Menu Shortcuts

Menu shortcuts are common to all graphics and are described in the Graphics section.

Label Parameters

Text : Shows and defines the label's text. Click Return to enter the text.

Unit Formatter : Select the unit formatter button to bring forward the unit selector. This is a quick way to add a unit symbol to the text as either a prefix or suffix.

Size To Fit : When selected, the text entered will cause the label graphic to size to fit and assume canonical (non-transformed) orientation.

Font Name ; Size : Shows the label font name and size. Selecting this label brings up the Font Selector. This label is right below the Text field entry and does not look like a control.

Alignment : Shows and defines the alignment of the text within the graphic bounds. If size to fit is used then the graphic bounds and the text bounds are identical and all alignments are the same. To see different alignments first resize the text graphic. Give the graphic a fill color to see how the alignment occurs within the reference bounds of the graphic.

Inset : Shows and defines the inset of the text from the alignment edge.

Line Break Type : Shows and defines how the text breaks within its reference bounds. The options are None, Truncate Ends, Truncate Middle, Ellipsis Ends, Ellipsis Middle, Character Wrap and Word Wrap. Character Wrap and Word Wrap are not implemented at the time of this writing. Line break modes are used for Spreadsheets because cells have limited width. They are used at other times as well. The line break setting interacts with the alignment, inset and reference frame settings. Line breaks only occur when the reference frame of the label inset by the inset values is less in width than the text width of the label. If Ellipsis Ends is used and the alignment is left aligned then ellipsis will never display on the left of the text. If the text is aligned horizontally centered then ellipsis display on both ends of the text. If the text is right aligned then the ellipsis will never appear on the right side of the text.

Character Set : The character set used for the text. This is normally UNICODE but can also be ASCII. Note that it is not UTF8, for example, because that is an encoding and not a character set. Leave this as UNICODE unless you need specific optimizations.

Color : Shows and defines the Color of the text.

Clip Frame : Clips the text to the frame of the graphic. Notice how other graphics define clipping as a mask while the label defines clipping only upon the text. If a line break is used then clipping is unneeded.

Common Controls

Other controls common to all graphics are described in the Graphics section.