Poor ease-of-learning for picking alignment reference object (lp:#1822906)
Original report created by Cal-linux (cal-linux)
The Align/Distribute functionality changed from 5.0.2 to 5.1. Assuming
this change was intended (I do think the new functionality is great), it is
incorrectly (poorly) implemented:
If I do “Align to Right” on a group of selected footprints, the reasonable
interpretation (and the way it used to work in KiCAD 5.0) is: align the
right of all selected footprints to the right-most of the selected
footprints.
What 5.1 does is: “Align the right of all selected footprints to the right
of this footprint” (where “this footprint” is the footprint on which one
right-clicked to activate the Align pop-up menu).
The bug I am reporting is actually the text on the pop-up menu --- it
should NOT say "Align to Right/Left/etc."; it should say something like:
"Right-align selected footprints with respect to this footprint" (or
something along those lines but more concise).
Additionally, the order of the menu items should be changed to avoid the
ambiguity between center/middle (horizontal vs. vertical centering). Either
use the words horizontal / vertical to avoid ambiguity, or list the items
in the following order: Left, center, right, top, middle, bottom (with
center between left and right, it is clear that it refers to horizontal
center; similarly for middle between top and bottom).
KiCAD version:
Application: kicad
Version: 5.1.0-060a0da~80~ubuntu18.04.1, release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.0.4
libcurl/7.58.0 OpenSSL/1.1.0g zlib/1.2.11 libidn2/2.0.4 libpsl/0.19.1
(+libidn2/2.0.4) nghttp2/1.30.0 librtmp/2.3
Platform: Linux 4.15.0-46-generic x86_64, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK
Build Info:
wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8) GTK+ 3.22
Boost: 1.65.1
OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
Curl: 7.58.0
Compiler: GCC 7.3.0 with C++ ABI 1011
Build settings:
USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=OFF
USE_WX_OVERLAY=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
KICAD_USE_OCC=OFF
KICAD_SPICE=ON
Original tags: eeschema pcbnew ui