Positioning Elements with Keyboard

[caducarbonari]

Hi.

I'm trying to migrate from iReport to JasperStudio, and I just can't find a way to position elements using the keyboard arrows, when I try that, the JasperStudio just select another element instead of moving the selected one.

I saw that the feature for positioning elements with keyboard was added on JasperStudio at the version 2.0. Was that feature removed or it does not work just like in iReport, or maybe, I have to set some config to enable it?

[Massimo Rabbi]

Hi,
please give a loook at the following topic: http://community.jaspersoft.com/questions/819195/moving-elements-cursor-keys-broken

As you can see in there, the feature exists and it has been fixed because there were some bugs. But it will be available from the next release.
It works a bit different from iReport because in order to access the move and resize (something new, not present in iReport) handles you have to hit the period key. This is the "standard way" in the Eclipse world.

Read the linked thread and let me know if there is something that is not clear. Take also a look at the linked video.

Best regards,
Massimo.

[caducarbonari]

Thank you Massimo,
I got the way it works (and will work after the next release).

I Would like to give just some sugestions:

• With the next release, when resizing/moving the elements, it will step 1px for a single key press, what about the step size be changed to 10px if the SHIFT key is down (or any other key) like on the iReport? It helps a lot positioning elements.
• Another thing that I believe that would help, is fixing the operations when "." is pressed after the element is selected, like, the every first press after select an element, the cursor starts moving the element, the second press makes the cursor to resize the left side and so on... (the order of the operations doesn't matter at all, the point is to mak the order be fixed).
• Include those features in the documentation, at least, I didn't find it there.

By the way, nice work with this powerfull eclipse plugin, I love eclipse and I hope to throw the iReport away very soon.

Regards,
Carlos Carbonari.

[Massimo Rabbi]

Thanks for you feedbacks Carlos.

About the step size, currently (in the fixed version) a single pression lead to a movement of 1px. Keeping pressed the arrow move the element first by 1 pixel, then by 4 and finally by 16 pixel. This mechanism is Eclipse internally handled in org.eclipse.gef.tools.AbstractTool#accStepIncrement().

 

It's highly possible that before the next release we will review the mechanism and try to replicate at best what is available in iReport. Also getting rid of the "." key usage.

 

Best regards,

Massimo.