# The &kig; Handbook

Dominique
Devriese

    devriese@kde.org

2002-2003
Dominique Devriese
&FDLNotice;
2003-04-5
0.4.0

&kig; is a &kde; application for Interactive Geometry. It is meant as a replacement for the free programs &kgeo; and &kseg;, and for commercial applications like &cabri;

KDE
KDE-Edu
Kig
Interactive Geometry
KGeo
Cabri

## Introduction

&kig; is an application for Interactive Geometry. It's intended to serve two purposes:

- Allow students to interactively explore mathematical figures and concepts using the computer.

- Serve as a WYSIWYG tool for drawing mathematical figures and including them in other documents.

You can report problems in &kig; using the internal bug reporting tool (Help Report Bug), or just contact me at devriese@kde.org.

Since &kig; supports macros and locuses, it allows for some rather advanced macros to be defined. If you have created an interesting macro, that you think might be useful for other people, you can mail it to me at devriese@kde.org, so I can include it in the distribution ( if you do this, it will be licensed under the terms of &kig;'s license, the GPL, so that other people can freely use and adapt it ).

## Basic usage

### Constructing Objects

#### Constructing points

You can construct points in several ways:

- Select Objects Points Normal Point from the menu bar or press the appropriate button in the toolbar. You can then construct a point by clicking on the desired position in the window.

  Actually, this works the same way for constructing other objects as well: click on the desired menu bar entry or toolbar button and select the necessary objects to construct the object.

- Since you often need to construct points, simply clicking somewhere on the screen with the middle mouse button will construct a point for you, without going to a menu or button.

- You can construct points while you are building other objects in the background, optionally selecting them for the object you are building. For more on this, see the section below.

A point has been constructed
A point has been constructed

#### Constructing Other Objects

Constructing objects other than points is normally done by selecting the appropriate entry in the Objects menu, or by clicking on one of the toolbar buttons.

Constructing a circle
Constructing a circle

This will start the construction of the chosen object type. All of these types require arguments. For example, if you selected a circle by center and point, you will need to give it two points: one for the center, and one for the point on the circle.

To select these arguments, simply click on the object you want to use. If you move over an object that can be used to construct the object, a preliminary image will be shown of what the object will look like. For objects that require points as arguments, you can construct a new point at the current cursor position and select it by clicking the left mousebutton.

You can always cancel the construction of the new object by pressing the Escape button or by clicking on the "Stop" button (red octagon with an 'X') on the toolbar.

Constructing a circle.
Constructing a circle

### Selecting Objects

Selecting objects can be done in two ways:

- Simply clicking on an object causes that object to be selected, clearing the current selection. If you don't want that behavior, hold down the &Ctrl; key while clicking on an object.

- By clicking and dragging on an empty spot on the screen, you can select all objects within the rectangle that is created. This action will clear the current selection. As in the previous case, holding down the &Ctrl; key prevents this behavior.

Selecting objects
Selecting objects

### Moving Objects

To move objects, you must first select them.

When the objects you want to move are selected, you can start moving them by left clicking and dragging on any one of them. When you're done, simply release the left mouse button.

For some types of objects ( mostly complicated Locuses ), moving objects can be slow on older hardware. This is unfortunate, but inevitable, given the calculations involved.

If you right-click one of the selected objects, and choose "move", movement of the mouse will move the object. When the object is moved to the desired position, another left button click will stop the movement.

### Deleting objects

Deleting objects is done by first selecting them, and next doing either of these:

- Press the Delete key.

- Press the delete button on the toolbar.

- Right-click on one of the objects, and select Delete in the context menu that appears.

### Showing and hiding objects

In &kig;, objects can be hidden. This is done by selecting the objects, right-clicking one of them, and selecting Hide in the context menu that appears..

For unhiding the objects, use the Edit Unhide all.... This will unhide all currently hidden objects.

### Undo/Redo

In &kig;, you can undo almost any change you do to the document. Just use the undo/redo buttons on the toolbar, or the appropriate shortcuts..

### Full Screen Mode

&kig; also has a Full Screen mode. To use it, click the appropriate button on the toolbar, or select View Full Screen.

To leave Full Screen mode, Right-click the screen on a place where there is no object present, and select Exit Full Screen Mode , or press the Escape key.

## Advanced Usage

### Context Menus

&kig; has context menus for its objects. Try right-clicking on an object to see a context menu appear. There are many options: for constructing other objects, setting colors, and even hiding, moving or deleting objects. Some objects have options of their own ( e.g. you can redefine certain points to be constrained to a line where they previously weren't, etc ). Try out these options for yourself ;). They should be very straightforward to understand.

### Document context menus

Right-clicking on the document will present a popup that you can use to start constructing a new object, change the coordinate system used, show hidden objects, and even zoom in and zoom out of the document.

### Defining Macros

One of the more advanced features in &kig; is its support for macros. This allows you to define a new type of objects by combining other ones.

For example: Suppose you want to make a macro for constructing a circle from three points on it ( suppose you missed the fact that &kig; provides a native type for this purpose ;) ), then you would just construct three points, some perpendiculars and midpoints until you find the center, and construct the circle by the center you constructed and one of the previous points. The following image should make this a bit more clear.

Test running macros
Test running macros

Next comes defining the macro. Select New macro from the Type menu, or click on the button on the toolbar. A wizard will appear and ask you to select the given objects. In our example, these are the three points. Select the three points (click on them for selecting, click again for unselecting) and click the next button to continue. Finally, select the last objects ( only the circle in our example ).

The macro wizard
The macro wizard

After the previous steps were completed, click the next button to continue. Enter a name and optionally a description for your new type, and click the Finish button. Your macro type is now finished.

