A tour of Preferences in Vectornation by Zaweba
Edit > Preferences (Ctrl+K) in Vectornation by Zaweba sets units, guides and grid, smart guides, selection, type, interface, files and performance, live.
The way an app behaves is half the reason it feels comfortable or awkward. Units in inches when you think in millimetres, a grid that is too fine, smart guides that snap too eagerly. These are fixed in Preferences. In Vectornation by Zaweba you open them from Edit > Preferences, or Ctrl+K, and changes apply live, so you see the effect as you make it.
Settings are grouped into general, units, guides and grid, smart guides, selection, type, user interface, file handling and performance.
Live preferences make experimenting safe. Change a setting and look at the canvas. If it is worse, change it back. There is no need to close the dialog and reopen your drawing to see the difference.
Units
Set units first. Print designers in the UK usually work in millimetres, screen designers in pixels, and some sign and print trades in other units still. Measurements in panels, rulers and dialogs follow this setting, so getting it right saves converting in your head all day.
Guides, grid and smart guides
Guides and grid control the colour and spacing of the grid and guides you see on the artboard. A grid that matches your work, such as a pixel grid for icons or a few millimetres for print, makes snapping useful rather than fiddly.
Smart guides are the snapping hints that appear as you drag, lining objects up with each other's edges and centres. Their settings decide what they snap to. If they feel too busy, tone them down here rather than turning them off entirely.
Selection, type and the interface
Selection settings change how clicking and dragging pick objects. Type settings cover how text behaves. One example is smart punctuation, which can be set to happen as you type, turning straight quotes into curly ones without a separate step.
The user interface group covers how the app looks and feels. It is also where the language is set, under Edit > Preferences > User interface > Language, with French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Portuguese available besides English.
Files and performance
File handling deals with saving and opening. The most important setting here is recovery copies: Vectornation saves a recovery copy every so many minutes, and offers to recover after a crash. Choose an interval that suits how much work you could bear to lose.
Performance settings balance speed and quality. On a modest computer, or with a very large drawing, adjusting these can keep the app responsive.
Settings worth checking on day one
Units, so measurements make sense. Smart guides, so snapping feels right. Recovery copies, so a crash costs minutes rather than hours. Language, if English is not your first choice.
After that, leave things alone for a week and then return. By then you will know which behaviours annoy you, and Preferences is where most of them can be changed.
Where Preferences end
Preferences set how the app behaves in general. Settings for a particular drawing, such as its size and colour mode, live in Document setup. Keyboard shortcuts have their own editor. If a setting does not seem to be in Preferences, it is probably in one of those, and Find a command will point you to it.
