PRV option was added will open with the PRV snap mode defaulted to By, which can be really confusing since it's hidden in the snap resolution menu.

Interesting. Yea just going back to projects started in X3 is a pain in the butt... I can't just imagine going further back haha. Luckily I won't be doing that.

Afrodrum
Good point. I was overlooking advantages of the "BY" too. Now I can't live without it.

Zargg71
Thanks. I used to do this "a long time ago", but forgot all about it. Good tip for saving time.
All the best.

Glad to know I'm not alone! haha.

polarbear, could you please take a look at message #7 of this thread.  It was deleted by the spam blocker for some reason, and restored, but you probably won't notice it's revival.  Thanks.