Make sketch geometry higher priority for selection *NOT constraint glyphs*

[New_to_Inventor]

Dragging a sketch into *roughly* the right place should be a quick/easy part of design, but I do not like it in Inventor.

Every time I click the corner of anything with another line touching it - ONLY the constraint is selected. It's incredibly frustrating to get shapes where I want them before adding in the constraints I actually care about. 

[WCrihfield]

The title of this idea is not as clear as it could be, but peaked my interest anyways.  I had not thought about creating an 'Idea' post about this, but I would be shocked if this is the first mention of this issue, because it seems like this has been a thorn in our side for as long as I have been using Inventor (well over a decade).

I really like using the 'show all constraints' ability while working on my sketches, because it helps visualize what geometry has which types of geometric constraints on it, and what geometry still needs some geometric constraints, before starting to add dimensions.  Especially if you are utilizing the 'Constraint Inference' settings, where it automatically creates certain types of geometric constraints for us as we sketch.  That system can sometimes add unwanted/unintended constraints that will need to be removed later.  However, having those constraint icons visible often leads to this unwanted behavior.

Most often during those early stages of sketch creation, there is also some geometry 'dragging' going on.  While attempting to drag sketch geometry, it is extremely annoying when it keeps defaulting to grabbing those little geometric constraint icons, instead of grabbing the sketch geometry, leading to us dragging the icon, instead of the geometry.  Not only that, but immediately after I just drug that icon away from the sketch geometry, and I try to drag that geometry again, that exact same little icon just instantly re-appears right under my pointer again, and is grabbed again, instead of the geometry.  Makes you want to reenact that scene from the 'Office Space' movie, where they take the piece of office equipment outside and beat the crap out of it with a baseball bat to relieve their frustration.  😂

At the very least, the sketch geometry should get the highest priority for selection, before the constraints.  If you want to select the constraints, either use the delayed 'Select Other' functionality, or a selection filter for that.  I know we could just toggle the setting to hide all constraints, then drag the geometry, then toggle the setting back on, but that is more clicks, and takes focus away from what we are trying to do.  I also know that we can use the F8 / F9 thing, if we have that memorized, and if we want to take our finger off the Esc key, then visually find those Function keys to press them, then do the drag action, then press the other function key to toggle it back afterwards, but again...that is extra steps that should not be necessary.

The 'default behavior' in that situation just needs to be changed.

[New_to_Inventor]

^ Thank you for the added clarity. I changed the title to better reflect your comment 🙂 

[lqg5960]

Currently, when hovering over the endpoint of a line, the center of a circle, or any point in geometry with a coincident constraint applied, the glyph is the target when dragging. If you don't have the "display coincident constraints" setting on, the glyph snaps back into place afterward, accomplishing nothing. This is extremely annoying, as to actually drag the point, you have to either:

1. Hide the constraints using the ribbon at the bottom of the screen, then unhide them afterward.
   
   
2. Press Fn and then F7, then press Fn and F8 afterward, which either requires two hands or is an uncomfortable stretch. (Assuming you have function lock set to make the volume and media controls easy to press, which I think most people do)
   
   
3. Very carefully align your cursor in the small area away from the point where it chooses to select the point and not the glyph.

Solution 1: The only two interactions with coincident glyphs require you to left-click or right-click on them first and do not involve dragging, so clicking and dragging should prioritize the point (unless your cursor is explicitly over the glyph if the "display coincident constraints" setting is on)

Solution 2: The glyphs are massive and would be easy to click on without this interaction working as it currently does. Interacting with the glyph should require you to hover over the glyph, rather than the point it's associated with.

I think the first solution is the most seamless, but to not upset any users, make this a global preference you can turn on (I argue it should be on by default, as it's only possibly an annoyance if you manually set the "display coincident constraints" setting on)

As it stands, dragging points with the coincident constraint makes me want to pull my hair out.

[lqg5960]

The same thing applies to tangent constraints, but those actually remain moved out of the way, so it's not quite as bad.

Still, when I hover over a point and click and drag, I am never looking to move the constraint glyph. If I wanted to do that, the intuitive thing is to hover over the glyph itself.

[WCrihfield]

This has been one of the most annoying behaviors in Inventor since I first started using Inventor well over a decade ago.  They really need to fix this stuff.  It has been going on for far too long now.  Nobody wants to 'drag' constraint glyphs.  And if we did 'intend' to drag it, we certainly did not want it to snap back into the same position again the moment we release it.  This is just plain nonsense.  JUST DO IT.  When we position our mouse pointer over sketch geometry while editing that sketch, and we click & drag, we ALWAYS want to drag the sketch geometry, if it can be dragged.  Or, we may simply be just trying to drag it to make sure it is not unconstrained.  Please change selection priorities while editing sketches to favor actual sketch geometry over geometric constraint glyphs, and just plain disable dragging them. 

I mentioned this in another 'Inventor Idea' post recently (Link Below).  Maybe these two ideas could be combined into one, to combine their votes.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/make-sketch-geometry-higher-priority-for-selection-not... 

[Yijiang.Cai]

@New_to_Inventor @WCrihfield @lqg5960 I am not sure which Inventor release you are using now. I understand that the issue is reproducible in Inventor 2025 & 2026, butfind that it works fine in Inventor 2027.1. Please have a try if you are available to play around it. Here you are a video for details.

Please let us know if it is the right workflow you are looking for, and many thanks!

[WCrihfield]

That short video clip does look promising, but I have no idea how long it might be before I will get to use the 2027 software where I work.  Unfortunately, I am still using the 2024.4.3 version of Inventor.  Our IT folks told us we would be updated to the 2026 software by now, but even that hasn't happened yet.  They say they will always stay at least one model year behind on the primary Autodesk software, due to the latest releases always still not having all the 'bugs' work out of them yet.  The part where they only update us every other (or third) year may just be laziness or poor business practices on their end.

Gone are the golden years where we could all fully manage our own computers, without the risks of being attached in a million different ways, a million times per second, and unbridled AI 'entities' breaking out of their sandboxes and into companies whenever they please. 🙄😓