Mechanisms to equally space objects

dhjdhjdhj's icon

Cmd-Y is fine to align objects vertically or horizontally, but I'm wondering if there is a way to position a group of objects so that they are equally spaced out. I haven't been able to find any way to do this.

Christopher Dobrian's icon

In MaxMSP ->Preferences... you can set Grid Size (horizontally and vertically), Show Grid, and Snap to Grid.

dhjdhjdhj's icon

That doesn't really help --- you still have to move everything manually and as soon as you add/insert another object, you have to redistribute everything.

What is needed (and similar to what is available in numerous other IDEs and even some presentation tools, e.g. the Distribute command in Powerpoint) is a way to select a group of objects and have them automatically distributed based on the number of objects, position of first and last object, etc.

Christopher Dobrian's icon

While it's true that that would be cool beans (for the times when one needs to do such a thing), I doubt that it's super-high on the priority list for the Max 6 development. So, if you're still dissatisfied, how about this? Command-D to duplicate. Before doing anything else, drag the newly created object to where you want it. Then do Command-D again till you have as many as you want. The new objects will be spaced at the same angle and distance from the previous object.

dhjdhjdhj's icon

That is what I have been doing for initial creation --- but again, it's not a great solution as soon as one needs to organize a patcher that has gotten edited/changed and possibly (indeed typically) more complex.

mzed's icon

There are some tools for this in the Max Toolbox:

mz

dhjdhjdhj's icon

Interesting --- I'll check that out --- thank you.

dhjdhjdhj's icon

The Distribute function in that Toolbox is EXACTLY what I was looking for. Thanks so much for the tip.