Exploring the Composer Toolbars

Exploring the Composer Toolbars

You perform many activities in Composer by clicking buttons on its two main toolbars: Composition and Formatting (see Figure 18.3). Composer actually has four toolbars. It also has the taskbar, which appears at the bottom of the Composer window, but which has no role in Web authoring, and the Edit Mode toolbar, which you won't use until Chapter 26, "Editing HTML," so ignore it for now. You learn much more about these toolbars over the next several chapters; for now, it's enough just to know where they are.

Figure 18.3. You do most things in Composer by clicking buttons and picking from list boxes on the Composition and Formatting toolbars.

Most buttons are easy to identify by their icons (and names , on the Composition toolbar). But note that every button (or list box) on the toolbars has a tooltip , a name that appears to identify the button.

To learn the name of any button or list box, point to it (don't click) and pause a moment. The name of the button appears.

You can choose to display any toolbar (for ready use) or hide it (to free up more screen area for examining your creations). The following example shows how to hide and display toolbars:

1. Open Composer and look at the two rows of buttons beneath the menu bar (see Figure 18.4).

   Figure 18.4. Step 1: Open Composer and check out the toolbars.

   

2. Click View, and then click Show (see Figure 18.5). In the menu, a check mark appears next to the name of each toolbar that's displayed.

   Figure 18.5. Step 2: Open the View menu.

   

3. To hide a toolbar, click its name.

4. To redisplay a toolbar you've hidden, repeat Steps 2 and 3.