From: Ben Jackson <bjj@saturn.home.ben.com>
To: geda-user@moria.seul.org
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2007 22:13:51 -0800
Subject: The amazing Align/Distribute plugin

Ok, having "finished" the smartdisperse plugin, I moved on to phase 2 of
my "I'm sick of moving LEDs by hand" master plan.

Introducing Align() and Distribute(), which work much like the similarly
named functions in Visio.  Given that PCB does not have the concept of
"first selected object" to draw on, the reference points can be selected
by arguments.

Both functions always work on all selected elements[*]. Some examples:

:Align(X)
        Objects are moved left/right to align their Marks with
        the Mark of the topmost selected object.  All objects remain
        on or move to the current grid.

:Align(Y,Centers)
        Now objects are aligned up/down to their geometric centers
        rather than their marks.  The reference point is the center
        of the leftmost object.

:Align(Y,Tops,Average,Gridless)
        Feeling bold, you align the tops all selected objects to the
        average of their top edges and let them wander off the grid
        to exactly the average of their tops.

:Align(X,Marks,Crosshair)
        None of the objects are where you want them, so you move the
        crosshair to a likely spot and cause them all to move their X
        coordinates to your new X location.

:Align(X,Marks,Last)
        As above, but instead of the crosshair you just override the
        default "First" to "Last" so the reference object is bottommost
        instead of topmost.

Now you have them in a neat line, but they're all clumped!

:Distribute(Y)
        Objects are spread out evenly from the first (uppermost) to last
        using their marks as the reference point.

:Distribute(X,Lefts,Crosshair,Last)
        You move your crosshair to the left edge of the target area,
        which will be the leftmost edge of the leftmost object.  The
        objects are spread between your crosshair and the original
        location of the Last (rightmost) object.

:Distribute(Y,Gaps)
        You have chosen to select many oddly sized objects, and instead
        of their centers being spread out evenly, you want the space
        (or "gaps") to be even.

You get tricky and bind `Align(X,Marks,Crosshair)' to a key.  Now you
can select an object and hit your key and the object will warp to the
same X coordinate as your cursor.

Source:  http://ad7gd.net/geda/distalign.c

Same compile instructions as before.  Feedback is appreciated!

[*] If it has any flaws, it is that you can't operate non-element objects,
though some melding of autocrop (which knows how to do such things) and
distalign could produce such a capability.

--
Ben Jackson AD7GD
<ben@ben.com>
http://www.ben.com/