Most of presentation elements can have properties (for example Autosize for shapes or Path Style for paths):

The Ids of all used properties are defined in the class com.nomagic.magicdraw.properties.PropertyID.

Look at Properties page for more details about properties structure.

There is no information about what exactly properties every presentation element has. Use java debugger and analyze PresentationElement.getPropertyManager() object. You can also guess property ID from the Symbol Properties name.

If you want to change a value of existing property, recommendation would be clone that property, change value for a clone and set it. Don't use constructor if possible.

The following code example shows how to change element properties:

    ShapeElement element = ...;
    Property property = element.getProperty(PropertyID.AUTOSIZE);
    if (property instanceof BooleanProperty)
    {
        BooleanProperty autoSize = (BooleanProperty) property.clone();
        autoSize.setValue(true);

        PropertyManager properties = new PropertyManager();
        properties.addProperty(autoSize);

        SessionManager.getInstance().createSession(project, "Test");
        PresentationElementsManager.getInstance().setPresentationElementProperties(element, properties);
        SessionManager.getInstance().closeSession(project);
}

The properties must be new instances. You cannot do something like this: 

    ShapeElement element = ...;
    PropertyManager properties = element.getPropertyManager();
    properties.getProperty(PropertyID.AUTOSIZE).setValue(new Boolean(true));
    SessionManager.getInstance().createSession(project, "Test");
    PresentationElementsManager.getInstance().setPresentationElementProperties(element, properties);
    SessionManager.getInstance().closeSession(project);