Getting Started

Getting Started

You place objects on the canvas by clicking on the relevant icon in the widget bar (and its submenus, which pop out above and to the right of widgets when needed), and then clicking where you wish to place them on the canvas. Text can be entered either by clicking on the text icon

, or by typing a hash character # on the canvas and then typing—the text after the # will be treated as a text string once you press the Enter key.

Figure 13: A blank Ravel, Plot and Sheet

Ravels, Locks, Variables, Plots and Sheets are created by clicking on the 2nd to 6th widgets respectively in the widget bar directly above the canvas—see Figure 14:

Figure 14: The key widgets for importing data, creating a Ravel, Plot and Sheet

starts the import data process, which we discuss at the end of this tutorial.

Objects in Ravel are linked to each other using arrows, which are drawn by clicking in the output port of one widget and connecting to the input port on another. You must left-click in the circular output port to create an arrow, but you needn’t click precisely in the input port to complete it: Ravel will snap to the nearest output port when you release the mouse button. Wires can be curved, as explained later in this tutorial.

Figure 15: Ravel objects wired together