Style Properties (IM: XG)

Inside Macintosh: QuickDraw GX Graphics /: Chapter 3 - Geometric Styles / About Geometric Styles

Style Properties
Like most QuickDraw GX objects, each style object has an owner count and a list of tags. These properties are described in detail in the chapter "Introduction to QuickDraw GX Objects" in Inside Macintosh: QuickDraw GX Objects.
In addition to the owner count and the tag list, each style object contains properties that primarily affect the drawing of geometric shapes and properties that primarily affect the drawing of typographic shapes.
The style properties that primarily affect geometric shapes include the following:

Curve error. This property specifies the allowable amount of error when QuickDraw GX converts a path shape into a polygon shape. It also specifies how far apart geometric points must be for QuickDraw GX to consider them separate points when simplifying or reducing a shape.
Pen width. This property specifies the width of the pen QuickDraw GX uses to draw the contours of a shape.
Style attributes. This property is a group of flags that allow you to specify how QuickDraw GX places the pen with respect to a shape's geometry and whether the shape should be constrained to a grid when drawn.
Caps. This property specifies what QuickDraw GX should draw at the start and the end of a shape's contours. QuickDraw GX allows you to use any geometric shape (for example, a polygon shaped like an arrow head) as a start cap or end cap.
Join. This property specifies what QuickDraw GX should draw at the corners of a shape's contours. QuickDraw GX provides two standard join types (one for round corners and one for sharp corners), although QuickDraw GX allows you to specify any geometric shape as a join.
Dash. This property specifies how QuickDraw GX should dash the contours of a shape. As with caps and joins, you can specify any geometric shape to dash the frame another shape. However, you can also dash a shape with glyphs, which gives the effect of fitting text to a shape's frame.
Pattern. This property specifies how QuickDraw GX should fill the geometry of a shape. You can use geometric shapes, glyphs shapes, or bitmap shapes as patterns.

The sections "Curve Error" on page 3-14, "The Geometric Pen" on page 3-15, "Style Attributes" on page 3-17, and "Interactions Between Caps, Joins, Dashes, and Patterns" on page 3-22 discuss these style properties in more detail.
The typographic style properties, which include font, text size, text face, and so on, are described in Inside Macintosh: QuickDraw GX Typography.