These are the Lua methods provided by the Ipe program itself. They are only available to Lua code running inside Ipe.

Application user interface

The application user interface object provides the GUI for the Ipe program.

-- model is a Lua table containing methods that will be called 
-- by the ui when events occur
ui = AppUi(model)

-- returns window id of window
-- (to be used as parent for dialogs)
id = ui:win()

ui:close()         -- close window

ui:setActionState(name, t) -- set whether action is checked 
t = ui:actionState(name)   -- is action checked?
-- return info about action: id, and whether it's always on 
id, alwaysOn = actionInfo(name)       

ui:explain(text)     -- show message in status bar for a few seconds
ui:setWindowTitle(caption)

-- make a tool visible or invisible
-- tool is one of "layers", "properties", "bookmarks", "notes"
-- t is true or false
ui:showTool(tool, t)

ui:setNotes(n)       -- set string for Notes tool


-- set contents of attribute selectors from style sheet
ui:setupSymbolicNames(styleSheet)

-- set attribute values displayed in user interface
-- 'attributes' table see below
ui:setAttributes(styleSheet, attributes)

-- set layer list from page
ui:setLayers(page, view)  

ui:setNumbers(?)
ui:setBookmarks(?)

-- page/view selector tool:
-- select one page and return page number (or nil if canceled)
pno = ui:selectPage(doc) 
-- select one view and return view number (or nil if canceled)
vno = ui:selectPage(doc, page_no)

ui:pageSorter(?)

ui:setClipboard(text)     -- store text on system clipboard
-- get text or bitmap property from system clipboard
-- if t is false, only text is retrieved
-- returns either a string or an image object.
obj = ipeui.clipboard(t)

The following methods work on the canvas inside the UI:

ui:setPage(page, pgno, view, styleSheet) -- set page shown on canvas
ui:setSnap(snap)                    -- for 'snap' table see below
ui:setFontPool(p)       -- an opaque object obtained from an ipe.Document

-- 'pan' is a vector indicating the user coordinates at canvas center
v = ui:pan()       
ui:setPan(v)

zoom = ui:zoom()        -- a number
ui:setZoom(zoom)

v = ui:pos()            -- current mouse position, after snapping
v = ui:unsnappedPos()   -- current mouse position, before snapping
v = ui:simpleSnapPos()  -- same, but ignoring angular snap
v = ui:globalPos()      -- mouse position on screen

v, dpi = ui:canvasSize()  -- size of canvas in pixels, monitor resolution

ui:setNumbering(t)      -- true or false
ui:setFifiVisible(t)    -- true or false
ui:setSelectionVisible(t) -- true or false
ui:setPretty(t)         -- true or false

-- setCursor only implemented on Qt.
-- Windows 8 switches to a dot cursor automatically when using the pen.
ui:setCursor(name)         -- name in "standard", "hand", "cross"
ui:setCursor(width, color) -- sets a colored dot cursor (on Qt)

ui:update()             -- update canvas and tool
ui:update(false)        -- update tool only
ui:finishTool()

ui:panTool()
ui:selectTool()
ui:transformTool()
ui:shapeTool()