Editing a visible layer
The product provides a number of standard shapes that can be drawn onto
a visible layer int he current color.
There are basically two vector graphics types that can be drawn:
- The polygon which can be filled or unfilled, close or not closed.
The line, polyline, rectangle, square and triangle are all based on the polygon. Polygons can have
an unlimited number of vertices.
- The Arc which can filled or unfilled, a circle or ellipse
Layers can also contain
- Images which can be imported as GIF, JPEG or PNG
- Text in a variety of fonts and 3 sizes (small, medium and large)
Moving a layer with the Hand function
Turning on the 'Hand' function allows the layer to be dragged to a new position. Note
that if an event is selected when doing this then that event is updated with the new position.
If you hold down the 'Ctrl' key while dragging then movement will only be left or right,
horizontally. If you hold down the 'Alt' key while dragging movement is only up or down,
vertically. These keys have a similar effect when drawing lines.
More exact positioning can be achieved with the arrow keys on the keyboard or by pressing the
arrow buttons on the GUI. Note that magnifying the display can often help with exact
pixel by pixel positioning.
Color palette
The curent color is displayed in the top left of the right hand toolbar.
Clicking on the current color allows you to select any RGB color. Or you
can click on one of the palette icons to the right of the user interface.
The palettes implemented are:
- A Java color palette
- An imode color palette
- A gray scale palette
It is important to bear in mind the color diaplay capabilities of the target
device before deciding on which colors to use in a display.
The Drawing toolkit
The drawing toolkit menu gives you access to a variety of drawing options
that would otherwise be complicated to achieve. This menu is constantly being
added to and requests for particular options are welcomed.
The draw operation from a toolkit option can be undone like any other draw
operation.
Adding text
It is important to bear in mind that only three font sizes are available
on mobile phones. The applet implementation approximates these sizes.
When moving a long line of text off the visible screen it sometimes a good idea to move
the text well beyond the screen limits to compensate for a phone's font being wider than expected.
Note that text should never begin with the percentage "%" character as this indicates the text represents
a paramater that should be replaced in some way by the player.
Undo and redo
The product supports multiple level undo and redo when updating any visible
frame. When another layer is selected then the ability to undo on the
previous layer is lost.
Pixel level editing
The product provides the option to display the movie as a magnified grid of pixels.
The size of the grid cells can be selected as desired. All drawing operations
operate as normal on this grid plus by drawing a line or box inside a
single grid cell it is possible to change the color of a single pixel on the
screen. It is recommended that the straight line function be used to do this,
with the starting and end of point of the line being inside a single cell.