Type alignment - please, let go of legacy behavior!

[pauloMatsui]

Hey, I've been using Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand, AfterEffects since their 1.0 versions, and there is something all of them always have been doing: when we change a text block aligment (left, right, or centered), the block 'jumps' to half-x-axis of whatever new setting we choose.

I understand that must have been some limitation of legacy systems behavior (processing power, amount of resources, "it has always been like this"), but Figma and Sketch have showed us that such edit can be differently programmed.

So, please: keep the text block in place when we change the text alignment - in PS, Illustrator, InDesign and AfterEffects.

[Pete.Green]

Hi @pauloMatsui , Would you be able to record a video of this behavior and post it on this thread? I'd like to see exactly what you're referring to and see if it's something we can take a look at. 

Regards,

PG

[pauloMatsui]

Absolutely!

Here's two short clips.

This is what I call 'legacy behavior' (Adobe):

https://vimeo.com/1018741172?share=copy

And this is how Figma, Sketch and other hybrid online-offline apps behave when we change text aligment:

https://vimeo.com/1018743256?share=copy

[Pete.Green]

Thanks for the videos @pauloMatsui . 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I observe is that in Illustrator you're using a "point text" layer as opposed to an "area text", and the alignment is relative to the origination point. You can notice that Left justified the left anchor points stay put relative to the center justified center anchor points and right justified right anchor points. It's all relative to the origination point of that type layer. 

If you convert to Area text, or if in Photoshop you click and drag a text box instead of clicking, then the alignment doesn't jump around as in your second video of Figma/Sketch. 

Does this help? 

[pauloMatsui]

Thank you, Pete. That would fix the issue, yes. However, what I'm proposing here is flipping the default behavior for text block in Adobe apps.

Just like when we made 2 years ago 'drag-scale proportionally' the default behavior, while pressing Shift when we wanted 'non-proportional drag-scaling'?

So, instead of adding extra actions/steps to what is customary expected, I propose making 'point text' aligment behave as 'area text' by default (no jumping around) - and if you want it to jump around, going the extra steps converting it to 'area text', changing anchor points, etc.

Does it make sense?