Several basic types of vector drawing entities are supported by SuperEdit vector drawings. You can define geometrical entities like segments, polylines, polygons, rectangles and circles. You may write single or multi-line texts using individual fonts and various predefined framing styles. You can place bitmap icons in various scales, referring them to raster files of any format.

Drawings imported from DXF vector drawing files may contain definitions of blocks with their own list of entities. The entity that refers to the block definition and displays its entities with individual insertion point, scale and rotation is called an insert .

Several entities of any type may be grouped together, creating complex entity . It gives you the possibility of organizing vector entities in hierarchical structure, where several entities may be treated as single one.

There are some predefined types of simple and complex special entities used in dedicated contexts. They will be described separately.

Vector drawing entities can be drawn with various line styles (solid, dashed, dotted, etc.), line width, line color, as well as with various fill styles (none, solid or hatched) and fill color. (Windows renders line styles only when the thickness value equals 0). Vector entities may be drawn as opaque or transparent. You can use Windows bitmap hatches and/or SuperEdit scalable hatches that are called patterns . All these features are referred as drawing tools. You may set current general drawing tools, used as default during creation of new entities. You may change individual tools per each entity independently as well.

Each entity in the vector database may have list of various user-defined, numerical (integer or double) or string data attributes assigned to it. Each attribute has a unique string key. Numerical attributes may have attached an action that can be addition, subtraction or skipping. The key is used as an index and can be supplied by the external database or defined by you. The action defines the rule of the attribute value computation up to the top of the entities’ hierarchy.

Vector drawing entities may be placed on different layers in the vector drawing. Some layers are created automatically, e.g. standard layer “0”. You may create your own layers with individual names. Each layer has its own visibility and activity attributes. Entities placed on layer that is not visible are not displayed – so they are invisible. Entities placed on layer that is not active are displayed, but can not be selected – so they can not be edited and deleted. One layer can be declared as current. All new created entities are placed on the current layer. By default the standard layer “0” is current after creating a new vector drawing.

To facilitate creating various texts with uniform layout, the text style concept is used. Text style defines the Windows font used for drawing text, as well as its other characteristics, like default height, aspect ratio and escapement angle. Various border styles used for framed texts are supported as well. Individual texts derive these parameters from the style they refer to; however, their individual values may be changed for each text independently.

For your convenience, some basic text styles are created automatically. You may create your own text styles with individual characteristics and store them together with whole vector drawing.

To facilitate creating various hatches with uniform layout, the pattern concept is used. Pattern has its unique name and defines such parameters as distance between lines, line thickness, angle and color of each line as well as its style and crossing parameter. (Windows renders line styles only when the thickness value equals 0). The crossing parameter controls drawing of the perpendicular set of lines. Individual hatches derive these parameters from the pattern they refer to; however, their individual values may be changed for each hatch independently.

For your convenience, some basic patterns are created automatically. Your may create your own patterns with individual characteristics and store them together with whole vector drawing.

New version of vector drawing library has a full capability of defining separate block lists in vector drawing. Block definitions list vector entities that may be easily referenced from special vector entities called inserts, each one with individual insertion point, scale and rotation angle. Insert entity does not duplicate all entities from block definition, but displays them and allow to snap to them as if they were "inserted" in given position, scale and rotation. Changing the block definition updates all inserts from which it is referenced automatically.

You may examine the list of all block definitions in the vector drawing and preview each block from the Blocks page on the Drawing properties dialog.