Visual Thought User's Guide
[TOC] [Prev] [Next] [Index]

Chapter 15 Drag-and-Drop Palettes

Palettes are Visual Thought windows that contain predefined objects. You can use these objects over and over again in your diagrams. They are called drag-and-drop palettes because, to use them, you click on an object in the Palette window, drag it over to the View window and drop it. Once the object is in the View window, you can move it, resize it, edit it, etc.

Visual Thought comes with a set of predefined palettes. To open one or more of them, choose the OptionsPalettes... menu item.

For a complete list of
predefined Visual Thought
palettes, see the appendix
entitled "Predefined Palettes" on page 231.
Some, such as the Basic and the Arrow palettes, can be used for general drawing. Other palettes are more useful for specific applications, such as flowcharting, software design, and circuit and logic diagramming.
You can also create your own palettes and define and store your own objects in these palettes.

For an example of how to use palettes, see "Using Palettes in View Mode" on page 139.
Like Visual Thought Views, Palettes can be resized, moved, opened or closed. You can change the zoom factor for each palette (and save screen space) as well.
In View mode, Palettes are used exactly like Views. This feature allows you to leverage what you know about Views. Anything you can create or do in a View, you can create or do in a Palette in View mode.
You can drag-and-drop connected, grouped and ungrouped collections of objects. This is important when objects that are connected in certain ways have specific meaning. Connect 3 ovals with 3 connections, and put that on to a palette. You can now drag them as a group, even though they are not grouped.

Palette Modes

Saved Palettes automatically have a .vpalette extension appended if necessary.

To close or save palettes in this mode, use your window manager functions or switch to the View mode first, then close the palette as you would a View (e.g., Ctrl-W or FileClose).

Normally, closing a window with the window manager involves clicking on its title bar to bring up a list of possible actions. For example, to close a Palette in Solaris with the OpenWindows window manager, right-click on the Title bar of the Palette to pop up the window manager menu, then select the Quit menu item.

Example of Using a Palette in Palette Mode

To create an object using a Palette:

Objects that are being dragged sometimes change size as they are dragged in and out of Views and Palettes. That is because they are drawn at the zoom factor of the window they are dragged over.

Click on an object in the Palette, and, while holding the mouse button down, drag the object into the View window.
Release the mouse button. This is known as the drag-and-drop method of creating objects.

Using Palettes in View Mode

In View mode, Palettes behave exactly like Views. Palettes in this mode are designed to allow you to edit pre-defined objects as well as create and edit your own reusable objects. An example is presented below.

Example of Using a Palette in View Mode

You can create your own palette(s) that contain objects-such as your company logo-that you use repeatedly.

Choose FileNew Palette (Ctrl-Shift-N).
In the new palette, click on the Palette button to change to View mode.
Create the objects you wish in the Palette.
Click on the View button to change back to Palette mode. Your objects are now ready for drag-and-drop.

Examples of Two Specific Palettes

This section shows you how to use two different Palettes-the Arrows palette and the Attractors palette.

Arrows Palette

The Arrows palette contains a variety of lines with different arrowheads. To open the Arrows palette,

Choose OptionsPalettes... (Ctrl-Alt-P).
Open arrows.vpalette from the file chooser that pops up.

Drag-and-drop an arrow to your View window. You can resize, add text to, change color, and edit an arrow object in the same manner you can edit other objects.

Attractors Palette

Attractor shapes are unique objects. Unlike regular shapes from other Palettes, attractors allow connections to "snap" only to certain points on their perimeters.

Choose OptionsPalettes... (Ctrl-Alt-P).
Open attractors.vpalette.

Drag-and-drop the left-pointing triangle and the diamond from the Attractors palette into your View.
Use the Connection tool to make a connection between the triangle and the diamond.

.

Move the diamond shape around the View window. Notice how the connection snaps only to certain points on the perimeter of each object. Attractors can be very useful shapes in constructing particular kinds of diagrams.

Example of the Bus Attractor Shape

The Bus Attractor shape is a special attractor shape. It forces any connections to it to be perpendicular. This property is enforced even if the bus is rotated.

In the example below, the same shapes were attached to a Bus Attractor shape and a regular rectangle. Notice how connections behave differently. Also note that connections point to the center of the rectangle shape.

Visual Thought User's Guide
[TOC] [Prev] [Next] [Index]

webmaster@confluent.com

Chapter 15

Drag-and-Drop Palettes