This page has been superseded by Introduction in the Android phone, iPhone & iPad volume.
Android phone & iPhone
Go to Android phone & iPhone Guide main item
Introduction
At a glance: This describes the use of the application on an Android phone or iPhone. See the General – Introduction for the meanings and definitions of the some of the words used here.
The display at startup
The display that appears at startup is headed “Files” and in the body of the display is a list of file names. For the iPhone the installation package contains a number of example files that appear in this list including files named “AAA_Inch_Pound.xsf”, “AAA_Metric_Large.xsf” and “AAA_Metric Small.xsf” that illustrate the measurement unit systems available and appear at the top of the list.
For the Android phone the installation package contains no example files. However the application can automatically generate an example file for each of the measurement unit systems. (See Files – New file.)
A tap on a file name will open that file and the main tab buttons are enabled allowing access to the content of the file.
The main tab buttons are labeled F, M, C, L and T that stand for: Files, Materials, Components, Load cases and Time affect sets. They are at the bottom of the iPhone display and at the top of the Android phone display.
Lists of entities
The body of each tab contains a list of entity names
Other than files there are four kinds of entity:
Material: A material entity describes a material such as concrete, or mild steel.
Component: A component entity describes a part of the cross-section. Each component is either a shape component or a point component. Typically concrete is a shape component and an arrangement of steel bars is a point component.
Load–case: A Load-case entity describes a state of the cross-section that is of interest. For example the ultimate strength or the first yield of a mild steel bar.
Time affect set: A Time affect set has provision for a shrinkage value and a creep coefficient for each component and the name of the load case that causes the creep.
Features common to all the entity lists are:
- A tap on an entity name will open that entity in the appropriate editor.
- A swipe either to the left or the right on an entity name will cause a red delete button to appear that will delete that entity if tapped.
- In the top right corner of the display is a “+” button. A tap on this will invoke facilities for adding an entity to the list. These facilities vary dependent on the entity kind, but they all require a name. The name facility is described under Entity names.
- Below the list are various buttons. On the iPhone these are indicated by blue text. The blue text gives the purpose of the button. A tap on that text will invoke facilities with that purpose. On the Android phone these are gray rectangles with black text indicating the purpose. A tap will invoke facilities with that purpose.
Entity names
In the top right corner of the each entity list display is a “+” button. When this is tapped a prompt “Enter the name of ….” appears at the top of the list in grey text on a white background. Also an “Ok” button will appear to the right of that prompt text. A tap on that prompt will cause a virtual keyboard to appear at the bottom of the display. Names can be up to twenty characters including spaces between words. (File names have different requirements.) Automatic facilities ensure each name is unique within each entity kind.
Not all the characters on the virtual key board are acceptable. A tap on an unacceptable keys is ignored by the application.
This keyboard, like most keyboards, has a particular key in the bottom right corner often called the “return key”. With the Android phone this key is not labelled “Return” being labelled “Done”, “Go”, “Next” or whatever. Nevertheless in this user guide it is referred to as the “return key”.
A tap on the return key will cause the virtual keyboard to disappear. A further tap on the prompt text or text that has replaced it will cause the virtual keyboard to reappear.
A tap on the “Ok” button will invoke a check on the validity of the name and also cause the virtual keyboard to disappear. If the name is valid the name and the “Ok” button will disappear and the name will reappear in the list as an entity name. If, on the other hand it is not valid an error dialog will appears with a further “Ok” button. A tap on that “Ok” will return the application to the state before the “+” button was tapped.
However with some entity kinds, if the “+” button is tapped again the line for the new name will still contain that invalid name rather than the grey prompt text. A tap on that invalid name will cause the virtual keyboard to reappear so that the name can be changed.
Entity edit facilities
Features common to all the various entity edit facilities are:
In the top right corner of the display is a “>” next button, and in the top left corner is a “<” back button. The idea is that the various display contents are to be read like the pages of a book.
In the centre of that top line is the name of the entity in bold characters. Under that in small characters is a label indicating the entity kind and the name of the file.
Generally the displays are black text on a light gray background.
There are selection boxes for names or short phrases that can be changed by selection from a list of alternatives. Generally these a preceded by “=”.
On an iPhone these have black text of slightly smaller font on a white background. A tap on such text will reveal a list of alternatives near the bottom of the display. Scroll the list up or down to highlight the desired selection then tap the associated “Done” button.
On an Android phone there is a shadow line at the bottom of the box and a down pointing triangle in the right hand end. A tap on the box will reveal a list of alternatives each item having a radio button to the left. The radio buttons indicate the previous selection. A tap on an item will select that item and the list will disappear.
There are specific purpose buttons on various of the displays. These are generally near the bottom of the display.
On an iPhone they are indicated by blue text of slightly smaller font. A tap on that blue text will cause an affect according to the purpose of the button as indicated by the blue text.
On an Android phone these buttons are a gray rectangle with black text indicating the purpose.
There are also switches and segmented controls; more-or-less Android phone and iPhone standard features.
Generally in a normal situation a switch should be on. They are intended to allow some flexibility in the use of the application.
