Originally Posted by
brianlj
Well, the point is that there's only 9 options and they are all displayed when you are align/distibuting things. There's nothing to remember!
However, with Xara's method, all the options are hidden and there are no clues as to what the keyboard/mouse shortcuts are.
With Xara's method, first you have to remember the keyboard shortcut to get the Align/Distribute dialog on-screen. Or click through the menus to get Arrange | Alignment... (Newbie thinks: does this do 'Distribute' as well?)
Then, with the dialog on-screen, you try clicking around the place (with or without Ctrl and/or Shift) until one of them happens to do whatever it is that you wanted. Success! You breathe a sigh of relief and click again to apply and close the dialog box.
Or, (and this is hilarious!) you choose from drop-down menus and read(!) menus until you get to the one you want! I don't think I could make a more counter-intuitive system!
With so few buttons on display, and the icons on them being so clear, you don't really need/want some other person's idea of conformity forced upon you. I mean, should vertical alignment come above or below horizontal? Should it be left or right of the align functions? It doesn't matter!
Ok. If you like. To be honest, I didn't notice the change between yours and mine. The important thing is that all the functions are shown there whenever you need them.
Maybe I didn't make it quite clear: the 3 x 3 set of buttons are a fly-out which appears when you click on the toolbar button. You can then either click or slide the mouse to the function you want. When you let the mouse button up, your function is chosen and the fly-out disappears and you then click on the thing that you want your actions to be based upon.
There are no worries as to which item is the uppermost one or which was the drawn last or in which layer which may or may not be above another layer. You simply say -- as you do in your mind -- "Align this stuff with that."
Yes, I agree that user interfaces can be a problem.
You only have to look at Xara's for the perfect example of how not to do it!
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