Text Color Won't Change

[CoffeeAddict]

I am using v7.5.843

I've got some notes and in some of them, I had changed some of the font in the note to white.  But now, I can't change white back to black.  I have no idea why.  I've tried the note editor's font color options as well as right-clicking one of the notes and chose Appearance | DefaultAppearance, unchecked the default checkbox & changed the default to another color.

I still cannot get the color to change back to black on those particular notes!

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Hi CA,

It's not clear from you post if you are talking about Note Elements or Element Notes.    

If the former, you may have been hit by one of the problems described in : Consistent Diagram Item rendering proposal.

If the latter, check the state of the Notes properties in Element|Feature Visibility... dialog.

HTH,
Paolo

[CoffeeAddict]

Here's a little more detail.

I've tried to open this in v7.5 and it's so weird.  Sometimes when I open it, the text that you see white in these pics are black as they should be.  But other times when I open the project, they're white again and I can't get them back to black!  It's so messed up...I have no clue what is going on here or if it's just an isolated weird case.

Example 1 (white text, can't change it to another color):



Example 2 (white text, can't change it to another color):



Example 3 is a snapshot of the structure of my business process project:



Example 4 is showing a label over a workflow item.  I like putting labels over activities as I have no flexibility to control anything I want with the text unless I do this unfortunately...very, very inefficient but then again that's my whole complaint with EA and text management:



Example 5 is again my attempt to try to change the text using the default appearance.  Even though I select black, it's STILL white.  I don't really want to control the font with this, but was just trying anything to try to see if I can get this white to change...no luck.  Preferably I wanted to change the note that overlays the activity and manage the text colors in there.  And then I usually go and have to use the default appearance option (which by the way is in a TOTALLY DIFFERENT AREA OF EA!) just to control the text SIZE after I change the text COLOR using the note dialog!  wtf man.  Anyway, still the default appearance is not helping to change this white issue eithe:

[CoffeeAddict]

Update, I can change the note text that overlays the activities..just can't change back to black.  For some reason black is selected every time I go into the color dialog but the stupid thing doesn't show up black!  I can change it to other colors just fine in the note font options.

[CoffeeAddict]

Lets make this even more interesting..or should I say f'd up.  I noticed if I take off the bold of that white text (which again it's really set to black every time I go into the font options)...then if I take off the bold and select black...it's black.  But when I put it back to bold...it is white again even though I selected black after I select black and click OK in the notes dialog color options!

Oh, maybe this is a nasty easter egg in EA LOL.  If you try to change to bold black, it changes to white...April Fool's day every day.

Can someone else confirm and reproduce this?

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Hi CA,

I feel your pain...  

One of the problems you encounter in trying to work out WTF is going on inside EA is that occasionally, the route you take to get somewhere affects the outcome.

I suggest starting afresh with the simplest note and "sussing out" what EA does and how it does it...

I know when I've been "deep" inside stuff changing options etc - trying not to go insane, sometimes the object gets into a weird state - especially because EA is self-inconsistent.

If you read my proposal, you'll see the trouble you can get into...

If you can reproduce the problem with a new element, then you'll get a handle on what's going on...

I've used EA for so long, that I've somewhat go used to its idiosyncrasies and unconsciously avoid those that will cause grief.

I'd also suggest picking one of the offending elements and seeing if you can return it to "default" rendering - especially by using the formatting toolbar on the main diagram to return any local rendering (which may have been accidentally applied), to default.

HTH,
Paolo