Alignment is relative to what?

Hello All,

I have an issue, and it is slowly driving me mad. When I use the align tools, the alignment priority seems absolutly random. Let me explain:

When I have two objects, and I select object1 first, and object2 secondly, than I expect the object2 to align relative to object1. However the outcome seems random. Sometimes it happens according to my expectation, and other times the opposite happens. It happens on all alignment options, and with all objects.

The user manual does not help much on this:

https://docs.inductiveautomation.com/display/DOC80/Working+with+Perspective+Components#WorkingwithPerspectiveComponents-Aligning

The explanation is rather vague, for example: Aligns all of the selected components vertically on their centers.

Does it mean that alignment in ignition is not relevant to anything, and is therefore random?

Kind regards,
Jarno van den Berg

My experience has been that the first selected component is always the “origin” component, around which later selected component are aligned. Are you able to capture a video of this selection/alignment issue occurring? I agree that the documentation is a little vague, but I’d like to verify the existing behavior is correct before I request that they update the documentation.

Update: For some reason I read this question as pertaining to ONLY vertical align. For other alignment options, it is indeed dependent on the component most to the specified side. This should be consistent between both Perspective AND Vision.

It’s not random at all. What cmallone said about the first component being the “origin” component is correct, however when using left align, right align, top align or bottom align things work a little differently.

Using left align, all components are aligned with the leftmost point of the farthest left component regardless of which component was selected first.

Using right align, all components are aligned with the rightmost point of the farthest right component regardless of which component was selected first.

Top and bottom align work similarly.

Edit: I just noticed you are talking about Perspective. I was referring to Vision. I don’t know if the tools work the same in Perspective.

1 Like

Hello,

I was refering to Vision, my appologies for the incorrect link.

After reading your comments I understand the mechanism. However I have worked in many other visual editors, and the handling of alignment options is a tad bit different than what I’m used to. And honestly this one is not the most logic (unless I do not see the benefits yet)

For existing objects that are not equally dimensioned I can not use the center align options, in those cases top or bottom is my reference. And in this case if I add a new object that is a few pixels off, it aligns my existing objects, instead of the new one.

It requires me to purposely align my new object lower or higher by a great margin to prevent aligning the wrong objects.

In any case, I can get used to it. And I found the solution! Thanks for your input guys!

Best regards,
Jarno