Line
This command draws a separate straight line. Move the cursor to the start of the line and press Enter. Move the cursor to the end of the line and press Enter again.
Polyline
This command draws a series of connected straight lines. Move the cursor to the start of the first line and press Enter. Move the cursor to the end of the first line (and beginning of the next) and press Enter again. Continue to move the cursor and press Enter until all the required lines have been drawn. Press Enter a second time when the cursor is on the last point to complete the polyline.
If you use this command but only draw a single line, it produces a Line type element, just as if you had used the Line command.
Polygon
The Polygon command operates in an identical fashion to the Polyline command except that an additional line is drawn from the first point to the last point.
Box
Draw a rectangular box by moving the cursor to one corner, pressing Enter and then moving to the opposite corner and pressing Enter again. Once created, a box behaves exactly as one created by the Polygon command.
Circle
This command draws a circle by moving to the circle centre, pressing Enter, moving to a point on the circle and pressing Enter again.
Arc - Centre and 3 Point
The program has two ways of defining a circular arc, referred to in the program as Centre and 3 Point. An Arc (centre) is created with a centre point, a start and finish angle (in a clockwise direction) whilst an Arc (3 point) is created with a start, finish and mid point. Once drawn they will look identical, but they will respond to the modify commands in different ways.
Create an Arc (centre) by moving to the centre of the arc's circle and pressing Enter, moving to the start of the arc to set both the start angle and radius, then moving to set the finish angle.
Quadrant
Drawing a Quadrant is the same as drawing an Arc (centre) except the finish angle is automatically set to 90°.
Text
Move cursor to where you want the text to start and press Enter. Enter the text from the keyboard. Text entry suspends single key-stroke commands and Arrow keys will move the text on the page. Pressing Enter will complete the command.
The extended character set of the Psion can be accessed in the same way as in other programs, by using the Control and number keys. If a particular character is not available in the font being used, it is simply ignored.
Symbol
Selecting the Symbol option on the Object menu for the first time will display the "Library select" dialog. Thereafter the library will always default to the last library used and immediately show the Select Symbol window.
The "Select Symbol" window will show the symbols using the same Zoom setting as the drawing, providing this will fit the viewing window. Symbols that are too large to display are scaled down to fit. The "Viewing scale" shows the amount of scaling.
Select the required symbol by using the Left or Right Arrow keys or press the Menu key and select from the list. Use the Diamond key to change the library.
The Tab key will bring up the Symbol Settings dialog. These are the settings used when the symbol is first brought into the drawing. The settings can also be changed by using the following keys:-
| Up Arrow: | Rotate 90° anti-clockwise |
| Down Arrow: | Rotate 90° clockwise |
| F | Rotate 180° |
| H | Horizontal flip |
| V | Vertical flip |
Use the "Symbol settings" dialog, "Create" entry to determine whether to create a symbol duplicate or a link to the library copy. If set to Duplicate, then the drawing elements that make up the symbol will be copied to the drawing and bound as a Group, just as if it had been drawn directly. Creating a Link to the symbol will record just a reference to the library file, which must be available when drawing the symbol.
The major difference between a copy and link is that a copy requires more memory and will produce bigger files. However, it will be faster to draw and does not require the library file to be present to display the drawing.
The effect of both Copy and Link should be more or less identical so far as viewing and editing the drawing is concerned. You can use the "Modify, Properties" to determine the method used. If a link can not find its library then just the boundary rectangle is drawn.
The JKFF.VEC example drawing uses links to the LOGIC.VSL and ELECTRIC.VSL libraries.
Changing the Drawing
Use the Edit and Modify menus to make changes to the current drawing. Except for Undo and Redo, all these commands will require you to make a selection as the next step after selecting the command. See Making Selections.
Undo and Redo
The Undo command will undo the last change made to the drawing. Repeated use of Undo will undo all the changes made to the drawing since starting the program (or since switching On the Undo feature).
Redo will reverse the effect of the last Undo command, provided the drawing has not changed in the meantime.
Switch the Undo feature On or Off with the "Settings, Preferences, Commands, Active undo" menu option. You may wish to do this to reduce the amount of memory required to run Vector.
