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Overview Tools
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The Tools Panel -> Text Tool  The text field tool allows you to add text to the drawing. When you click and drag using the text tool, you define a rectangle where the text will be centered. Immediately after releasing the mouse button, the text object will change to editing mode, displaying a flashing insertion cursor and allowing you to type in text. You exit editing mode by pressing the enter or return keys. The text color and fill characteristics of the rectangle are controlled by the inspector's Drawing tab. The font face and size are set using the standard font panel. Double-clicking a text object using the selection tool re-opens the text for editing. The text field tool can be selected by pressing the "8" key when a plot window is the front window. Types of Text Fields There are more than one type of text field. There are plain, styled, channel, and circuit text fields and all behave a bit differently. There are also info text fields you don't create directly but instead display selected properties of lights and positions. Plain, styled, channel and circuit text fields can be created with the text tool. The type of text field created by the text tool is selected using the Format->Tool->Text Tool menu. Info fields are created in the info tab of the Inspector. Plain text fields are the simplest of the types of text fields. They have a single font style and a single horizontal alignment. Their text is vertically aligned in the center of their bounding rectangle. The bounding rectangle of a plain text field can never be smaller than is needed to display all of its text. Channel text fields can associated with a channel or command that is different than their displayed text using the Inspector's info table. Channel text fields are useful for exporting a display configuration to LXConsole or a magic sheet to EOS family consoles. Channel text fields can display a level by checking the box in the Inspector's info table. Channel control text fields are automatically created when you copy a row from a group summary report, generating graphic objects. A channel control text field has a channel or list of channels separated by "&" or by ">". You can edit this by selecting the channel control field and using the Inspector's info tab. These channels can be controlled by the Inspector's intensity slider when the channel control text field is selected. Circuit text fields represent a circuit location. Circuit text fields can be marked used when a light is assigned to the circuit in it's info properties. A circuit text field can be manually marked as used by checking the box in the Inspector's info table. Styled text fields display rich text within their bounding rectangle. Styled text fields may mix font and paragraph styles. Styled text fields wrap their text based on the width of their bounding rectangle. However, the bounding rectangle of a styled text field is allowed to be smaller that the text. Styled text fields are created from plain text fields when more than one font style is applied to them. Plain text fields can also be converted to styled fields using the Convert menu. A specialized type of plain text field is used to display infromation attached to symbols and position lines. These info text fields get their text from their owning symbol or position. Changing the text of an info text field changes the information attached to its owner. All info text fields that display a particular category of information share a common font and style. For instance, all channel fields are displayed with the same font. Changing one channel field's font style changes all other channel fields. |
