Rule setting modes

A Grunt rule consists of multiple settings that help you format your objects. However, you don't always want to change all the settings that are available within a rule. This is where setting modes will help you out.

To the right of each setting in the Rule Edit dialog, you'll see a colored square that controls the setting mode. Each setting mode is represented by a different color, and each mode behaves differently.

What do the setting modes mean?

We will use the Character style rule to exemplify how the setting modes work. There are three types of setting modes: Inherit, Automatic, or Manual.

  • Right-click on the colored square to change between the available modes.
  • Left-click to toggle between the available modes. Left-clicking more times will continue to toggle you to the next available mode.
  1. Manual values are represented by blue squares. Manual values let you choose a specific setting for the specific rule. In this example, you can choose the color you prefer for your font. 
  2. Automatic values are represented by purple squares. These are also settings that are specifically set in the rule, and their formatting will be applied to your objects. This is the same behavior as for manual values, however, with automatic values, the concrete value that is used is automatically selected by Grunt.  For example: If the color setting is set to automatic, that means that Grunt will choose a color for the text, based on the color of the background.
  3. Inherited values are represented by orange squares. This is normally the default mode. The inherited values are not set specifically in the rule. Instead, the value is inherited from the preceding parts of the rule stack. If there are no preceding rules affecting the specific settings, like in this case: the font color, Grunt will apply its default settings.