Smart alignment?

[ralfeus]

Is there any chance EA would have same alignment as Visio does (aligning with other elements' positions, sizes during moving resizing etc)?
I understand the purpose of EA is a bit different than Visio has but sometimes it annoys spending much time trying to make diagrams neat

[qwerty]

There are a couple of unique EA moves (like when you click Alt and drag the mouse; which I never use). There have been quite some improvements over the years, but of course: EA is not Visio and never will get in that area (most likely).

q.

[VKN]

Is there any chance EA would have same alignment as Visio does (aligning with other elements' positions, sizes during moving resizing etc)?

Yes. Ribbon | Layout | Alignment
Select multiple elements to enable the buttons.

[ralfeus]

Well, that's not exactly what Visio offers. For example when you resize element Visio can show when this width is same as other element's. Or when you resize it can snap to same side position of neighbor element.

Other thing what I miss is guide lines. That would be great thing.
But, as was already mentioned EA isn't a Visio and will never get there :-)

[VKN]

Or when you resize it can snap to same side position of neighbor element.

See Resize a Set of Objects to a specfic size in the following link.
http://sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/13.0/modeling_tools/resizeelements.html

[qwerty]

Still that's not snapping. Lots of graphical tool use snap to "whatever". They identify nearby objects and snap to left/right/top/bottom/center depending on which is nearest. I guess that implementing this is easy for someone doing that graphical stuff. And this would really be valuable. Still (talking of V12) there's no align center icon, which is what I'd need most. Not left/right.

q.

[Sunshine]

Have a look at V13 Ribbon Layout>Alignment.
http://sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/13.0/user_interface/using_the_alignment_panel.html
You can centre vertically or horizontally
Show grid and snap to grid there too
These features have been in EA for some time now well before V12.

[qwerty]

Snap to grid is no smart snap. No. Snap to grid is useful for Lego. It isn't for pleasing diagrams.

q.

[Sunshine]

Snap to grid is no smart snap. No. Snap to grid is useful for Lego. It isn't for pleasing diagrams.

q.

I'm curious what you mean by smart snap. Care to elaborate

[Glassboy]

I'm curious what you mean by smart snap. Care to elaborate

My experience with other tools is that it's snapping where the object never ends up where you want it.

[qwerty]

Mainly I was thinking of the GUI designer in XCode (but I know that other tools do similar things). When you drag an object and the program detects another  nearby it has its eye on that. Once the dragged and the other reach a snap range for center, top, bottom, left or right it displays a horizontal/vertical line through both objects and both elements are kept aligned this until the drag is moved further out of the snap distance. My last touch with Visio is too many years ago, but I'm pretty sure they have a similar mechanism.

q.

[Eve]

See 'Smart Placement' at http://sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/13.0/user_interface/using_the_alignment_panel.html.

This automatically creates snap zones at the top, bottom, left, right and center of other elements. Unlike some implementations I've seen it doesn't visually indicate the snap zone being used or what element it is aligning to, but it appears to be what you are after.

[qwerty]

Simon, you did not get my point. That all is far from "smart". It's more like you go to a dentist and see hammer and pliers instead of dentist tools. It can be used to pull out teeth. But honestly you don't want that if you've ever seen something state of the art. If there just wasn't that pain that made the pliers a relief :-/

q.

[Eve]

qwerty, I don't think you made that point at all... If anything it sounded like you were joining the original poster in wanting snap behavior like xcode.

You also lamented the lack of align center. This snap mode means that easily without needing to select everything and press a button when you're done.

PS. As far as I can tell, it's been available in EA since Version 4.10 Build 732.

[qwerty]

I think that you are one of the Sparxians that speak the language of us earthlings. But explaining "smart snap" seems to be tough. I'm not lamenting. I never had the hope to see anything in that direction in EA. It's just that you guys insist in "look, we have it" and I'm just saying "no that isn't anything in the direction I think of". Just forget that I chipped in here.

q.