MX
Table Of Contents
- Purchasing and unlocking Web Designer MX Premium
- Support
- What is new in Web Designer MX Premium? (v8)
- Introduction
- Getting Help
- Getting Started
- Program Layout
- Objects On The Page
- Object Based Web Design
- The Selector Tool
- Website Toolbar
- Creating a website
- Previewing Your Website
- Using Templates, Clipart & Widgets
- The Designs Gallery
- Website Colors
- Photos
- Text
- Selecting a page size
- Automatic page resizing
- Saving Your Work. Creating A Website
- Stretchy Objects
- Groups
- Repeating Objects
- Links, Buttons & Navigation Bars
- Displaying your own icons in browser tabs: favicons
- Drawing Tools
- Right-click menus
- Layers, Mouseover (Rollover) & Pop-ups
- Creating Buttons, Banners And Other Web Graphics
- Publishing Your Website
- Document handling
- Starting a new document
- Opening an existing document
- The Web Designer MX Premium window
- Opening a second window
- Changing the zoom value
- Sliding the document within the window
- Changing the page size
- Multiple pages in the document
- Saving the document
- Support folders
- Closing the document
- Automatic Backups
- On-screen grid
- Rulers
- View quality
- Galleries
- Undo and Redo
- Object Handling
- The Selector Tool
- Moving objects
- Removing objects from the document
- Duplicating and cloning
- Moving objects forward and backwards
- Rotating using the mouse
- Scaling (resizing) objects
- Flipping objects
- Stretching and squashing objects
- Skewing objects
- The Mold tool
- Snapping
- Guide Objects and Guidelines
- Summary of shortcuts on the numeric keypad
- Grouping and ungrouping objects
- Soft Groups
- Alignment
- Copying Styles: Paste Attributes
- Naming objects
- Repeating Objects
- Footers and objects that stretch with the page
- Drawing Lines and Shapes
- Drawing a line or shape
- The Freehand & Brush Tool
- Editing lines/shapes with the Freehand & Brush Tool
- The Straight Line & Arrow tool
- The Shape Editor tool
- Extending the line
- Finishing the line
- Adding a new point handle
- Selecting multiple point handles
- Deleting points
- Moving point handles—Shape Editor Tool
- Smoothing a line
- Constraining the line
- Changing curves
- Changing a straight line to a curve (and vice versa)
- Joining lines
- Splitting a shape
- Line Gallery
- Closing a shape
- Changing the line width (thickness)
- Shape Handling
- Color Handling
- The color line
- Applying fill & line colors by drag & drop
- Editing an object’s color
- The Color Editor
- Local colors and Theme colors
- Theme color schemes
- Creating your own color schemes
- Creating new named colors
- Editing named colors
- Normal colors, Tints, Shades and Linked colors
- Creating a Tint, Shade or Linked color
- Text Handling
- Introduction
- Terminology
- The Text Tool
- The Font Menu
- Simple text
- Text in a column
- Text areas
- Text along a curve
- Editing text
- Spell checker
- Find & Replace
- Synchronising Text using Soft Groups
- Tabs, Margins and Indents
- Repelling text objects
- Anchored Graphics
- Embedded Graphics
- Text Styles
- Applying text attributes
- Text links
- Text inside groups for websites
- Copying text appearances
- Copying/Pasting formatted text (RTF)
- Seeing fonts in use
- Document font embedding
- Website font embedding
- Browser text compatibility
- The Fill Tool
- Transparency
- Shadows
- Bevels
- Masks
- Web Properties Dialog
- Live Effects
- Photo Handling
- Introduction
- Photo Objects
- Photo Groups
- Importing Photos
- Zero-memory Copies
- The Bitmap Gallery
- Embedded JPEG files
- Blending & Merging photos
- Photo display quality
- Saving & Exporting Photos
- Photo Edit Attributes
- Editing the outline of Photos
- Cropping photos
- Cropping photos with a mask
- Cutting objects out of photos
- Screen capture utility
- Coloring photos
- Resize, rotate and position a photo within its frame
- Horizon Straighten
- Viewing a scaled photo at its full size
- Making a photo its full size
- Optimizing Photos and Bitmaps
- Converting objects or drawings to bitmaps
- Photo Documents
- Editing Photo Files
