Tool palette

Table of Contents | Window & Palette Reference

Tool Palette | Inspector Palette | Modifier Palette | Movie Window

Tool palette

The Tool palette contains the tools used to work with actors in the layout view. You can use these tools to manually manipulate actors, and to create text actors and No-Bandwidth media.

Both the Tool palette and the Inspector palette can be used to manipulate actors: the Tool palette lets you change an actor's position, size, and orientation manually--for intuitive and efficient editing, while the Inspector palette lets you type in precise values for the characteristics that you want to change--for greater control.

Pointer: Repositions the actor in the movie.
Rotate: Rotates the actor around its registration point.
Scale: Resizes the actor.
Slant: Skews the actor in one or more directions.
Perspective: Distorts the actor as if it were tilted in 3-D perspective.
Text: Enters and formats blocks of text. Electrifier supports styled text in a wide range of fonts and languages, as well as sophisticated text effects like drop shadows, highlighting, and scrolling.

Text dialog box

Frame: Changes the current text frame so you can edit a different 'page' of text. Text frames provide a simple method of presenting blocks of textual information sequentially.
Add: Inserts a new text frame.
Remove: Deletes the current text frame.
Duration: Sets the length of time for which the current text frame should appear.
Text box: Changes the text in the current text frame.
Options: Opens the Text Options dialog box so you can use visual effects such as scrolling, highlighting, and drop shadows with your text.

Text Options dialog box

Smooth text edges: Antialiases the text so its edges appear smooth on-screen.
Background Color: Sets the background color for the text.
Hide background: Makes the text background invisible, so the text can merge seamlessly with the rest of the movie.
Drop Shadow: Gives the text a translucent black shadow.
Highlighting: Highlights the text
Scrolling: Makes the text scroll past in the text box.
Fire: Creates a No-Bandwidth(TM) fire effect. The movie behind the actor will be obscured by leaping flames. Fire is automatically created with Masked ink.

Fire Options dialog box

Spread Rate: Sets the rate at which the fire expands to its highest level from its starting point. The higher the value, the more quickly the fire starts burning.
Sputter Rate: How quickly the flames die down as they move up the screen. Low numbers result in very tall flames, high numbers in very low flames.
Water Rate: Sets the frequency with which areas of the fire are put out, and allowed to restart. High numbers result in a fire with many burning and non-burning areas, while lower numbers result in a wider, smoother fire.
Restart Rate: Sets the frequency with which the entire fire is put out, and allowed to restart.
Cloud: Creates a No-Bandwidth(TM) cloud effect. Clouds appear by default in a blue sky, but they can also be used in front of other actors to create smoke or fog effects. To create a cloud that will obscured the actors behind it as if by swirling mist, draw the cloud and then give it Masked ink.

Cloud Options dialog box

Cloud color: Sets the color of the cloud. The default color is white, but you can specify other colors for colored smoke or sunsets.
Background color: Sets the color of the sky behind the cloud. The default color is a pale blue.
Rotation: Sets the angle the cloud is lit from. At 0 degrees the cloud is lit from the front, at 90 degrees it is lit from the right, at 180 degrees it is lit from behind, and so on.
Ripple: Creates a No-Bandwidth(TM) ripple effect. The movie behind the actor will ripple as if it were underwater. Clicking inside the rippling area will create an oval ripple which spreads out from the pointer location as if a stone had been tossed into a pool.

Ripple Options dialog box

Ripple Mask: A black-and-white image which acts as a mask--the ripple effect is seen on every pixel which is black in the mask image. The default mask is a solid black rectangle.

Tool Palette | Inspector Palette | Modifier Palette | Movie Window