The plotting area

General description

The plotting area is able to show the waist size, the gouy phase and the radius of curvature depending on the propagation length z (-> see display settings). The status bar at the bottom will show you the beam parameters of the resulting beam (i.e. the rightmost part of the beam). The area is able to show tool tips for lenses/substrates as well as partial beams (i.e. the beam between two lenses). Info boxes for the lenses can be permanently shown by using the info option (-> see 'Menu bar -> Info'). By clicking on a lens it will become the current lens (color changes to green). If the waist size at a lens position exceeds 0.33 times the aperture of that lens, the lens color will change to red, hinting a possible beam clipping at that lens.

Mouse and keyboard interaction

There are several ways to interact with the plotting area:

Mouse interaction

A 'Simple mouse click' on a lens will make it the current lens. 'Double clicking' a lens will open the 'Change lens' dialog. 'Dragging' a lens will change the lens position.
You can adjust the plot ranges via the mousewheel. By simply scrolling you can shift the x axis. Simultaneously pressing the CTRL key allows for zooming the axis. By using the SHIFT key these actions will be performed on the y axis (i.e. SHIFT-Scroll for shifting the y axis and SHIFT-CTRL-Scroll for zooming the y axis).

Keyboard interaction

Press 'ENTER' to open the change lens dialog for the current lens. Press 'DEL' to delete the current lens/substrate.
The current lens can also be moved using the keyboard:
ArrowLeft/ArrowRight: Move the lens left/right. Simultaneously pressing 'CTRL' will increase the step size by a factor of 10. Simultaneously pressing 'Shift' will decrease the step size by a factor of 10.
TAB-key: Use 'TAB' to make the next lens the current one. Use 'CTRL'-'TAB' to make the previous lens the current one.
Brackets (,): Brackets are used to define cavity endmirrors. If you type '(' or ')' the left or right endmirror of a cavity is defined, respectively. If a cavity is correctly formed, you will be provided with a dialog in which you can further specify your cavity.
Number keys: Lenses/ substrates can be grouped, so that you can move them together. By pressing a number key (1-9) you can add the current lens to the group with the specified number. The number will pop up in the middle of the lens. You can deselect a specific lens by making it current (just click on it) and then pressing '0' (zero). To deselect all lenses of a specific group, select any lens from that group and press 'u'. If you want to delete all defined groups at once, press 'Shift'+'u'.