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base effects and style effects add up

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2021 6:47 pm
by p8guitar
I'm a bit confused about the Style window: apparently the effects that are applied for a shape and the effects that are applied for a style are both active when the style is applied to the shape.
I had expected that the style effects behave like the style fill... :?
Wasted 2 or 3 hours to find this out, I think it is not mentioned in the manual.

Re: base effects and style effects add up

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2021 7:05 pm
by synthsin75
Yeah, since there's no override checkbox for effects, they are always active on a shape. The only things that are overridden by a style are fill color, stroke color and width. Style brushes only show if the shape has no brush.

Re: base effects and style effects add up

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2021 7:26 pm
by Greenlaw
Do you mean a custom Style? Yes, that's different from the shape's own Style, and it can be applied on top of a shape's style. When you apply a custom Style, you can disable parts of that custom Style to reveal the shape's original style underneath.

For example, you can have multiple shapes, each with different colors...these colors will be in the shape's style. Then you can apply a custom style that only has a Stroke thickness (i.e., Fill is unchecked)...this will be the shared style. The advantage with this is you will now be able to change the line thickness of all of these shapes with one control, but be able to keep the individual shape colors. And if you want some of the shapes to use their own line thickness, you can check on the Width box for those shapes' Style. Any other properties from the custom Style will still be active.

However, in the case of Effects, I think both the shape's effects and the custom Style's effects always combine, but it might depend on the effect. (I'll have to check; it's been a while since I've messed with that.) So, if you want the custom Style's effect to completely replace the shape's effect, just disable/remove the shape's effect. If you don't want the custom Style's effects but you want to keep other properties of the custom Style, you can make a duplicate of that custom Style and remove the effect from that version. (It helps if you name your Styles clearly so you can tell what's different before selecting them.)

Hope this helps.

Re: base effects and style effects add up

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2021 7:40 pm
by synthsin75
Also, being able to apply saved style effects and shape effects means we can stack more effects, instead of being limited to only two.

Re: base effects and style effects add up

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2021 7:47 pm
by Greenlaw
Yes!

(I knew I was forgetting something.) :D

Re: base effects and style effects add up

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2021 9:01 pm
by p8guitar
synthsin75 wrote: Fri Jun 04, 2021 7:40 pm Also, being able to apply saved style effects and shape effects means we can stack more effects, instead of being limited to only two.
I should have known this is a feature, not a bug... :wink:
But then it would be nice to have this written in the manual, because it differs from how the fill and the stroke saved style works.
I was pulling my hair out for 2 hours because I could not find the reason why the saved style applied to the shape looked so strange, until I noticed that I had a shaded effect not only in the saved style but in the shape, too, and they added up in a way.

Re: base effects and style effects add up

Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 1:51 am
by synthsin75
The manual should explain the fill, stroke, and width override checkboxes, and everything else is stacked, as the saved style doesn't override it.

But I may be biased, as I rewrote that part of the manual years ago.