Changing display: user preferences

Process Designer provides several ways you can change its display. Access the User Preferences window by clicking View --> Preferences, or use the shortcut key combination Ctrl+U.

The User Preferences window has three tabs that allow the following customizations:

Changing general display

The General tab of the User Preferences window allows you to:

Figure 73 illustrates the General tab of the User Preferences window.

Figure 73. User Preferences dialog box: General tab

The figure shows the user preferences dialog general tab. The workbook diagram windows check box is selected in the dialog.

Changing diagram display

The Diagram tab of the User Preferences window allows you to:

Figure 74 illustrates the Diagram tab of the User Preferences window.

Figure 74. User Preferences dialog box: Diagram tab

The figure shows the diagram tab of the user preferences dialog. The add a start node for new diagrams check box is selected.

Changing the color of symbols and links

The Diagram Colors tab of the User Preferences window allows you to change the display color of symbols and links in an activity diagram. For each symbol or link, press the arrow for the fill or line color field and make your selection from the drop-down options. Figure 72 illustrates the Diagram Colors preferences window.

Figure 75. User Preferences dialog box: Diagram Colors tab

The figure shoes the diagram colors tab of the user preferences dialog. The fill and line attributes for the following symbols can be changed in this dialog: start node; action node; end success node; end failure node; break node; iterator node; decision node; sub-diagram node; service call node; bo probe; transition link; service link; disconnected link. You can also change the decision port fill colors. The changes can be reset using the set to default colors button.

Aligning scenarios

There may be times during the development of a template that a scenario may become so out of line that you would spend a significant amount of time realigning the scenarios. (See Figure 76.) As you can see, the various decision nodes, transition links and other objects are severely misaligned in this diagram. To correct the alignment would take a significant amount of manual work.

Figure 76. A misaligned scenario


To align a scenario, use the Auto Layout option of the View menu (see Figure 77). Selecting this option aligns the objects in the scenario so it displays correctly in the Process Designer (see Figure 78).

Figure 77. View menu


Figure 78. Scenario after Auto Layout is applied.


To align all of the scenarios inside a template at the same time, select the Template Auto Layout option of the View menu.

Copyright IBM Corp. 1997, 2004