This section applies to changing the appearance and information on objects other than military units.
Once you've opened the window to change other objects' settings, you should see somthing similar to that below:
Note however that if it is a line or arrow that you are changing, then the section on fill colour etc. will not be shown as it does not apply.
The upper section allows you, if required, to specify a label for this object. Initially the tick box marked 'show a label for this object' is unticked and no label will be shown. if you place a tick in this box, it makes the other fields available for you to specify the label text to use, along with the position for the label, whether to show a pointer from the label to the object and the font abd colour for the label. For more information on setting these item, see 'Formatting labels for objects'.
The lower section of the window is where you choose the appearance of the object. There are essentially three main things to specify, the object's outline or border, the object's inside or fill colour and it's shadow or 3D effect.
The outline of an object is a line going right round the edge of an object. It can have a colour, a style and a width. If you pit a tick in the box marked 'Object has an outline', a line of the specified width in the specified colour will be drawn around the edge in the specified style. You can also request the object to be 'closed' (see below).
The colour of the outline is chosen by clicking on the button marked 'Click to change colour'. See 'Choosing a colour' for more details on this.
The styles can be simple, line 'solid', 'dashed', 'dotted', etc or more complex such as zig-zag, crosses or railway lines etc. Choose the most appropriate style for the object in question by clicking on the 'Change style' button. It can be changed at any time. See 'Changing line styles' for more information.
The width of the outline is in pixels. This means simply that a width of 1 is a narrow, sharp line while a width of 10 makes it much larger. Choose the width most appropriate to this object. For the more complex line styles, the width is that of the whole pattern.
The last tick box indicates whether the object should be automatically completed, or closed. This only applies to certain types of object, e.g. polygons or freehand shapes. It means that as you construct the object you choose it's shape, bit by bit but a closed shape will always have a line from the last specified point back to the first one. Leaving no tick in this box gives you an object which finishes precisely at the last point specified. See 'Adding other objects' for more information on this.
If an object has a fill colour specified, it makes it opaque (i.e. whatever is behind it, cannot be seen through it) where as if it is not filled with colour, the background cann be seen through it. However, if you have a fill colour for an object you can choose how transparent it is.
The colour of the inside of the shape is chosen by clicking on the button marked 'Change colour'. See 'Choosing a colour' for more details on this. Also, by sliding the marker headed 'How transparent should it be?' between the values 0 (for completely opaque) to 100 (completely transparent) you can choose how much of the background to show through.
Another option is to fill the object with a pattern. This can be selected by pressing the 'Change pattern' button and will draw the selected repeating pattern inside the bounds of the drawn object. The pattern can be simple line shading, or more complex patterns representing trees (for a wood or forest), marsh or water. See 'Choosing fill patterns' for more information.
If an object has a fill pattern, a fill colour and an outline, the fill colour is drawn first, with the pattern over the top of it and finally the outline bordering the whole.
A 'drop shadow' is a dark shadow dropping away from the object to it's lower right side. It gives the object an impression of height, or leaping out of the page and can look very effective. Choosing 'yes' for the question marked 'Should this object have a drop shadow...' gives it this effect.
Where it asks 'how big?' the default size for the shadow is 5 (a size that gives a good effect). Increasing this value gives the object a larger shadow and hence makes the object look 'taller'. Conversely a smaller number makes it look 'shorter'. Choose the figure which suits the map you are creating.
Clicking 'OK' will save these details, clicking 'cancel' returns the details to the state they were in before opening this window.
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