[Done] 5.10 B3 multiple select & align selected (bugs ?)

[luis]

5.10 B1

I dropped 4 buttons on a form, then I tried to select all of them, one at the time, using ctrl+click.

After I selected the first two they started to move

1) How can I select more than two without have them to follow the mouse pointer ? If not possible I would say this is a bug.

2) I tried the option "align selected gadgets width/height". How can I decide which gadget must be used as the model ?
I tried inverting the order of the selection, I tried to right click on each one, but always the last one added is used as the source.
Again if I cannot select which one is to be used as a reference I would say this is a bug.

EDIT: same questions for B2, B3

[luis]

1) How can I select more than two without have them to follow the mouse pointer ? If not possible I would say this is a bug.

I have found a way:

a) click the first button
b) ctrl + click the second button, DO NOT MOVE THE MOUSE or they will be dragged away
c) click again on the second button, both will be kept selected
d) now you can move the mouse: click on the third button, it will be added to the group of the selected objects
e) click on the remaining buttons

Clearly something need to be changed

Still no idea about the second point.

[Polo]

Fixed (1).

[luis]

Thanks.

Could you add a little comment about the second point ?
Because it's not clear to me how it should work. Should work the way I described (and if it is so it need to be fixed) or you intended for it to work in some other way ?

[Polo]

Currently it aligns with the first created gadget (of all selected gadgets). I surely can change that, I wasn't sure when I added that feature which gadget should serve as reference

[luis]

Ok, thanks, it's up to you then

This is how worked in the visual basic form designer, maybe it can give you some ideas, I'm not saying all need to be implemented, see what you think it's worth the effort:

The Visual Basic form designer makes it easy to align a group of controls with one member of the group. Simply select the controls by holding down shift while clicking each control, being sure to click the target control (the one the others will be aligned to) last. Then, select Format|Align, then select Lefts for vertical alignment or Tops for horizontal alignment.

But what if you want to align controls at a specific position rather than to an existing control? For example, you might want to align several TextBox controls so their left edges are all exactly 50 twips from the left edge of the form. Here's how:

Select all the controls as described above. It does not matter which control is selected last.
In the Properties window, enter the desired distance from the left edge of the form in the Left property. Or, to align at a fixed distance from the top of the form, enter the distance in the Top property.

This technique can be extended to other design tasks. When more than one control is selected, the Properties window displays only those properties that are common to all the controls. Changing a property value is automatically applied to all the selected controls.

[Polo]

The align functions will now be relative to the last selected gadget (for next release).

(I'm so happy I managed to have some time to work on the designer today, at least!!)

[luis]

Thanks