GXWaterfall editing features

The following paragraphs give information on how to use the current editing features present in GXWaterfall. After becoming familiar with these features you should be able to create new waterfall documents and edit old ones which the various GXWaterfall tests can be applied to.

Line Editing

The line editing features enable the user to alter lines of glyphs that have already been created (e.g. by drag and drop). There are three ways to alter lines:

Clicking the mouse on a line causes a red edit box to appear around the glyphs. A flashing cursor indicates the insertion point. The insertion point can be moved by :

You can now type new text on the keyboard and it will be inserted at the cursor. The delete key will delete the character directly to the left of the cursor.

By clicking on a line and holding the mouse button down, you can select a range of characters from a line (like in a word processor). You can now cut, copy and paste characters. If paste is selected from menu (or via hot key), the copied characters are inserted at the flashing cursor if a line is selected (red edit box), otherwise they are appended at the end of the document in the current document font and size. Selected characters can be cut using menu Cut option/hot key or by pressing delete key. Pasting when characters are selected replaces the selection with the clipboard characters. Lines can contain multiple fonts.

NOTE: Cut characters are not copied to the clipboard first.

The glyph character lines and the size tags (size indicators to left of output windows) can be edited in this way. The size tags are useful for inserting notes in outputs. They initially only contain size information but you can type in notes as well / instead.

TIP: Use a series of underscores in the size tag fields to underline any areas of interest in the corresponding glyph line, then put accompanying note to right of glyphs).

You can edit all types of GXWaterfall output using these procedures e.g., waterfall, metrics compare etc.

You can also change the font of glyphs in a glyph line (NOT size tags). Select/hilight a range of glyphs from the line as before, then select the required font from the font menu. The glyphs will redraw immediately in the new font.

NOTE On Deleting: Every line of characters must contain at least 1 character, therefore, if you delete all characters on a line, a space character will be inserted automatically - this can be deleted after a new character(s) is added.

 

Copying and Pasting from the Glyph palette

One or more characters may be copied from the Glyph palette to the clipboard by going to the Configure menu option and then choosing the Glyphpalette menu item.The glyph palette box will then be displayed as shown below.Characters to be copied from the palette are clicked on with the mouse whilst holding down the shift key if more than one glyph is to be selected.Once all the required characters have been selected then go to the Edit menu option and choose the Copy menu item.The selected characters will then be copied to the clipboard where they can be pasted into a Waterfall document or any other application.

 

Glyph Palette Dragging & Dropping

Glyph palette dragging and dropping is an alternative to copying from the glyph palette and then pasting to the text window(s) using menu/hot key commands. Select the required glyphs from the glyph palette in much the same way as before :

When you have selected all the glyphs you want, hold down the mouse button on the final click and move the pointer. Outlines of the glyphs selected will follow the mouse.

Now you have to drop the selection somewhere:

If you release the mouse button in the palette window or any non-waterfall window, the selection will "zoom back" and no action will have occurred. So, if you change your mind having started dragging, drop anywhere but in a Waterfall text window (e.g. palette window).

You can drop a selection into a GXWaterfall text window in basically two places:

If you drop on a line of glyphs, the selection will be inserted in the line at the mouse pointer in the palette font and the line size. Therefore you can insert at the beginning of a line, end of a line or somewhere in the middle of a line.

Dropping anywhere else in the window results in the selection being appended to the end of the document in the current document default font and size.

 

Glyph Line Dragging & Dropping

Glyph line dragging and dropping allows you to select a range of glyphs from a document glyph line and insert the selection in another glyph line. Glyphs are selected from a glyph line in the usual manner by clicking and holding the mouse down on the required selection. You can then drag a copy of the selected glyphs to the insert position. Using this feature you can drag and drop glyph selections consisting of multiple fonts, styles and sizes.See the following example...

Before text is dragged and dropped.

After text is dragged and dropped.

 

The Hierarchical Font and the Size Menus

The Font Menu

The font menu enables you to select a font AND an associated style. Any font that has more than one style will have a submenu containing the style options. Note that if only one style is available, no submenu will appear for the font and the font name will be the family font name (e.g. Times) and not necessarily the full name (e.g. Times Bold Italic).

Below is an example where the chosen font is Hoefler Text and the style is Ornaments.

When the user selects a new font, the glyph palette will update itself immediately (there is no longer a need to close and reopen it). Note that selecting a different font no longer changes all glyph lines in the window to that font. Instead you can select sections of individual lines and choose the required font - only the selection will update to that font, and the font will become the default i.e., any subsequent pasting to end of the document, or a Waterfall output etc. will be in the default font.

 

The Size Menu

The size menu can be used to set the default font size for a document. After selecting a new size, any subsequent pasting to the end of the document or in-line typing will be in the default / selected size.

 

Text and Background colors

The color menu allows changing of background and text colors. Selecting 'Background Color...' from the Color menu results in a standard color picker being displayed. Select colors until a suitable one is found, then click OK to accept the color, or Cancel to leave background unchanged. The other color menu option depends on whether a line has been selected by the user (i.e. the red edit box is visible). If a line is selected, the option 'Line Text Color...' can be chosen. Pick a color to use for that line only. If a line is not selected, choosing the 'Default Text Color...' option lets you select the default application color. Now any pasting, waterfall, text test etc. to the end of the document(s) will be in the default color (initially black).