Feature request: lock to axis when moving

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justposted
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Feature request: lock to axis when moving

Post by justposted »

Hello. I am a long time user of PDFX. Mainly for viewing and marking up engineering drawings, but also for creating things like invitations and presentation.

One thing that always makes it a bit painful to use is the lack of lock to axis. So when I move an object it always drifts up and down as it moves. Then I have to select a bunch of objects and use the align tools. Alternatively I use the snaps with the grid and/or guides.

Is there a trick that I am missing? Or is there any chance it will be added as a feature at some point?

In Bluebeam & Word, for example, I can hold down the shift key and my object will lock to the horizontal or vertical axis. So I can quickly create a bunch of parallel boxes in a flow chart, for example, by holding ctrl to copy (which works in PDFX) and shift to lock to axis. It would be great to see that in PDFX.
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Tracker Supp-Stefan
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Re: Feature request: lock to axis when moving

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello justposted,

You can use the arrow keys to move a selection, or you can use the "Selection -> Transform" tool:
image.png
So that you can ensure you are moving your selection only in one of the two axes. There's no accelerator key modifier for moving with the mouse and locking on one axis at a time I am afraid.

Kind regards,
Stefan
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David.P
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Re: Feature request: lock to axis when moving

Post by David.P »

Several ++ for this feature request from my side!

In every drawing program, even in Word or PowerPoint, it is standard behavior that the Shift key restricts movement of objects to exactly horizontal or exactly vertical. When Shift-rotating objects, the rotation is often restricted to e.g. 15° steps, which is also convenient.

The latter btw. is already implemented in PDF-XChange Editor.

It would also be super helpful if the pointer arm of Callout boxes would lock horizontally, vertically and at 45° when it is being moved, as long as the Shift key is held down. This would often make the drawing of tidy callouts much easier.
image.png
image.png (5.84 KiB) Viewed 3744 times
Thanks to the awesome Tracker Team for consideration of this feature request!

Best regards
David
David.P
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justposted
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Re: Feature request: lock to axis when moving

Post by justposted »

Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately it's just really slow to use the keyboard to paste copies of things and keep them aligned using arrow keys.

David's point about arrows on callouts is also true and is in fact even more challenging to use, as you can't use the keyboard to make small adjustments to the arrows. I can't work out how to make images appear in here, but this is an example: https://pasteall.org/pic/37562286ee6a49c88d52161141071e54

As you can see, one of the arrows isn't quite aligned and it looks horrible, but getting it exactly right when you're doing it by eye is challenging and time consuming.

When drawing a normal line or arrow, you can hold down shift to restrict the rotation, so it's already in the code somewhere. I realise that doesn't mean it is easy to implement everywhere, but it's a start. Hopefully this can make it onto a To Do list somewhere, as PDFX is the only affordable technical PDF tool out there that I can find.
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Re: Feature request: lock to axis when moving

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello justposted, David,

I do agree that this would be a nice feature, and have just created the Feature Request ticket in our internal system:
#5753: FR: Ability to use accelerator keys to restrict angular movement when moving whole annotations/callout points

I will post again here as soon as there are further news on this one.

Kind regards,
Stefan
justposted
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Re: Feature request: lock to axis when moving

Post by justposted »

Tracker Supp-Stefan wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 9:18 am I do agree that this would be a nice feature, and have just created the Feature Request ticket in our internal system:
#5753: FR: Ability to use accelerator keys to restrict angular movement when moving whole annotations/callout points

I will post again here as soon as there are further news on this one.
Hello Stefan. This hasn't made it into version 10 yet. I remain hopeful! Could you check on the ticket and let us know whether it is slated for inclusion?

There have been so many nice additions to the creation and editing of shapes, but I still can't quickly duplicate a shape and keep it aligned with the original, which is a shame. It is the one thing that keeps me going back to my work machine so that I can use Bluebeam instead, when I'm doing technical work. I know that lots of engineers use this software so will be frustrated too, but most will have it purchased by their companies so probably don't really think about going onto a forum like this - which I'm sure is why there aren't more people moaning about it.
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Re: Feature request: lock to axis when moving

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello justposted,

I could not see any specific date this feature is planned for - so I've asked in the ticket itself for an update, and will post again here as soon as I have any feedback!

Kind regards,
Stefan
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