Does the distance from the portal matter when upgrading a resonator

The basic rule for a single standing wide spreading portal: you start on top of the strongest resonator and once it is almost finished you move to the opposite side or if there is a high level resonator (say 6) which is not at the opposite side you should take it anyway.

You can do finishing blows from the middle, even from xmp 1 all resonators get 1-2% damage.

Actually portal takeover is very tricky and situation specific, sometimes you have multiple portals close by and this requires other tactics, sometimes you have unreachable resonators and this is something very different.

Resonator distance from the portal center is determined by your distance when you place the resonator. Stand 50m away from the portal and the resonators will be 50m. Stand 1m and the resonators will be 1m away.

When using the "deploy" button without selecting a resonator slot, it will select one of the open direction slots and deploy there. I believe it begins with the one closest to you, but I'm not 100% certain