Math Palette User Guide

Object Behavior

The objects in the Math Palette have similar behavior for insertion, selection, editing, and
deletion. The different types of objects and their behavior is discussed below.

Object Types

There are two types of objects that can be inserted into the Answer Field. They are
described below:

Object Type	Description
Plain Text	A Plain Text object is the most commonly used object, therefore it is the default object when clicking into the Answer Field. A Plain Text object allows a user to enter any acceptable characters into the Answer Field.
Math	A Math object is an object that represents a specific type of mathematical element. Math objects can be pre-populated in the Answer Field or inserted by the user via the Buttons Area. These objects can have one or more editable fields.

Object Insertion

Plain Text objects can be inserted by clicking on any white space in the Answer Field.  Once
the Plain Text object is inserted, a cursor will blink to indicate that object is ready for input.

Math objects can be inserted by clicking on the buttons in the Buttons Area.  If an empty Plain
Text object is selected in the Answer Field and a user clicks on a Math object button in the
Buttons Area, the Plain Text object will be replaced with that Math object.  If a populated Plain
Text object is selected in the Answer Field and a user clicks on a Math object button in the
Buttons Area, the Math object will be inserted at the cursor position.  Once the Math
object is inserted, a cursor will blink in the object's first editable field to indicate that object
is ready for input.  The active object will be highlighted with a dashed red outline.

Object Selection

The objects have two states of selection. They are described below:

Object Selection State Type	Description
Object Selection	An entire object can be selected in the Answer Field by clicking on that object. When a student selects an entire object, it will be highlighted with a dashed red outline and no cursor is displayed. When an author selects an entire object, the object will be highlighted with a dashed red outline if that object is not going to require student input and no cursor is displayed. The object will be highlighted with a dashed blue or green outline if the object is going to require student input. If the validation type of the object is Match, the object will be outlined in green and no cursor will be displayed. If the validation type is Eval, the object will be outlined in blue and a cursor will be displayed.
Field Selection	A field of an object can be selected by clicking in one of the squares inside of an object in the Answer Field. When a field of an object is selected, the object will be highlighted with a dashed red line, and the field that is selected will have a blinking cursor to indicate that it is ready for input. Note: A Plain Text object has only one editable field. So selecting an entire Plain Text object engages Field Selection as well, and vice versa.

Object Editing

A student can edit an object once the object is in one of its selected states. The left and right
arrow keys and the tab keys on the keyboard can be used to navigate between objects and
fields of objects. Below are some notes that discuss keystroke behavior and editing features.

Keystroke behavior and Editing Features
    a. Short cut keystrokes:
        i. When the forward slash ("/") is entered, the applet inserts the fraction object.
        ii. When the carrot ("^") is entered, the applet inserts the exponent object.

    b. Highlighting text and selecting an object (either via a button or short cut
         keystroke) puts the highlighted text into that object (or the first field of that
         object, if there are more than one).

    c. When the cursor is in an object with empty fields or an entire object has
         focus, hitting delete on the keyboard removes the object. On delete, focus          is placed on the next object.

    d. Navigating the object fields:
        i. When the cursor is at the right-most part of an object field, hitting the right arrow
           on the keyboard moves the cursor to the left-most position of the next* object field.
        ii. When the cursor is at the left-most part of an object field, hitting the left arrow on
            the keyboard moves the cursor to the right-most position of the previous* object
            field.
            *(Where next/previous fields are defined by the existing tab/shift+tab cycle.)
        iii. Hitting the tab key on the keyboard will cycle thru the objects/fields in a top-left to
             bottom right order.  Hitting the shift+tab on the keyboard will cycle thru the
             objects/fields in a bottom-right to top-left order.

Object Deletion

If the entire object is selected, a student can delete that object by clicking the Delete button
in the Buttons Area, or by simply pressing the delete key on their keyboard. Once an object
is deleted from the Answer Field, it is no longer available.