Number input facilities
Black text that has a blue glow indicates a number that can be edited. A tap on such a number will change the glow from blue to green and a virtual keyboard will appear in the lower part of the display. Generally the keys affect the right hand end of the number except the “+/-“ key which toggles a minus sign on and off at the left hand end. If a positive number is required the “+/-“ key is not visible. If the number contains a decimal point the decimal point key is not visible. This ensures that the number has only one decimal point.
A red glow indicates a number that is not valid. A tap on any other feature on the display will take focus away from that number and the number will return to a previous value; the editing being ignored.
Some numbers have an exponent part. Usually these are represented by simple characters. For example ‘x10-3’ is intended to mean x10-3 or ‘multiply by ten to the power of minus three’. Superscripts are not used.
Numbers where the exponent part is editable are represented in the E format. That is the exponent is represented by the character ‘E’ followed by an integer number being the power of ten. For example E-3 means x10-3 .
A tap on such an exponent part will cause a keyboard to appear that has keys representing alternative exponents. Note that only exponents that are a multiple of three are offered. An exponent of zero is also offered. This is represented by a blank space.
The representation of such a number where the exponent is zero has a frame on the blank space to indicate the presents of the facility for other exponent values.
When the metric system is in use the standard metric prefixes to the measurement units are used. Note there is potential confusion from the used of both the lowercase and uppercase ‘M’: The lowercase ‘m’ stands for ‘milli’ and means x10-3 where as the uppercase ‘M’ stands for ‘mega’ and means x106 .
Graphical information
The shape of the cross-section, both shape components and point components and the stress/strain relationship of each material can be represented graphically.
The application has facilities for presenting such images and if the information is editable the next display has provision for keying in the numbers.
The graphical display of each component includes all the other components in gray so that the whole cross-section is represented.
Each material display includes a grid in green and a blue line to indicate the nominated yield strain or the ultimate compressive strain.
If the information is editable the graphical display includes a little red circle to indicate the object; corner or point that is the subject of the edit facilities on the next display.
The edit display has two ‘back < next >’ tool bars. The top such tool bars serves the same purpose as the top tool bar in other displays: it allows the user to turn between the displays as they might turn the pages of a book.
The lower tool bars allows the user for move forward and backward through the sequence of objects.
Each object is assigned a number in the sequence. In the centre of this tool bar is a label in bold characters indicating the kind of object; corner, point or stress/strain, followed by the number in the sequence.
There is an Add ‘+’ button in the top tool bar at the right hand end. This invokes facilities to add an object to the sequence. The added object appears in the sequence immediately after the object displayed at the time the button is tapped. The display changes to the new object.
A tap on the label indicating the number in the sequence will cause a red delete button to appear and a tap on that will delete that particular object from the sequence.
With both the deletion and addition operations sequence numbers are reassigned to all the objects in the sequence after the deleted or added object.
It is not possible to delete the object with number zero, nor is it possible to add an object before that object.
Abbreviations
The various displays are formatted to fit on a four inch screen. To achieve this various headings and labels are abbreviated. The meaning of the abbreviations are:
Ax. load error Axial load error – The error in the result axial load value.
Bending mom. Bending moment.
Cur. Dev. Curvature deviation.
Cur. Deviation Curvature deviation.
Cur. other ax. Curvature other axis– The component of the curvature about the other axis.
Cur. ref. ax. Curvature reference axis– The component of the curvature about the reference axis.
Mom. error Moment error – The error in the result bending moment value.
Mom. magnitude Moment magnitude – The magnitude of the bending moment.
Mom. orientation Moment orientation – The orientation of the axis of the bending moment.
Mom. other ax. Moment other axis – The component of the bending moment about the other axis.
Mom. ref. ax. Moment reference axis – The component of the bending moment about the reference axis.
Other ax. cur. Other axis curvature – The component of the curvature about the other axis.
Ref. angle Reference axis angle
Ref. ax. cur. Reference axis curvature – The component of the curvature about the reference axis.
Ref. X Reference axes origin X value
The hardware “back key” (Android phone only)
Android phone devices have a key below the bottom right corner of the display outside of the display known as the “back key”. The function of this key varies from device to device. However with some devices such as the Samsung Galaxy it has a standard behavior with this application. That behavior is described as follows. It is referred to as the “hardware back key” to avoid confusion with the virtual keys and buttons on the display. :
The affect of this key is:
- If the tab item buttons “F”, “M”, “C”, “L” and “T” are visible and no virtual keyboard is visible –
a tap on the hardware back key will close the application. Note that the current job is not automatically saved. The user can use the “Save” or “Save as” buttons on the “F” tab before tapping the hardware back key.
- If the virtual keyboard for names is visible –
a tap on the hardware back key has the same affect as the “Ok” button adjacent to the name input.
- If the tab item buttons “F”, “M”, “C”, “L” and “T” are not visible –
A tap on the hardware back key will cause a change to a display where those tab item buttons are visible.
Tap and hold of the hardware back key has the same affect as a tap; the affect not happening until the key is released.