Delete
After making a selection, pressing Enter will remove the selected items from the drawing.
Group and Ungroup
A Group is a collection of drawing elements (or other Groups) bound together for convenience. It makes it easier to select and ensures that anything that happens to one member of the group happens to all the others. You can not carry out some operations on Groups. The operation description will state where this is the case.
Move and Duplicate
These commands both allow you to move a selected part of the drawing. Move will move just the selection, whilst Duplicate moves a copy of the selection.
After making the selection, move the cursor to the "From point" (most of the time you would not need to move the cursor at this stage, but see the note below) and press Enter. Then move the cursor to the "To point", as you move the cursor the grey selection should move with it, and press Enter.
When moving the elements, you can use the Special menus "Jump to" option as well as the Arrow keys to move the cursor. Say you want to move an object so that two line ends touch and neither of them are on the grid. You can use the "Jump to, Nearest, Line end" for the Point-to-move and press Enter. Move the cursor close to the other line end and use "Jump to" again. Press Enter and the lines are now joined on the same point.
Scale
Scale enables you to change the size of the selection, making it bigger or smaller. This works by asking for a centre point, the point that remains stationary. It then asks you to draw two lines; the length of first will represent the current size of the selection and the second will represent the new size. One end of both lines will the centre point and the other ends set by moving the cursor.
For example, to scale an object by 4:3 (increase the size by a third). Select and move to the point you want to remain stationary, Enter, move 3 steps (any direction) and Enter, move once in the same direction (now 4 steps away from the centre) and press Enter.
Another example, to scale by a factor of sqrt(2): Move to centre; Enter, up 1; Enter, Left 1; Enter. The length of the base point (from Centre) is 1 and the length of the Scale point is sqrt(2) (from the Centre - diagonal of 45° triangle). If the object being scaled was a polygon, the new size would now be twice the surface area of the original.
Scale operates on the selected items by default. Use the "Settings, Preferences, Commands, Move or Duplicate" menu option to set the Scale command so that the selected items are duplicated first.
Stretch
Stretch will allow you to deform an object by moving some of the points that describe the object whilst the other points remain stationary. For example, a box is described by four points, the corners. If you start Stretch and make a selection by placing the cursor on one of the corners and pressing Enter, you can move that corner while the other three remain stationary.
If you make the selection by moving the cursor off the drawing and create a selection box, then only objects that have points in the box will be selected. In this case it makes no difference whether you create the selection by moving the cursor to the right or left, all objects that have points in the box will be selected.
After pressing Enter on the "From point" prompt, you can move all the points that were in the original select box and the drawing will adjusted accordingly.
Objects that only have one point can not be deformed. This includes Circles, Arc (centre), Text and linked Symbols. They are simply moved if their single point is selected, the same as any object that has all its points selected.
Use the "Settings, Preferences, Commands, Move or duplicate" option to duplicate the selection and act on that. The default will just act on the selection.
Rotate
After making the selection, move to the centre of rotation and press Enter. As you move the cursor the selection will rotate. The base angle (zero degrees) used by the program is at 3 o'clock so that if you use the right Arrow key after setting the centre, there will be no rotation, use the left Arrow and the selection will rotate by 180°.
Use the "Settings, Preferences, Commands, Move or duplicate" option to duplicate the selection and act on that. The default will just act on the selection.
Mirror
The Mirror command requires that you draw a line on the screen, the current selection will then be rotated about that line to give a mirror image.
Use the "Settings, Preferences, Commands, Move or duplicate" option to act on just the selection. The default is to act on a copy of the selection.
Break
Break will allow you to draw a line that cuts the selected elements into smaller elements. In doing so it may also change the type of element, for example, a circle will change into two Arc (centre) elements. The drawing will not change in appearance after using this command.
You would normally follow the Break with another command that would act on part of the broken items.
Property
The Property command will display a dialog box suitable for the selection made. Selecting a number of elements or a group brings up a multiple selection dialog. You can use this dialog to change the layer for all selected elements or, by choosing from the Items option, change any of the component parts.
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