While you are working, GRAPE keeps two things in mind: the current collection of visible objects and the current way of displaying them. In fact, we have the concept of a current object rather than a collection of objects, but the whole branch below is displayed and manipulated in a way. As explained below, the current object can be set via the hierarchy view in the manager menu. Every time you perform some action -- like clicking on a button in the control panel or shifting a ruler -- that could have changed the graphic view GRAPE redraws the current object in the graphics window using the current display method.
In some cases, especially when your objects are complex,
you will find this behaviour inappropriate, because
redrawing the graphics every time might be quite slow; then you can
disable the redrawing mechanism by 
``draw on/off'' in the manager menu.
Another way to save time is by selecting grid style instead of patch style.
In the following, we want to explain the menus and their options in more detail.
Copyright © by the Sonderforschungsbereich 256 at the Institut für Angewandte Mathematik, Universität Bonn.