Object alignment and copying issues

John-Paul Baar

I am trying to copy a selection of objects - mainly labels - that I have aligned into a mini visualization.  When I select them all and copy them to another position on my screen they lose their alignment and just get dropped in random positions as per below screenshot.  Is there any way to copy a selection of objects and keep them in alignment?  I want to have a selection of these visualizations for different measures but it is proving painful to have to keep aligning them each time.

 

I am using Board 10.3.

 

Alexander Kappes

Dear Jean-Paul Baar,

 

for 10.3 or the Windows Client in general the describend behavior is like you mention. Unfortunately there is no real workaround.

 

The good news, when you switch developing to HTML5 Client (starting from 10.5) the behavior isn´t existing anymore AND you are able to define the exact position of your objects on pixel base.

 

 

Hope it helps

 

regards

 

Alexander Kappes

Unknown

Could you just place these objects in a simple Panel Container so they are grouped in one place?  When you do a copy/paste it is on the container only and not all the objects

Paul Wyatt

Hi Jean-Paul Baar

The behaviour you describe can be avoided if you close and re-open the target screen. 

 

There is probably some layout related memory mapping 'thingy' going on which gets corrupted when you initially edit the target screen but then try to paste objects from other screens which leads to the behaviour you are witnessing.

 

The absolute method to copy multiple objects from one screen to another would look something like this:

 

Method to copy multiple objects and paste them in exactly the same place as their point of origin. 

1. Close the target screen, saving any changes you may already have made.
2. Open the source screen.
3. Open the target screen.
4. Copy the objects from the source screen.
5. Paste onto target screen.

 

Hope this helps 

 

Regards,

 

Paul

John-Paul Baar

Hi Paul Wyatt - Avison Young UK - in this case I am copying the objects to the same screen. I have also restarted Board and reopened the screen but to no avail. Sometimes it even copies them outside the visible screen area so I have to go to Screen Objects to find them.

 

Mike Cirillo - I tried copying the objects into a panel container but when copying they also lost their relative alignment.

 

I will have to go with Alexander Kappes answer - seems this functionality is rather flaky in 10.3 and unfortunately this is the version we are on for now. Hopefully it improves in the web version but it does seem that layout is not one of Board's strengths compared to other BI tools

Unknown

Hi Jean-Paul Baar, something for later, but 10.6 has introduced the new Card object which will automatically produce these visualisations for you.  For example, if I require the identical visualisation for a selection of Customers (say top 10 on a screen) then the object will generate 10 cards, each with the two numeric values and the two icons.  The items required on the cards is set up once in the Card layout.

Florian Lübbing

Hi Jean-Paul Baar,

 

copy and pasting can definetly be achieved as @Paul Wyatt described it. I do it alot using WinClient with all versions since B9.

Try to close and open your screen, „lasso“ all objects you want to copy, press ctrl+c (copy). Now open a new screen (Shortcut F2) and just press ctrl+v (paste).

All objects should now appear on exactly the same position. You may now move them (via mouse or arrow keys) and copy them back to your original screen (maybe you have to save/reopen the screens depending what you did in the meantime. There is definetly some „thingy“ going on as Paul described.
I hope this works for your. Dashboarding would have killed me without this knowledge;)

best regards 

Florian