Controlling Lines

[GarretF]

The default mode for Ultiboard when placing lines is to place at 45 degree increments. That is, as you move the cursor, Ultiboard snaps the line segments so that the line segments are at 45, 90, 135, 180, 225, 270, or 315 degrees. In most cases this will give the result you are looking for, but did you know that that there are 3 other modes?

• Place 45 degree lines (default)
• Place orthogonal lines
• Place diagonal lines
• Place all angle lines

When placing a line, you can easily switch between modes by pressing the space bar. Give it a try by starting a line, then pressing the space bar while moving the mouse to see how Ultiboard snaps the line according to the mode. If you have a tendency to forget keyboard shortcuts or just prefer to have a visual reminder, you can create a toolbar that contains these options and use the toolbar to switch between modes (even while placing the line). To do this, you need to customize the interface, and for the rest of this post, I'll show you how to create a new toolbar with items to switch between these 4 modes.

To start, show the Customize dialog by clicking Options > Customize User Interface, then select the Toolbars tab. Click New... and give your new toolbar a name as shown below

That will create the toolbar, and next we will add the 4 line mode items to it. Select the Commands tab, then select the Place category, as shown below (with the new toolbar to the right)

If you scroll down, you will see the 4 mode items:

• Place 45 degree lines
• Place diagonal lines
• Place orthogonal lines
• Place all angle lines

For each of these, left click and drag and drop the command into the toolbar. When you drop it, the Button Appearance dialog (below) shows

Select Image only, then click New.... You can either create your own icon, or use one of the four I've created for this post. Open the image in Paint, copy the image, then click the paste button in the Edit Button Image dialog. Click OK twice, then repeat for the next command. After 4 times, you should have a toolbar that looks line

Now give it a try. Start placing a line, then click one of the inactive modes and see how Ultiboard snaps the line segments.