Section 18. Relying on a Common User Interface


#18. Relying on a Common User Interface

One of the advantages of using a suite of applications from the same software developer is that you can rely on a common user interface throughout the product offerings. As the applications in the Creative Suite have matured and become increasingly used in conjunction, Adobe has strived to create a common user experience between them. Menu commands, palettes, keyboard shortcuts, tools, and how you interact with all of these elements have been made more universal wherever possible.

Common Tools for Smarter Working

All of Adobe's hard work in keeping common threads throughout the suite translates into a major productivity boost for you. If you are new to the entire suite or just don't know your way around a couple of the applications, you can take what you learn in one application and use it in another. Armed with this knowledge, you can tread through applications you're not familiar with in the suite with some confidence. If you are quite adept with the pen tool in Illustrator but have never used it in InDesign, it doesn't matterthey're the same. Of course, not every user interface element is common throughout the suite, but so many are.


For example, the way you work with opacity settings (Figure 18) in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign are in effect the same. The standard Move/Selection tool found throughout the suite uses the same keyboard shortcut (V). And you may have noticed that many of my tips point you to the same menu locations regardless of the application. For example, Keyboard Shortcuts can be found on the Edit menu in every application.

Figure 18. These palettes are used in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign to adjust the opacity setting of an object. They're virtually identical.





Adobe Creative Suite 2 How-Tos(c) 100 Essential Techniques
Adobe Creative Suite 2 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques
ISBN: 0321356748
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 143

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net