GeoGebra 4.2 Sneak Peek 1: The GeoGebra Window

The GeoGebra 4.2 will be released very soon, so here is another Sneak Peek Series about the new version. In GeoGebra 4.2 Sneak Peek Series, we are going to “take a peek” at the changes made and the new features of GeoGebra.  In this post, we examine the changes of GeoGebra’s Graphical User Interface (GUI), particularly the GeoGebra window as shown in the first figure.

In the figure above, the smaller window is GeoGebra 4.0  and the  larger window is GeoGebra 4.2. Release Candidate. The first thing that you will notice in GeoGebra 4.2 Beta is that the Perspectives menu on the Menu bar was transferred to the Sidebar on the right side of the Graphics view.  This menu can be shown or hidden using the arrow on its center-right of the Sidebar.

GeoGebra 4.2 Beta has also three new tools, the Complex Number, The Create List, and the Freehand Shape.   The first two tools were in GeoGebra 4.0. Beta, but was  never included in GeoGebra 4.0.

My favorite among the three tools is the Freehand Shape tool. The Freehand tool can be used to sketch a line, a circle, a polygon, or a function — and GeoGebra will convert the sketch into the exact shape. Sketchometry, a new geometry tool I shared in June,  has the same drawing tool.

The Create List tool on the other hand enables users to create lists of mathematical objects such as numbers and polygons. The Complex Number tool as we have learned in the GeoGebra 4.0 Sneak Peek Series creates a point with coordinates (a,bi).

The new Object Properties drop-down button at the upper-right of the GeoGebra window saves users one click by displaying the tabs in the Object Properties window as list. This gives users immediate access to the Objects, Graphics, Layout and Advanced tabs.

The Beta versions of a software is its second state. In general, most features of the Beta version is included in the new version. But since, the version is not yet released, it is reasonable to expect a few changes until it is released.