Space horizontally / vertically

[Joachim_L]

You need at least THREE objects to space them horizontally or vertically. Only two objects are not working - any good reason for this?

Anyway, spacing horizontally / vertically is lacking the ability to define the distance of spacing.

[fde101]

The spacing is determined by the existing objects.  To distribute the objects there needs to be a left edge and a right edge (using horizontal as an example).  The leftmost and rightmost objects provide this, and the other objects are evenly spaced between them.

If there are only two objects, their existing positions would provide the range to distribute them across, and distributing them within that space would place them exactly where they were to begin with.

[Joachim_L]

Not what I wanted. In ID you can select even 2 or more objects and set a defined distance between the objects. Evenly space yes, but I want to define the distance. See attached screenshot.

[fde101]

That would be a different feature than the one that is currently available.

It would be nice if there were syntax that could be entered into the fields of the transform panel to operate on each individual selected object based on the previous one within the selection...

For example, "prev.x + 10mm" to set the left edge of each object 10mm to the right of the left edge of the previous one.

That would open up some interesting possibilities.

 

EDIT: I can actually think of a few other ways to leverage a mechanism like this, so I will create a separate request for this.  Your request probably deserves a separate user interface as what I am proposing would be less obvious to someone who didn't think to look for the expression mechanism and it will probably be somewhat more commonly looked for.

[Wosven]

5 hours ago, Joachim_L said:

Not what I wanted. In ID you can select even 2 or more objects and set a defined distance between the objects. Evenly space yes, but I want to define the distance. See attached screenshot.

If that's what you want, it's possible :

[retrograde]

What's the difference between Spacing and Distribute with the default toolbar setup where it's just the two Spacing icons and no drop down alignment panel?

The Spacing options seem to do the exact same thing Distribute Horizontal Centre and distribute vertical centres... as there seems to be no way to dynamically adjust the spacing amount as there is in the Alignment drop down panel scenario...

any thoughts?