tag:support.nodebox.net,2012-11-01:/discussions/nodebox-2-3/5496-bug-with-stack-in-the-north-directionNodeBox: Discussion 2016-02-16T13:02:30Ztag:support.nodebox.net,2012-11-01:Comment/369753012015-05-29T08:55:05Z2015-05-29T08:58:20ZBug with stack in the north direction<div><p>But in your input shapes you already do some stacking yourself,
you place one shape lower than the other, nodebox adds these offset
position to its own calculations of the stack so that's why you get
this result. So it's not a bug. I suggest you take an align node
and align your input shapes center and middle, that way you won't
get any weird behaviour with the stack node.</p>
<p>That said, maybe the stack node is wrong in the way it "should"
work. We will discuss it.</p></div>Stefan Gabrielstag:support.nodebox.net,2012-11-01:Comment/369753012015-05-29T17:58:37Z2015-05-29T17:58:37ZBug with stack in the north direction<div><p>Thanks, Stefan!</p>
<p>My own intuition about the way stack "should" work was that it
would take a set of shapes, wherever they currently are, and stack
them. I played with it extensively and it never occurred to me that
stacking would not work properly in certain directions unless all
the shapes were first aligned on top of each other.</p>
<p>In animations you may need to show shapes in a certain
arrangement and then stack them (without first superimposing them)
so this requirement seems like an unnecesassy and unnatural
complication.</p>
<p>That said, it might be a little late to change the behavior now,
unless you could do so without breaking everyone's past
projects.</p>
<p>The one thing you <em>could</em> do right now, with little
effort, is to update your documentation so that users have a
fighting chance of figuring this out.</p>
<p>Here is the current complete documentation for the stacking
node:</p>
<p>"Arrange shapes in a horizontal or vertical layout."</p>
<p>That's it: eight words. Just adding a single sentence would save
untold hours of frustration:</p>
<p>"Note: In order to work properly, shapes must be superimposed
and aligned before stacking (which can be done using Align
nodes)."</p>
<p>Thanks again for your quick response.</p>
<p>John</p></div>johntag:support.nodebox.net,2012-11-01:Comment/369753012015-06-09T08:27:46Z2015-06-09T08:31:41ZBug with stack in the north direction<div><p>One clarification...</p>
<p>I've been thinking about how to make stacking more intuitive,
and I think the key is using the first shape in the list as a base.
This is, after all, how stacking works with real objects. It would
also make it easy and intuitive to precisely define the location of
the entire stack before the stacking even begins.</p>
<p>So my proposal is that the stacking node leaves the first shape
in the list untouched. Every subsequent shape is then stacked
north, south, east, or west of that base shape regardless of its
previous location. Clean, intuitive, predictable, controllable.</p>
<p>If that first shape is not where the stack needs to be, you can
simply move it before stacking. This would save people the bother
of grouping the stack afterwards in order to move it (which I had
to do in a recent project).</p>
<p>And maybe this wouldn't be as disruptive as I first thought.
Even if it does change some past projects, it would be easy to fix
them. I think the improvement would be worth it.</p>
<p>Perhaps you can add this idea to your issues list for a rainy
day.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>John</p></div>johntag:support.nodebox.net,2012-11-01:Comment/369753012015-07-30T10:46:35Z2015-07-30T10:46:35ZBug with stack in the north direction<div><p>Hey John,</p>
<p>I think that makes sense: leaving the first object untouched and
stacking the rest on top (or on the side) of it.</p></div>Frederik De Blesertag:support.nodebox.net,2012-11-01:Comment/369753012016-02-16T13:02:29Z2016-02-16T13:02:29ZBug with stack in the north direction<div><p>This is also in the next release.</p></div>Stefan Gabriels