## Text

"Add text" mode is a multipurpose mode for almost everything related to displaying text in a view. Here are the main applications of this mode:

- Add plain text: Click at some position in a view. Then an input dialog pops up asking you to input the desired text. When you exit the window, the text is displayed at the position where you clicked.
- Edit text: When you click on an existing text you will get an editing window that shows the old text. This text can now be changed. After the input window is exited, the old text is replaced by the new text.
- Changing a label: When you click on a geometric element you will also get an editing window, now showing the label of that element. You can now input a new label for the element. However, there is a restriction: The label of an element must be unique in the construction. If you try to input an existing label, a warning message is shown and the label remains unchanged.

## Docking and Referencing

Texts are more flexible objects than you might at first think. This comes from two important features: docking and referencing.

- Docking: Usually, a text is located at a certain position relative to the coordinate system of the drawing. When you zoom or translate the view, the text will follow the zooming. This is sometimes desired, but sometimes you might want a different effect. Imagine that you have a descriptive text that should always be shown in the upper left corner of the view. Then you should use "docking." In move mode you select a text and move it around by dragging the mouse. If you come to a position close to the boundaries of the window, you recognize that the text snaps to predefined docking positions. When the text is docked, it stays in its position relative to the window.

It is also possible to dock a text to a point. Drag the text close to the point until the point is highlighted. The text will then consistently stick to the point.

- Referencing: Often it is necessary to have variable parameters inside a text. Imagine a text that reads, "The distance between A and B is 25 cm." In such a text you usually want to refer to the actual distance between "A" and "B" and not to a fixed string "25". You can do this by referencing the value of a geometric element. If "A" is the geometric element, then `@#A` references its value. Moreover, you usually want to mark the fact that the "A" and the "B" in your text are labels. This forces further changes of element names to be reported to the text object and that the displayed text be changed accordingly. You can use `@$A` to refer to a label. If `dist` is the label of the distance object, then the above effect would be generated by the following input string:

    The distance between @$A and @$B is @#dist cm.

In the case of points, lines, and conics, the "`@#`" operator refers to the coordinates. So, you can write

    The coordinates of @$A are @#A.

Altogether you have three possibilities for referring to the data of a geometric element. If `A` is the label of the element, then you access

- the label of the element by `@$A`,
- the defining algorithm of the element by `@@A`, and
- the value or position of the element by `@#A`.

The texts that are then generated are precisely the ones you can see as well in construction text? view. The exact representation of the element's value or position can be influenced by the relevant settings in the "Format" menu.
If you want to include Greek characters, you can do so by using `@` and the name of the character, for example, `@alpha` or `@Omega`.
Furthermore, you have the ability to evaluate CindyScript code within a text and display the result. The syntax for this is `@{…}`, where `…` refers to an arbitrary piece of CindyScript code. For instance, `@{sin(A.x)}` produces the sine of the x-coordinate of A.

### Click Referencing

As in function mode, it is possible to obtain the reference of a geometric element by simply clicking on it in an arbitrary view. This simplifies the process of entering a text line in the dialog box. Clicking on another text produces a copy of this text.

### Synopsis

Texts can be added and edited.

### See also

- Measurements
- Function
- CindyScript

Page last modified on Tuesday 23 of May, 2006 [14:31:07 UTC].
The original document is available at http://doc.cinderella.de/tiki-index.php?page=Text