Feature SS-2334
4 votes

Introduce region flags: Background/Foreground, Locked/Unlocked

Created by oxel007 on 5/3/2016 3:02 AM Last Updated by smath on 3/9/2019 10:50 PM
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Logged: 0   (hrs)

 Description

Every now and than I see someone asking a question about how to insert a dynamic value in a text block or how to add a dynamic to an image.

Truth is that you cannot do that; however, you can overlay a variable over a region and disable 'show input data", which would achieve same result. This works great, until you would like to either move your dynamic variable or edit its units, in which case, when you click on the variable you will always activate the text/image region itself.

I propose to introduce two flags to every region & equation in SMath workbook:

1. Background / Foreground
2. Locked / Unlocked

The first tag will dictate whether the region is at the "back" or the "front" of the worksheet. I also propose for background items to be "activated" by double click only (instead of single click for a typical item)

The 2nd tag will dictate whether the item is selectable when using Click-Drag method. This will facilitate the bulk selection and movement of "Unlocked" regions only, allowing us to create highly customizable headers and footers in the document. Note that Ctrl-Click will still select the region, making sure it is movable if necessary.

I understand that Andrey has a lot on his plate and this would likely be the last item he would want to think of. However there is a small chance that addition of described functionality may be relatively easy to implement, making it a valuable addition for the amount of effort.

Now the post that has inspired this blurb:

http://en.smath.info/for...I-write-on-an-image.aspx

    smath (Saturday, March 9, 2019 10:50 PM) #

Thank you Martin.

    Martin Kraska (Saturday, March 9, 2019 9:48 PM) #

I think this issue has been resolved lately.

Regions further downstream are in front of those upstream. Thus you can easily click them and edit them. It is, however, not easy to mark them light blue (or the shortcut wasn't obvious for me.

Yet there is great improvement for handling the contents of snapshot regions (minimizing them is almost never needed any more) and handling image annotations.

Therefore I dare to close the issue.

    Martin Kraska (Sunday, September 4, 2016 9:37 AM) #

Currently, I use math regions a lot for annotations of sketches made by MS Paint from within an image region.

Perhaps a less severe solution would be to provide sort of enhanced selection, i.e. whenever a click on overlapping regions happens, then to provide some choice of which region actually gets focus. Possibly Shift click to cycle trough the regions.

 

    oxel007 (Wednesday, May 4, 2016 11:54 PM) #

I propose to introduce two flags to every region & equation in SMath workbook:

1. Bring to front / Send to back
2. Locked / Unlocked

The first tag will dictate whether the region is at the "back" or the "front" of the worksheet. 

The 2nd tag will dictate whether the item is selectable when using Click-Drag method. This will facilitate the bulk selection and movement of "Unlocked" regions only, allowing us to create highly customizable headers and footers in the document. Note that Ctrl-Click will still select the region, making sure it is movable if necessary. I also propose for locked items to be "activated" by double click only (instead of single click for a typical item)