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How do you use the allignment tool? i just want to make a bunch of knobs the same height. i have never gotten it to work right.

could be easier to load a grid as a background surface.... (or as a layer on your backround, then you remove it at the end).

google "grid paper" then see results in images....

I think Shroomz had another trick I don't remember right now (or was it for sizes...).
I never used the alignment tool , sorry for this ... (may be I should

Neutron wrote:How do you use the allignment tool? i just want to make a bunch of knobs the same height. i have never gotten it to work right.

The alignment tool can occasionally be out by a pixel depending on how you're using it, but it's generally spot on. What I normally do when aligning a bunch of pots (while in surface mode, which is a must) is get one pot into position on say the far left of the interface, then in the project explorer copy it & paste it into it's parent. At that point it will appear copied over the top of itself, but if you click on it on your panel surface, you'll have selected the newly copied version. You can now either right-cursor it to the next desired pot position in the horizontal plane or manually type a pixel value/position into the alignment tool (which always works perfectly in this case). The same procedure applies even if you're needing it to be in a different surface group (for a different page for example), except that after moving the new (copied) pot into position, you then need to manually move it from it's copied position in the project explorer hierarchy, to it's desired new position in it's destination surface group.

I know you'll most likely know this, but I'm going to say it anyway. NEVER try to use the protected pots from the panels of sdk modules on your own panel (by moving them or whatever), as it's very bad practice for various reasons. New (unprotected) pots from the SurfaceDesign sdk folder (whether they're Creamware's or your own) should always be used as a starting point.


~M

Mehdi replied while I was typing.

i replied, you answered

spacef wrote:could be easier to load a grid as a background surface.... (or as a layer on your backround, then you remove it at the end).

google "grid paper" then see results in images....

I think Shroomz had another trick I don't remember right now (or was it for sizes...).
I never used the alignment tool , sorry for this ... (may be I should

The 'trick' I've used is only valid when you have a completed interface design. It's basically a case of accurately placing your pots over their desired position in PS (or whatever) & creating a black & white reference/positioning skin which only has the control positions in white. After positioning all of your controls according to the white areas, you can then replace the skin with the actual skin. That process doesn't apply to interfaces that are made solely with the sdk tools & don't have a tga or bmp skin.

spacef wrote:i replied, you answered

It was freaky timing.

oops, I thought you were talking about the 'dimensions' alignment tool Neutron. (which is what I was referring to & use for pot & control alignment)

what i am talking about is a tool that looks like it should be able to take the height of a certain item, and then you could use the little multi arrow to "put" that height to the other items.

then you could do the same for side to side location. 3dsmax has a tool liek that i use all the time at work, i just thought this was for that.

You can use the "dimension" tool to transfer the size of a resizable graphic module to another (text displays, inserts, fader "line"..)..
you make one of the size you want and transfer that size to the ones to be resized. works for x/y axis at once (with the multiple-transfer arrow).
But you have to target well: for ex, a text is made of 3 layers, you must target the background in order to resize the whole group at once...

Aligning various modules on the same horizontal or vertical line (like in synthmaker) is not done automatically in SDK (at least, to my knowledge)...

spacef wrote:Aligning various modules on the same horizontal or vertical line (like in synthmaker) is not done automatically in SDK (at least, to my knowledge)...

That's what the Alignment Tool does. If you've got multiple GO's inside a surface group, you can align them to specified top, bottom, left and right offsets in relation to the surface group. I don't use it because it's really simple to just use the Dimension Tool.

I didn't know that (it didn't work in the dp i was using....)

ok i went back to looking at the dimensioning tool and nudging with the arrow keys.