Posted by:
Si From Beat...
Re: the minimum distance: There are some historical reasons that may lead to some confusion here. As far as I recall, the original Typeman Talk compiler didn't allow to override the minimum distance it chose to enforce (or not to enforce). It simply used some heuristic as to when to apply or not to apply a minimum distance. For instance, all black links would get a minimum distance, unless they linked between two points which were at the same coordinate (e.g. an XLink between two points at the same x-coordinate). Moreover, said compiler sometimes didn't choose the correct link colour (i.e. black for interior links, white for exterior links, and grey for anything else). Accordingly it sometimes chose a minimum distance when this wasn't wanted, and sometimes it chose not to have a minimum distance when this would have been wanted.
Therefore we added optional parameters to the Link (and Dist) commands to override the compiler's heuristic. The options from the second row will translate to code that enforces a minimum distance, while the options from the third row will translate to code that will allow a zero distance. By default, the minimum distance enforced will be one pixel. However, this can be overridden, as well. To do so make sure to check "Minimum Distance" in the "Display Options," then right-click the "open-the-door" symbol. A dial comes up that permits to choose any minimum distance between 0 and 8 pixels. By default, the dial will show a range from 1/2 to 1 1/2 pixels, and the value high-lighted will be 1 pixel, but the dial starts scrolling towards values outside this range as soon as you move the mouse outside this range.
Thus it is possible to choose a minimum distance of 0, which is the same as changing the behaviour from enforcing a minimum distance to allowing zero distance. Conversely, if you had chosen to allow a zero distance, you could right-click the "close-the-door" symbol and choose a distance other than 0. This effectively changes the behaviour from allowing a zero distance to enforcing a minimum distance.
