Hi. Before I describe the issue, I post two Inkscape screenshots:

Image1 - Holding Shift to make node handle snap to 15 degrees steps:
As you can see, there is a slightly error in angle to make it same angle as the upper rightmost segment. If I want to snap.

To get node handle angle to align with segment angle, I must activate "Snap to paths". This is what I must do to avoid a result like this:
This is when node handle only snaps to 15 to degrees steps and not line angle.

Question I have: Is it possible to get Inkscape make rotation snap to +-90 and 180 degrees to the closest segment without first manually align the angle of the node handle to a segment?

Thanks

Wow, this is a real puzzler. First: holding Shift while moving the node does nothing for me. I seem to get the 15 degree jumps when I hold down Ctrl instead.

Have you tried going through Inkscape's preferences? (Ctrl + Shift + P). Somewhere in that labyrinth of choices might lie the answer to the 15 degree snap.

I'd suggest giving that a try and feel free to tell us what you find.

BobSongs wrote:First: holding Shift while moving the node does nothing for me. I seem to get the 15 degree jumps when I hold down Ctrl instead.

Confirmed - I guess it was a typo in Grobe's initial post.

Grobe wrote:Is it possible to get Inkscape make rotation snap to +-90 and 180 degrees to the closest segment without first manually align the angle of the node handle to a segment?

For the feature request: no, not all requested options for constrained dragging of node handles do work with the new node tool in 0.48 (see for example bug #590755 “ctrl-dragging node handle does not snap to a line collinear with the opposite handle”).

But what you can do with regard to your example (where the adjacent segment is a straight line):
after dragging out one handle, convert the cusp node into a smooth node using the buttons on the controls bar (or the keyboard shortcut Shift+S). This will align the handle with the straight line segment (resulting in a "semi-smooth" node).
Dragging the node handle of such a "semi-smooth" node will be constrained to the direction of the straight line segment (without the need to use any modifiers while dragging it):

Oh, very clever, ~suv!


That's happened to me countless times, as I like to do a lot of node editing. But I never thought about using it to my advantage, lol. Nice!