Changing the Characteristics of an Object

The Settings view for an object can be used to change characteristics such as color, font and icon bitmap, as well as other application-specific properties such as use of a menu bar or a context menu.

The user may also change some attributes such as color and font by opening the color and font dialogs in the OS/2 System folder and dragging the desired color or font to the object. If the color or font is dragged to the Templates folder, then the default settings are altered for all new objects created from the templates.

As well as allowing the user to change the attributes of an object to be different from its parent, it also allows him to undo this so that the object inherits from its parent again. For example, if a color scheme is dropped on a folder, that folder will differ from the desktop. If a different scheme is then dropped onto the desktop via Alt-drag, that folder's attributes do not change.

To get the folder to forget its color settings and inherit the desktop color scheme again, just drag the same scheme that was used for the desktop onto the folder with Alt-drag, that is, the same mechanism that was used to set the desktop colors. The folder will release its presentation parameters and accept the system default parameters which have been dragged to it. Any future changes to the desktop color settings will now be inherited by that folder.


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