- The Photo Tools
- 3D Extrude Tool
- Navigation Bars
- Using template Navbars
- Navigation bar properties dialog
- Site navigation bar
- Buttons & Menus
- Updating your Navbar across all pages
- On canvas editing
- Changing the font on Navbar buttons
- Importing & pasting Navbars
- Creating your own Navigation Bars
- Button margins
- Advanced - Editing a Navbar button design
- Navbars with different first or last buttons
- Website Presentations
- The Presentation toolbar
- Creating a presentation
- Managing presentation steps
- Adding new presentation pages
- Creating Number and Bullet lists
- Deleting presentation pages
- Linking to next/previous step
- Applying transitions to presentation step links
- Applying presentation step transitions
- Applying presentation page transitions
- Advanced presentation information
- Hosting remote presentation sessions
- Website Widgets
- Page & Layer Gallery
- Animations
- Introduction
- Core Principles
- Your First Animation
- Exporting a Flash File
- Exporting animations as AVI
- The Animation Frame Gallery
- Photos
- Animation Frame Rate and Tween Steps
- Cropping, Clipping and Animation Size
- Animation Speed
- Animation smoothness
- Rotation
- Groups
- What Web Designer MX Premium features does Flash support?
- Color Transforms—Animating Color Changes
- Transparency
- URLs in Flash
- Advanced Flash Commands
- Web Designer MX Premium Flash Animation Summary
- Creating animated GIFs
- Animation properties
- Importing and Exporting
- Printing
- Customizing Web Designer Premium
- Changing the blank template document
- Options in the Utilities menu
- General tab
- Recent file list size
- Current layer always visible and editable
- Ask before setting current attribute
- Make groups be transparent as a whole.
- Maintain imported layer names
- Marquee Object Selection
- Angle constraint
- Document is intended to be a website
- Show Windows compatible text lengths
- Nudge size
- Duplication distance
- Grid and Ruler tab
- Mouse tab
- Page Size tab
- Backups Tab
- Effects & Plug-ins tab
- Control bars
- Galleries
- Displaying a gallery
- Moving and docking a gallery
- Grouping galleries
- Using galleries
- Selecting items
- Re-ordering items in the gallery
- Searching for an item name
- Adding to a gallery
- Deleting sections from a gallery
- Closing a gallery
- Removing a gallery from the workspace
- Restoring the default control bars/galleries
- Menus and Keyboard Shortcuts
- Introduction
- File menu
- New (Standard control bar or Ctrl+N)
- New from Designs Gallery
- Open (Standard control bar or Ctrl+O)
- Open recent
- Close (Ctrl+W)
- Save (Standard control bar or Ctrl+S)
- Save As
- Save All
- Save Template
- Import (Ctrl+Alt+I)
- Export (Ctrl+Shift+E)
- Export JPEG
- Export PNG
- Preview web page (Shift + F5)
- Preview Website (F5)
- Export Website
- Publish Website
- Preview Flash
- Export Animation
- Document Info
- Page Options
- Printer Setup
- Print Options
- Print (Ctrl+P)
- Exit
- Edit menu
- Undo (Standard control bar or Ctrl+Z)
- Redo (Standard control bar or Ctrl+Y)
- Cut (Edit control bar or Ctrl+X)
- Copy (Edit control bar or Ctrl+C)
- Paste (Edit control bar or Ctrl+V)
- Delete (Edit & Standard control bars or Delete)
- Select All (Ctrl+A)
- Clear Selection / Reset current attributes (Esc)
- Duplicate (Edit control bar or Ctrl+Alt+D)
- Clone (Ctrl+K)
- Pages
- Arrange menu
- Move to Layer in Front (Arrange control bar or Ctrl+Shift+U)
- Bring to Front (Arrange control bar or Ctrl+F)
- Move Forwards (Arrange control bar or Ctrl+Shift+F)
- Move Backwards (Arrange control bar or Ctrl+Shift+B)
- Put to Back (Arrange control bar or Ctrl+B)
- Move To Layer Behind (Arrange control bar or Ctrl+Shift+D)
- Group (Arrange control bar or Ctrl+G)
- Ungroup (Arrange control bar or Ctrl+U)
- Apply soft group (Ctrl+Alt+G)
- Remove soft group (Ctrl+Alt+U)
- Alignment (Ctrl+Shift+L)
- Fit Text to Curve/Remove Text From Curve
- Repelling and Anchoring
- Create Navigation Bar
- Repeat on all pages (Shift+Ctrl+Alt+R)
- Stop updating (Shift+Ctrl+Alt+O)
