Settings in the attribute panel are applied when creating new objects. It is also possible to modify attributes of existing objects using UPDATE or EDIT.
The first three buttons do not control object attributes but are placed
here for convenience:
Zoom (magnify) figure in canvas
Grids
These are the attribute buttons:
Object depths
Colors and patterns
Width and shape of lines
Font, size, and other attributes of TEXT objects
Arrows
Corner radius of ARC-BOX objects
Shape of ARC objects
Number of sides of REGULAR POLYGON
Number of copies to be created
Angle of rotation
Restriction of the angle of lines
Smart Links
Alignment of objects
Normally, only the attribute buttons which are significant to the selected mode are placed on the attribute panel. When it is not possible to display all the attribute buttons at once, a scrollbar will be added to the attribute panel.
These settings may be changed by clicking those attribute buttons. Each mouse button has the following function:
In UPDATE mode, a small toggle button appears in the upper-right corner of each attribute button. This controls whether the particular attribute should be applied when using the UPDATE mode. Also, an Update Control Button will be placed at the left of the attribute panel.
Clicking this button with mouse button 1 will popup a panel to enter new value of zoom scale from keyboard. Clicking this button with mouse button 2 or mouse button 3 will decrease or increase the zoom scale by 1 respectively (by 0.1 if zoom scale is less than 1.0 and 0.01 if the zoom is less than 0.1).
Zooming of the canvas may also be performed by specifying the rectangle to be zoomed on the canvas (`area zoom'). To do this, specify the rectangle to be zoomed by clicking mouse button 1 (`zoom area') while pressing CONTROL key and specify one corner of the rectangle, and then clicking mouse button 1 (`final point') again at the opposite corner of the rectangle. It is also possible to set zoom scale to 1 by clicking mouse button 3 (`unzoom') while pressing CONTROL key on the canvas.
To force the area-zoom to zoom using integer values check the box in the zoom popup panel that says Integer zoom.
To zoom the figure so that it just fills the canvas, press the Fit to canvas button. Integer zoom is ignored if the zoom needed to fit the figure on the canvas is less than 1.0.
See also Zooming.
The Depth is used to decide which object should be hidden when objects overlap. The object with larger depth will be hidden by object with smaller depth. Depth is an integer value of the range 0 to 999.
If objects with the same depth overlap, it is unknown which object will be hidden, and the display on the screen may be different from a printout or export.
Normally, all depths are displayed on the canvas, but the user may control which depths are displayed and editable. See the Depth Panel section.
If the depth of a compound object is changed with UPDATE, the relative depths of the objects contained will be maintained. For example, consider a compound object containing three objects at depths 3, 8, and 11 respectively. If the depth of the compound is changed to 2, then the objects contained will have depths of 2, 7, and 10 respectively.
The size of the grid may be selected from 1/8inch, 1/4inch, 1/2inch and 1inch if unit is set to Imperial (inches), and from 2mm, 5mm, 10mm and 20mm if unit is set to Metric.
This grid will not restrict positioning of objects. If you want to set a restriction of positioning of objects, use POINT POSITION.
The size of the virtual grid may be selected from 1/16inch, 1/8inch, 1/4inch, 1/2inch and 1inch if unit is set to Imperial (inches), and from 1mm, 2mm, 5mm, 10mm and 20mm if unit is set to Metric.
This will also restrict which objects may be `picked up' when editing. If an object is not on the virtual grid specified here, the object can't picked up.
This virtual grid will not displayed on the canvas. The visible grid can be set by GRID MODE.
The angle of TEXT or ELLIPSE objets may also be set by TEXT / ELLIPSE ANGLE.
Note that some objects may only be rotated by 90 degrees (e.g. BOX)
Clicking this button with mouse button 2 or mouse button 3 will decrease or increase angle by 15 degrees respectively. Clicking this button with mouse button 1 will popup a panel to enter the angle.
