The Interactive Geometry Software Cinderella

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Forums->Cinderella Support (E)->Some Questions

jlanier
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Some Questions


Hi all,
The math department I teach in at Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn, NY, bought an Extended License for Cinderella2 recently, and I'm excited about finding great ways of using it in my classroom and in the lab. I used the trial version for a few lessons last spring and had some nice results. I have a few questions at the moment, and I'm sure there are more to come.
a) Is there a way to further customize the toolbar, other than the few preset options? The manual suggests that there is.
b) Is there a way of quickly selecting a group of objects all at once (say a collection of segment of points) other than selecting them one at a time?
c) Is there a way of using a function to restrict the size of an angle to always equal some other angle? Like to draw two free angles and then make one always equal the size of the other as you vary them?
d) I've had some trouble getting the antialiasing option to stay on between sessions.
e) Is there a community of folks who share and swap .cdy files online for use and study? I feel like I could learn a lot by seeing what others have accomplished with the program. And being able to see the guts of it--not just uploaded final products for web pages. So if anyone could direct me to such a pool, or would be willing to send me some files that they've made, that would be great.
Thanks so much. I look forward to being in touch.
Justin Lanier
 
on: Sun 14 of Oct, 2007 [19:59 UTC] reads: 114001

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author message
Re: Some Questions
on: Mon 22 of Oct, 2007 [14:38 UTC]
Justin,

a) Is there a way to further customize the toolbar, other than the few preset options? The manual suggests that there is.


Yes, though it is not really easy to use. We had a GUI for that, but it was not easy to use as well, so we decided not to include it in the final 2.0 version. You can see how toolbars are created in the cinderella2.properties file (you find it either inside the application bundle on the Mac or in the install directory on Windows or Unix). Basically, you compose a new toolbar by specifying several tool groups, either predefined ones or custom defined ones. You can put all your customizations in a file called cinderella2-global.properties, then these will not be altered when we release an update.

Of course, we should offer a GUI. Please send a mail to bugs@cinderella.de and I will file a feature request.

b) Is there a way of quickly selecting a group of objects all at once (say a collection of segment of points) other than selecting them one at a time?


No, not yet, other than selecting all points or all lines using the corresponding menu or toolbar items.

c) Is there a way of using a function to restrict the size of an angle to always equal some other angle? Like to draw two free angles and then make one always equal the size of the other as you vary them?


You can do this using doc:CindyScript?. Use the angle or slope properties of lines and set them. If you need an example, please tell me and I will post it to the blog (see below).

d) I've had some trouble getting the antialiasing option to stay on between sessions.

Can you reproduce this problem? If so, please send me the steps to reproduce to bugs@cinderella.de and we will fix it.

e) Is there a community of folks who share and swap .cdy files online for use and study? I feel like I could learn a lot by seeing what others have accomplished with the program. And being able to see the guts of it--not just uploaded final products for web pages. So if anyone could direct me to such a pool, or would be willing to send me some files that they've made, that would be great.

We start such a facility with Cinderella 2.1, which should be finished soon. Cinderella 2.1 contains an easy blogging feature which enables you to post your constructions easily to a blog, for example to http://blog.cinderella.de, where you find several examples already. You can always inspect the source code of a page to access the original .cdy file, but we will also add an easier way to download the file. However, this will not give you access to the thoughts of the creator of the file, unfortunately. We already thought that something like a "cookbook" would be nice, if you think so to, please tell us - this might help us to find a publisher or to set up a webservice.

Thank you for your feedback, please continue to tell us what we should improve!

Ulli



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