User Guide

Canvas 12 User Guide
To add buttons to the palette:
Choose Append Buttons from the menu. Select a button file and click Open.
Working with animated GIFs
Animations are an attractive visual element that can be added to a Web site. The flexibility in Canvas
allows you to create animated GIFs.
Creating animations
Create animated GIFs in Canvas by assembling images within an Animation document and then
saving the file as an animated GIF. This animation format is extremely popular among Web designers
since it is supported by nearly all Web browsers.
Animation documents consist of a series of frames, with each frame being a still image. Displaying
frames in quick succession creates the illusion of motion.
The more frames per second (fps), the smoother the motion appears.
Use the Document Layout palette to arrange the frame sequence and set their individual duration
(see "Using the Document Layout palette" on page 85).
All about onion skinning
In Animation documents, you can display more than one frame at a time. Onion skinning is the term
for displaying multiple frames as if they are on tracing paper. Onion-skinning is useful for
positioning objects across frames of an animation.
The onion-skinning icon is located on the Document Layout palette (see "Using the Document Layout
palette" on page 85). Click this icon to open the menu.
No Onion Skinning: Shows just the current frame.
Next Frame: Displays the current frame and the frame after the current frame.
Previous Frame: Displays the current frame and the frame before the current frame.
Next & Previous: Displays the current frame and one frame before and after the current
frame.
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