Symbol Design Tutorial Part 5: Tile Colors and Color Overrides in Composite Symbols


	Applies To

	Product(s):	gINT Logs, gINT Professional, gINT Professional Plus
	Version(s):	8.x
	Environment:	N\A
	Area:	Symbol Design
	Subarea:	N\A
	Original Author:	Kathleen Holcomb, Bentley Technical Support Group

Note: This exercise requires the use of training.gpj project and training.glb library available from: download.aspx. Instructions for unzipping and setting up these files is on: using gint downloaded examples.aspx.

Symbol Design Tutorial Part 5: Tile Colors and Color Overrides in Composite Symbols

There is a hierarchy of color overrides in the composite symbol and the underlying tiles. This determines which color setting takes precedence, as follows:

Colors in the drawing objects in the tile take precedence if not overridden in the composite symbol that uses the tile.
The Override Color setting for a row in the composite symbol’s data entry grid overrides all colors in all drawing objects in the corresponding tile.
The Override Color field above the data entry grid overrides all colors in all drawing objects in all layers of the composite symbol, including solids.

To see how this works, do the following:

Ensure that training.glb is the current library and training.gpj is the current project.
Go to SYMBOL DESIGN Material. Select ‘GP-GC’ in the object selector.
Select File Copy Page and specify a Page Names to Copy To value of ‘ANOTHER TEST MATL SYMBOL’.
Go to SYMBOL DESIGN Tiles. Select ‘GRAV02’ in the object selector.
Select File Copy Page and specify a Page Names to Copy To value of ‘A TEST TILE’. Click OK, If asked, answer ‘Yes’ to overwrite the existing tile of this name.
Double-click on the edge of one of the larger drawing objects (gravel grains), such as the one 1/3 of the way from the top and 1/3 of the way from the left. The POLYLINE PROPERTIES dialog box appears.
In the Main tab, specify a Thickness of ‘0.02’ and a Line Color of ‘Medium Magenta’.
Click the Configuration tab, and specify an Override Fill Color of ‘Medium Cyan’. Click OK, then preview the tile.

Notice that the gravel grain you altered now has a thick magenta border and a cyan fill wherever it appears. Close the preview.
Go to SYMBOL DESIGN Material.
In row 2, replace the Fill Type[!Symbol] with a Type of ‘TILE’ and a Symbol of ‘A TEST TILE’.
In the same row, delete the value from the Override Color field. Preview the symbol.
Notice that the gravel layer contains black grain symbols except for the one that we filled in cyan and outlined in magenta. In other words, the gravel tile is being used exactly as it was created.
Close the preview. In the second row, specify an Override Color of ‘Very Light Orange’. Preview the symbol.
Notice that now everything on the gravel layer is orange, including all grain symbols and their edges.
Close the preview. Specify an Override Color for the entire symbol, at the upper left of the window, of ‘Very Light Blue’. Preview the symbol.
Not a very useful symbol, is it? What has happened is we overrode the color settings on all layers, including the solid gray background layer, making everything blue.
Close the preview. Highlight and delete the top row (using the Delete key), then preview again.
Now that there is no longer a solid blue layer, the gravel and diagonal lines layers can be seen. All objects on these layers become blue.
Close the preview. Change the master Override Color for the composite symbol to ‘None’. This restores the colors of the two remaining layers. Notice that the gravel grains are still solid orange, because we are still overriding the color of the gravel row.
Close the preview. Select File Delete Current Page, and click OK to confirm deletion.

Important Note: Do not delete any symbol that you do not know for certain to be unused in reports, other symbols, expressions or external drawings.

Created by Kathleen Holcomb
When: Wed, Jan 21 2015 1:39 PM
Last revision by Katie Aguilar
When: Tue, May 7 2019 4:14 PM
Revisions: 8
Comments: 0

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