Re: Questions on usage - Variables

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Ken Gillett
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed Feb 25, 2009 12:55 am

Questions on usage

Post by Ken Gillett » Wed Mar 23, 2016 5:30 pm

Can anyone please help explain the following:-

How to use ‘variables’ (in the context of Cadintosh). I can see where to add/create them. But how can you then use them? I’ve tried entering a variable name in e.g. text labels, but it just displays the name. Is there any definitive documentation that explains exactly how and where variables can be used?

Copying items from one document to another. I have some parts of a drawing on one document that I’d like to use in a different (existing) doc. It pains me to think I have to draw everything again and I have a vague memory of being able to do this in the past, but I cannot for the life of me remember how (or whether I simply dreamt it :-) Is it possible to copy anything between docs and if so, how?

Thanks.

PS. Regarding my problem with disappearing symbols, I’ve sent the document to Thorsten as requested and hopefully he’s looking onto it.



Ken G i l l e t t

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thorstenlemke
Posts: 127
Joined: Sun Oct 13, 2013 7:45 pm

Re: Questions on usage

Post by thorstenlemke » Wed Mar 23, 2016 7:11 pm

Dear Ken,
you can use variables in the input line for calculations.
Thorsten

Can anyone please help explain the following:-

How to use ‘variables’ (in the context of Cadintosh). I can see where to add/create them. But how can you then use them? I’ve tried entering a variable name in e.g. text labels, but it just displays the name. Is there any definitive documentation that explains exactly how and where variables can be used?

Copying items from one document to another. I have some parts of a drawing on one document that I’d like to use in a different (existing) doc. It pains me to think I have to draw everything again and I have a vague memory of being able to do this in the past, but I cannot for the life of me remember how (or whether I simply dreamt it :-) Is it possible to copy anything between docs and if so, how?

Thanks.

PS. Regarding my problem with disappearing symbols, I’ve sent the document to Thorsten as requested and hopefully he’s looking onto it.

Ken G i l l e t t

Al Szymanski
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2014 3:59 pm

Re: Questions on usage

Post by Al Szymanski » Wed Mar 23, 2016 7:49 pm

Ken, I use the default variable / macro of pi to calculate areas of circles, which I then put into text markers.I also use it to calculate vibrational length for the harps I build .  e.g. Image

On Mar 23, 2016, at 9:30 AM, Ken Gillett kengroups@ukgb.net [cadintoshmac] wrote:
Can anyone please help explain the following:-

How to use ‘variables’ (in the context of Cadintosh). I can see where to add/create them. But how can you then use them? I’ve tried entering a variable name in e.g. text labels, but it just displays the name. Is there any definitive documentation that explains exactly how and where variables can be used?

Copying items from one document to another. I have some parts of a drawing on one document that I’d like to use in a different (existing) doc. It pains me to think I have to draw everything again and I have a vague memory of being able to do this in the past, but I cannot for the life of me remember how (or whether I simply dreamt it :-) Is it possible to copy anything between docs and if so, how?

Thanks.

PS. Regarding my problem with disappearing symbols, I’ve sent the document to Thorsten as requested and hopefully he’s looking onto it.

Ken G i l l e t t

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Ken Gillett
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed Feb 25, 2009 12:55 am

Re: Questions on usage - Variables

Post by Ken Gillett » Thu Mar 24, 2016 10:01 am

That’s what I want to do, with my own variables. Please understand I DO know what variables are, having been a software developer for many years in the past. But how is one supposed to use them in Cadintosh. There’s usually some form of notation that specifies something as a variable, e.g. in shell scripting you put $ in front of the variable name to indicate this is a variable. Is there any such requirement in Cadintosh? If so, what? If not, how can it tell you mean to use a variable and not just the text you typed? Are the names case sensitive? I could find no documentation at all on any of this.

I added a variable and a value that I wanted to use. I entered that variable name into a text label and it just displayed the text I typed in, i.e. the variable name and not its value. You say you use Pi in this way, but that’s just a variable included by default and no different to any other variable. How did you include it in the text marker?

> 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 Gillett
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed Feb 25, 2009 12:55 am

Re: Questions on usage - Variables

Post by Ken Gillett » Thu Mar 24, 2016 11:29 am

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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thorstenlemke
Posts: 127
Joined: Sun Oct 13, 2013 7:45 pm

Re: Questions on usage - Variables

Post by thorstenlemke » Thu Mar 24, 2016 1:34 pm

Dear Ken,
the variables can only be used for calculation. Not in text.
Text supports only ^01, ^02, … as written in the manual.This text components will be replaced by the drawing data.
Thorsten

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. :-(

Al Szymanski
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2014 3:59 pm

Re: Questions on usage - Variables

Post by Al Szymanski » Thu Mar 24, 2016 9:57 pm

To be honest, I cheat. For the circles, I put the calculation into the second point of a line starting at 0,0, then go to 0,x*x*pi, then I use dimension to get the length of the line, which equals the area. Delete the line, since the dimensioning remains as text, move the text. Pure cheat. but it works. I could just as easily use the hand calc and then just do the text entry, but it allows me to compare areas if I leave the dimensioning lines in place for a bit.al
On Mar 24, 2016, at 5:34 AM, Thorsten Lemke lemke@lemkesoft.de [cadintoshmac] wrote:
Dear Ken,
the variables can only be used for calculation. Not in text.
Text supports only ^01, ^02, … as written in the manual.This text components will be replaced by the drawing data.
Thorsten

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. :-(

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