Working with Attributes in Pythagoras

Pythagoras uses attributes to control the appearance and behavior of every object type (points, lines, polygons, texts, solids, annotations). These attributes can define things in general like color, layer, display level and define object specific  line style, fill pattern, font, and more. You can set these attributes as general defaults or apply custom user defaults to work more efficiently and consistently.

Drawing with the Active Default Attributes

Default attributes are standard settings applied to all newly created objects. The active attributes are visible in the Toolbar > Default Attributes

Active attributes are the currently selected attribute set used when drawing new objects. You can change them at any time using the toolbar.

Changing the active attributes

Click on a button in the Default Attributes toolbar to change the active attributes properties.

The Default Attributes dialog includes 7 tabs:

1. General: shared properties like layer, comment and display level which objects can inherit if left Undefined. The property Color can be either be inherited or overwritten.

2. Point: styles for points (dot, cross, triangle, symbol, etc.)

3. Line: styles for lines (including straight lines, arcs, curves etc.) (solid, dash, document/library style, width, arrows)

4. Polygon: fill patterns, borders, color tones

5. Solid: appearance of 3D solids, including color, transparency

6. Text: font, size, weight, style, spacing, alignment, orientation

7. Annotation: annotation symbol style, text attributes, functions: automatic values (e.g. ^LineLength)

Save & Restore

You can save the set of attributes using the Save button. These are stored in the PYTHAGOR.DEF file.  

If you have changed the attributes at some point you restore the saved set of attributes using the Restore button.

Copy/Paste Default Attributes*

Copy to Default Attributes

You have an object in your drawing that has the correct set of attributes. A quick way to 'pick up' these attributes is by Ctrl+Shift+Double-Click on the object. The object attributes will be copied into the active Default Attributes.

Paste from Default Attributes

Shift+Double-Click

*Note: The behaviour of which and how attributes will be copied depends on: Working with Attributes: Preferences