I am using version 1.9.7.

I have several viral genomic sequences (3000 bp or so) in the project panel which I would like to do a multiple alignment.  I can find nothing like an Alignment Editor interface, and there is no tutorial in the documentation at all to show how to approach aligning the sequences in the project panel.  Chapter 6 does not show how to get the Alignment Editor from the menu, as I can see.

In most points of the interface, the user interaction is intuitive, but summoning the Alignment Editor interface is not.

Any help?

Before aligning the selected set of sequences you need to put them all into a single multiple sequence alignment object.

Please check this page for the details on how to do this:
http://ugene.unipro.ru/documentation/manual/plugins/dna_export/seq_as_alignment.html

Once you joined sequences into the alignment you can view/edit them in multiple sequence alignment editor