Default Options

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You can change a number of characteristics of the WebBuild Express Design Environment by changing Default and Behavior Options. These options govern how new cells are formatted and appear, default text properties, appearance of selected text and links, and how items are positioned and move in the Design Environment.

To get to the Options screen, click on "View" on the main menu and then on "Options". You will see the following screen:

Note that there are two tabs at the top of this screen: "Behavior" and "Defaults". We will discuss the settings on the "Defaults" tab first, and then "Behavior".

Default Options

Text

Near the top of the screen, to the right of the word "Text" is an "Edit" button and a window that shows the current default text. Default text is the text font, size, style, and color that will initially appear when you create a new cell. To change the default text, click on the "Edit" button. You will see the same screen you use for formatting any block of text:

Choose a Font from either of the two lists on the left (remember that only the top list is "Web Safe" and will appear correctly on most browsers). If necessary, choose whether you want Bold, Italic, or Underlined style. Choose the default pixel size. Finally, pick a font color. When you click on the "Save Changes" button, the new default settings will take effect, and all new cells you create will have the default text.

Cell Background

Just as you can set a background color or image for any cell, you can create default settings for all new cells that specify a standard background color or image. Click on either the "Color" or "Image" button to the right of "Cell Background" on the "Defaults" tab, and choose the color or image that will be in the background of all newly-created cells.

Cell Border

You can set a default cell border color and width. All new cells will have this border color and size. To set color, click on the "Color" button next to "Cell Border". Choose the desired color from the Color Picker. To set the cell border width, specify a width in pixels in the field next to "Cell Border Width".

Cell Border Width

Set the default Cell Border Width by entering a number in this field 2 (pixels) or larger. All cells created after you change this setting will have borders of the specified size.

Cell Padding

Use this setting to specify the amount of blank space between cell borders and contents for all newly-created cells.

Link Color

This setting can be used to ensure that all links you create appear with the same color. If, for example, you want all links to appear in blue text, click on the checkbox to the left of "Use Default Link Color" and click on the "Color" button to select the desired color.

Link Underlining

Similarly, if you want all newly-created links to be underlined (a common Web standard), click on the checkbox to the left of "Always Underline Links". All links will be underlined when you create them.

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Behavior Options

When you click on the "Behavior" tab, you'll see:

Snap Strength

If you use the Snap feature, which aligns cells to an invisible grid, you can use this setting to determine the spacing of lines in the grid. If you choose 2 pixels, for example, cells will "snap" to a grid that has lines every two pixels vertically and horizontally. If, however, you choose 64 pixels, the grid lines will be much further apart, and the Snap feature will align cells at much larger intervals.

Drag Pitch

Drag pitch controls how often the WebBuild Express Design Environment refreshes itself in relation to the movement of the cursor. If Drag Pitch is set to 0 (the default), the screen will be redrawn every time the cursor mover. If it is set to 10 (the maximum), the screen will be redrawn only after the cursor moves more than10 pixels.

In general, you should leave Drag Pitch at 0 unless your WebBuild Express environment seems very sluggish (running on a slow computer with very little memory). In such cases, try adjusting drag pitch upward slightly to see if it alleviates the problem.

A good rule of thumb is to leave Drag Pitch at the lowest level that doesn't produce a sluggish effect.

Link Indicate

You can use Link Indicate to indicate how links are displayed in the WebBuild Express Design Environment. The default is to show links and anchors with a shaded background like:

. You can change this default and select another pattern to indicate links. Click on the "Image" button next to "Link Indicate". You'll see the following screen:

Navigate on your computer to the location of the file you want to use to highlight links. Several possible graphics files are supplied in the folder C:\Program Files\WebBuildExpress. Here the user has selected a file called "AnchorSelect2.gif". After clicking "Open" the "Behavior" screen shows the result of this choice:

The image the user chose is shown to the right of the "Image" button.

Links and anchors in the application will now appear as:

.

Cell Mouse Hover

By default, cell outlines show up in a light gray when you hover over the cell with the cursor. This would be a problem if you were designing a page that had a similar gray background. You can use the "Cell Mouse Hover" behavior setting to change this default.

Click on the "Color" button to the right of "Cell Mouse Hover". You'll see the WebBuild Color Picker, which you can use to set the Cell Mouse Hover Property to any color you want. You'll see the chosen color to the right of the "Color" button.

Cell Selection

The standard default in WebBuild Express is for selected cells to have a red border. Under some circumstances (a red page background, for example) this can be problematic. You can use the "Cell Selection" behavior to change this default.

Just click on the "Color" button and select the color you want from the Color Picker. It will appear on the Behavior screen to the right of the "Color" button.

Text Selection

WebBuild Express uses a cross-hatched image to show selected text You can use the "Text Selection" behavior to select another image for text highlighting. Select an image exactly as when changing the "Link Indicate" behavior.

64 Pixel Grid

Default Options

Managing the Site

2 Pixel Grid