Description:
Fills are used to specify the colors or gradients of symbols, lines, backgrounds, and other regions of the plots.
The fill drop-down button gives quick access to a basic set of solid color fills, some gradient fills, the fills you have saved, and recently used fills.
Clicking the left side of the fill button opens a fill selection window.
If you wish to have no fill, or in other words, a completely transparent fill, set the Fill Type to None. This may be easier than setting the transparency of the object to 100.
For solid color fills there is a drop-down of ‘basic’, ‘saved’, and ‘recent’ colors. Or you can carefully select your desired solid color using the color selection window. The four tabs give four ways to select the color you wish to use. On the right you can view how the new color compares to the current color. You can also see the color’s hue, saturation, and luminosity, or its coordinates of the red/green/blue scale. Saved or recent colors can be selected, and a favorite color can be added to the saved colors at any time.
You can select named colors on the second tab, and custom colors on the Custom tab. We recommend the HSL scale for choosing custom colors. You can fine tune the custom color, either by clicking on the colored areas, or by increasing and decreasing the hue, saturation, and luminosity values.
The color wheel gives a great way to choose several matching colors with contrasting hues. You first define the base color from the ‘New’ color. You can then adjust the hue, saturation, and luminosity values of the base color if desired. The Base color is shown in the center and top of the color wheel. You can view up to 20 matching color slices. These slices provide the maximum contrast of hues, while keeping the same saturation and luminosity. Any of these slices may be chosen as the new color. And you can easily add the slices to the saved colors to be chosen in the future.
If you wish to use a gradient fill, there is a drop-down for quick pre-set, saved, and recently-used gradients. Or you can define your own gradient by defining the stops, the shape, and the orientation. Suppose we want a circular gradient that goes from red to green to blue. We can first define those three stop colors. Then we set the shape to Circle. We could also adjust the center of the gradient shape. Changing the rotation of the gradient may also be useful, particularly for linear gradients. Any gradient may be saved so that it can later be accessed from the ‘Quick Gradients’ drop-down.
As you try various fills, you will be able to see how that choice is reflected in the plot by looking at the plot preview area. You can set the new fill by pressing the OK button. Or if you wish to revert to the current fill you can press the Cancel button.
A fill may be added to the saved list at any time using the ‘Add to Saved Fills’ button.
The transparency of an object is typically specified using the transparency scroll-box that is found near the fill button.
