What is a “large visualizer?”
Each visualizer in Group Explorer can show up in three contexts: in a group info page, as an item in a sheet, or in full detail in its own editable window. This last case is the subject of this page.
Because each visualizer is different, this page covers just what all large visualizer views have in common, and refers you to each visualizer’s individual interface page for specific information about each.
Opening a large visualizer
You can obtain a large view of each visualizer one of two ways.
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Some pages contain links that will create a large visualizer for you.
For instance, each group info page has a Views section that gives a preview of every visualizer for the group and clicking any one opens a large copy in its own window. Thumbnails of each visualizer on the main application page work the same way.
In this case, although you can edit the appearance of the visualizer and save it as an image or print it, once you close the window, all your changes are lost.
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You can create visualizers in sheets and double-click them to open a large version.
In this case, the large view is linked to the small view in the sheet, and all changes made to the large view in its own window are reflected in the image on the sheet and will be saved if you save the sheet.
Here is a screenshot of a window viewing a large version of a Cayley diagram.
Page structure
Every large visualizer page is split into two halves, like the one shown above. The left half will always have the picture–the visualization. The right half will be controls that allow you to edit the picture. You can hide the right half with the hide/show control on the top right of the window.
If you perform any of the edits described with the controls below but then wish to undo them and reset the large visualizer to its original state, just reload the page in your browser. Any changes you have made will be lost.
Toolbar
On the top right of any visualizer you will find the following controls. We cover each of them separately, below.
Home
The first icon (the house) is a link to the main Group Explorer website. That is, it will take you out of the app itself and back to the home page of the entire project.
Library
The second icon (the book) takes you to the Group Library page, the main page of the app itself.
Sheets
The third icon (the sheet of paper) takes you to a blank sheet, into which you can insert visualizations of any groups from the library and connect them with morphisms. To read more on sheets, see the sheets tutorial or the sheets reference.
Help
The fourth icon (the question mark) takes you to the main page of these help files.
GitHub
The fifth icon (the GitHub logo) takes you to the source code repository from which the application and its website were built. Visit that site if you would like to see how the application was built, make suggestions for its improvement, report an error in the documentation, or get involved in improving the software as a developer.
Hide/show
The rightmost icon (which looks like a right-arrow, >, in the image above) will hide the right-hand controls pane, exposing just the visualizer to your view. When you hide it, the icon becomes a left-arrow, <, instead. Clicking it will reveal the controls again.
Four visualizer types
The controls in that right-hand pane are specific to which large visualizer you have open. For more information on that controls pane, visit the documentation on whichever large visualizer you’re using:
- Documentation for large Cayley diagram interface
- Documentation for large multiplication table interface
- Documentation for large cycle graph interface
- Documentation for large symmetry object interface
There are some controls in common among many of these visualizers; for convenience, we provide links to their docuemntation here.