Can I say how much I hate.. ?

[MarkMyWords]

Does this make any more sense?


Damn! The last alignment in this file should be right edges and middle, DOH!

[pauland]

Hmm.. it's losing something of the simplicity and the single click (after selection) that I suggested.

[joroho]

Personally, I have no problems with the alignment box. My only suggestion for improvement would be to have something on it that reminds us which function clicking performs vs. shift-clicking and ctl-clicking.
.joroho.

[MarkMyWords]

Hmm.. it's losing something of the simplicity and the single click (after selection) that I suggested.

Well, when you think about it you have missed out a step/option in your suggestion Paul; whether to make the alignment/distribution within the selection, the document or the spread.

Granted you won't need to change this everytime, but you will still need to have the option.

I've given this some thought, nine icons and the three above options will be both messy and a tight fit in the space on the selector options bar, so you may well need another step of opening the dialogue/drop-down with these icons/options.

There is plenty of room to have the icon I'm proposing, and a spacing profile icon to boot, on the selector options bar permenantly.

I'm also proposing a system with a little more functionality (not just the spacing profile) for, pretty much, the same number of steps.

Say with the nine icon system you want all the objects to align to the left, everything will default to; the left edge of the page or the left edge of the selection, depending on which option you choose.

With the way I'm proposing, the left edges of your objects can be aligned to any point within the document that you click; the edge, inside a border, an object/group not in your selection, three-quarters of the way across the spread, whatever.

The last click will align and position the group, no need to align to one edge and then drag the group to the place you really want it.


Also if you click within the selection all the other objects will align their left edges to the left edge of the object you choose not the default left-most object.


And you will be able to distribute diagonally from corner to corner, not sure how much use that would be, but it's an option LOL!


I'm just kicking around ideas here.

Personally, I have no problems with the alignment box. My only suggestion for improvement would be to have something on it that reminds us which function clicking performs vs. shift-clicking and ctl-clicking.
.joroho.

You still need the drop-downs for distribution and what I'm proposing will have all the options in the selector bar by default - no need to open any dialogue.

[brianlj]

With the way I'm proposing, the left edges of your objects can be aligned to any point within the document that you click; the edge, inside a border, an object/group not in your selection, three-quarters of the way across the spread, whatever.

With my proposal the last click will align and position the group.

Yep. You're describing exactly the way that 'my' fly-out tool already works.

What makes me (albeit only slightly) irritated is that this tool isn't even part of a dedicated graphics package -- it's in that part of a database program which allows you to design data-input forms!

[PhilM]

This is an interesting discussion, folks!

Let me give you my perspective from inside the Xtreme dev team...

To summarise the discussion about alignment options so far:
* Pauland suggests shortcut buttons for the alignment options in a dockable panel (but I guess buttons on a normal button bar would be acceptable?)
* Amoore suggests a new feature: the ability to align to a specified object
* BrianLJ suggests shortcut buttons similar to Pauland but that they should be on something like a dropdown menu. He also suggests the new feature of aligning to an arbitrary point on the page. He further points out it should be called the "align/distribute dialog" - good point!
* MarkMyWords suggests another variation on shortcut buttons and again adds the new feature of aligning to arbitrary objects/positions. MarkMyWords also suggests another new feature: distribution using a profile curve.


The alignment dialog is a bit clunky but it does condense a lot of actions into a fairly simple dialog. Technically speaking, it lets you choose one of 189 different actions. If the suggested new features were added then the number of possible actions would be much greater but the dialog would still be able to present them concisely - so it has its uses.

However, in everyday use, there are some common alignment actions that we could provide shortcut buttons for while retaining the alignment dialog to cope with the less common cases and to satisfy those who like it or have got used to it.

The method of presenting the buttons is debatable but a simple set of buttons on a normal buttonbar would be simplest.

Align to point or object:
All the variations of this suggested new feature use a click on an alignment button and a subsequent click to indicate the anchor point/object but one of our UI guidelines is that we don't do "button-up-drags" where the next mouse click means something different than a normal mouse click. (That's one small facet of what makes Xtreme so intuitive to use.)

