Empty or Blank Characters in Annotation Escape Commands?

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Do we have a way to enter the equivalent of "empty" or "blank" characters in annotation boxes?

Consider this ...

\sb+16\Z24\JCHeat Exchanger
\sb+24Performance
\sb+16\Z16solid - parallel flow
dashed - counter flow

In LaTeX, I would equivalently enter this for legibility ...

\sb+16\Z24\JC{}Heat Exchanger
\sb+24{}Performance
\sb+16\Z16{}solid - parallel flow
dashed - counter flow

The {} denote an empty fill that is discarded when the output is typeset. Does Igor Pro have an equivalent?

I'm having trouble understanding what this does (I'm not a LaTeX expert) that's different from space, tab or Igor's "\x+dd" escape code. Maybe it's the escape code you're missing?

October 15, 2021 at 11:06 am - Permalink

What I want is to be able to avoid the overlap between the escape code and the text. I _could_ use a space character. However, this pushes the line over by that space in the annotation box.

I believe the term in LaTeX parlance is "gobbled". In LaTeX, brackets such as this {} have no inherent meaning other than to be enclosing statement calls to "functions". The brackets are "gobbled" at compile time (converting the input to a typeset output). To enforce a bracket into the output, they must be escaped, e.g. \{ and \}.

At the risk of breaking backward compatibility, perhaps Igor Pro's annotation engine could adopt the LaTeX convention to "gobble" brackets {} unless they are escaped. This would help writing easier-to-parse code when it has multiple escapes.

\sb+16{}\Z24{}\JC{}Heat Exchanger
\sb+24{}Performance
\sb+16{}\Z16{}solid - parallel flow
dashed - counter flow
\{and just for fun some brackets\}

ps ... LaTeX also ignores spaces at the beginning and end of lines. You have to force the space with ... yep, you guessed it ... an escape code \  (<-- there is a space there) or better in some cases a non-breaking space ~.

October 15, 2021 at 11:28 am - Permalink

Ah- so the brackets are not to add space in the displayed text, but to give a visual break in the "code" that is interpreted, so you get a visual break between your literal text and the escape codes.

As you mention, such things tend to break backward compatibility. All of sudden, a new version of Igor causes all brackets in annotations to disappear! It's hard to think up a convenient way to implement this that doesn't involve an escape code, and that would just add to the visual noise.

I suppose an escaped space could be interpreted as "no space"... I'm reluctant to make any promises :)

\sb+16\Z24\JC\ Heat Exchanger
\sb+24\ Performance
\sb+16\Z16\ solid - parallel flow
dashed - counter flow

I don't know what my colleagues would think of such a thing- a confusing addition that doesn't actually add anything to the display...

October 15, 2021 at 11:47 am - Permalink

> I suppose an escaped space could be interpreted as "no space"... I'm reluctant to make any promises :)

This would solve the problem wonderfully.

> I don't know what my colleagues would think of such a thing- a confusing addition that doesn't actually add anything to the display...

Would that we are never confused by any manner of escape code in annotation inputs such as those above or the two below, we might say as well that escaped blanks do not actually add anything additional to the ease of use when we create the annotations in the first place. :-)

\Z16500 miles from home

\JCenter the door here

 

October 15, 2021 at 12:30 pm - Permalink