# Text Link

- Object

Link text messages to other objects.

### Hierarchy

Text messages can be linked to objects above or below, in the Gamgi hierarchy. Pressing the button Below (the default), the Objects menu shows the only class of objects that can be owned by texts: Text itself. Pressing the button Above, the same menu shows the classes of objects that can own texts: Layer (the default), Assembly, Cell, Cluster, Molecule, Group, Plane, Direction, Atom, Orbital and Text. Texts can own other texts (they are recursive objects), so they can be linked above or below to other texts.

### Object

Gamgi expects users to identify first the text or list of texts and then the object to link. When the Text entry is active and empty, clicking the mouse over a text, on the current layer (local selection), its identification is transported to the Text entry. Gamgi is now expecting users to click on a object of the class currently selected in the Object menu. This object can be in a different layer or even in a different window (global selection).

To select a visible object in a different layer, in the same window, just press the mouse over the object, as if it was in the current layer. To select objects without visual representation, as layers and lights, press the mouse over the graphic area in the window, to create a menu with all the objects of that class in the window, which can then be selected. To select an object in a different window, with the mouse, use exactly the same procedure, in that window.

### Method

Gamgi suppports only one type of linking mode for Text: Object.

The Object method links a text to a single Object. When the Hierarchy is Above, the text is unlinked from its current parent and linked to the object. When the Hierarchy is Below, the object is unlinked from its current parent and linked to the text.

When the new child previously owned the new parent (a situation made possible because texts can own other texts), the new parent is first linked to the new child parent. An error is issued when the parent already owned the child object.

After the linking operation, Gamgi always puts on top the window and layer containing the linked objects.
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