To use the new macro type, click its button on the toolbar or use the Objects menu or even its button on the toolbar. Building a macro object is just like constructing any other object.

Using your new type
Using your new type

### Working with types

As you saw in the previous chapter, &kig; allows you to create your own objects. &kig; also makes sure that once you have created an object, it is saved on exit and loaded on startup. You do not have to manually save or load macro definitions. However, &kig; does allow you to do more with the macros. If you select Manage Types from the Types-menu, you will see a dialog where you can edit your types. It allows you to delete types that are no longer used, export them to a file, or even load them from another file.

Edit Types Dialog
The Edit Types Dialog

### Text labels

&kig; allows you to add text labels to a construction. This is very useful for showing names, explanations or other text in constructions. &kig; can also display variable information about objects ( a.k.a. properties ).

To construct a text label, simply press the Text Label button in the Kig toolbar or select Objects Other Text label in the menu bar. Then click the screen on the place where you want to place the label.

Type in the text that you want to show in the new label, and click "Finish". The label should be present on your document now.

The Text Label Dialog
The Text Label Dialog

The previous example was a simple one, and limited to just text. However, there is also support for showing variable information about objects in a label (e.g. you can construct a label showing the text "This segment is %1 units long.." where "%1" would be replaced with the length of a specific segment).

To do this, enter text with a number of placeholders ( "%1", "%2", "%3" etc. ) in it. When you are finished, press the Next button to continue. If you want to change the text or variables later, you can go back using the Back button.

The wizard now shows the text you entered with all placeholders replaced by something like "argument 1". Selecting what to show as a certain argument is done by first clicking the argument in question. Then click on the object about which you want to show information, and then select an interesting piece of information in the popup menu that appears. E.g. in the example above, you would click "argument 1", click on the correct segment in the main &kig; window, and select the property "Length". Afterwards, you can fill in the rest of the variable parts, or select another property for one of the variable parts if you wish to change it. When you are ready, click the Finish button to complete the construction of the text label.

Selecting a property for a variable part
Selecting a property for a variable part

## &kig; Object Types

&kig; supports a rather large number of object types. You are encouraged to try out the various objects, as I think this is a better way to find out about them than reading about them in some boring manual ;). Please note that not all of the available object types are shown in the toolbars, but that there are also some objects that you can only construct via the Objects menu in the menu bar. Of course, as with all &kde; applications, what appears in the toolbars is configurable. Try out the Settings Configure Toolbars... option if you want to do this.

## &kig; Features

- &kig; is an open source application. This means that you are free to use and modify it any way you like it. Distributing &kig; is subject to some restrictions, basically that everyone should have the same rights to use &kig;, including your modifications, as you and me.

  Free software programs are developed in a very open spirit, and its developers are usually very responsive to user feedback. Therefore, if you have any questions, complaints, or whatever about kig, please let me know at devriese@kde.org.

- &kig; is a KPart application, which means that you can embed it in other &kde; software. If you open a `.kig` file in &konqueror;, it can be opened directly in the &konqueror; screen without the need to start an external application.

- Working with &kig; should be very straightforward. Constructing objects is easy and interactive, with preliminary results being shown, etc. Moving, selecting and building all work as one would expect them to. Undo support should also be very intuitive.

- &kig; supports macros to be defined in a straightforward manner. These objects are presented to the user like normal objects. They are saved on exit and loaded on startup, so that they aren't lost on exit. In the Types Manager you can manage these objects. You can export them to files, import them from files, and delete them.

- &kig; saves its data in a clear &XML; format.

- &kig; supports the construction of locuses..

- &kig; has an option "Export to image".. This is rather useful, since not all programs support the &kig; file format yet ;).

- &kig; has a very flexible transformation system.

- &kig; allows you to export a kig file to some interesting formats, like images, and XFig files, which are useful for inclusion in LaTeX and other documents.

- &kig; aims to be compatible with its competitors.. This is why it supports the &kgeo; file format, the &kseg; file format, and I'm working on other formats as well.

## Contribute

### Free Software

&kig; is Free Software. This means that its source code is freely available on the internet, and everyone can use it, read it, modify it, and distribute it. I work on it as a hobby project, and I have already learned a lot about programming, C++, KDE/Qt, math, software colaboration and open source projects in the process.

### Contribute

The point of this chapter is to point you ( the user ) to the rights that &kig;'s license gives you. As with all free software, you are allowed ( and encouraged :) to fix problems you encounter while using it, to add features you miss, to distribute your modified program, and to send these modifications to me at devriese@kde.org, so that I can include them in the next version for others to enjoy. I personally have no financial interest in this project whatsoever, so this isn't just marketing-speak here ;).

If you are uncertain of your rights to use this software, or other peoples right to use any modifications you make to this program etc., please read the license. You can find it in the COPYING file in the &kig; source tree or the license tab in the About Kig dialog.

### How to contribute ?

Any contributions are welcome. If you think the icons suck, or that the manual needs updating, or you have this really cool macro that you want to share with the world, do not hesitate to send it to me. Please note that your contributions will be distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL; you can find the terms of this license in the COPYING file in the &kig; source tree, and further along in this manual...

## Questions and Answers

&reporting.bugs; &updating.documentation;

## Credits and License

&kig;

&kig; copyright 2002 Dominique Devriese devriese@kde.org

Documentation copyright 2002 Dominique Devriese. devriese@kde.org

&underFDL; &underGPL;

## Installation

### How to obtain &kig;

&install.intro.documentation;

### Compilation and Installation

&install.compile.documentation;

&documentation.index;