Changing Individual Task/Milestone Properties (Color, Shapes, etc.)

Changing Individual Task/Milestone Colors

1) The ability to use color to represent various kinds of information about a task or milestone in OnePager is a powerful communications tool. When you manually change the color of a task/milestone, we say that you are creating a color maverick.

Changing Colors using the Ribbon

2) The easiest way to change a color is to select one or more tasks/milestones, and then use the color-changer control shown below:

3) Clicking the color-changer control will bring up the Color Chooser form from which you may select an alternative color for the selected tasks/milestones.

Changing colors using the Format selection

4) You can also right-click to change colors.

a) Right-clicking any selected task/milestone will bring up a shortcut context menu that looks like this:

b) The color and other controls pertaining to tasks/milestones are contained in the Format… command shown above. When accessed, the Change Marker Properties form will appear as shown below:

c) Click Color dropdown button which brings up the Color Chooser form shown below:

d) Selecting the new color will reset the color shown in the Color window of the Change Marker Properties form.

e) Or, if you want to use a color that is not shown, click the More colors… button to bring up the standard Microsoft Color-definition form:

f) After selecting an existing or newly-defined color in this manner, all the selected shapes will now have the new color.

g) Once you are satisfied with the color of the selected tasks/milestones, click in any blank space on the screen to deselect all selected tasks/milestones.

Using a Different Color Palette

5) To have a larger set of colors to choose from, you can switch among several predefined color palettes of 24 colors each or you can create your own custom palettes.

a) Whenever you are changing the color of a task/milestone, you can always choose to select the new color from any of the existing color palettes.

b) To do this, simply click the paint bucket’s dropdown tab on the Home tab which will activate the Color Chooser form.

c) From this point, click the Choose color from palette: dropdown list and a selection of other color palettes will appear as shown below:

Using the No Fill Option of the Color Chooser on Task/Milestone Fill Colors

6) In addition to the various colors available and color palettes available, the No Fill option in the Color Chooser form enables you to remove all color and leave the task or milestone as a transparent shape with a border.

Turning On the No Fill Checkbox

a) For example, the portion of the project view shown below has one task selected with a right-click using the Format… command. Further, selecting the Color dropdown button reveals the Color Chooser form. Note the No Fill checkbox shown below:

b) Checking the No Fill checkbox and clicking OK in the Change Marker Properties form will remove the color and display the selected task as shown below:

c) Since a color was changed for a task, OnePager will also add a legend item reflecting the no fill pattern for the task. Manual text update of this added legend item is recommended.

d) The feature shown above yields the best results when the task’s fill pattern is originally flat and the background color for the project view is solid.

e) Reversing the process and unchecking the No Fill checkbox will require you to select a color before the Color Chooser form will close and display the selected task in the selected color.

f) This option is useful when using deadlines or endpoints and you want to put emphasis on those decorations as opposed to the task graphic itself. Take the example below of two tasks with several endpoints:

7) To just put emphasis on the endpoints', apply the No Fill checkbox on the task’s color to get the result shown below:

Turning Off the No Fill Check box

a) When the No Fill checkbox is checked for a task/milestone, the process of turning the No Fill function off by unchecking the No Fill checkbox requires three steps.

b) First, select the task/milestone, navigate to the Color Chooser form displaying the No Fill checkbox as shown below:

c) Second, uncheck the No Fill checkbox. The result will be that the No Fill check is cleared but the Color Chooser will not close as shown here:

d) The last step is to select a color in the Color Chooser for the selected task/milestone. This action tells OnePager what color to replace the No Fill condition with and will cause the Color Chooser to close. In the example below, red was selected, the Color Chooser closed, and the user then clicked OK in the Change Marker Properties form with this result:

Changing Individual Task/Milestone Shapes

8) To change the shape (i.e. the specific symbol) of an individual task or milestone, select the task/milestone by right-clicking and select the Format… command.

9) When the Change Marker Properties form appears, click the Shapes dropdown. This will show the shape choices as shown below:

10) As an alternative, after you select the desired task or milestone, click the Format… button as shown below:

a) Clicking the Format… button also brings up the Change Marker Properties form. If you want to change the shape of the selected task to something different from a rectangle go ahead and select the desired shape from the dropdown shape menu. If you select the double-pointed rectangle as shown below, when you click OK the selected task will look like this:

b) If multiple tasks/milestones are selected, the desired shape change will be applied to all selected tasks/milestones. When you manually change the shape for one or more selected tasks/milestones, you are creating a shape maverick.

c) If you wish to change the global default shape (as opposed to making shape mavericks) please go see one of the following articles depending on the version of OnePager you are using:

Editing with the Project-View Properties form (Portal) for version 5.2

Editing with the Project-View Properties form (Portal) for version 5.3

Changing Individual Task/Milestone Fill Patterns

To change the fill pattern of an individual task/milestone, select the task/milestone with a right-click and select the “Format…” command.

When the “Change Marker Properties” form appears, click the “Fills” drop down button. This will show the fill pattern choices as shown below:

a) If we apply the flat “Fill” pattern to the selected task as in the previous example above, the selected task might look like this:

b) As also discussed above, you can get to the “Change Marker Properties” form by clicking the “Format…” button.

