Drawing Lines Using Defaults

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All FX Draw objects have default settings that you can use to make drawing standard objects easy. For example, when drawing graphs, you can set a default font size on the axes. When drawing rounded rectangles, you can set a default radius for the corners. Defaults save you time and all objects use their defaults when you first create them.

 

Lines have defaults that can be set and setting defaults for lines can be extremely useful. For example, if you are drawing network diagrams, you can set the default line to be something like this.

 

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Video - Drawing Networks Using Default Lines

 

To set the default, draw a line and right click on it. Set the ends to open circles and press Set As Default

 

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FX Draw also offers a number of pre-set default lines that you can use to make this process simpler and quicker. Simply select one of the pre-sets from the list and the current default line is automatically set for you.

 

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Now every line I draw will have open circles at each end and drawing network diagrams will be simple - at least that is how every OTHER FX Draw object works.

 

Lines are different.

 

Lines don't use their defaults unless you specifically tell them to.

 

Video - Line Tool Defaults

 

The reason for this is that much of the time, you will not want to use the line defaults, you will just want to draw simple lines. Always using the defaults just gets in the way.

 

To work around this problem, using defaults for lines is toggled by the user. To use defaults, select Use Defaults (D) from the line tools.

 

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Any lines drawn now will use the current defaults. You can turn this off by repeating the process. Alternatively, you can turn line defaults on and off at any time using the D key.