Subtitles of the Movie

Fireworks offers a variety of methods for editing vector objects. You can change an object's shape by moving, adding, or deleting points. You'll usually move points by using the Sub-selection tool, click on the object and then you see these points here and I can click on one and move it, changing the shape of that vector object. I can also move the entire vector object. Notice that when I'm over a point, my cursor changes to that white triangle icon, indicating I can move that point. You'll add or delete points using the Pen tool. With the vector object selected move your pen onto the stroke. Notice that there's a plus sign next to my icon of the pen. That'll tell you can add a point to that vector line. A minus sign indicates you can delete a point, and so on. You can also use Free Form tools, like the Pen tool to alter the shape of objects by editing the paths directly, like so, changing the curvature in this case with my Pen tool. With the Sub-selection tool I changed the path by moving the point. You can also use path operations to create new shapes by combining or altering existing paths. In addition to dragging points and point handles, you can use several Fireworks tools to edit vector objects directly. You can use path operations here in the Modify menu to create new shapes by combining or altering existing paths here in the Convert Path to Marquee, Combine Paths, Alter Paths, Simplify, Expand, Stroke, Insert Path, Hard Fill, Anti-Alias Fill, and Feather Fill. You can also edit paths using the Path panel that I have open here. This panel provides quick access to a number of path-related commands. You can use the tools here in this panel to speed up your path editing tasks. You'll get access to this panel from the Main menu by choosing Window, then there's a command here called Others here on the bottom, kind of hidden, this one, and then you want to choose the Path Option. Notice that you have Combined Paths, and Point Edits, as well as Selection Tools here. Modifying paths with the Sub-selection tool is pretty straightforward, you simply click on the point or, in the case of a curved line segment, the controller for that point, and modify it. Let me focus this discussion here on the Pen tool. With the Pen tool you can plot points as if drawing a connect-the-dots picture. Let's go ahead and start with nothing selected, and then here, with my Pen tool I just simply click to create a straight line segment. When you click each point with the Pen tool, Fireworks automatically draws the path of the vector object from the last point you clicked. To close off the shape, double-click on the Pen tool, and that's kind of the trickiest part there. If you don't, you keep adding points until you double-click on it, and then it stops adding points for that object. Let me go ahead and clear my canvas here, get rid of everything. That's pretty straightforward to add straight line segments, but in addition to these straight-line segments, the Pen tool can draw smooth, mathematically derived curve segments, known as Bezier curves. Each point's type, corner point, or curve point determines whether the adjacent curves are straight lines, or curves, and the way you do that is you click and drag to create curved segments. Notice that when you do you get those Bezier handles there. Just clicking will create straight line segments, so here this shape has a combination of straight lines and curved lines, and you have corner points here as well as curved points that will indicate whether, again, that next line segment will be straight or curved. So to summarize, you draw straight line segments by just clicking the Pen tool, curved line segments, or curved path segments as they're called in the Fireworks documentation, you click and drag your mouse, and you'll get these Bezier curves. You can change the shape of a vector object by dragging its point handles with the Sub-selection tool as I demonstrated, or using the Pen tool here. Let me go ahead and double-click to modify that, and I can change those shapes. I can also delete or add points as I demonstrated previously. Notice that when I get to the end there, let me undo that, when I get to the end, notice my mouse cursor there changes to a pen with a zero, or a filled, or a completed circle next to it, see that right there with my mouse? When you get close to that click and that will allow you to fill that shape. Now, I don't have any fill for that shape, but it did complete the shape, so I could add a fill by choosing a fill color down here in the Properties Inspector, like so. Let me follow up this demonstration in the next movie with a demonstration how to edit your vector paths, using path operations here under the Modify, Combine, and Alter Path options, followed by how to edit your vector paths using the Path Panel.