GeoGebra Geometry

I’m going through Schaum’s Outline of Geometry, working many of the exercises. A great (to me) theorem I came across says that for any triangle, the medians (midpoint-to-vertex) will all intersect and will be partitioned by that intersection into 2 segments, and those segments will have a 2:1 length ratio. I found that disturbing and fascinating and wanted to “prove it,” which I eventually did using just two medians, making a midpoint-to-midpoint line segment, and then considering (what else?) similar triangles. But then I wanted to see it on a computer program (and using BASIC to make graphics is disgustingly no longer a viable option in this day and age), and I tried Desmos but that was brutal (you have to come up with 6 line segment equations for each triangle). So I looked at geometry apps, found this one, and voila! It was great! I can make as many examples as I want, and it will measure angles and lengths and show everything I want to show.

First - if you are interested by and want to not just learn, but really understand geometry then this app is for you. As a curious individual - I learn by experimenting and proving to myself things… and this helps by converting the drawings in to algebra and vice versa. Everyone seems to complain about ‘saving’ files. There is an export button - you export the file and in the iOS share sheet - save it to some cloud store - I use iCloud. Then open from iCloud by tapping the file and then, again, via the share sheet, selecting the app. Piece of cake.

For a few years now, I've been doing visual coding in the P5.js and Processing environments. Just as a hobby, really. I'm very particular about the visuals, and I sometimes want to draw a complex geometrical shape. Normally, this would mean switching out the numbers until it looked just right, but I started using Geogebra Geometry to sketch them out and it's been working a charm! I only recently discovered how it doubles as a graphing calculator, too. The only improvement I would make is a small interaction tweak: when "snap to grid" is turned on, I really expected it to be more..."magnetic"? Fix to grid works, but if you want to use snapping, you need steady hands. It's not very accessible feeling.

First off, Geogebra is an awesome system and the Geometry engine is a masterpiece. It’s smooth and useful for all sorts of purposes, such as understanding geometry proofs, definitions of conic sections, or just playing around. But! The iOS version is useless for anything other than quick and dirty sketches because *you still can’t reliably save your work even after all these years*. Sure, if you look online, after extensive searching you will find various people explaining workarounds for how you can supposedly save your work, but you will find just as many people complaining that it doesn’t work right. It didn’t work for me: I used the “share” menu, exported it to files, and ended up with a .ggb file… but then when I went through the ridiculous workaround to open it, the file was corrupted and didn’t even remotely contain what I started with. In the support forums I see years of people complaining about this inability to save files. It’s kind of ridiculous. I encourage the developers to either support iOS or not… but don’t make a frustratingly incomplete app.

I looked quite a few iPad programs to find something similar to the original Geometer’s SketchPad. This was the best I could find. Thanks you so much for developing this!

I had high hopes for this iPad app because the PC version is the most accurate of any geometry program I’ve used. I’ve been trying to use CAD apps to create complex geometries due to them having basic features like SAVE & LAYERS that this app doesn’t have, but quite a few of the iPad CAD apps don’t actually attach lines and segments to the points like the PC versions. *looking at you AutoCAD* You don’t realize this until you export the file and zoom in to review it on a PC. Unfortunately, I can only create temporary, not-very-complex constructions in Geogebra because there’s no option to save my work! I can export an image, but there’s no way to save it to come back to add on to or finish later. Each time I open the app, my previous work has disappeared and I have to start all over. PLEASE ADD THE OPTION TO SAVE OUR WORK. I also like to compare geometries between different constructions to find possible shared lines, intersections, points, etc. Why are we not able to create geometry in layers so that base layers could be locked and new layers constructed over the top of them? OR at the very least, make it so that previous color/thickness/shape applies to each new point/segment/line until the attributes are changed the next time so we can change the colors as we go progress to a new “imaginary” layer w/o having to change the attributes of each point/segment individually. The option of actual layers would be preferable, especially if we could set color/size/thickness attributes for each layer, leave the base layer and delete upper layers, make layers visible/hidden during demonstrations and/or for teaching purposes, etc. Of course, layers won’t matter at all if we can’t save our work within the app to add or work on layers at a later time. Many of the other geometry app have these options, but not the algebra that goes with it. Just for the sake of being able to save projects to come back to later, at this point I’d rather use other apps and do without the added math. This could could be the greatest geometry app ever if you could give us just a few more options.

I’m very salty about how this app works. It’s too confusing for my brain and makes me hurt inside

Completely unstable. Will randomly crash on you for no apparent reason, making you lose all your work and force you to start from scratch

So I think this is a great app in many ways. It is much easier to criticize then to create. That said I believe the user experience of this app needs a little push in the friendly direction. In many ways this app succeeds where other geometry apps fail. It has a more fluid feel than some other apps of its kind. I love the in app icons, which are clear and easy to read! Some suggestions. *When deleting points and lines, it tends to delete in groups. I assume this has to do with the math behind the surface of the program. From the users experience this very frustrating. *I would like to see, two finger tool rejection when panning and zooming. It’s impossible to create segments that are far apart or when two points are close together, without the ability to zoom and pan. *Deselect tool (arrow) should be part of the main screen and not at the bottom of the screen in the tool pallet. More front and center. *Other ways to create angles. A copy and move segment would be helpful. I am finding it difficult to create an angle in the right orientation sometimes (parallel and perpendicular tools works great but sometimes i want to adjust more freely). I like the angle tool but sometimes I don’t have a line to build off of and I need to create one blind and in the right orientation. *Building on that idea. creating an angle by its bisector might helpful. *Adjust a preexisting angle possibly by clicking on the angle on the screen. angles are hard to select on screen. *Move a line or constrained point. The move tool only works for unconstrained points as far as I know. *Help banner when selecting tools might show a quick help snippet. Possible clarifying the tool without opening the help section. *Building a tool set would allow you to choose your favorite tools without the need to shuffle through the very long wonderful list of choices. I like the idea of creating a narrow toolbar set on the side which would take up less space on the screen. *Finally, I believe files are not automatically saved to a destination in the cloud. I don’t believe the app has a stored folder there. I learned this when the file I was working on crashed and I lost the file. In conclusion. Is this app designed mainly for mathematicians or can it be used more broadly. Are artists like me considered too.

I’m just trying to draw about 20 lines on the graph paper and get some angles and measurements. It crashed on me like 4 times after 10 minutes and I keep losing the work. Kinda surprised, I’ve never had anything crash on an apple device before. iPad Pro.