Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Once the empty Stage appears, set the width and height of the composition
in the Property panel to the left. If you are creating a composition with a flexible
layout; in other words, no fixed width and/or height for the Stage, section 3.9 ex-
plains the options Edge Animate currently offers for responsive design. Besides
the size of the Stage, you can also change the background color, the overflow
behavior (see section 3.4.4) and set the option for automatic playback. The com-
position ID is not an issue at this point, and only becomes relevant when you
want to place several Edge Animate compositions in the same website. More-
over, the Down-level Stage, Poster and Preloader fields only become important
when publishing the final composition. You will learn about these in chapter 6.
Figure 3.1
You have now created a general structure for the composition. It is recom-
mended that you save projects often to avoid any loss of data.
Now you can start with actual design. The Edge Animate shape tools let
you create basic shapes. The application offers three container shapes
(DIV container), all of which are simple rectangles. Only the settings for corner
rounding vary among the three shape-creating tools, ranging from rectangles
with right-angle corners to circles. The default settings for rounded corners can,
of course, be edited at a later point and modified individually or all at once. In ad-
dition, the application provides a Text tool to create multiple-line text blocks and
other text elements. Unfortunately, free-form paths or even three-dimensional
elements cannot be created at this time.
