Datasheet

Part I ✦ Illustrator Basics

Figure 1-6: A free-floating

palette of tearout tools

Tooltips

If you ever forget what a specific tool looks like or have trouble finding it, you simply

need to stop and think about it for a second and maybe, just maybe, the answer will

pop into your mind. Or it will pop onto the screen. Tooltips are pop-up text that

appears next to the cursor if you leave it over the top of an interface element. For

example, if you hold the mouse cursor over the Selection tool, the tip, “Selection

Tool (V)” appears in a yellow box. The letter in parentheses is the keyboard shortcut

for selecting this tool. Tooltips are available for all the tools in the toolbox and for

all palette controls.

If you find that the tooltips are getting in the way and you are expert enough that

you don’t need them popping up every time you pause for a second, you can disable

them with an option in the General screen of the Preferences dialog box. This dialog

box can be opened using the Illustrator [Edit] ➪ Preferences ➪ General menu option.

Palettes

Illustrator has more than two dozen palettes, all of which can remain open while

you work on your document (providing you can still see your document through all

those palettes!). Technically speaking, a palette is a window. Everything on the Mac

and in Windows is a window except the desktop. Movable modeless windows

(palettes) are variations on windows.

A modeless window is different than a dialog box in that it doesn’t require the

window to be closed before other operations can be performed. This lets you

work with the settings in the palette without having to close the palette.

Palettes are like regular windows in many ways. They have a title bar that can be

clicked and dragged to move the palette. Under the title bar is a tab that contains

the name of the palette. A close button usually appears in the upper corner of the

palette that you can use to hide the palette. The title bar also includes a button

that toggles between Minimize and Maximize for Windows or a Zoom button for the

Macintosh OS. This button will toggle between displaying only the palette title tab

or the entire palette. You can also toggle between these two states by double-

clicking the title tab. Figure 1-7 shows the Navigator palette.

Note

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