Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
items in a layer. Layer items can also be controlled by CSS attributes.
Cascading Style Sheets allow items to be positioned absolutely on a Web page.
For our uses and for people with little experience, CSS can be skipped over
for now. We will learn about CSS later in this chapter.
Each layer occupies a separate, stacked position on the Z axis. Z is the axis of
depth. Layers have a Z axis because they can be stacked on top of one another,
thus creating depth. The Web page has X for width, Y for height, and Z for
depth. Here are some of the virtues of layers:
•
Layers can be added and deleted easily.
•
Layers can hold any Web asset or object.
•
Layers can be dynamically controlled (DHTML) using a timeline.
•
Layers can be resized, colored, and positioned to fit conveniently into
your Web page design.
•
Tables can be nested inside layers to provide extensive content control.
Using layers with tables is an easy and highly effective way to develop Web
pages from scratch, without using Fireworks to create an entire page. In this
case, you would use Fireworks for optimizing and exporting individual graph-
ics, instead of entire pages.
The layers inspector lists all the layers on the current page. Go to
WINDOW>LAYERS,
and the
layers inspector will pop up
.
When you create
a new layer, the layer1 name will appear in the name section of the layers
inspector. You can click on the layer name and rename it descriptively. This will
help when you have many layers on the page. The layer will also have an
assigned Z index number. The Z index refers to the stacking order of the layers
and to the load sequence on the page. The top-down stacking order is
represented on the page in the same manner. The layer at the top is the highest
number. It will always load at the top of the page, above other indexes. In sum,
the highest number loads last and on top.
You can prevent overlaps with layers, but you might want to overlap layers in
your page design process. So, you might want to leave the overlap button
unchecked unless you need to use it.
To manage positioning of layers, you can use the rulers, properties inspector
positioning fields, and the grid. The grid allows you to snap the layers to a
predefined grid. Or, you can move the layers freely where you want with
