Can I say how much I hate.. ?

[MarkMyWords]

It is similar to your suggestion in that each operation is a one button click, but simplifies things a little by removing the combination of two operations at one time.

You can't cover all the combinations available (189) with one click buttons, the panel would be enormous, even if you had the basic 63 combinations and the three area buttons to modify them, it would still be a big panel.

If you make it a one operation at a time dialogue; click - align in one direction and (as with your idea) the operation happened immediately on screen, then click - to make another alignment if needed.

There would be fewer mouse clicks, even for combinations, than at present and the user can see what is happening on screen as they do it.

This would need 14 buttons for the various align and distribute operations and the three area options.

The panel could have three sections;

one for the three area options (radio buttons),

one section for the six alignment operations (icons/graphics),

one section for the eight distribution operations (icons/graphics).


Not quite the ideal one click for all align and distribute combinations, but one click for single alignments and two clicks for any combination is better than using the drop-downs and apply button (which needs 2-3 clicks for a single alignment and 5 clicks for combinations) and I think it would be easier to understand than the present dialogue.