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Drawing Properties


The Drawing Properties panel is used to save reference information with the drawing.

If entries are made on this panel, reference information is saved with the drawing. The information on this panel is provided to the operating system for use by the Finder and Spotlight utilities.

The panel is accessed from the File main menu. Cut copy and paste all work with the text on the panel. Undo works for each session of entries, but not individual changes.

Enter Text in any of the text fields. The entries are used by Finder for Spotlight searches. To clear and entry, select all of the text and delete.

Some of the entries such as Projects, Authors, Organizations and Keywords may have one entry or multiple entries. Simply type an entry if only one is needed. Complete the entry with Return or Enter on the keyboard. For multiple entries, delete and type a new entry followed by another Return or Enter on the Keyboard. Multiple entries are viewed with the popup menu button.

To clear an entry of a multi-valued element, select the desired entry with the popup menu then select all of the text and delete, then click enter.

The Clear All buttons are used to remove all entries for a multi-value entry.

The Set As Default button will save all current settings for use with new drawings. A drawing must be created as a new untitled drawing for the new defaults to apply. Existing drawings will require individual entry of all text.

Clear will delete all entries.

Cancel will close the panel, with no changes applied.

The multi valued elements are always sorted alphabetically. The order of the values is not used by the operating system or Spotlight. Since the order is not used by the system the values are always sorted to clearly indicate this aspect of the file properties. This means that for authors, the first author is not noted by the system to be the primary author.

After closing a panel, undo may be applied to restore all settings. If all entries were applied properly, it is advisable to save the file. If it is not saved, a series of undo-s may step back over the panel action and inadvertently remove your changes.

All of these values are defined and supported by OS X, the Finder and Spotlight. The field names are those specified by OS X for tracking documents and document searches. The Get Info actions of the Finder may provide these values intact, depending on current and future features of OS X and user settings for the Finder.

Power users may access this information with the Unix command line tools: mdimport, mdls, or mdfind. These command line tools are documented in unix MAN pages. The system identifier keys are as follows: kMDItemTitle, kMDItemAuthors, kMDItemKeywords, kMDItemDescription, kMDItemComment, kMDItemOrganizations, kMDItemCopyright, kMDItemProjects, and kMDItemVersion.