Set property values

In Squirrel, each component, function, and connection has several properties that are shown in the properties panel. There are different methods of setting or editing these property values with sometimes more than one method available.

For some properties it is obvious how to interact with them, but for others that won’t become obvious until you roll over them with your mouse or even click on them.

In this article, we’ll describe the different methods and how they can be accessed and used.

Type a value

Perhaps the most common method is to type in a new value, but this method is not available for all property types.

Click on a property field, if the cursor caret starts blinking this indicates that you will be able to edit that property by typing in a new value or by pasting in a value from the clipboard.

Ensure that you are entering the correct data type, for example, entering a non-numeric value into a property field that only accepts numerical values will not work.

Bind a value

Some properties can only be set from data in the spreadsheet via the process of data binding. Move your mouse over the property field, if a data binding button appears above the property, click the button. The spreadsheet will open in ‘binding mode’ Select a cell (or range of cells) containing the data that you wish to bind to the property and click confirm. If you’d like to learn more about data binding, take a look at the Getting Started: Data binding tutorial.

Checkbox toggle

A checkbox property is an on or off toggle. To set a checkbox property to on, click the checkbox so that it changes to a blue tick. A black empty checkbox means that the property is toggled off.

Sometimes entire property sections can be toggled on or off. If the checkbox for the property section is toggled to off, none of the properties within that section are used. When toggled on, all of the properties are used and any changes are applied. For instance, unchecking the DEFAULT TEXT section of the push button component will remove the default text label from the button entirely. When toggled to on, the default text label is shown and any changes made to the properties within the DEFAULT TEXT section are applied.

Dropdown selection

Change a property by selecting from a list of options in a dropdown box. The most common use for this in Squirrel is for font selection, but there are other uses such as line styles, number formats, insertion types, and many more besides that are specific to individual components.

Radio button selection

Radio buttons are used to set some properties in the property panel. They present a choice between two or more options, with one already selected by default. The options are mutually exclusive, selecting one will automatically deselect the others. The example below shows a radio button property being used to set the orientation property of a radio button component:

Spinner adjustment

Spinner buttons are used to increment or decrement the current value of a property. Not all Squirrel properties have spinner buttons, but those that do will show on mouse rollover.

The value by which the spinner buttons adjust the property can vary, sometimes it may be by 1 or it may be more, see the example above. Clicking the spinner button increases the Blur property by 1, but the Opacity property increases by 10. In the case of the latter, if you wish to set an intermediate value, it is usually possible to do so either by typing a different value into the property field or by binding to a value in the spreadsheet.

Use a Colour picker

The color picker can be used to choose a new color value. Click on the square next to any color property, use the slider on the spectrum bar to select a hue, and then adjust the shade by moving the white circle around the color field.

The color property can be set in multiple ways: using the color picker, typing in a value, or binding to a value in the spreadsheet. For more information about the latter option, take a look at this article: Using color values.

Adjust a Slider

Using the slider to adjust a property value is pretty self-explanatory. Click and hold the mouse cursor over the slider handle, move your mouse to adjust the property value up or down, and release the mouse button at the desired value. Alternatively, click into the slider value field and enter a numeric color.

Button sets

The button sets in the properties panel are mainly associated with text formatting properties.

For the color set, you can choose any, all, or none. Click to apply the style, the color button is blue it has been, applied to the text. Click again to remove the style from the text.

For the following sets, you must choose one option color option selected by default in each set. These settings control the text properties with the currently selected option indicated by a blue button.

In the following set, you can choose one or none. Click to apply capitalization rules to the text, the selected rule is shown as a blue button. Click again to remove the rule from the button and select a different rule.