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IndexTo enter or extend an object or flow's label, move the pointer over it so that the pointer changes to an "O" or "F" shape, and enter text from the keyboard. Press Return to start a new label line. The Backspace key erases the last character; Control/W erases the last word, and Control/U erases the entire label. (You can set translation resources with the Motif version to change the editing key definitions.)
Labels can be edited by setting the caret or insertion point using the mouse. Click the left button at the appropriate point in the label to display the text caret at this position. You can also select a region of text by any of these methods:
Note that if the object or flow is itself selected, dragging moves or resizes the object or the flow vertex instead. Left-click in background to deselect the object or flow.
When the text caret is active, entered characters are inserted at this position. Any selected text is deleted when the first new character is entered (pending-delete selection), or when the Cut function key (or Cut item in the Edit menu) is used. The Cut and Copy keys and menu items move or copy selected text to the window system clipboard.
Normal cursor movement and text-editing keys can also be used when the text caret is active. You can cut and paste text within and across separate windows.
Labels can be centered or left justified. Change the justification for an object or flow in the item's pop-up menu, or press Meta/J to toggle justification of the object or flow at the pointer. A new object or flow label is justified according to the last selection made (unless Dynamic Defaults are disabled in the Program Options window). You can change justification for all selected objects and/or flows using the Selection Options window (see Sections 4 and 5).
Normally, labels are positioned at the center of their object or flow. You can offset a label from this default position by dragging the label with the left button while holding down the Meta key.
To change a label's color, choose the Text color submenu of its object or flow pop-up menu. A new object or flow label is colored according to the last selection made. You can change text color for all selected objects and/or flows using the Selection Options window (described in Sections 4 and 5). The set of available colors can be changed using the Color Options window (Section 9).
An object or flow label initially appears in the default label font, defined in the font definition file or the configuration file (see Section 10). Object numbers appear in the numbering font, also defined in the font definition or configuration file. These fonts, and the label font of existing objects and flows, can be changed using the Font Options window, displayed from the Options menu.
The font choices available in this window are specified in the font definition file. If you request a font combination that isn't defined in this file, Robochart chooses the closest available combination instead.
For best results with HPGL plotter output, select fixed-width fonts (e.g. Courier).
To change the default label font, choose the family, style, and size settings, then click on the Set Default button. This affects subsequently created objects and flows.
To change the numbering font, choose the family, style, and size settings, then click on the Number Font button. This updates all new and existing numbered objects in the diagram.
To change the label font for one or more existing objects and/or flows, first select the objects and flows. Display the Font Options window if it's not already up; the window settings reflect the current font of the selected items. Choose the desired settings, and click on the Apply button.
To change the font for part of a label, select just the desired characters, then use the Font Options settings and Apply button in the same way.
If the selected items don't all have the same family (or style or size), no current setting is highlighted. If you click Apply without choosing a setting, that parameter is not changed. For example, if one selected object is using Times Normal 12, and another is using Times Normal 14, you can change both labels to bold without changing either's size. Just choose the Bold style setting and click Apply.
To restore the Font Options window settings to reflect the selected objects and flows or selected text, click on the Reset button.
To copy the font settings from one section of text to another, select the first section of text (or object or flow). Set the Retain Selected Font check mark in the Font Options window, then select the destination text (or object or flow). The window settings are not changed, so you can click the Apply button to copy the old settings to the new selection. You can set the window pushpin to set several selections to the same font.
To look for a string of characters in an object or flow's label, first select the text to be found (you may need to type it into another window, or use the Find/Replace window described below), then press Find or Meta/F. If an object or flow is selected, or if the text insertion caret is active, the search starts from that point. Otherwise, it starts at the first object of the current level. To search in the opposite direction, press Shift/Find or Shift/Meta/F. If no text selection is active, Robochart searches for text matching the clipboard contents instead.
To change search options or specify a replacement string, press Control/Find. In the Motif version, you can also choose Find/Replace... from the Search menu; in the OPEN LOOK version, click on the Find... button. This displays the Find/Replace window.
You can perform searches from this window by entering the search string next to the Find button and choosing the Forward or Reverse buttons (Motif) or menu items (OPEN LOOK).
By default, Robochart searches for the next exact match of the search string in the current level, searching all objects, then all flows, and wrapping around to objects again. Choosing the Ignore case option allows searching to match regardless of the case (upper or lower) of the search string or label text. Choosing the Whole word option prevents matches unless the search string appears as a complete word in the label. Choosing All pages/levels allows searches to continue across all levels and pages of the diagram document. The current settings of this window affect all searches, whether started by clicking on the Find buttons or by pressing the Find key.
No wild cards, metacharacters, or expressions are interpreted in the search string.
To replace selected text with new characters, enter the new string in the Find/Replace window next to the Replace button.
Click on the &Find button to replace the selected text and look for the next occurrence of the search string. To replace text once without searching further, click on (Replace) Once instead. Click on (Replace) All to replace all occurrences of the search string on the current level or in the entire document, depending on the All pages/levels option setting.
Left-click on the Replace button to replace the selected text and look for the next occurrence of the search string. To replace text once without searching further, press the right mouse button over the Replace button and choose (Replace) Once. Choose (Replace) All to replace all occurrences of the search string on the current level or in the entire document, depending on the All pages/levels option setting.
A conditional find and replace is easily accomplished by entering the desired strings into the window, then repeatedly clicking on either the Find Forward or Replace&Find button - click on Replace&Find to go ahead with the current replacement, or Find Forward to skip it.
Robochart can reformat long labels by filling and splitting lines at word breaks so that each line fits within an appropriate width. This width is based on the current length of the first label line. To reformat a label, make sure the first line of the label has the desired width, and choose Format from the object or flow's pop-up menu.
If a text selection is active in the label, only the selected region is reformatted. If the first line of your label is a title, for example, you can select everything except the title line and choose Format to fill only the remaining lines of the label. Robochart preserves empty lines and the spacing between words when formatting text.
SpecialKey
application resource.
Some fonts and export formats may not support these characters.
When you print or export your diagram, Robochart will look for some special symbols in your object labels, and replace these symbols according to the object's position:
.PAGE.
.NPAGES.
.LEVEL.
.PARENT.
.DATE.
The symbols must appear exactly as shown, in upper-case characters with a period before and after, in a single font. Typically, they are used to provide a title for each output level. Symbol replacement is not performed on ASCII exporting.
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