I have registered defects with the new persistent Align / Space dialog in v8 in this thread. Those are defects…but in researching how other persistent dialogs in CC behave, it became clear that CC’s persistent dialogs are inconsistent in their behavior - and could be easily be brought in line.
I took the time to lay out four behaviors - and map them to most (if not all) of the persistent dialogs in CC. The current state of CC’s dialogs against those 4 behaviors can be found here:
(I can’t upload a spreadsheet…but I can send it to you if you prefer).
Here is a description of the four behaviors. Note: Some of the dialogs already exhibit the desired behaviors…they do not all need to be changed.
- Changing the selection when within the dialog:
- Since the dialog is persistent, you should be able to change the selection of which items are being processed while the dialog is open. NOTE: Most of the dialogs above will allow you to SHIFT-CLICK to modify the selected objects - by either adding to the selection or removing the object from the selection, therefore, you can “mimic” changing the selection by adding an object that you want and then removing the original object from the group - why not just allow me to click on the other object and select it?
- Maintaining the changes throughout the dialog
- You should be able to make multiple changes to the objects while the persistent dialog is open. Each change should build on the last. The unit of work for the dialog, however, remains ALL the changes…so if you cancel out of the dialog, all the changes would be reverted. If you commit the dialog, they’re all committed
- Undo should work incrementally within the dialog
- If I make multiple changes within the persistent dialog, UNDO should back out those changes, one-by-one. Some of the dialogs do not support this…and will only enable UNDO if you commit the entire dialog - and then UNDO the entire set of changes. Without this behavior, you cannot undo “the last change” within the dialog
- Closing the dialog on a click
- The dialogs have a “Done” or “OK” button…however, some of the dialogs will commit the changes up to that moment - and close the dialog - if you click off of the selected objects while the dialog is open. Since you have a DONE button the changes should not be committed until that button is clicked. NOTE: One of the dialogs has an “APPLY” and a “DONE” button - but APPLY will close the dialog (OFFSET is the dialog in question)
As you can see from the referenced JPG, the current CC v8 dialogs inconsistently handle each of these behaviors. It would be a huge improvement in both functionality and usability if you changed these to reflect a consistent behavior.