Aligning Elements and Adding Notes

In this video I will show you some of the simple tools Bonitasoft has for aligning elements, and changing the overall look of your process.

You can, of course, always select and drag elements around individually.

But here, we will use these small buttons beneath the process window, which let us change the aesthetic of our drawing without having to move everything manually.

First, let’s look at these two, which align elements along the same vertical or horizontal axis.

Select which alignment tool you would like to use, I’ll choose the vertical alignment button and then drag and select all the elements you wish to align.

When I release the mouse, the program then uses this nifty animation to slide the elements into position.

While the idea is rather simple, the way it’s used is somewhat counter intuitive since you select the tool first, then the elements you wish to align, which is the reverse order if you are used to aligning in image manipulation programs such as Adobe Photoshop.

Watch again as I select the horizontal alignment button, and then drag to select the last five elements on my process.

As I release, it moves them into position. There.

Next, I will show you these tools, which allow me to add or remove space between my elements.

I’ll select the horizontal spacing tool, and although it is not shown, it helps to mentally picture a vertical bar where the mouse is similar to what is shown on the button.

I choose a flow that I would like to adjust, and everything to the right of my imaginary line will get moved. You can slide to the right if you wish to add space. This is handy if you need to add more elements to your process. Conversely I can also use it to move elements closer together by dragging to the left.

The same can be done with the vertical alignment button. Imagine a horizontal line where your mouse is, and anything below this line will be moved depending on if you move it down… or up.

Now, since clarity is one of the most important practices for designing a process, the last thing I want to show you here is how to add some notes to your work.

The text annotation element doesn’t affect anything, but gives you the opportunity to include additional information for your sake or for the ease of the reader. Like little post-it notes for your process.

Simply drag it from the elements to anywhere on your process and type in whatever information you wish to add. You can then connect it to a specific element it may pertain to.

You can also click on an element and drag it off using the shortcut which appears above. This will connect the two automatically.

That’s all for this lesson, next we will look at adding complexity and changing element types.