Invoking the Context Menu for Graphical Elements

Many operations on graphical elements, including changing their internal properties, saving elements as images, modifying the stacking order of the elements, and deleting the elements, are performed through the context menu. The context menu appears when the mouse pointer is placed over the graphical element and one of the secondary mouse buttons is clicked. When the mouse pointer moves over a graphical element, it will change from the usual wide cross cursor to a right pointing arrow cursor. Clicking with the primary mouse button will select the graphical element but clicking with one of the other mouse buttons will open the context menu. The specific button that will trigger this menu depends on the specific hardware and configuration of the computer. By default it is usually the rightmost mouse button.

Figure 9-3 The context menu for graphical elements.

The context menu for graph elements is the most complete. It includes an entry to modify the internal properties of the graph, an entry to save the graph as an image, four entries to reorder the stacking of the graph in front or behind other graphs and one entry to delete the graph.

The context menu for graphical elements contains a sub-menu labelled Order which allows the user to change the presentation order for overlapping graphical objects.

Figure 9-4 The order submenu of graphical element context menus.

The order submenu of the context menu for graph elements allows the user to change the stacking order for the various graphs on the worksheet. This will affect which objects are visible in front of other objects when several objects overlap.