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Radical Pie |
The main editor window is shown in the two figures below. Tools, colors, and palettes are displayed across the top of the editor, and information about the current mode, font size, and zoom level are displayed in a status bar at the bottom of the editor.
There are four main editing tools that are always shown in the upper-left corner of the window:
When either the Edit Tool or Annotation Tool is selected, the current equation color and 16 palettes containing common symbols and mathematical structures are displayed at the top of the editor.
The drop-down menu beneath the current equation color lets you select from the color palette or choose an arbitrary color by clicking on Equation color... at the bottom to open the color picker.
Selecting an item from any of the 16 equation palettes usually inserts a symbol or mathematical structure immediately, but there are a few items that open dialogs for more information.
At the bottom of the editor, the current editor mode is shown with a colored background for quick recognition. Clicking on the mode will cause it to cycle through MATH mode, CHEM mode, and TEXT mode. The mode can also be selected under the Equation menu.
To the right of the current mode, the base font size for the equation is shown. This is the size of the font used when typing at the top level of the hierarchical structure of an equation, and all other font sizes, such as those used for subscripts and summation symbols, are relative to this one. You can click on the base font size to change it for the entire equation. If Radical Pie was launched as a standalone application, then the initial font size is set to the default specified in the current design. If Radical Pie was launched by inserting an equation object in Microsoft Word, then the initial font size is set to the font size being used by the surrounding text in the Word document.
The current zoom level is also shown in the status bar at the bottom of the editor. There are several ways to change the current zoom level, and the simplest is to turn the mouse wheel while the pointer is inside the editing area. You can zoom with finer granularity by holding in the Ctrl key, right-clicking the mouse, and dragging upward and downward. Specific zoom levels of 100% to 800% can be set by typing Ctrl+1 through Ctrl+8 or selecting the corresponding commands from the View menu. You can also click on the zoom level in the status bar to open a dialog that lets you enter a specific value. The maximum zoom level is extremely high at one million percent. Typing Ctrl+0 returns the editor to its default zoom level and makes sure the equation is visible.
As you’re typing an equation, the contents of the editor window will scroll as necessary to keep the cursor position visible. You can move the contents around yourself by holding in the Ctrl key, left-clicking the mouse, and dragging in any direction.
When either the Line Tool or Shape Tool is selected, the current fill and stroke colors and several drawing palettes are displayed at the top of the editor window, as shown below. As with the equation color, the fill and stroke colors can be changed by selecting from the drop-down menu beneath each one.
The first two palettes to the right of the colors control the stroke thickness and dashing options. These are applied to most lines (but not brackets and braces) and to the outline stroke of any shapes that you draw. Selecting from the drop-down menus sets the stroke width and dashing option for any subsequently created drawing objects. To change the stroke width or dashing for an existing drawing object, first select the object (using a right-click if necessary to pass through parts of an equation), and then click the button containing the stroke or dashing itself instead of using the drop-down menu to assign the current setting.
The next four palettes control the endpoints of line objects only and do not affect shape objects. The first two of these palettes determine whether there is an arrowhead or other symbol at the beginning and/or end of a line. The last two of these palettes determine whether the beginning and/or end of a line are offset from the anchors they’re attached to be either overshooting or undershooting.
The final palette shown when a drawing tool is active determines the radius of the corners of a round rectangle shape. It has no affect on other drawing objects.
The various stroke widths, endpoint symbol scales, etc., available from the drawing palettes can be specified by selecting Drawing Design... from the Settings menu.
