Any way to locate button in pasteboard background?

[Contours]

I assigned a link action to text that I had placed in the pasteboard background (see attached). The assignment was accepted by Xara and the text element displays properly on all of the site's pages.

However, when I preview the page, the cursor does not change during mouse-over and no action occurs upon clicking the text. (The assigned tooltip does display for the text element.)

I haven't seen instructions that limit what can be placed in the background layer, but I'm now supposing there are some. So, my questions are:

1. Is there a way to place a button on the pasteboard background?
2. Are there guidelines for the background elements?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[gwpriester]

If you are still using version 9 this might help http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...679#post470679

Version 11 and 12 have a Sticky feature which makes this a lot easier.

[Contours]

If you are still using version 9 this might help

Yes, I forgot to mention X9 Pro.

Thanks for the link. It may come in handy for other reasons, but I'll first try having my two "buttons" in a layer that overlays the bottom area.

What I'm trying to avoid is getting elements that are on every page mixed in with the elements on each particular page. A separate layer at least isolates them.

[Egg Bramhill]

Hi Contour,

1. Is there a way to place a button on the pasteboard background?

Why would you wish to do this in the first place? For example, if a button was placed such that it was off the visitors viewable page, it would be missed, invisible. No scrollbars would appear to slide it into view. And yes, assets on the pasteboard layer don't act as links, as you've already stated.

What I'm trying to avoid is getting elements that are on every page mixed in with the elements on each particular page. A separate layer at least isolates them.

Yes, you could do this. For example all repeating objects, menus, headers, footer, logos, etc could be on the MouseOff layer. You could then have a layer named 'Specific Content ' that only holds assets local to that page. But in all honesty I think this is overkill. I find most things can reside happily on the MouseOff layer. Repeating objects can be deleted if not required on a particular page by hitting Delete and then hitting Delete on this page only.

[Contours]

Why would you wish to do this in the first place?

On the right side of the capture in my first post, you'll notice several elements in the pasteboard background. These are the footer area of every page ... all defined in one place. The footer displays properly on every page, but the "Terms of Use", for example, isn't clickable.

[gwpriester]

OK. I think I misunderstood your question. I am not sure if this will work, but in Website Properties > Website, un-check Clip to Edges.

Add a larger transparent rectangle that covers part of the bottom of the page and the button. Ack. Give me a moment to try this out and I'll get right back.

[gwpriester]

OK See if this is what you want.

You would remove the outline from the larger rectangle so it appears the button is floating off the bottom of the page.

[Contours]

Thanks for the replies and the file. But I'm not able to see how it solves my issue. The elements in Button.xar are in the MouseOff layer. That's the layer I'm trying to avoid using. In fact, that's where my links were originally defined. But I moved them to the Pasteboard layer to consolidate them ... which led to my question and the title to this thread.

[gwpriester]

If you place anything on the mouseover layer with nothing to trigger that layer, then nothing will appear.

You cannot have something on the pasteboard layer unless as I demonstrated it overlaps the page which is why I used the invisible rectangle.

In the example I posted the mouseoff layer triggers the mouseover layer.

That's what I thought you were after. Guess not.

[Contours]

I can almost follow that. As a test, I moved the text in your example to the pasteboard layer and applied a soft group with the overlapping rectangle. That provided the proper mouseover actions, but the text was invisible until the rectangle was hovered.

My conclusion is that there's no straightforward way to get the button effect I'm seeking. I'll go back to having the text element in the MouseOff layer so that I don't (later) confuse myself and others.

Thanks for the suggestions.