If multiple tasks/milestones are selected, the desired fill pattern change will be applied to all selected tasks/milestones. When you change the fill pattern of a selected task or tasks, you are creating a “fill maverick”.

If you wish to change the global default fill pattern (as opposed to making fill mavericks), please read the Global Editing section.

Changing Individual Task/Milestone Borders

Changing Task/milestone Borders: For both task and milestones, you have control over three properties of the tasks/milestone’s borders: (1) color, (2) width, and (3) style.

To change the border properties of an individual task/milestone, select the task/milestone with a right-click and select the “Format…” command. When the “Change Marker Properties” form appears, go to the “Borders” group of controls on the right side of the form. The control over border properties is shown below:

a) If we apply the Dash-dot-dot “Border Style” pattern to the selected task as well as change the border color to black and increase the border width to 3, the selected task might look like this:

b) As also discussed above, you can get to the “Change Marker Properties” form by clicking the “Format…” button.

If multiple tasks/milestones are selected, the desired task/milestone border property changes will be applied to all selected tasks/milestones.

Changing the border properties of one or more selected tasks/milestones creates a “border maverick” because it now deviates from the global border default.

The initial border default setting is for the task/milestone border to be the same color as the task/milestone color, have a border width of one (1), and a border style of solid.

Using the No Border Option: OnePager can assign colors to the borders of tasks and milestones. This permits you to use the “No Border” feature in the “Color Chooser” for borders to eliminate the border.

Using the previous project view, you can do the following to hide the border with the “No Border” option as follows:

a) Below is a portion of a project view where we’ve increased the border width to 3 to accent the task/milestone borders:

b) Select the task/milestone with a right-click and select the “Format…” command. This will take you to the “Change Marker Properties” form where you will see a “Border Color” drop down button.

c) Click the “Border Color” drop down button to reveal the “Color Chooser” form for border as shown below:

d) Checking the “No Border’ check box and then clicking “OK” will eliminate the selected task/milestone’s border and show this result:

The process can be easily reversed by unchecking the task/milestone’s “No Border” check box.

Changing the Font of Task/Milestone Labels

There are several ways to change the font type, size, or color of one or more selected tasks/milestones. When you change the font properties for a selected task/milestone, you are creating a “font maverick.”

Use the “Home” Tab

a) Increase/decrease font size by one point. After selecting a task/milestone, click the “decrease font size” or “increase font size” button. Each click will change the font size of each selected task/milestone by one point size. Once you have the fonts sized as you want them, click in any blank space on the screen to de-select all selected tasks/milestones.

b) Change to a specific font size: Change the number in the font-size drop-down box shown below:

c) Change to a specific font face: Choose a different font face from the drop-down box shown below:

d) Change the font color: Choose a different font color by clicking the font-color button shown below:

Use the Context menus. Alternatively, right-clicking any one of the selected tasks/milestones to bring up a context menu as described above.

a) Then click the “Format…” command which brings up the “Change Marker Properties” form. At this point select the “Task Labels” tab (or the “Milestones” tab) and go to the “Label font” drop down button as shown below:

b) Clicking the drop down control as show above shows the “Font properties” form where all task/milestone label font property controls are located. You may then select font style, color of text, font size, and control whether the text is Bold, Italic, or Underline.

c) The “Font properties” form is standard throughout OnePager for controlling text font properties.

d) Note the button labeled “Use Label Defaults.” Clicking this button causes all the task/milestone’s properties, including font size, to adhere to the global default task label settings, and will return any task label mavericks to the global defaults.

If you wish to change the global default font (as opposed to making font mavericks), please read the Global Editing section.

Changing the Text Position of Tasks/Milestone Labels

You can specify where the task or milestone label is positioned in one of nine positions relative to the task/milestone itself: left, right, best fit left/right, above, below, over the task/milestone, fit inside the task/milestone, in a comment box, or hidden.

When you change the position of the label of an individual task/milestone we say that you are creating a “text-position maverick.”

Once you have a selection, you can change the text position of all selected tasks/milestones in one of several ways:

Use the “Home” Ribbon. On the One Pager “Home” ribbon’s Position group, click one of the following buttons: “text to the right”, “text to the left”, the “text centered”, “text above”, or “text below” as shown below:

Use the Context menus. Alternatively, right-click any tasks/milestones to bring up a context menu as described previously.

a) Then click the “Format…” command to bring up the “Change Marker Properties” form.

b) Select the “Task Labels” tab and then click the “Label Position” drop down as shown for a task/milestone below:

If you wish to change the global default text position (as opposed to changing text positions manually), please read the Global Editing section.

Editing the Task/Milestone Label Text

You can replace the imported task name from your Microsoft Project plan with a shorter or more descriptive label without affecting the name in the original Microsoft Project plan.

To do this, just double-click the task/milestone and enter the desired task/milestone label in the box that appears as shown below:

The software will display the new edited task/milestone label in all snapshots of the project view.

Alternatively, you can right-click the task/milestone to display the context menu shown below:

Click the “Edit task name…” command which brings up same the “Enter text” form as shown above. Make the desired edit to the task/milestone label text and click OK.

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