A drawing attribute is a characteristic of a graphical component that controls the manner in which the component is drawn on the screen. In dpPower there are more than 20 different drawing attributes that can be set on the different component types, including various color, size, zoom intervals, fonts, fill types and styles. All the component types that have a graphical representation have different drawing attributes that you can adjust.
All drawing attributes are not available for all component types. There are common attributes that are used for two or more component types. Examples of such attributes are color settings, which can be applied on all component types, except raster components. The drawing attributes Scale from and Scale to, however, are available for all component types, including raster.
Other drawing attributes can only be set on a unique component type. Examples of such attributes are Font style that can only be set on text components, and the Width in pixels, a drawing attribute unique to symbol components.
Types of drawing attributes
There are many different functions and settings that ultimately controls how the map data is to be visualized on the screen. In a clean installation of the application all the graphic component types are delivered with standardized and default drawing attributes. Symbols, lines, text, and son on, for all types of map data are in default designed to fit the demands of as many customers as possible. You have the option to change and adjust these drawing attributes to fit the needs and standards of your organization. You can for example select new symbols for a particular type of object, or change the color and thickness of lines in different types of maps.
There is an important distinction to be made between those drawing attributes which are set centrally by the system administrator or in consultation with Digpro, and those drawing attributes that each user can control individually. The first group consists of normal and alternative drawing attributes. What these two types of drawing attributes have in common is that they affect the appearance of the map data for all users in the system. The primary purpose is to display map data in a consistent and clear manner.
As a user you have various settings at your disposal that controls the look of map data in the application. Your settings temporarily override the centrally controlled drawing attributes. In most cases, users wish to overlay the color of different types of objects, so that they appear in a different color in the map. By working with so-called individual and temporary drawing attributes, you can adjust the look of the map data. Read more about the different types of drawing attributes in sections below.
Centrally controlled drawing attributes
Drawing attributes
The appearance of the graphics in the views are determined mainly by the system administrator, who uses the Drawing attributes administration tool to set the way all graphical components are to be presented. This applies to texts, symbols, lines and polygons used to visualize network data and other information. The normal drawing attributes mean that all maps in their default versions look the same for all users of the application, which contributes to a common understanding and interpretation of enterprise map data.
Alternative drawing attributes
The normal drawing attributes may be overlaid by setting alternative drawing attributes for objects. Alternative drawing attributes are used to automatically adjust color or line style on graphics such as symbols, lines and text, depending on the state of an object. Applying alternative drawing attributes on a category of objects, will change the graphics on all the objects in that category. Using alternative drawing attributes can therefore make it easier to quickly see whether objects are in the planning phase, in operation, not in use, and so on.
See also:
Non-centrally controlled drawing attributes
Individual drawing attributes
Individual drawing attributes are those that you can set on a selection of object types when you place an object in the graphical view. Examples of object types that employ individual attributes are Free graphics.
Examples of object types that can have individual drawing attributes are various types of help graphics, which you will find among the placers in the Place object tab in the Sidebar.
See also:
Edit individual drawing attributes
Temporary drawing attributes
Temporary drawing attributes are those that you may set on the graphical components that creates the map products in the tab Map in the Sidebar. Temporary drawing attributes allows you to control how components are displayed in the map during a work session, or until you restore them to their original normal appearance, by pressing Reset in the tab Map. For example, you can choose to apply temporary drawing attributes in connection with printing/plotting in order to clarify or highlight parts of the map data.
Additional color settings
In addition to the drawing attributes described above, there are other settings that control the color in which the map data is drawn in the graphic view:
•Settings > Preferences... Here you can decide whether locked objects and/or the objects in the current changeset should be displayed in a different color. These settings override all other color settings when the user applies them.
Here you may also set the color that objects should be displayed with when you select them in the graphical view. These are temporary graphics, which are reset when you press the Refresh icon 
in the toolbar.
•Show > States. Here you can set different colors on objects that takes the states into account. These settings will be overwritten by any applied settings in the Preferences dialog.
More information
Read more about drawing attributes in the Help > dpPower (or dpWater/dpGas/dpHeating) > Administration > Menu reference > Administration > Map product > Drawing attributes administration tool.