Adobe Fireworks CS3 Tutorials
Button Symbols / Using Symbols pt. 1
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Subtitles of the Movie (Adobe Fireworks CS3 / Button Symbols / Using Symbols pt. 1)
In the previous movie, I introduced the concept of symbols with a focused review on button symbols. Let me back up now and provide some background on this concept of Fireworks symbols. Fireworks has three types of symbols, Graphic, Animation, and Button symbols. Each has unique characteristics for it's specific use. You can create a symbol from scratch, or modify an existing object into a symbol. To create a symbol from scratch, choose from the Main menu, Edit, Insert, New Symbol, near the top there. Notice that there are the three types of symbols, Graphic, Animation, and Button. Let me demonstrate each of these. Let me go ahead and give this new graphic symbol a name. Let's call it "graphic 1" like so. click OK. Notice that I have a blank canvas here and it says, Editing Symbol Graphic 1. Let's go ahead and draw out a graphic that will constitute this symbol, and then let's click on the Done button, right up here in the upper left-hand corner. Now notice several things, as I've now moved back to my canvas, and I have also a graphic object here in the Library. I had my Library open before I started, and what's interesting is I can drag out as many copies of this graphic symbol as I need, and I can also modify each instance. Notice if I take the Transform tool I can transform each of these graphics so that they look different, but they're actually the same symbol object. That's kind of the trick here with symbols. You can even rotate this one. You can't change it's color, notice, but I can double-click on the object here in the Library. That brings me back to this editing mode for that symbol, and here, once the symbol object is selected, I can change the color. Let's change this to a lighter orange there, click Done, and now notice that each of the copies that I dragged out previously from the Library have now also changed to orange. So instances are representations of a Fireworks symbol that I've dragged out from the Library. If the original symbol here in the Library is edited, then the instances or copies are automatically changed to reflect the modifications of that symbol. Let me go ahead and double-click on this again, and let's, instead of changing the color, let's change the shape, like so, and click Done. And notice that now all four of these instances have changed. They've changed a little bit differently because the original instance, this one, for example, was different than the others. But they're all based on the same symbol object here in the Library. Symbols will be useful to you. Whenever you want to reuse a graphic element you can place instances in multiple Fireworks documents and then retain the association with the original symbol, helping you keep consistency across your documents. I use symbols for creating buttons and animating objects across multiple frames. That's where the other two symbols come in. Let's go ahead and Edit, Insert, New Symbol. The Animation type of symbol will help you create short frame-by-frame animations, and the button symbols I demonstrated In the previous movie, help you create multi-state buttons that have rollover and press down animations and so on. Now you can create symbols from scratch, as I did here, by choosing Edit, Insert, New Symbol. You can also convert any object, text block, or group into a symbol and then organize them in the Library tab of the Assets panel. I have that open here. And as I demonstrated, to place instances in a document, you simply drag them from the Library tab onto the canvas. Let me continue my review of Fireworks CS3 symbols in the next movie.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Adobe Fireworks CS3 |
| Author: | James Gonzalez |
| SKU: | 33836 |
| ISBN: | 1-934743-42-9 |
| Release Date: | 2008-01-25 |
| Duration: | 8.5 hrs / 93 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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