EVE FAQ

Q
All of the lines have "handles" (little circles) in the middle, and text labels have a little handle on their left side. Can I get rid of these?

A
Yes, they disappear when you do any output, such as to printer, EMF/WMF file, or to the clipboard. They only exist on the screen for editing purposes. You can see this by going up to the menu "Control/Copy window to clipboard as bitmap" -- all of the handles will disappear.
Also, in "Control/EVE preferences..." dialog box, you can tick a checkbox to hide them, which is something that you might want to do if the diagram is to be read-only (this dialog box has some other checkboxes also to make the diagram fully read-only).

Q
Sometimes when I'm working on a diagram, bits of elements get left behind on the screen. Does this matter?

A
No. This is a purely cosmetic thing, and will be refined with later versions of EVE. At any time you can tell EVE to redraw the window, by clicking the right mouse button over a blank area of the working surface.

Q
This may seem silly, but I "lost" my diagram. I was working on it somewhere, but after I had zoomed out and back in, it was gone. Where is it?

A
Remember, you have a virtually unlimited working surface. The top-right of the window shows the current mouse X/Y coordinates, and presumably you constructed your diagram near the 0/0 origin -- so go to the menu and select "Control/Go to origin".  If it's not visible, zoom out until you find it. Position the diagram in the centre of the window, and zoom back in.
Alternatively, select "Control/Element# find..." and enter the number "1"  -- this will place element number 1 right in the centre of the window. Element number 1 is the first element that you will have created in your diagram.

Q
I see in the properties box for the elements, that I can choose to "Bring to front" or "Send to back". When I have overlapping elements, these selections seem to work strangely.

A
EVE simply paints elements in the order in which they are in the database. This means that element number 35 for example, will appear on top of element number 34. 
The selection "Bring to front" causes EVE to move the element's record to the end of the database, so it will be drawn last.
The selection "Send to back" is a bit odd -- EVE will look for a gap in the records, closest to the beginning of the database -- thus the element may be shifted underneath another.

Q
I want to paste a diagram created in EVE, into Microsoft Word. How do I do that?

A
One way is via the clipboard. Adjust the EVE window to frame what you want to export, then go to the menu "Control/Copy window to clipboard as bitmap". Over in your Word application, select "Paste".
Note that in many Windows applications such as Microsoft Word and Lotus WordPro, you can scale the graphic image down to fit nicely in your document, but the full number of dots is retained, which means you'll get the original quality when it prints. The User Manual has suggestions on getting high quality bitmaps.
You can also go to "File/Export selected elements as EMF..." (or WMF...) to export in standard Microsoft vector image format, that can be inserted into almost all Windows applications.
With Multimedia Builder, a powerful and inexpensive multimedia application developer, you can "bind" EVE.EXE, which means that it will run inside Multimedia Builder. This is like object linking and embedding (OLE) -- see the User Manual.

Q
Hey, there are no scrollbars! Why not?

A
All other Windows applications that I know of are "page centric", that is, you construct drawings on a known page size. However, EVE has an indefinitely large drawing surface. With no top, bottom, left or right of the page, how can you have scrollbars? Scrollbars require some known start and end points.
Also, it was a deliberate design decision to maximise the working surface as much as possible -- so, not even any toolbars or icons cluttering up the window.

Q
Also, there is no "Page setup..." or "Printer setup..." menu item. Why not?

A
Small diagrams constructed in EVE are not normally printed on their own (though you can of course). In the vast majority of cases, you would construct a diagram to be copied via the clipboard to another application, or inserted as a EMF or WMF graphic. 
A potential application area of EVE is to construct enormous diagrams, that can then be printed out over multiple sheets of paper. You can then stick the sheets together on a wall and reconstruct the entire diagram. In that case, you want to print to the extreme printable margins of the paper, and EVE is designed to do this.
Note that in "Control/EVE preferences.../Show paper margins" checkbox, you can turn-on display of these extreme margins.
Refer to the User Manual for further instruction about printing.

Q
There are only "Times New Roman", "Arial" and "Courier New" fonts to choose from. Why don't you give EVE the capability to select other fonts?

A
Of course, any individual PC will have heaps of fonts installed, which is the problem. EVE diagrams are intended to be portable over any Windows system, so the fonts used must be guaranteed to be available. Those three fonts are the basic TrueType fonts supplied with all Windows versions. They cover the requirements of with serifs (Times New Roman), without serifs (Arial), and monotype (Courier New).
However, EVE version 1.08 onwards allows selection of any font, and international languages.

Q
I constructed a curved line, attached at each end to other elements. When I changed the width of the line to 4 pixels (the default is 1 pixel, which is 1 diagram-unit at normal zoom factor), the actual shape, or trajectory, of the line changed. Why is this?

A
This is to allow for arrowheads. Wider lines have bigger arrowheads, and EVE automatically recalculates a nice trajectory to suit the size of the arrowhead. If you absolutely don't want this effect, use a multi-segmented line (polyline). Refer to the User Manual for more information.

Q
What is the difference between WMF and EMF files? I see that the "File" menu offers the choice for exporting to either of these formats.

A
WMF (Windows Meta File) is an older standard for vector graphics, dating back to Windows 3.x. It does not support curved lines, and when you save in this format, all curved lines will be automatically converted to segmented lines. One the other hand, EMF (Enhanced Meta File) does support curved lines (called Bezier lines), but not very many Windows applications properly support EMF files (Microsoft Office apps do of course).

Q
What features will be in later versions?

A
Heaps of things! For example, the text file that you are reading right now is a separate file, but it could be saved inside the .EVE data file -- to simplify emailing the whole thing anywhere. This is already implemented for bitmap graphics files.
Then, there will be specialized icons, such as a WWW-icon.

Q
EVE is free, but will it remain so? 

A
Yes. EVE is fully functional, no nag screens, no time limit, free, and will remain so. The only fee that I may introduce is for extra documentation, such as the database storage format, or for formal support, or maybe for some specialised or customised versions.

Submit your questions to: bkauler@myeve.org