Changing Mouse-Over Colors + Text on Orbit NavBar

**suzzie1234** · 25 April 2009, 02:25 AM

Building a web site this weekend.

The best Nav Bar for me is the orbit template horizontal navbar.

ISSUE 1: If I drag it over to the mouse-off layer - it previews OK

If I drag it over to a new layer I created called NavBar then it does not change states when previewed. (Maybe I cant do that and MUST place it in the mouse Off Layer ONLY possibly?)

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ISSUE 2: But the big question is...the transparent shaded colors of the mouse-over state are the wrong colors. I try to select a button or buttons and change the colors with the color editor...but then it just fills in the button and covers over everything and I loose its shading and its functionality. How do I change the mouse-over color to another color. The Mouse-off color is OK.

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ISSUE 3: The Same kind of Nav Bar Problem. BUTTONS DONT WORK! I was having problems changing the text on the buttons so it would be the same text... and in register on the mouse-off and mouse-over states. I finally figured out to Control-C copy the text in the mouse-off state... change the layer selection to the mouse-over layer...and then Shift-Control-V in into the mouse-over layer. Now I have the same registered text in both states ( MY GOSH THIS IS NEARLY ROCKET SCIENCE!)

BUT...Now when I preview the nav bar...some of the buttons work OK...but the ones I changed just turn to the mouse-over color...and the text disappears!!!! (I almost give up with XWD here!). I soft grouped the text and button on the mouse-off layer and I soft grouped and brought the text forward in the mouse-over layer...and im still having this difficulty.

Thanks for any help

Ill attach the page im working on...because I know someone will be asking for it!!

Suzzie

**suzzie1234** · 25 April 2009, 05:19 AM

I have learned another thing after two grueling hours of pulling out my hair.

I have to actually hard group each state...the soft group I read about is not doing the job...It seems like I must hard group each button in both of its states...then it seems to work. GOSH!

Suzzie

**Soquili** · 25 April 2009, 02:16 PM

Hi Suzzie,

To answer you last question first: A soft group is good for grouping MouseOff and MouseOver states accross layers but doesn't do the same grouping as a normal group. So yes, group your button shapes and text on each layer then use soft group to allow editing the button text on both layers and to move the buttons in unison on both layers.

To change the colours of Template Objects it is recommended to edit the theme colour. When you brought a copy of the Obit horizontal menu into your work area the theme colour for the buttons and text was added to the left end of the Color Line. There are two ways to edit a theme colour. If you have not disabled the colour line popup menu you can click on the colour and select Edit from the popup menu. If you have disabled the popup menu begin by Opening the Color Editor, left click on the threme colour and drag it to the Large colour area in the center of the Color Editor and drop it. Now any edit of the colour will be applied to any object that has that colour assigned to it.

I would recommend leaving the imported Template objects on their default layers until you become more familiar with how layers work in Web Designer. Also remember that soft groups will paste or import to the layers they were originally created within.

Editing a theme colour changes all 'linked' (tints, shades, linked) colours.

**suzzie1234** · 25 April 2009, 03:33 PM

Hi Soquili,

Thank you so much!!!

What a giant you are...being willing to take some time to help out.

Thanks for your insights.

I have one more issue...how can you soft group across layers...I have images and words in the mouse-over and the mouse-up layers?

**Soquili** · 25 April 2009, 03:42 PM

Hi Suzzie,

I would group the shapes and text for each button individually on each individual layer. Then to soft group individual buttons accross the layers you make each layer visible and editable. That would be have a tick in the box under the eye and the arrown columns. Then with the Selector Tool Marquee select (click outside the shapes and drag a rectangle around the shapes) all the shapes for an individual button (mouseoff, mouseover, and mousedown layer if you want a click to change the look of the button) on the layers then soft group each button. After you have all the buttons individually soft grouped you can select all the buttons and soft group the complete menubar if you like.

**cursor** · 25 April 2009, 04:13 PM

soft groups

Also, from the program's help file:

Soft Groups
Ordinary Groups as described in "Grouping and ungrouping objects" sit on a single layer, they cannot span layers. Soft Groups are an alternative way of linking objects together where the objects can be across several different layers.

Selecting one member of a Soft Group also selects all other members of the same Soft Group – even members that are on invisible or locked layers. This means when you delete, move, rotate or otherwise transform one member of a Soft Group, all the other members are similarly modified.

The status line indicates when a Soft Group is selected.

Soft Groups are useful for keeping closely related objects together. For example the MouseOff and MouseOver states of a web button are Soft Grouped together, so that if one state is moved or transformed, so is the other state.

Creating Soft Groups
To create a Soft Group, select all the objects that are to be included in it and then choose "Arrange->Apply soft group" (or press "Ctrl+Alt+G"). Note that if the Soft Group is to include members on invisible or locked layers, you'll need to make those layers temporarily visible and editable using the Layer Gallery in order to select the objects and Soft Group them.

An object cannot be a member of more than one Soft Group and Soft Groups cannot be nested (soft groups as members of souft groups).

Removing Soft Groups
To disband a Soft Group, select it and choose "Arrange->Remove soft group" (or press "Ctrl+Alt+U"). The objects don't get deleted, they are just no longer linked together by a Soft Group.

Text Synchronisation
Any text objects which have the same text value and which are members of the same Soft Group are kept synchronized if any of those text objects are edited. So change the text in one object and any other text objects that had the exact same characters will also be changed to match. Only the text value itself if synchronized, so different text objects can have different sizes, fonts and text attributes.

Text sychronisation using Soft Groups is useful where a label is duplicated in several places, perhaps in different styles and you want each object to show the same label.

**cursor** · 25 April 2009, 04:16 PM

Custom Navbar Creation Process

**Spinny** · 27 April 2009, 07:52 PM

Okay, so then when I changed the font on a mouse-off version of a button I imported from a theme, it was normal that I had to turn on the mouse-over version and manually change the font there, too? I thought I had done something wrong.