Re: Asked before, now again with more questions attached

[Octavio Alvarez Piza <alvarezp alvarezp ods org>]

> Am Freitag, 10. September 2004 04:43 schrieb Octavio Alvarez Piza:
>> > Am Donnerstag, 9. September 2004 17:10 schrieb Jim Clark:
>> >> If I choose Center (my usual choice) it aligns them against some
>> >> intermediate, self-determined meridian. I do not see where/how/if I
>> >> can specify (and cannot really imagine how such thing would be
>> >> specified) to say Align Item B with Item A.
>> >
>> > Just use "vertical"->"top" (select both objects before). "top" or
>> > "bottom" use
>> > the upper or lower border, center uses the center of each object. (or
>> > "horizontal", if you want them to be in a row. You see, makes sense
>> :-) )
>>
>> I have an example that isn't quite solved by that. Say I have a flow
>> chart which has 4 columns. I want to spread those 4 columns evenly, so
>> after selecting the widest element from each column I ask for horizontal
>> spreading. Now, I need to center the rest of the elements in each column
>> to the middle of the element selected (the widest) in the column. In
>> this case, neither "horizontal -> center" or "left" or "right" or any
>> combination will do what I expect.
>>
>
> 1. select all 4 columns
> 2. horizontal->same distance
> 3. for x=1;x<5;x++
> 4. select column x, object x
> 5. vertical->center
> 6 next
>
> For loop is necessary. If you would select all 4 columns and objects to
> center
> them vertically, they would overlap each other in one column.
>
> Does this solve the problem?

Not really. In order to be sure it will work, step 1 would be "for
x=1;x<4;x++ { select widest-object from column x }". I guess you meant
that. (Otherwise, if I'm thinking corrctly, for very large flowcharts all
objects would end up very apart from each other.)

The problem comes in step 4 where you mean to select all of the elements
in column x, and to center them to the [vertical] middle between "the left
point of the leftmost element and the right point of the rightmost
element". In that case, our guide-object, object x, would also move. The
goal is to leave the guide-object fixed and move the rest of the objects
in the column to the middle of the guide-object.