Shades are canvas/drawing objects that create a colored background on the canvas to highlight or delineate sections of the active planning surface. They are often used to add clarity to the graphic display of data.
To add a shade to the canvas, click the Shapes icon in the toolbar. Once the cursor moves over the canvas, it changes from the Select Tool to a set of crosshairs.
To draw the shade, click the mouse button at the desired start date, indicated by the text above the crosshairs, and drag the crosshairs to stretch the rectangle to the intended shape.
Release the mouse. The area of this drag-box will become the shape of the variable shade; it can later be changed from Variable to Horizontal or Vertical.
Once a shade has been drawn on the canvas, the Shade Object window opens automatically. This window is divided into a set of two core sections: Properties and Formatting (there are no Displays).
Properties
The Properties section is where basic settings are changed.
Orientation
The orientation determines how the shape of a shade will act. By default, all shades are Variable, which means they will take the exact shape that is drawn using the rectangular marquee drag-box.
A shade with Horizontal orientation will span the entire width of the canvas, using the upper and lower borders of the currently placed shade as the upper and lower boundaries in horizontal mode.
A shade with Vertical orientation will span the entire height of the canvas, using the left and right borders of the currently placed shade as the left and right boundaries in vertical mode.
Edge Type
The edge type determines where the edges of the shade will fall. By default, all shades will Snap to Period, which means their edges will align with whole time units. If PolyTime is enabled, and the user has set the base time unit for the schedule as hours, then the start and end of the shade will align with the beginning and end of an hour, respectively. Otherwise, the time unit will always default to days.
An Absolute edge type allows the shade edges to fall between whole time units.
Behavior
The behavior determines whether or not the shade can be selected like a normal object or if it acts as part of the canvas background. By default, all shades behave as a Regular Object, which means when clicked with the Select Tool, it will become selected. It will not become selected, however, when using the drag-box to surround it.
To omit a shade from being selected when it is clicked, change its behavior to Canvas Background. This can be helpful when a shade is covering a large area of the canvas and trying to select other objects with a drag-box. It can always be double-clicked, however, to open the Shade Object window for modification.
Formatting
The Formatting section contains aesthetic properties that are not strictly on/off controls, like color.
Color
To change a color, click the down arrow button anywhere the Color field shows up and choose from the list. Any colors already used in the schedule will appear. To choose from a palette or define a custom color, select More.
After clicking More, the Custom Color Palette window will open.
To create a custom color, click in the rainbow color area; the selected color displays below in the Color/Solid box.
To select a darker or lighter tone, move the arrow up and down along the vertical slider bar to the right.
Click the Add to Custom Colors button and the new color displays in the Custom Colors area and is ready to be selected just the same as the basic colors above.
Click OK to apply the color and exit the function.
Once chosen for the first time, any basic or custom color will be displayed in the dropdown list for future selections.
Finalizing Shades
Once the desired selections are made, click the OK button to place the shade and close the window (if OK is pressed prior to making any changes, the fields will simply be left as default). The window can be re-opened (and the properties can be modified) at any time by double-clicking on the shade on the canvas or right-clicking and selecting .
Selecting Shades
A shade is selected via a single click. The drag-box method will not include shades in the intended selection (to allow for selection of only planning objects on the canvas). To select (or de-select) a shade with other objects, use the Shift + mouse click or the Multi-Select Tool.
Resizing Shades
To resize a shade, first select it on the canvas. Black grab boxes appear all around the object. Hovering over any of them with a Select Tool will change the cursor to a double arrow, which allows the box to be dragged in either the x or y direction, resizing the shade accordingly.
The corner boxes allow re-sizing in the x and y directions simultaneously. If a non-variable shade is resized so that one of the edges no longer spans the entire width or length of the canvas, the shade’s orientation automatically adjusts to variable.
Rearranging Shades
Shades appear on the canvas in the order drawn; newer shades display above older shades. This order can be changed by selecting two shades on the canvas and then choosing from the menu bar. This will reverse the current order on the canvas of the two selected shades.