- Utilities menu
- Window menu
- Clear Selection / Reset current attributes (Esc)
- Multiple Page View
- New View
- Arrange Views
- Animation
- Show Scrollbars
- Show Rulers (Ctrl + L)
- Control Bars
- Quality (Standard control bar)
- Show Document Tabs
- Full Screen (8 on numeric keypad)
- Show Grid (#)
- Show Guides (1 on numeric keypad)
- Snap to Grid (. on numeric keypad)
- Snap to Guides (2 on numeric keypad)
- Snap to Objects (* on numeric keypad)
- Documents Loaded
- Help menu
- Key shortcuts
- More about Xara Group
- Legal
Editing inside
For some bars you can do some editing of the button design directly on the first button, using select
inside. This allows you to select shapes inside the button group. See the information about the Selector
Tool
in the Object Handling chapter for details of select inside.
However you cannot do select inside editing, if either of the following options are turned on in the Navbar
dialog.
Site navigation bar
Adjust button widths to labels
If either of these options are turned on and you attempt a select inside, you'll be prompted and given the
option of opening the Navbar dialog so that you can turn off these options and then try again.
With the options off, you can use select inside and modify the shapes that make up your button using the
usual drawing tools.
IMPORTANT
: Remember that the first button in your bar is the master button for your bar (unless you have different
start and end buttons ? see below). So you must modify the first button. Then your changes to the first
button are immediately applied to the other buttons in your bar. If you modify a button other than the
master, the changes will not be applied and will be lost as soon as you modify your bar.
Ungrouping, editing and regrouping
If you want to do any significant editing of a button design, it's best to ungroup the components that
make up the Navbar and then regroup them again afterwards.
To ungroup your bar, select the Navbar by clicking on it on the canvas and then do a normal ungroup
operation ("Arrange" > "Ungroup" or "Ctrl + U"). Or click the Ungroup to edit graphics
button at the bottom of the Navbar dialog.
Note
: If your Navbar had the "Site navigation bar" option turned on, you'll need to turn that option back on
again if required, after regrouping your modified bar.
Once your bar is ungrouped, it is no longer a navigation bar. You are left with a separate button group
for each button state. Also, if the "All buttons the same width
" option was turned on, ungrouping might change the button widths because this option is only effective
while the buttons are part of a Navbar. Although you should only make the design changes to the master
button(s), you'll normally want to leave all the other buttons on the page. They are used when you
regroup your Navbar, to recover all your button labels, links, etc., so that you don't have to re-enter
them again.
If you have a mouseover state, the 2 groups that make up the master button will be „soft grouped" so
that they stay together when you drag them around the page. Separate them using "Arrange" > "
Remove soft group" ("Ctrl + Alt + U"). You can then further ungroup each button state on the
MouseOff and MouseOver layers ("Ctrl + U"), in order to work on their respective designs. See the
"Creating your own Mouseover Buttons" section of the Getting Started chapter
for information on how to make buttons.
Remember to regroup each of the button states and then put the soft group back to keep the two button
states together once you're done editing. Do this by making sure both layers are turned on in the Page &
Layer Gallery, select both button state groups and then "Arrange" > "Apply soft group". See the
Object Handling chapter for more information on soft groups (Soft Groups, Soft Groups
).
It's a good idea to test your button works as expected by previewing your page, before re-assembling
the bar. To put your bar back together, select the modified button and choose "Arrange" > "Create
Navigation Bar"
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