Working with Text


The Studio programs all share common methods of working with text, including basic functions such as adding, editing, and deleting text, as well as assigning character attributes such as bold and italic, and paragraph attributes such as indentation and justification. Many of these functions are also similar to those of widely used programs such as Microsoft Word.

Some functions, such as dynamic text (text loaded at runtime as opposed to authoring time) and user input fields (where the user can enter text), are restricted to Flash and Dreamweaver because only those programs have the means to control the runtime environment (that is, the Flash Player or the browser).

Note

As you develop with the various Studio applications, you'll notice that for the most part, what you see in the development environment is exactly the same as the end result. There are times, however, when what you see at author-time (what you see when you're working with the development tool) is different from what you see at runtime (what you see when you actually display the end result in a browser or by viewing the final product).

For example, in Dreamweaver, when you place a data binding in your web page, you don't see the actual data that is drawn from the database because that occurs only at runtime. To see the data, you need to view the page in a web browser.

So be aware that although many of the applications are WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get), you may have to take a few extra steps in some cases to proof your work.


Fireworks offers special text effects, such as drop shadows, that make the text appear to stand out from the page.

In the Property inspector, Dreamweaver offers only text attributes that are supported in HTML, such as bold, italic, color, font, indentation, and justification. Other attributes, such as spacing between characters, are not supported in HTML or Dreamweaver.

Flash's support for a subset of Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) tags, used to format text, provides standard-based integration with Dreamweaver, which has become more CSS-centric over the last few versions.

Adding Text

Adding text to Fireworks and Flash requires that you select the Text tool, click in the workspace where you want the text to be placed, and then type the text you want to display. Dreamweaver's Text tool, however, is similar to a word processor, so you can simply drop your cursor anywhere in the document where you want to display the text and type away.

Note

In Flash and Fireworks, you can also click and drag with the Text tool to create a fixed-width text block. Text entered into this text block wraps vertically after it reaches the width limitations of the text block.


Resizing Text Blocks

After you have created a text block, both Flash and Fireworks enable you to resize it by clicking on the appropriate handle, as shown in Figure 2.22 As you drag the handle, the block changes size and the text reflows to fit the box. You can also use the Width and Height fields in the Property inspector to resize text blocks, but doing so distorts the text vertically or horizontally, depending on which field you alter.

Figure 2.22. Drag a text box's handle to resize a text box.


Caution

When working with text boxes, the only time you should ever use scaling tools to change the height or width of a text box is when you want to stretch the text to create a strange or funny effect. Using a scaling tool to change the height or width of a text box skews and stretches not only the box, but the text inside. If you need to change the size of your text box, be sure that you select the Text tool and then change the size by dragging on the text box handles. Using the Text tool maintains the integrity of your text and still allows you to make adjustments to the box.


Tip

In Flash and Fireworks, handles appear only when the Text tool is selected and the cursor is in the text block.


As you drag a handle, the block changes size and the spacing between characters and lines also changes, whereas the line breaks stay the same.

Changing Text Globally

In Flash and Fireworks, you can set the default attributes of text by choosing the Text tool and making changes in the Property inspector. After these attributes are set, any instances of text that are placed on the page have those attributes until they are modified.

Some properties, such as text orientation (vertical, horizontal, left-to-right, right-to-left) in Flash and Fireworks, can be changed only globally. Such properties change for the whole text block, whether the Selection or Subselection tool has been used to select the text block as a whole, or whether the Text tool has been used to select particular characters or paragraphs.



Special Edition Using Macromedia Studio 8
Special Edition Using Macromedia Studio 8
ISBN: 0789733854
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 337

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