If you download sequences from BLAST or Entrez, or import GenBank or EMBL files with lots of features, you may wish that the features (genes, CDS, promoters etc) showed up differently in the Map tab, or maybe your favorite features don’t show up at all unless you turn them on using the Graphics Palette. Its easy to change the default appearance of features using the Default Symbols editor. If you have just opened MacVector, and there are no sequence windows open, you can access the Default Symbols editor from the Options menu;
However, if you have a sequence file open, then the menu is set to edit the symbols for just that file;
To access the Default Symbol editor when a sequence window is open, hold down the option key and the menu item will change once again to Default Symbols. If you select that, the Default Symbol editor will be displayed and you can edit the appearance and initial visibility of each type of feature;
This is the second article in what will be a long running series of tips to help you get the most out of MacVector. If you want to get notified every time a new tip gets published, follow us @MacVector on twitter (or check the feed for the hashtag #101MacVectorTips) or become our friend on Facebook.