Graphic Styles

Graphic styles are a defined group of settings that can be applied to branches and graphics to change the way they look. This can include things like line colors and line styles, fonts, and fill colors. You can select any branch and change the way it looks and save this as a style, and apply that style to any other set of selected branches.

Graphic styles allow you to set the background image, background color, branch coloring, layout mode, outline numbering and various other settings with a single action.

NovaMind comes with a number of graphic styles built in, but you can edit these, and create your own styles. Each graphic style may set some or all of the attributes mentioned above - these settings are defined when the style is created.

To apply a Graphic Style

Select the branches and graphics you want to alter, and either use the Graphic Style palette to select the style you want to use, or you can right-click the branch and select the style to apply from the context menu.

Note that if you want to apply a style to a boundary, you will need to click on the boundary to select it. You can still have other graphics in the selection by shift-clicking on them.

While you are editing a graphic style, you can click the gear icon at the bottom of the style editor and choose the option to apply your new settings to all the graphics and branches that already use that graphic style. This option is also available on the gear icon of the graphic style palette. This is a quick and easy way to change all the graphics that have had that style applied to them all at once.

The Default Graphic Style

You can choose a graphic style to be the default - this style is used when you add new branches and graphics. To set the default style, either choose it in the graphic styles editor and click on the gear icon and select to use that as the default, or you can set the style of a graphic to the default style and then use the gear icon to the right side of the graphic styles palette to select the option to make that the default.

To create a Graphic Style

To create a new blank style, and edit it:

Scroll down to the bottom of the list of map styles in the style selector palette and choose the Edit Styles menu option. A panel like this will be shown:

Use the + button to add a new graphic style, then edit the name of the style in the table view on the left. Now you can adjust the settings to suit your needs. Each of the main sections has a checkbox to indicate whether your style will store settings for that aspect (e.g. corner settings). If you check the checkbox in a section, then all the settings for that section will be applied when you apply the style.

To take your current settings and save them as a reusable style:

In the style selector palette, click on the gear icon, and choose the "Save as new style" option, and give your new style a name. Make sure you go into the style editor and check the graphic and branch settings sections that you want to have applied when you use that style.

To use an existing style as a starting point for a new style:

Scroll down to the bottom of the list of graphic styles and choose the Edit Styles menu option. In the Graphic Styles Editor, select the style you want to use as a starting point, and then click on the gear icon at the bottom of the window, and choose the option to duplicate the style. Edit the name of the style copy and alter the settings to suit.

To delete a Graphic Style

Scroll down to the bottom of the list of map styles in the style selector palette and choose the Edit Styles menu option. Click on the style you want to delete in the left side of the panel, and click on the "-" icon at the bottom to remove it.