TMG-L Archives

Archiver > TMG > 2005-04 > 1112408048


From: Robin Lamacraft <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] Having VCF Problem
Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2005 11:44:08 +0930
In-Reply-To: <200504012240.j31Mei9m010489@mail.rootsweb.com>


At 14:40 1/04/2005 -0800, Don Range wrote:
>I'm making a 4-generation VCF Ancestor Chart using TMG 5.15. The chart
>generates OK, but when I try to modify the colors of some of the boxes I'm
>running into a glitch. The problem is that some of the connector lines for
>siblings jump vertically up as I complete the adjustment of the box colors.
>The specific steps are:
>1) Select all the sibling boxes by using Ctrl-click on each box in turn.
>2) Group the selected boxes using menu Tools/Structure/Group. (There are
>sibling boxes in 3 of the 4 generations).
>3) Right click one of the boxes in the group and choose Detailed Properties.
>4) In the Components dialog box which appears, select Group and click
>Properties.
>5) Select the Line tab, change the color, click OK. The colors change and
>the Component dialog box returns, click OK.
>6) Click on the drawing to unselect the group of sibling boxes.
>
>At this point the problem happens. Three of the 4 sibling connector line
>structures jump up about the height of one box, so that the bottom box is no
>longer connected and the top sibling connector line connects to empty space.
>After doing a Select All and Ungroup, I'm unable to move the misplaced lines
>by dragging.
>
>A workaround is to select each sibling box one at a time and modify its
>color, but this greatly increases the amount of work to modify a set of
>boxes.
>
>Am I doing something wrong?

Don,

There several issues here.

Firstly, adding to or removing an item from a selection collection is done
with SHIFT+Left-click. Sometimes CTRL+left-click will appear to work but if
you happen to be on a line segment then it will add a control point or if
you are on a line control point that will remove it. Always use
SHIFT+left-click to toggle a selection status. (NOTE: only use this when
the mouse cursor shows a 4-headed NESW cross arrow - if the object is not
big enough to get this cursor form you will need to zoom in until you can
get this form of cursor.)

Firstly, if you group a set of objects that have some types of connecting
lines that have one end within the group and their other end outside of the
group, when you ungroup the collection then the these lines may not redraw
themselves in the way that you expect.

Secondly, making a change via Detail Properties of a group of objects may
change less than you expect or have side effects.

If I want to change the box border (not the connecting lines) or box fill
colour of a group of selected boxes, individually select those boxes by
SHIFT+left-click. Then on one of the selected boxes, use right-click >
Properties (not Detail Properties). Make you changes on the Fill or Line
tabs and all boxes will change the same. Beware if you are using a box
shadow - the change in the line colour will also be applied to the shadow
border.

Now changing the connecting line colour of a group of lines is much more
difficult to achieve. If you left-drag out a marquee (dashed rectangle) to
sect a group of objects you will see that there are invisible objects at
junction points of the lines and that the lines are generally made up of
two linked pieces. (You can use SHIFT+left-click to add or reduce the
selection.)

Now right-click > Properties, change the line colour, has the effect of
changing *all* line colours in *all* the objects selected - that is the box
borders, box shadow borders and the inter-connecting lines. If you want to
change the colour of a line from child to parent (line of descent, etc)
then you will need to carefully select _just_ the line segments for that
line and then right-click > Properties, to change the line colour.

Try this and see whether you can make it work for you. Make sure that you
periodically save your partly edited VC2 files as new filenames as you make
these edits (I usually increment a number at the end of the name). It is
very easy for something go wrong. And "Undo" does always return the chart
to exactly the same state as before (some automatic redrawing actions can
disturb the flow). Once you have the chart result that you want you can
then delete all the unwanted intermediate VC2 files.


Robin Lamacraft (Adelaide, Australia)

This thread: