Having failed to make any variables work, I closed the doc and opened it again and now I can add a variable and use it when a number or calculation is expected. E.g. I tested by adding a parallel line and used the variable to specify the distance between the lines, instead of entering a number. This now works and the variable names appear to be case INsensitive.
But I cannot get it to work when placing text onto the drawing, it just displays the variable name that I typed. So Al, if you are indeed able to do this as you say, please elaborate, ‘cos I can’t figure it out.
While on the subject of Text Labels, how is one supposed to align them?
The ‘Align’ command only seem to be for symbols so ignores any text labels.
I turned on the grid so the text jumps by grid divisions, but each label always stays in the same position relative to the grid, it doesn’t ‘snap to’ the grid as I expected, the way other apps usually work. So no way to actually align text.
So I checked the attributes for a label to ascertain its Y value. Then opened up the other label that I wanted to align horizontally and entered that same value as for the other label. In this way, it would mean both labels having the same Y value and hence in alignment. But it doesn’t. You can enter whatever number you like in the X or Y value boxes and the text label stays in the exact same position. If you open the attributes again, those numbers you entered are still there, so it’s not simply throwing them away. It would appear that it ignores them. So what are they? Looks like they are created from where the text is originally placed, a copy, but they do NOT define its position. So thereafter it doesn’t matter what you change them to, it makes no difference and you cannot place the text label at the co-ordinates you choose.
The only way I could move a label is with the ‘Move’ tool. Obviously useful, but not precise enough to be able to actually align the labels. You might get close and maybe you’ll be lucky, but it seems to depend on where the labels where placed when created. Anyway, it’s a hit or miss process and not satisfactory.
Is there a way to actually align text labels? If not then I suggest we should have a way to enable us to do that, e.g. make the symbol align functions work with text labels too. But of more concern is why we are unable to specify the absolute position of a text label with its attributes. Can anyone else please confirm that entering the X or Y value(s) into a text label’s attributes dialog has no effect and the entered values are ignored?
It would be worth looking at iTunes for good interface controls for this sort of thing. When you ‘Get Info’ on a track, you get a dialog box with all the track’s attributes/parameters/tags. Select several tracks and ‘Get Info’ and the dialog box now shows any common values and elsewhere that there are multiple values which therefore cannot be displayed. The point however is that you can enter a value into any of them and when closing the box, that value is applied to all the selected items (tracks). I think this would be a great feature in Cadintosh. So in this case, it should be possible to select multiple objects and when opening the attributes dialog box, see the common values and any value entered would then be applied to all the selected items. In this way, multiple text labels could be selected and aligned by entering just the one value.
This modus operandi would I think be beneficial in other areas too. I often want to apply the same value to multiple objects and this is such a good way to do it, and avoids the need to develop special tools for each and every different function.
> On 23 Mar 2016, at 18:49, Al Szymanski
aszy@mac.com [cadintoshmac] wrote:
>
> Ken, I use the default variable / macro of pi to calculate areas of circles, which I then put into text markers.
>
>
Ken G i l l e t t
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Ken G i l l e t t
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Is it possible to copy anything between docs and if so, how?