To rotate exisiting objects, use ROTATE. See also ROTATION ANGLE.
The number of copies to be made with ARRAY PLACEMENT should be set with NUMBER OF X COPIES and NUMBER OF Y COPIES.
The number of copies to be made with COPY & ROTATE should be set with NUMBER OF COPIES.
Lines which touch objects such as circles or ellipses are not treated as links. If you want to use smart-link facility for such lines, make the object into a COMPOUND object.
Clicking this button with mouse button 1 will popup the Colors Panel.
The color to fill the region inside object is set by FILL COLOR and FILL STYLE. If you want to fill the region without drawing the outline of the object, set LINE WIDTH to zero.
Clicking this button with mouse button 1 will popup the Colors Panel.
The color to draw the outline of object is set by PEN COLOR. The FILL COLOR is only effective when the FILL STYLE is set to other than None. If you don't want to fill the region inside objects, set the FILL STYLE to None.
Clicking this button with mouse button 1 will popup this panel:
If this is set to zero, the outline of objects will not be drawn. The area fill will still be used if area fill is enabled by FILL STYLE.
Clicking this button with mouse button 1 will popup this panel:
The shape of the end points of lines will set by CAP STYLE.
This setting also affects the shape of dashes or dots of dashed-lines or dotted-lines. The shape of the join point (vertex) of lines is set by JOIN STYLE.
The shape of the arrow head may be set by ARROW TYPE and the size by ARROW SIZE. It is also possible to add (or remove) arrow heads to existing objects using ADD / DELETE ARROW.
Clicking this button with mouse button 1 will popup this panel:
The Thickness controls the thickness of the line forming the arrow head.
The Width controls the width at the back of the arrow head.
The Height controls the length or height of the arrow head.
All these units are the same as for LINE WIDTH. This is a change from previous versions of xfig, where the width and height were in Fig units (1/1200 inch).
Clicking this button with mouse button 1 will popup the Font Panel to select the font.
Clicking this button with mouse button 2 or mouse button 3 will switch which flag's state should be displayed on the button.
Clicking this button with mouse button 1 will popup this panel:
If the Hidden flag is set ON, the string `<<>>' is displayed on the canvas instead of the text itself. The text will output as usual when Printing or Exporting. This is useful to avoid text with long sequences of LaTeX commands which makes the display hard to read.
If the Rigid flag is ON, the size of the font of the TEXT object will not be changed when a COMPOUND object which includes the TEXT object is scaled.
If the Special flag is ON, special characters (such as `\', for example) in text will not be specially processed but passed to the output `as is' when Exporting. This may be used to put LaTeX commands in text. The use of LaTeX commands is especially helpful to put complex mathematical formulas in the figure, for example. If the Special flag is OFF, the text will be processed before output.
If two or three of the buttons above the red, green and blue sliders are checked (the figure shows the red and green locked), those sliders will be `locked' together, so that moving the Lock slider will move those sliders together.
There are two Font Panels; one for PostScript fonts and one for LaTeX fonts.
Clicking a font button (the labels of the buttons are drawn using the font) will select that font. Clicking the Use LaTeX Fonts button will switch to the panel for LaTeX fonts, and clicking Use PostScript Fonts button will switch to the panel for PostScript fonts.
It is not guaranteed that all fonts in the panel of PostScript fonts are available on all PostScript printers. Also, different fonts may be used on the screen. This is dependent on which fonts the X server has. But at least Times-Roman, Times-Italic, Times-Bold, Times-BoldItalic, Courier, Courier-Oblique, Courier-Bold, Courier-BoldOblique, Helvetica, Helvetica-Oblique, Helvetica-Bold, and Helvetica-BoldOblique will be available in most environments.
In international-xfig, ``Times-Roman'' and ``Times-Bold'' will be replaced with
in the Japanese environment, and
in the Korean environment. It is possible to put Japanese or Korean in text when these fonts are selected. See Internationalization about this.