Enterprise Architect class fill color

Question

I have a very stupid question! I have created class diagram and right now I am trying to change class background fill color. I have not found any info in the help how to do that. Any suggestions?

Wasteful

Answer 1

Not a stupid question at all. There are a couple of different ways of doing this, depending on the scope you want.

To change the colour of one class in a single diagram, right-click it in the diagram. This opens up the context menu, but also opens a mini-toolbar. In this toolbar, the third icon from the left is the class fill colour. This toolbar can also be opened by selecting the class, and then clicking the middle of the three icons EA displays to the right of the class (the paintbrush).

Using this toolbar you can change the class colour locally. It does not affect how the class is displayed in other current or future diagrams, it is specific to the diagram you're in.

If you want to change the appearance of a class in all diagrams, right-click it and select Appearance -- Default Appearance. If you change the colour here, it will affect all future diagrams and all current diagrams except the ones where you've specified a local colour for the class as above.

Finally, you can change the EA-wide colour scheme in Tools -- Options -- Standard Colors. This affects all elements in all diagrams, unless you've specified something else for an element using either of the above methods.

In addition to these, if you create a profile you can specify a different appearance for a particular stereotype using shape scripts. But that's a different question.

Burnsides

Cool! Thank you a lot. I solved it with a profiles, but could you please explain once again about a mini-toolbar? Where it is located? – Wasteful

Ok, it was turned off. Thank you once again. – Wasteful

By the way, if it can't be seen, make sure the item called Format Tool in the context menu of mini-toolbars area is checked. That's the popup window for setting the background. – Dresser

It took me a while to find that toolbar. It wasn't "floating" on rightclick, but rather docked at the bottom. Once I found it though, it worked just fine. – Shope

It seems it is not possible to turn off gradient coloring on classes. while choosing white as background of class, it always shows a gray gradient in it. – Interfertile

Yes, it is possible to switch off the gradients for all elements: Tools / Options / Gradients and Background / Element Fill / Gradient Fill... -> <none> – Pavilion

I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to check if you know if it was possible to have specialized template for each package? E.g. if I wanted to have the same background color for all classes created in a certain package. – Foraminifer