So we would have to find another way to designate which objects to move and which to anchor. The best way I can see to do that would be to have an "Align to this" submenu on the popup menu which would align the selection to the object you right-clicked on. The same submenu would be on the guidelines popup menu.

Distribution using a profile curve:
To do this properly, we'd have to allow for the objects to move on the drawing interactively as the profile curve is edited - in both X and Y. Makes it a bit more challenging!

Please don't construe any of this message to mean that Xara will or won't implement any of these ideas. But we are listening to everyone's suggestions and thinking about them.

Phil

[pauland]

* Pauland suggests shortcut buttons for the alignment options in a dockable panel (but I guess buttons on a normal button bar would be acceptable?)

Absolutely - I just want to press a button to align the currently selected items.

The method of presenting the buttons is debatable but a simple set of buttons on a normal buttonbar would be simplest.

No problem with that.

Align to point or object:
All the variations of this suggested new feature use a click on an alignment button and a subsequent click to indicate the anchor point/object but one of our UI guidelines is that we don't do "button-up-drags" where the next mouse click means something different than a normal mouse click. (That's one small facet of what makes Xtreme so intuitive to use.)

I have some software where the convention is to align to the last selected object. Of course, what that is in a group select, is interesting..

Thanks for the heads-up Phil.

Paul

[MarkMyWords]

O.K. slight re-think to keep within the rules.

My version for alignment;

1/Make selection.

2/Choose point of alignment; top edges, left edges, centre etc. (with however many icons you feel are needed) to make things clearer, this could create a guideline in the display showing where the default alignment within the selection would be.

3/To keep within the no 'button-up' drag rule, either accept the default as shown by the guideline or drag the line and release it at the point you want the selection to be (inside the selection or anywhere in the doc or spread)


The profile would actually only need to move in one plane at a time, I don't see any point in moving away from the alignment, the movement I suggest would affect distribution along the alignment or spacing within a distribution similar to the way it does in a blend. This is only an after thought I figured might be quite good, come to think of it I can't come up with a specific circumstance when this would be useful LOL!

[PhilM]

I have some software where the convention is to align to the last selected object. Of course, what that is in a group select, is interesting..

That's another way to do it but it falls foul of our UI guidelines again(!) because it puts the program into a hidden mode where it's going to behave in a particular way that's not predictable just by looking at the screen.

Obviously that could be overcome by rendering some marker to show which is the anchor object/anchor point but for all sorts of reasons it's better not to get into little modes like that in the first place.

Fun, huh?

Phil

[PhilM]

O.K. slight re-think to keep within the rules.

My version for alignment;

1/Make selection.

2/Choose point of alignment; top edges, left edges, centre etc. (with however many icons you feel are needed) to make things clearer, this could create a guideline in the display showing where the default alignment within the selection would be.

3/To keep within the no 'button-up' drag rule, either accept the default as shown by the guideline or drag the line and release it at the point you want the selection to be (inside the selection or anywhere in the doc or spread)

This is roughly the same situation as in my reply to Paul. It puts the program into a special little mode where there's an align action pending and certain types of clicks and drags will execute the action but others won't. That creates fiddly issues like how long does the pending state remain in force and providing an escape route if you decided you didn't want to do the align action after all. It makes the program a little bit less predictable and there's probably a better way.

The profile would actually only need to move in one plane at a time, I don't see any point in moving away from the alignment, the movement I suggest would affect distribution along the alignment or spacing within a distribution similar to the way it does in a blend. This is only an after thought I figured might be quite good, come to think of it I can't come up with a specific circumstance when this would be useful LOL!

Profile distribution is a neat idea - consistent with other parts of the program like you say.

Re. distribution in X and Y: I was thinking that since the align dialog allows you to distribute in both X and Y at the same time, you'd want to be able to adjust the X profile interactively and, separately, the Y profile interactively.

Phil