For selecting styles of displaying ObjectLand features, style libraries are provided. These libraries contain sets of styles for every five style elements: for map symbols, fonts, lines, hatch and fill styles. In the cases when the system offers to select the style of this or that element, it gives a possibility to browse lists of available styles in libraries, see a sample of any style and make a choice.
There is one shared style library which can be used in all GDB on the present computer; it is also possible to create style libraries for every GDB, and the library of the current (opened) GDB is called current style library.
Shared style library is stored in files GDB.LIB, GDB.DAT and GDB.ASS. GDB style libraries are stored together with other data of these GDB, particularly in the files x.GDB, x.DAT and x.ASS, where x is GDB name.
Use of styles from shared library enables maintaining a general standard of displaying features which have analogous meaning in all developed GDB. Any change of shared library style will lead to change of displaying all the features from different GDB using this style. Besides, shared library requires less space on a disk than a set of individual libraries for different GDB.
On the other hand, when moving GDB to another computer it may be necessary to move the shared library with it, if there is no such library or its structure differs considerably. A conflict may appear if different GDB require the use of different shared libraries. In this aspect, the most secure solution is including an individual library in the structure of every GDB.
A compromise approach can be recommended: use shared library for standard styles used in many GDB, but place in GDB libraries those styles that are specific for particular GDB.
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