PREFERENCES PANEL Styles tab

With Digital Atmosphere you are not stuck having to use one set of map colors, line styles, and fonts for everything. Obviously when you want to use a different color set, this means spending a lot of time making tedious changes. Digital Atmosphere allows you to manage sets of colors, fonts, and line settings. These sets are known as styles. A style is identified by a plaintext name and a filename (all styles are stored in the \styles directory under Digital Atmosphere, without exception). To change the color settings, use the Preferences > Styles panel. Advanced users may edit the files directly; this will not hurt anything if a plaintext editor such as Notepad or MS-DOS Edit is used.

EDITING THE PARAMETERS

Listed here are the various codes that appear in the edit window. Above all, be sure you pick Save when you are done, or your changes will be discarded!

• Code - This is a predefined code that marks the parameter type for internal use. It cannot be modified.
• Parameter - This is a predefined code that is used to provide a plain language explanation of the parameter for that row. It cannot be modified.
• R, G, B - These are color codes, which must be a whole number between 0 and 255. The R column is for red, G is for green, and B is for blue. To pick orange, for example, you would set R to 255, G to 128, and B to 0. You do not need to use these columns. A vastly simpler input is available simply by clicking on the color swatch to the right of the R, G, and B columns. If you do wish to enter R, G, and B values, the following resource may help: http://www.cloford.com/resources/colours/namedcol.htm . Do not enter hex (hexadecimal) values; they will not be recognized.
• Color swatch - Click on the color swatch to select a different color. In the popup window, a crosshair will show the current color value. Move it around or change the values to pick a new color. The value of R, G, and B will be filled in automatically for you.
• Contour type - Indicates the purpose of this contour. It cannot be modified.
• Unit - Proper entries are as follows. Do not mixmatch units or the program will ignore the setting and use a default unit. Units marked with * cannot be changed.
     Temperature  . . . . . . deg f, deg c, deg k
     Moisture . . . . . . . . g/kg
     Relative Humidity  . . . percent
     Horizontal Velocity  . . knots, mph, m/s
     Vertical Velocity  . . . ub/s (microbars per second)
     Height . . . . . . . . . meters
     Pressure . . . . . . . . mb, hpa, kpa, inches
     Precipitation Totals . . inches, mm
• Base - Determines the base value that the intervals are based off of. For example, if you use an interval of 5 degrees, a base of zero will give 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25.. degrees. If you use a base of 2 degrees, you'll get 2, 7, 12, 27, etc. Always reduce the base to the lowest common denominator (as close to zero as possible).
• Interval - Represents the contour step interval (the numerical difference between each contour).
• AI - Automated interval. If y is entered, Digital Atmosphere will override the base and interval settings and choose the ones that will give the clearest view of the data field.
• Style - Indicates the linestyle that will be used to draw the contour. Acceptable values are solid, dash, or dot. Radar echoes must be either solid, clear, bdiag, fdiag, cross, crdiag, horiz, or vert.

MAKING A NEW STYLE

At some point you may not be happy with just editing the default styles. When you want to create a new style, click the New... button. You will see a panel like this.