Visual Thought User's Guide
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Chapter 3 Starting and Using Visual Thought

This chapter describes how to start and exit Visual Thought. It also describes the program's windows, how to use the menus and how to save, open and close a document.

Inspector

The Inspector is discussed in detail in the chapter entitled "Editing Objects Using the Inspector" on page 81.

This window allows you to edit and examine in detail the properties of selected object(s) in the View window.

This window is a key feature of Visual Thought. It allows you to easily perform a wide variety of functions-including editing multiple objects-with a minimum of effort.

Palette

Techniques for using palettes are discussed in the chapter entitled "Drag-and-Drop Palettes" on page 135.

A list of all predefined Visual Thought palettes is in the appendix entitled "Predefined Palettes" on page 231.

This window contains objects that you can drag-and-drop to construct diagrams in a View window. Visual Thought has a wide variety of palettes; you can also create your own customized palettes.

Visual Thought always starts with the Basic palette displayed.

View Window

This window allows you to create diagrams. This is the window in which you will be doing most of your work. The View window looks like the following:

The Tool bar is discussed in the chapter entitled "Using Drawing Tools" on page 51.

You can have multiple View windows. The focused View (with the black border around it) is the View window to which all commands are applied. Only one view can be the focused view.

The drawing area and the View window are discussed throughout the manual.

Using Menus

The Visual Thought Main window has 8 menus; you can open them using the standard click-and-drag method. These menus also pop up if you right-click over any Visual Thought window.

Move the mouse into the Untitled View window and right-click.

The Visual Thought menus appear. Hold the mouse button down and scroll down through the first menu. To reach a submenu, move the cursor to the right. To activate a menu item, release the mouse button when the item is highlighted.

Click anywhere outside the menu to dismiss the menus. Or, after you right-click, move the cursor outside of the pop-up menus, then release the mouse button, and the menus will disappear.

Examples of Saving, Closing and Opening a Diagram

In the example below, you will save the diagram you just created, close it, and then open it.

Saving a Diagram

All documents saved by Visual Thought automatically have a .vthought extension appended. test1 therefore is saved as test1.vthought.

Create a few objects in the View window.
From the Visual Thought Main window, choose FileSave (Ctrl-S).
In the Document field, enter: test1
Click the OK button or press Return.

You have now saved the diagram.

Opening a Diagram

Choose FileOpen (Ctrl-O). Your current directory is shown in the button above the list of available files.
You can click on that directory button and hold it down for a list of directories you can change to up the hierarchy.

You can also double-click on a document in the file chooser to open it.
If it is not already highlighted, click once on: test1.vthought
Click the OK button. File test1.vthought will be opened.

Close a Diagram

Choose FileClose (Ctrl-W). You have now closed the diagram.

Tips for Using Windows in Visual Thought

You can press Return in most dialogs; the button that will be activated is highlighted by a double box.
The Alt key is a very useful accelerator. Type Alt plus the underlined letter in a window button to activate that button. For example, see the buttons in the dialog below.

Most text fields, such as the one in the Zoom dialog above, have a white background. Such text fields are editable. Text fields with a gray background are not editable.

Iconifying Windows

There is a quick way to iconify and de-iconify Visual Thought windows:

Move the cursor over the Visual Thought Main window and press the Open key on the left-hand side of your keyboard. All Visual Thought windows are iconified.
Move the cursor over the icon of the Main window and press the Open key again. All Visual Thought windows are de-iconified.

Tips for Using File Choosers in Visual Thought

File choosers are special Visual Thought windows. The Open, Close, Save, Save As commands, among others, all bring up file choosers that present you with a variety of options. There are several tips you can use to accelerate your use of these dialogs:

Pressing Space gives you filename completion in a file chooser.
Click on a file or a directory to select it.
Double-click on a filename or a directory to open it.
You can resize file choosers to provide you with more directory fields.

Visual Thought User's Guide
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Chapter 3

Starting and Using Visual Thought

Starting and Exiting Visual Thought

The Four Main Windows

Visual Thought Main Window