Arrow, Custom Start or End

Related Information

Arrow Palette

Custom Arrows

Named

Temp

Transform

Along

Custom Shape, Start or End Arrow

Any Bezier path is used as a "Arrow" applied to the start or end of a Bezier graphic. The Start or End tab of the custom shape view is used to manage user defined, or custom, arrow shapes.

The Start or End tab view is accessed from the Arrow Palette by clicking the Custom tab (at the top of the palette) and clicking the Temp tab of the Custom shape editing view. This tab is automatically selected when a custom shape is applied to the start or end of a target graphic.

For clarity, we will refer only to the Start position for the rest of this page. Understand that operations are identical for the End tab, except for the location on the target graphic.

The "On" and "Custom" buttons determine if the start of the selected graphic will have an arrow (ON), and if it will be a standard arrow or a Custom arrow. If Custom is not checked, the arrow’s shape is defined by the Arrow Shape on the main Form tab. Check both boxes to apply a custom arrow shape. If no other shape is specified or shown, the current Temp shape is applied.

You may edit the custom shape, in-place, by click and drag of a vertex or control point handle. These are the small light brown or blue rectangles overlaid on the shape. Editing is similar to the editing procedure on a normal EazyDraw drawing. If more editing capability is required (such as adding or removing a vertex) drag the shape to an EazyDraw drawing window and continue editing with the full EazyDraw capability. Then drag and drop the shape back on this view.

Every arrow shape has a defined reference point. This reference is used to define a unique mating position of the arrow shape and the target Bezier path, the point where the arrow is "attached". The default reference position of a custom shape is the first point of the Bezier path. You may shift this reference by using the two blue tab handles found in the right and bottom margins of the editing view. The reference position may be shifted, but is constrained to remain inside the bounding rectangle of the custom shape. Larger shifts are done with the full Transform. Move the reference with the click and drag of one of the tab-handles. The position is shown with the light blue crossing lines.

Select a shape using the Name popup menu. The menu provides a selection of provided shapes and shapes added by the user.

Color and style selections such as fill color, stroke width, line color are not reflected on the in-place editing view. These are managed by parameters on the Style main tab view. These are applied to the shape as attached to a target graphic and shown on the main drawing. Shapes shown on this view do not reflect choices for these attributes.

The Transform button is used to apply a full affine transform to the arrow shape. Use this to position, orient, scale, or shear the arrow shape. Note, the transformed shape is not reflected in this editing view, this view always shows the original starting shape. The transformed shape is viewed interactively on the main EazyDraw drawing.

A starting shape is moved to the Temp position with the copy then paste selections found on the contextual menu for this tab view. Control click to access.