Getting jQuery draggable to snap to specific grid

Question

(NOTE: Some have asked similar questions, but were too specific and yielded no usable answers)

jQuery UI's draggable widget has options for snapping to a grid, but no way to set what the grid is relative to.

For example, we've got a clearly defined 20x20 grid in our drop target. A drag item that starts at 0,0 within the drop target will snap in correspondence with the grid. But a drag item that starts at a different location, or outside the drop target, will not line up with that grid.

http://jsfiddle.net/FNhFX/5/

HTML:

<div class="drop-target">
    <div class="drag-item">Drag me</div>
    <div class="drag-item" style="left:87px;top:87px;">Drag me</div>
</div>
<div class="outside-drag-item">Drag me</div>

JS:

$(function() {
    $(".drag-item").draggable({
        grid: [20, 20]
    });
    $(".outside-drag-item").draggable({
        grid: [20, 20],
        helper:"clone"
    });
    $(".drop-target").droppable({
        accept: ".drag-item"
    });
});

Is there any way to snap to a specific grid using jQuery draggable?

Answer 1

I'm going to go ahead and post an answer here, too, though I came here via a followup question you asked.

You can create your own snap-to-grid functionality very easily inside the drag event on a jQuery UI draggable.

Basically, you want to check how close the current ui position is at any point that the draggable is being dragged to a grid. That proximity can always be represented as the remainder of the position divided by the grid. If that remainder is less than or equal to the snapTolerance, then just set the position to what it would be without that remainder.

That was weird to say in prose. In the code it should be more clear:

Live Demo

// Custom grid
$('#box-3').draggable({
    drag: function( event, ui ) {
        var snapTolerance = $(this).draggable('option', 'snapTolerance');
        var topRemainder = ui.position.top % 20;
        var leftRemainder = ui.position.left % 20;

        if (topRemainder <= snapTolerance) {
            ui.position.top = ui.position.top - topRemainder;
        }

        if (leftRemainder <= snapTolerance) {
            ui.position.left = ui.position.left - leftRemainder;
        }
    }  
});