Saving space (and trees) with exand

There is one more way we like to save space (and trees): The expand setting.

The expand setting (which is true by default) indicates that user wants pattern parts to be fully expanded.

It’s common to reduce the amount of space required by reducing simple shapes like rectangles to a description or cut things on the fold.

The exand setting gives the user control over this, at least insofar the designer supports it. It’s not relevant to our bib, but it’s good to know it’s there.

Here is an example snippets from Aaron’s arm binding:

const w = store.get('bindingWidth')
const l = store.get('armBindingLength')

if (expand) {
  store.flag.preset('expandIsOn')
} else {
  // Expand is off, do not draw the part but flag this to the user
  store.flag.note({
    msg: `aaron:cutArmBinding`,
    replace: {
      width: units(w),
      length: units(l),
    },
    suggest: {
      text: 'flag:show',
      icon: 'expand',
      update: {
        settings: ['expand', 1],
      },
    },
  })
  // Also hint about expand
  store.flag.preset('expand')

  return part.hide()
}

There’s some stuff going on here that we’ll learn next, but essentially if expand is falsy, the part will hide itself with part.hide() and so it won’t be included on the pattern.

However, to avoid misunderstandings we want to inform the user about this. That’s what all those store.flag lines are about. We’ll learn about then next.