LiveCode Forums.

I cannot figure out the function of these buttons at the bottom of the Project Browser. Can you point me to something about them in the User Guide or somewhere else?
Thank you,
Linda

Each of those icons has a toolTip. Hover over one of them and the function will appear.

Craig

I think the reason Linda is having a problem figuring them out is that they do not work as they used to in versions past. Personally, the few times I had forgotten that when testing out something in a *new* edition, it right pissed me off that selecting say, 3 controls on the card did not allow you to align those controls from the PB.

Instead, you have to select them in the PB itself, yah, that certainly makes sense

bogs wrote: ↑

Thu May 14, 2020 9:53 pm

...selecting say, 3 controls on the card did not allow you to align those controls from the PB.

Instead, you have to select them in the PB itself, yah, that certainly makes sense

UTR - recipe?

Dunno what UTR means, but, I already reported it as a bug along vers. late 8 or 9.x, and was told this was now the intended way it is supposed to work.

Just for you (and anyone else that hasn't seen the new align), 30 seconds of my life demonstrating how to use those buttons that don't actually work all the time.

https://youtu.be/3RLmHDDScnM

@ Linda -
Please excuse my crankiness, to answer your question, you are far better off going to the property inspector / align tab, and doing any alignment from there. Alternately, I HIGHLY recommend Bernd's alignment plugin, it is stupendous, collosal, out of this world fantastic.

Maybe we'll get lucky, and Bernd will pop a link to it, I seem to have lost track of the place to get it after the server switch.

bogs wrote: ↑

Thu May 14, 2020 10:06 pm

Dunno what UTR means

Sorry, work habit. UTR = Unable To Reproduce

I'll watch the video. Thanks for posting that.

Got it now...I had tried to select several controls on the card at the same time and tried to then click on the Align Left and thought that it would work. It didn't so I thought that they were for some other purpose. Now I know, instead of selecting them on the card itself, you need to select them in the Project Browser.

I have not read the other answers yet. On my way to them now. Problem solved.

Thanks,
Linda

Thanks for the help, the link, etc. For me, there are no need for apologies as long as it is not cruel. I enjoy banter.

Linda

Bogs, is this what you were referring to???

http://livecodeshare.runrev.com/stack/918/BnGuides

Linda

@ Richard - dunno what to tell you there, it is one of the many many things that doesn't work well or right on my system which is currently Ubuntu, but not 14 hah. I found a great deal of things are wonky if you are using XFCE as a desktop, as opposed to Gnome let's say. I reported them all, but I suspect nothing will come of it.

I could be wrong, though, the message box thing I reported was actually fixed rather rapidly.

@ Linda - Yep, that is the one Bernd made. I absolutely love using it for layout, quick, easy, nearly foolproof. I usually have it loading with the IDE when I'm not in Mc, I almost never go to the align tool in the IDE anymore in vers. 6.x ->

When he suggests reading the help, he isn't kidding. Although it isn't complex, it is full of things you might not parse at first glance, like the toggle keys.

bogs wrote: ↑

Fri May 15, 2020 2:38 am

@ Richard - dunno what to tell you there, it is one of the many many things that doesn't work well or right on my system which is currently Ubuntu, but not 14 hah. I found a great deal of things are wonky if you are using XFCE as a desktop, as opposed to Gnome let's say. I reported them all, but I suspect nothing will come of it.

Thanks again for the video. Made the recipe clear. Reproducible here, and not surprising give your description of it as behavior the team intended.

It seems to boil down to a design decision within the team to create a second definition of what "selected" means, unique to the Project Browser. I'm sure they saw some software somewhere that had dueling selection metaphors like that and they apparently thought it was useful and designed the PB around it. Once you accept the "selected" in the PB is different from "selected" in any other context the design makes sense, and the alignment works as expected.

But FWIW I'm with you. This fits my old mantra, "Know the engine, Trust the engine, Use the engine". The fundamental logic of the engine is predicated around a single concept of what "selected" means.

Of course what the engine does and what we can do with it are not necessarily the same thing. The UIs we deliver to our end-users may have all sorts of interaction semantics unrelated to how xTalks work, and for end-user-facing software that's generally a good thing, picking the interaction model that best supports the task as done by the target audience.

But with LC itself, time and again anecdotal evidence suggests learning and productivity occur quicker and more smoothly when the UI reinforces the inherent logic of the engine. An IDE is not a consumer software, and with LC is essentially a viewport into the logic of the engine and the language that drives it. Whenever we can make with-the-grain design choices that deliver tools which reinforce the object model and behavior inherent in LC, the shorter the learning and the greater the productivity.

I have no doubt there is additional utility in inventing a second type of "selected" unique to that one tool, and having had it explained to me when I voiced concerns about other related functionality that seems suboptimal with the design I came to at least understand the intent.

But on balance I believe that the additional utility attempted is more than offset by the additional cognitive load of redefining such a fundamental user interaction concept as "selected".

I had advised them against it, they believe the invention of a second "selected" is a net-gain, and neither one of us has A/B user testing to back up our opinions, so they ship with a high-cognitive-load PB and I build my own tools.

There are few downsides to having such uncommonly high IQs as characterize most of the LC team, but one of them is assessing user experience as encountered by mere mortals. Sorting out the difference is the function of user testing, but that can get expensive to do well, and TBH I know of few companies their size who invest in good usability testing. So from time to time we encounter design decisions that make really good sense to the uncommonly smart people who are deeply familiar with them because they made them, and the rest of us. With neither user testing or a UX specialist with a clear mandate on the team, this will happen now and then.

OMG. Just watched the video. That's effing daft.
Bogs- what's the bug report number?

...and I'll add my vote to Bernd's alignment tool as well. The only reason I don't have it running all the time in the background is that it messes with behaviors, so you only want to invoke it when you're moving controls around. Otherwise you run the risk of losing your chain of assigned behaviors. But yes - an absolutely essential part of my development system.

But with LC itself, time and again anecdotal evidence suggests learning and productivity occur quicker and more smoothly when the UI reinforces the inherent logic of the engine.

mwieder wrote: ↑

Sat May 16, 2020 3:11 pm

Bogs- what's the bug report number?

This was the first time I reported alignment issues in 8.1.9 -
https://quality.livecode.com/show_bug.cgi?id=21136

I can't seem to find the other report anymore where I was told this was the expected behavior. If I come across it again, though, I'll come back and post it.

FourthWorld wrote: ↑

Fri May 15, 2020 4:53 pm

FWIW I'm with you

I really appreciate that.

I can't imagine anyone not seeing how counter intuitive that would be, not just to veteran users who have been doing it the way it worked for years, but to anyone new coming into it. I always thought the only way to do it better would be doing it like Bernd's alignment tool hashed with the Lc one, i.e. offer visual guidelines for the initial layout, and more precise pattern tools for final adjustment if necessary.

Oh well. Sure glad I don't get paid to come up with this stuff.