Defining the Drawing Grid

The drawing grid is a tool to help you precisely position to your drawing elements. It is an imaginary matrix of co-ordinates within each window.

When you create drawing element, for example a rectangle, its size and position will automatically adjust so that each of its corners is located on the nearest grid point. When you move a drawing element, as you release the mouse button, the top left hand corner will automatically move to the nearest grid point.

The grid is displayed as a series of dashed lines in both the horizontal and vertical planes. The displayed grid is a multiple of the grid size and is only displayed as a guide. You should decide on a grid size before you start drawing in a window as changing it part way through development may cause problems when aligning drawing elements created with the previous grid size.

The following properties effect the operation of the grid.

• Visible - Displays or hides the lines representing the grid. The grid operation is unaffected.
• Enable – If selected than all subsequently produced drawing elements are aligned with the grid.
• X & Y - The grid size in pixels. It is recommended that the grid is made no smaller than 4 pixels. The default grid size of 8 pixels is adequate for most applications.
• Color - The color of the grid lines at design time.