Geometry Explorer Help

The items in the edit menu enable you to make changes to the geometric objects and figures that are already on the canvas. The Edit items are grouped into five categories: Undo/Redo, Cut/Paste, Trace, Animate, and Preferences.
 

Undo/Redo:

Undo: Choose the "Undo" command in order to undo the effect of the last action you performed. You may undo any creation, construction, move, or transformation using this item in the edit menu. Each time you choose "Undo" another action is undone. In other words, the first time it will undo the last action you performed, the second time it will be the second to last, and so on until you are left with a blank canvas again. (Note: Animations are currently not undo-able. )

Redo: Choose the "Redo" command to undo the last "Undo" action. By using undo and redo one can create a geometric demonstration which can be "re-wound", thus showing the steps of construction.
 

Cut: Choose the "Cut" command to completely remove the selected geometric object(s) from the canvas and place it in a memory buffer. In order to use this item, you must first select something on the canvas. Once you cut it, you can paste it anywhere you want on the canvas. Note: if the object to be cut has other objects which depend on it (e.g. a point may be an endpoint of a segment) then, the dependent objects will also be cut.

Copy: Copying creates a second, identical version of the selected object(s) and has absolutely no effect on the original object(s). This second version is placed into the memory buffer and can be pasted anywhere on the canvas as many times as you would like.

Paste: The "Paste" command pastes the contents of the memory buffer at a slight offset from the location of the original. You may use this item in the edit menu to paste into the same Explorer window. (Note: Pasting from one window to another is not available at this time)

Clear Canvas: This will clear the current canvas of all objects.

Select All:  This menu item is used in those situations where one wishes to select all objects of a single type. For example one may wish to select all points in the Canvas. When we click on "Select All" a submenu will drop down with the items "Points", "segments", "Rays", "Lines", "Circles", "Arcs", and "Objects" under it. By choosing one of these options, all items of that type will be selected. If one chooses "Objects" all objects of any type in the Canvas will be selected.  For more information on selecting objects in the Canvas look here.
 

There are three choices in this group: Trace On, Trace Off, and Clear All Traces. The Trace On function will be clickable only when a "traceable" object(s) has been selected. Traceable objects include all of the curvilinear objects (lines, segments, rays, arcs, circles) and the points. If we select an object that is currently being traced the Trace Off feature will be enabled and we can then turn the trace of that object off. (Note: Use the info tool to find out if an object is being traced or not) To clear all current traces we use the Clear All Traces option.

The animate group includes four options. Look (here) for more information.

After choosing this menu item a dialog box will pop up asking if you wish to change any preferences for the program. These preferences include the level of accuracy for reporting calculations, whether to show labels or not, and what type of canvas (Euclidean or hyperbolic) should the program start up with as a default environment. Changing any one of these preferences will result in a new preference file being recorded. Preferences become active the next time the program is started up.