Painting

Paint Mode allows you to paint color on devices.  By default, the devices in the menu are painted with a consistent color scheme that helps identify the function for each device.  You may, however want to use color to identify logical groupings of devices, such as left, center, and right signal chains as an example.  It is also useful for visually tracing wires.

Entering the Paint Mode

You can select Paint Mode from the Mode Menu, the right button speed menu, and the Ctrl+P keyboard accelerator.  The TAB View window will automatically open, and a palette of colors will appear, and the cursor will change to a paintbrush.  This is also available by selecting Mode from the menu bar and then selecting the Paint mode.

Selecting a Color

Select the desired color from the color palette by clicking on it.  A red box will highlight the selected color.  This color will remain selected until another color is selected.

If you want to match the color of an existing device, select the device and copy its color by typing Ctl+C.  While in the paint mode you are copying the color.  The palette color selection will automatically change to the desired color.

Selecting a device, wire, or control to Paint

Move the mouse pointer over the device, wire or control that you want to paint and click the left mouse button.  The selected object will change to the current palette color.  To change the background color of the view move the mouse pointer over any area of the background and double click the left mouse button.  The background color will change to the selected color.

If you select a color for a wire that is the same as the background color the wire will paint in a color that is slightly different than the background color, allowing the wire to be visible.  If you later change the background color the wire color will repaint in the originally selected color.  If you change a background color to the same color as an existing wire the wire will change it's color slightly allowing it to remain visible.  Note that it is not a good practice to paint wires red, as this makes it impossible to tell if the wire is selected!