Characters may be larger than the Character Window
at the present zoom factor.
In this case, only some rectangular part of a character is displayed.
We call the presently displayed part the
visible rectangle of the character.
One point of particular interest in the current character may
be declared to be the focus.
This focus has a special meaning for a variety of operations.
For instance, when zooming into a character with the Window->Zoom command,
the focus will define the center around which to magnify the character.
The focus is relevant for a number of additional commands.
Note that the visible rectangle origin
(VX, VY) in the Character Properties Window
will change when the character is zoomed into,
as the focus staying in place will cause the upper left corner to change.
If the current character is too big to be shown in the
character window at the present zoom factor,
the character can be scrolled on the window with the Scroll command.
The character is grabbed by depressing the left mouse button,
and a new tentative position is determined by releasing the left mouse button.
The mouse movement can be restricted horizontally (SHIFT down)
or vertically (CONTROL down).
The arrows scroll by one-pixel
(SHIFT+arrow: 10, CONTROL+arrow: 50, CONTROL+SHIFT+ARROW: 250 pixel)
increments.
Clicking the left mouse button when both SHIFT and CONTROL are down
will reset the visible rectangle into the character at (VX=0,VY=0);
i.e. the origin is again in the upper left corner of the screen.
Scrolling is terminated clicking the middle mouse button; the tentative
position becomes final.
Note that (VX,VY) in the
Character Properties Window reflect the change to the
visible rectangle of the character.
Note that the focus may also move outside the visible rectangle.
The right mouse button aborts the scroll operation and resets the
previous visible rectangle.
Both the foreground and the background characters are scrolled
together with the Scroll Both command.
The Align with Back command scrolls the current character
with respect to the background character.
Five possibilities are displayed in the input window.
The user chooses the desired selection:
- Bases
- The foreground character is scrolled such that its
base point will coincide with the background character base point.
- Widths
- The foreground character is scrolled with respect to the
background character such that
their (base point+width), i.e., the right ends
of their character boxes, coincide.
- At left
- The foreground character is scrolled to the left of the
background character
(such that the foreground base point+width and
the background base point coincide).
- At right
- The foreground character is scrolled to the right of the
background character
(such that the foreground base point and the background
base point+width coincide).
- At left (kerned)
- The foreground character is scrolled to the left of the
background character (like At left), adjusted by the kerning pair for
the (current character, background character).
- At right (kerned)
- The foreground character is scrolled to the right of the
background character (like At right), adjusted by the kerning pair for
the (background character, current character), as specified
in the current font.
The focus for the current character is determined via positioning;
its initial position is in the upper left corner of the character.
The Focus Both command determines the focus for both the
foreground character and the background character,
via positioning.
Both the focus of the foreground and the background character
will be set according to the position determined by the user.
Note that, in case either the foreground or the background
character is a raster character with a zoom factor exceeding 1,
the focus is always rounded to the closest pixel corner.
We distinguish here between raster and curve characters.
Raster characters are, by default, displayed with a horizontal and vertical
zoom factor of 8; each character pixel is displayed as an 8 by 8 dot
square. The zoom factors can be stepped up to 64 and down to 1/64,
by powers of 2.
The user issues the Zoom command.
For raster characters, the user is presented with a menu in the
input pop-up window from which to choose the zoom factor.
Factors can be chosen which are powers of two, in the range [1/64, 64].
For curve characters, zooming in/out will display larger or smaller
outlines, leaving the pixel size unchanged (always one).
There is only one zoom factor for both the horizontal and the vertical,
which is determined with the Zoom command.
The user is presented with a slider in the
input pop-up window.
This slider initially shows the
range [0.01,5], on which the zoom factor can be chosen,
with an increment of 0.01.
By choosing fine
from the menu to the left of the slider, an increment
of 0.0001 is made to apply.
Note that the R11 key will reset the slider value to 1.
Both the foreground and the background characters
can be zoomed simultaneously with the Zoom Both command.
For each curve character, the user is shown a slider in the input pop-up
pop-up, and for each raster characters,
the user is shown a menu with zoom factors in the range [1/64, 64].
The command Previous Zoom reinstates the zoom factor in
effect before the last Window->Zoom / Window->Previous Zoom
command, or Magnification / Reduction
tools.
For curve characters only,
the command Show Paint shows, for all those contours in the symbol
for which the paint mode was defined,
how that particular contour is to be painted (see the section on
Painting Curve Characters.
For curve characters only,
the command Hide Paint cancels the effect of the
Window->Paint->Show Paint command, i.e.,
the paint modes are not shown any more.
For curve characters only,
the command Show Corners highlights all those curve end points
at which two curves meet non-smoothly
(at an angle other than 0 or 180 degrees), i.e. where a corner is formed.
For curve characters only,
the command Hide Corners cancels the effect of the
Window->Corners->Show Corners command, i.e.,
those curve end points at which two curves meet non-smoothly are
not highlighted any more.
For curve characters only, the inflection points of curves are shown,
highlighted with big marks.
(At inflection points, the curve changes the direction of its curvature,
like in the middle of an S: the rotation direction changes
from clockwise to counterclockwise or vice versa.)
For curve characters only,
the command Hide Inflections cancels the effect of the
Window->Inflections->Show Inflections command, i.e.,
inflection points are not highlighted any more.
If the user prefers a different color assignment than that provided by
default, that assignment can be changed with the Color command.
The command presents the user with a pop-up window containing menus
with the color for each kind of graphic display.
Different colors can be chosen from those menus.
The effect of the choice can be previewed with the Apply button.
The choice will, however, only come into effect for later use when
leaving the window with the OK button.
Leaving with Cancel will keep the color settings in effect prior to
entering the Color command.
Note that the Color command cannot be executed if less than 64 colors
are available.