I have a suggestion that I think would be very helpful in the Overview Pages that I hope the Aquasuite devs will consider adding. Would it be possible to add a “master” (x) and (y) offset option in the Settings menu that appears when multiple items are selected? This would be really helpful when the target display is moved in the Windows raster. AFAIK, moving an overview page to a new location in the raster currently requires selecting each item, then settings, then entering a new (x) and/or (y) position coordinate so the item appears at the new target display’s location in the raster. In my case, I need to add 3840 pixels to the (x) position coordinate of every item in my overview pages. It is a tedious process. Having “master” (x) and (y) position offset coordinates in the Settings menu that appears when multiple items are selected would allow me to move multiple items with pixel precision to a new target display location. AQS would simply add the offset values to every item’s current (x) and/or (y) position coordinates.

My specific use case:

I have a small 1920x600 internal display that I built custom overview panels for in AQS. When I built the overview panels, this display was positioned in the raster so that (0,0) is the upper right pixel of the target display. I decided to move this display relative to my main displays in Windows display settings. Now every item in all of my custom overview pages have to have new position coordinates entered to get them to appear in the right place. If I select multiple items, I can only change the size, not the positions. The only way to do this (that I can see) is to right click on each item, select settings, and enter the new (x) and (y) position coordinates. I want to be able to enter a “master” (x) and (y) offset that will apply to every selected item. In my case, I moved the target display 3,840 pixels in the positive (x) direction. I want to select every item in the page at once, then right click, select settings, and then see “master” offset data boxes for (x) and (y) master offsets. I would enter 3840 into the (x) offset box and click OK. AQS would add the offset value to the current (x) position value for every selected item. Same for “master” (y) position (if necessary). It seems like this would be relatively easy to do. Anyone else think this would be useful?

Zitat von »Taubenhaucher«

You can solve it simply by drag & drop.
Select all items and drag them to the new position.

Yes I know I can drag and drop multiple items but I am dragging across 2 1920x1080 displays so the area I want to drop them is not viewable in the AQS window without scrolling, and I can't scroll when I am dragging the multiple objects. If I try to drag them past the edge of what is displayed in the AQS window, they just stop there (it does not cause an auto scroll to start). Its kind of hard to explain.

For an overview page, it the lock is unlocked (so you can edit), and the display icon is clicked, since I have multiple displays, AQS uses scroll bars to allow you to navigate to anywhere in the multiple display raster. Since my internal display is sitting under my right display in the raster, I have to scroll over to that display and then down to see the items. I can't click on the scroll bars to scroll when my cursor is on the selected items and I am holding down the left click button to drag. When in this mode, trying to cause it to scroll by dragging past the edge of the first display does not do anything. The drag just stops when it hits the right edge of the left main display. So I can't drag multiple items to a location that requires scrolling to get to. I guess I could drag them as far right as I can, then scroll right, then select them again, drag them down as far as I can, scroll down, select them again, then drag them down into their final position.

The master offset feature would allow me to move multiple selected items by a user input amount of pixels. This is also more precise, depending on how you have the grid and snap set up, and the sizes of the items relative to that grid and snap. I will keel playing with it. I am now looking at editing the page XML files. I am sure it can be done this way but it may be just as tedious. Thanks for the suggestion.

Zitat von »Stephan«

We will discuss intrnal if this feature will be added.
Anyway you can also try to edit the xml code of the desktop page. This works maybe faster.

Thank you very much for considering this addition. I hoped that I have explained it clearly, and why I think it would make certain overview page editing operations much easier. My wanting to move entire pages to new coordinates was caused by me deciding to move my 1080x600 LCD panel to a different place in the Windows raster. I have 2 main 1920x1080 displays. When I got the LCD panel I put it to the left of my left main display, so its upper left corner pixel was at 0,0. I kept having some applications (including AQS) jump over there so I would have to drag the program window back over to my left main display. I thought that moving the LCD panel to underneath the right display might stop application windows from jumping onto the LCD panel. But moving it in the raster made all of my custom overview pages not land on the LCD panel. Every item's position coordinate had to be updated.

Then I bought a second LCD panel that is 1920x400. So now I have 2 main displays that are both 1920x1080, an LCD panel that is 1080x600, and an LCD panel that is 1920x400. Things started getting funky in Windows and I started playing with where I want these 2 LCD panels to be in the Windows Raster. Every time I move them, all of the overview page item coordinates have to change. Selecting every item on the page and entering (x) and (y) master offsets would make moving existing overview pages to a new location in the raster very easy to do. It would also be useful to do things like move all selected items 10 pixels to the left.

Combining Overview Pages - When I got LCD panel #1, I built overview pages for it. When I got the LCD panel #2, I built a page for it. To combine them, I used an XML editor to copy and paste the XML data for the devices from the #2 LCD panel into the XML file for the #1 LCD panel, so I can send both layouts to the 2 LCD panels at once. It took me awhile (I am not a whiz at XML editing) but I got this to work. I could do the coordinate offsets by editing the coordinates in the XML file, but it still has to be done for each item. I decided it would be easier to select all the items and drag them. To move the items to the new raster locations I selected them all then dragged them as far as I could, scrolled some more, dragged, scrolled, dragged, until I got them where I wanted them. It required several drag, scroll, drag, scroll until they got to the new location. It is difficult to drag them with pixel accuracy but it can be done. Selecting them all and typing in master offsets would be much easier, and pixel accurate.

I realize that having 2 LCD panels (with 2 different resolutions) is not a typical use case, but I think that the ability to enter master offsets to position coordinates of items in an overview page would be a useful feature in many cases. Thank you for your consideration of this feature.

Zitat von »Taubenhaucher«

You make it unnecessarily difficult for yourself, select all objects, scroll so far to the right that you can only grab the rightmost object and drag everything to the right edge.
The selection will not be removed when scrolling.
I think it will be enough to scroll 3 times and you are on the desired monitor.
Probably the calculation of the desired position will not be faster.

That is exactly what I ended up doing, and I did discover that the items stay selected when I click on a scroll bar. It really is not that difficult. I will mention that I had already made 8 different overview pages for my1st internal display, so I had to do this for every one of them, If I decide to move the display in the Windows raster again (for whatever reason), I will have to do this to all of these pages again. Selecting all items and typing in an offset number would definitely be easier, quicker, and more precise.

More generally, I think this feature may be useful when building new overview pages, and when displays are replaced or rearranged. AQS already provides the option to type in position coordinates for single items in addition to dragging and dropping. I see no downside to adding this option for multiple items, except that the entered values are offsets instead of absolute coordinates. I am not a programmer but I suspect that the code to implement this would be fairly trivial. I may be totally wrong about this, I presented my idea and described my use case. Stephan said they would consider it. If they decide to add it I will be happy and definitely use it. If they decide that its pointless or difficult to implement, or whatever, that's fine too. Thanks again for your insights and suggestions.

Zitat von »Stephan«

As already told we will consider it. We schedule to work at the overview pages next year and there will be some changes and new functions we are going to add.

Thank you. I appreciate your consideration of this feature.