Copying & Pasting Styles

One of the most exciting features in DHTML Menu Builder is its ability to let you propagate the style of one menu item over to another item or even a set of items.

DHTML Menu Builder implements an advanced clipboard that will let you copy one, several, or all the styles applied to one item and then paste them over a set of items of the same type.

To copy the style of one item, just select it. Then, click the Edit menu and then click Copy. You may also use the shortcut copy icon on the DHTML Menu Builder toolbar.

This will open the selective copy dialog. This dialog will show you all the settings you can copy from one item, organized hierarchically so they can be easily selected.

On the topmost level of the settings selection are the most global style settings, such as Color, Font, Image, etc. When you click on the small sign beside each style,you can expand the style definition and see more detailed options about the selected style.

Let's say for example that you would like to copy the image style of one command over to the other.
To do so, just select the command, click Edit, then click Copy and check the box next to Image style. Click OK to proceed.

Now, select the command to which the style will be applied and click Edit and then Paste. You may also use the shortcut paste icon on the DHTML Menu Builder toolbar. Finally, click OK to paste the Image style.

Now, let's suppose that you just want to copy the right hand image of a command that is activated when the mouse pointer pauses over the command. In other words, the command has been assigned to the Mouse Over event.

To copy this image, just select the source command, click Edit, then Copy. Now, click on the   sign next to the Image style to reveal its settings. Then click the sign next to the Right style property and check box next to the Over option.

To paste the selected style property, just select the target command and click the paste shortcut icon on the toolbar. When the dialog appears, accept the selection by clicking OK.

Selective Paste Dialog Options

When you want to propagate the style of one item over to several others, the paste dialog offers you several options to let you do a process that, if done by hand, would take hours of work.

The Selective Paste dialog has four main style propagation options:

• Paste to the ... : This option allows you to paste the selected style to the selected item of the same type.
• Paste to all the commands under the .... group: This option allows you to paste the selected style to all the commands under the same group. Note that this option is only available when you have copied a style attribute from a command.
• Paste to all ... : This option will paste the selected style to all the items on the project of the same type.
• Advanced: This option allows you to explicitly select which items (of the same type) will receive the pasted style.