Diagram Options Dialog: Boxes Tab
Box Features Dialog
This dialog box is opened by clicking in the Boxes tab of the Diagram Options Dialog. The
purpose of the dialog in this case, is to allow you to associate some
features with a particular condition.
The appearance of this dialog varies slightly if the features you are viewing are the 'Default Features' associated with the Default condition. With the Default condition only, there is no option to not tick Box Fill, Box Line, Box Shape or Effect.
With all other conditions, you choose which features are to be affected by the condition, and in what way. For example suppose your condition is the male sex condition. Let us say that you tick the Box Fill box, and then choose 'None' to indicate that you want the box to be transparent (no background). This means that male sex boxes will have a transparent background (unless this condition is overridden by another condition with higher priority). This is not the same as simply not ticking the Box Fill box. If you had done that, this would have meant that the box background is not to be determined by whether or not the box owner is male; it is to be determined by some other condition (the Default condition if none other).
This dialog is similar to the Override Box Features Dialog which is used to manually override any aspect of the appearance of one or more selected boxes in a diagram.
Fields
| Box Fill | Background colour of boxes. Chooose 'Solid' or 'None'. If solid, click on the colour button to specify the colour. Choose 'None' if you want the boxes to have no background (be transparent). |
|---|---|
| Box Line | This affects the frame of boxes (only). Specify the line thickness, its colour and solidity. |
| Box Shape | Choose between 5 different box shapes, or select <no box>
if you do not wish to have a box around text at all.
All box shapes except Rectangle and <no box> cut into the corner in some way. You can control the extent to which they do this by specifying the Corner Size. By increasing the Corner Size, for example, you can make a box with Rounded Corners appear oval. Where a box shape cuts into the corner of the box, any text in the box corners may overlap the cut off section of the corner to some extent, and hence itself be partially cut off. You can prevent this either by adjusting the Text Margins (see the Text Tab of the Diagram Options Dialog) or by specifying a Text Indent here. "Text Indent (sides)" specifies whether text area should be indented at the sides of the box, and if so by how much (the full amount of the corner size, or by half that amount). "Text Indent (t/b)" specifies the equivalent indentation at the top and bottom of the box. With all box shapes, a sides and top/bottom indent of 'Half Corner' is enough on its own to prevent text from actually overlapping the cut off section of the corner (although with Text Margins of zero it might just touch the corner edge). Text Margins are applied at the current text indent. |
| Text Colour | If you choose to specify a text colour as a box feature, be aware that whether or not this has any effect depends on the text scheme you use. You can specify for each item in a text scheme, whether or not the colour of the item text can be overridden as a box feature. Any item where the current scheme does not have Allow Colour Override ticked, will not be affected. See the discussion of fonts in Create Simple Text Scheme for more on this. |
| Effect |
Choose between a variety of effects to add to the appearance of boxes; or choose <no effect> if you don't want any. If you choose a 'Glow' effect ('Glow (standard)' or 'Glow (fast)'), you can specify both the size and colour of the glow around each box, and how diffuse you want it to be. A diffuse value of 10 means very diffuse, a value of 1 means not very diffuse at all - i.e. highly concentrated. The 'Glow (fast)' option offers a less sophisticated glow effect than 'Glow (standard)', but with faster performance. A normal size value for a glow effect is very small (e.g. 0.016" or 0.04 cms). You can specify any size for a glow effect, but beyond a certain size (0.2" or 0.5 cms approximately) there will be no further discernible increase in the apparent size of the glow. If you choose one of the various shadow options, you can also choose the size and colour of the shadow, and how opaque you want the shadow to be. An opacity value of 100% means that the shadow is completely opaque. A value of 50% means that it is partially transparent. A value of 0% means that it is fully transparent - i.e. invisible. The normal position for a shadow is bottom-right. As well as choosing all the other corners, you can also choose "top and bottom", "left and right", and "all around". The visual effect of these last 3 options is not really that of a shadow, but it can be used anyway as a way to emphasize particular boxes. Tip: A glow effect can be most effective when it is very subtle and apparently barely noticeable. A size of 0.016" (0.041 cm) with a diffuse value of 5, is enough to give each box a very slight visual lift without being at all distracting. It may seem that at this level, there is no glow at all. However, even at this level, if you switch it off, you should be able to see the difference it makes. |
| Icon |
Catalogues for hotels, or bed-and-breakfast accommodation, sometimes use little icons to show what features are included with the room. For example, a little TV icon might be used to show that the room has a TV. You can use similar icons with boxes in Family Historian diagrams. For example, you might have a ‘Work-in- Progress’ Record Flag that you set for records that you are currently working on. You could specify that you wished to show a ‘Men at Work’ icon below boxes where this record flag is set. Or you could have a record flag for sailors and use a ship icon to mark them in diagrams. Click the button to choose from a number of pre-installed icons using the Diagram Box Icons Dialog. It is possible to create and use your own custom icons if you wish. See Diagram Box Icons Dialog or more information When you select a custom icon that is in bitmap (BMP) format, a field appears, Size, that allows you to specify the dots-per-inch value to use for bitmap images (this is not needed or possible for pre-installed icons). When you increase the number of dots per inch, you effectively make the icon appear smaller when displayed in a diagram. Conversely, if you reduce the dpi the icons will get bigger, The default is 250 dpi. The minimum size value is 50 dpi. BMP is, in any case, a deprecated format. You are recommended to use SVG for all custom icons where possible. |