Display Menu


Indicate the Display item or press <f5>.

Grid ..

You can set a grid. This grid will help to position objects accurately and allow the use of Snap to Grid.

When you select this item, a menu will appear :

  1. ESC : to leave the menu, and remove the grid if there was any.
  2. OK : draw the grid with the chosen parameters.
  3. X-offset : type or edit the x-offset. If it is zero, the grid will start at the origin of the page.
  4. Y-offset : edit or type the y-offset. If it is zero, the grid will start at the origin of the page.
  5. X-spacing : edit or type the x-spacing. After editing the y-spacing will be given the same value. We assume most people want to use square spaced grids.
  6. Y-spacing : edit or type the y-spacing. To make a rectangularly spaced grid, first set the x-spacing, then the y-spacing.

Preview Mode

When this item is selected, everything in the window will be fully displayed on the screen as close to the printed version as the screen resolution will allow. This means that all objects will be drawn with their linewidth, in their gray shade and possibly filled. This can be useful as a preview. However, it does slow down the drawing. Bitmaps are still not displayed as this would be unbearably slow (so they are displayed as a filled rectangle). Some objects may become invisible if they are drawn in white and the background has (almost) the same colour. Especially as there are only a few distinct gray shades on screen.

Fit to Screen

This command can have have two distinct actions depending upon whether an object (or group of objects) has been selected in edit mode or not.

Edit Mode

The page will be scaled and moved in such a way to make sure the current object is completely visible, as large as possible. However, the object will not be bigger then when using the Zoom in item.

Not in Edit Mode

The page will be scaled and moved in such a way to make sure all objects are completely visible, as large as possible.

Fit Page to Screen

This command makes sure that the entire page is visible in the edit window. This returns the edit window to the same state as when LINEdesign is just started.

Unit

This command allows you to choose the unit which should be used for the current position, the information on screen (for relative move etc.), for the Translate menu option and in the Grid menu. The line thickness, fontsize and leading are always expressed in points.

The menu gives you the option to choose between points (pt), millimeters (mm), centimeters (cm) or inches (in).

The current unit is always displayed on the menu next to the current position.

Show bitmaps

You can choose whether bitmapped objects have to be rendered on screen. When this item is not indicated, bitmaps will be displayed as a rectangle (filled when in preview mode). When bitmaps are not too big and not rotated or slanted, they are rendered quick enough to use this option. Otherwise, redrawing the screen can be slowed down quite a lot.

Preview when transforming

When this item is indicated, and you are interactively transforming an object, the a preview of the transformed object will be displayed when the pointer doesn't move for an instance. As this can be very annoying when trying to move complex objects which take a while to draw, you can also disable this.

Use intersection for lasso select

There are two possibilities for the method that LINEdesign uses to determine which abjects are being selected using lasso select.

  1. When this item is not indicated, then all the objects for which the bounding box falls completely indside the lasso rectangle will be selected.
  2. If the item is selected, then all the objects which have a bounding box which intersects the lasso rectangle will be selected. Note that this also includes objects which completely surround the lasso rectangle.

PROGS, Professional & Graphical Software
last edited February 28, 1997