Alignment and distribution doesn't work.

[SF01]

As you can see this is what horizontal and vertical distribution does.
Instead of this:


It shoots the layers outside of the picture instead of keeping the mcontained inside and distributing them neatly, like PowerPoint can.
How to fix it to properly distribute elements instead of counting how many pixels od space I need and moving elements manually?

[rich2005]

It is no good complaining that Gimp does not work like your other favorite programs. Gimp works the way Gimp works and that is how it should be.   Admittedly the distribution tool is old and quirky.

It looks like your second image comes from some demo of using the distribution tool but there are various options in the tool.

If the distributed layers (Note: Layers, not elements or objects) are outside the canvas then you can toggle View -> All to see what you have. If you want to keep it, then Image -> Fit Canvas to Layers does just that. 

This quick animation https://i.imgur.com/N8SExti.mp4 distributes several layers outside the canvas size according to a path.

If you give details of your requirements then possibly you will get advice for an alternative way. Always different ways for everything in Gimp.

[SF01]

The problem is that here it works just fine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOq16JH_MFo
In the video you provided the elements are not evenly distributed.
I know I can extend the image area, this is not what I try to achieve.
I try to distribute layers evenly within the existing frame, because my project is an artwork for release, the black elements are elements from that project with black fill put over the entirety of the layers. Basically I have all elements as separate layers, or groups of layers, there is a top piece in a fixed distance from bleed edge, several elements to the bottom of it and the final elements on the bottom of the work area above the bleed border, the idea is that the top and bottom elements stay in their places and the elements between them are evenly distributed vertically with identical spacing between each element, at least rounded up to whole pixels. I already done it manually by adding their heights and subtracting it from the work area height, dividing for smount of spaces and positioning a gridline at appropriate place, moving it to next element's starting position, the problem is, one gridlien cannot be deleted, there is only option to delete all lines, which is not really helpful.

It certainly houldn't be that distribution ejects the layer outside the work area. The idea of distribution is to evenly distribute elements between the top and bottom element, just like in the example of PowerPoint.

[rich2005]

[quote]...snip... Basically I have all elements as separate layers, or groups of layers, there is a top piece in a fixed distance from bleed edge, several elements to the bottom of it and the final elements on the bottom of the work area above the bleed border, the idea is that the top and bottom elements stay in their places and the elements between them are evenly distributed vertically with identical spacing between each element, at least rounded up to whole pixels. ...snip...[quote]

Not so easy to visualise, especially since layer groups are involved, you could post a typical .xcf  (dropbox or similar) for comments or it might be that your manual calculations are the only way. 

[rich2005]

Layer groups tend to screw the align tool up

Having a look around, remembered this plugin arrange-layers-0.2.py dated 2012-11-30 see:http://sourceforge.net/projects/gimp-tools/files/scripts/

It might work for you, your first sceenshot does not show the layer structure, so a guess.
Set the position of the layers horizontally
Make only the layers to space out visible
Make a selection, same as your bleed margin
Apply the plugin Image -> Arrange layers -> Spread -> Vertically

example: https://i.imgur.com/VUvtCzb.mp4