Can I say how much I hate.. ?

[amoore]

I'm very happy with Xara's alignment dialog. I find it much easier to read than all those little symbols.

The only complaint I have is the one I keep voicing: there's no option to align to selected object.

Perhaps the solution is to add an "advanced" extension to hold additional options, as in the Color Editor. For example, SWiSHmax allows you to align to the objects' anchors in addition to the standard positions. That could be useful. (The anchor position stays with the object until you specifically change it.)

Of course, SWiSH determines the object's position according to the anchor, no matter where it's placed. And you can't put the anchor just anywhere, as you can in Xara. The possible positions correspond to those in Xara's Origin Position control.

While I was thinking about whether a similar anchor/position/alignment approach would mitigate my problem with the bottom-left ruler origin, it occurred to me that an "anchor magnet" could help out the people who want to snap one part of an object to a particular part of another object. Since I'm not a programmer, I have no idea how feasible that is.

[masque]

I'm with egg on the docking panels, they are a pain in the **** as they dock whether you want them to or not so don't add the alignment menu, which is fine as it is by the way, to the list of stuff you don't dare move about the screen.

[-=Drifter=-]

NONE of my galleries dock anymore, not since this informative thread:

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...hlight=docking

[Soquili]

Bob thanks for searching that out. I need to disable the docking again. New larger hard drive with fresh installations of everything.

Glenn old habits are hard to break. I'd rather edit the registry so I have to hold the Ctrl key down to have it dock, which I never want it to do.

[AndFarr]

I don't hate the align dialog box,
but I would like have some keyboard shortcuts.
I find it a little awkward to have to step back through the dialogue when I want to align repetitively. Especially for aligning objects to center, which seems to be my most common alignment task.
- Andy

[AndFarr]

Ah! Good to know Dmitry, Thanks
-AF

[Egg Bramhill]

No, NO, NO once again !!!!

You shouldn't use dropdown boxes at all !!!

Just try select several objects and Click / Ctrl+Click /Shift+Click on small window with shapes in Alignment dialog. And see what happens.

Exactly my point Dmitry ~ One click alignment.

[RAMWolff44]

Hate is a strong word. I would say I dislike the functionality of a particular tool or dialog within the interface but I don't hate it... much!! I would like to see an option to dock the align dialog. I think most dialogs should included this option.

Personally I would have made it so there was only one or two ways to dock dialogs and that would be to double click or right click on the top border with a small clickable text option that would say "Dock". This way that cuts out all the other auto docking irritations.

[MarkMyWords]

Why tie the alignment dialogue into combinations at all?

If it were to have a single alignment at a time and each step happened on screen immediately, instead of the combinations that are first selected then applied, it would be simpler and with fewer mouse-clicks (no need to click on the drop downs or the apply button).

For instance to align all selected to the left and distribute top to bottom;

With the present dialogue that would take no less than seven mouse clicks/keypresses (including opening and closing the dialogue).

Without the combinations it would take four mouse clicks.

Click-open dialogue, click -everything selected aligns to the left, click - selection distributed from top to bottom, click-close dialogue.

And you can see what is happening on screen as you do it.

This would leave 14 align and distribute options (no need for the no change-option) and the three areas options = 17 icons altogether.

Still too big to be on the selector options bar permenantly, but easier to use?

[MarkMyWords]

Seriously, why stick with the combinations style dialogue?