Text on Buttons

[Christine Farrelly]

If this is what you are after, create a bitmap of the button shape (no bevel) and text, delete the original text and fill the button shape with the bitmap before applying the bevel.

Christine

[Anna]

Thanks Christine,

This is getting closer all the time, however, I don't think (unless I am missing something) that you can use this to make other buttons using the button and Navbar tool which have different text for each button.

Ordinarily, the text will have the same attributes as the first button as you simply backspace the text that is there, and put in new text for subsequent buttons. The button will stretch if there isn't enough room, so is done on the fly. I don't think this will work with this method.

However, thanks for the suggestion. It took me a bit to realize what you were suggesting, and I learned some things along the way.

Anna B.
http://www.AngelChild.com/

[gwpriester]

Can you find an example of the kind of button you are talking about?

I'm sure once we see an example we can give you dozens of ways to do it.

(Instead of playing 20 questions :-)

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

<a href="http://www.gwpriester.com">
www.gwpriester.com </a>


XaraXone

[Su Lawrence]

If you want to use molded text in a navbar you could try this ...

... I haven't thoroughly tested it out so there might be some unnecessary parts, but it seems to work so far.

The reason you can't edit text in your navbar when you use molded text is the same reason you can't edit text in a mold. You need to copy mold, remove it, edit text and paste mold shape back. However, I tried this in the navbar and this detatches the text from the navbar, so no good.

What I eventually ended up doing was creating a navbar with no molded text. I then used a single molded text version and the set design option. This makes all your text in the navbar molded. (I molded text with a rectangle to allow for different amounts of text/size etc and to more easily match the button shape).

Once your navbar text is molded you can't edit the text again but you can then set design to the non-molded version and edit as normal and remold etc.

It's a bit convoluted, but couldn't find any other way to do it. One note when you set design the object/s you select disappear so make a clone of them first.

In the attachment, I did the molded text part quite quickly, so the curve doesn't match the button exactly. It's just to show what I am talking about.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Su

[This message was edited by Su Lawrence on August 07, 2002 at 19:24.]

[Soquili]

Hi Anna,

Su's explaination seems to be a solution of the navbar part of your question. Another would be to make the navbar without any text, then import the individual images for the buttons and add the moulded text.

Soquili

[Anna]

Thanks all for your efforts at creating my button, everyone.

I think these last buttons do what I want, however, I was hoping for something less finicky than adjusting a mold for each button. I was trying for 'paste attributes' or some such idea which would conform the text exactly to the button, neatly and consistantly.

Christine's solution works beautifully for this, however, it becomes part of the button, and when used with the button and navbar tool, the text is part of the button and forms a background for each button. ... so, the text in the first button remains on subseqent buttons.

I guess there is no easy way other than mold. Thanks everyone for the great response to my little problem. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Anna B.
http://www.AngelChild.com/

[rsallen]

Here is my try at this... This text looks like it was engraved into the button. I think part of the issue is defining the concave or convex shape of the object.

So is this the effect you are after? I will also post the Xara file if you like...

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

"Wherever you go, there you are."

Randy Allen

[Su Lawrence]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>I think these last buttons do what I want, however, I was hoping for something less finicky than adjusting a mold for each button. I was trying for 'paste attributes' or some such idea which would conform the text exactly to the button, neatly and consistantly.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You shouldn't need to adjust the mold for each button. If you use the set design function, you just do two molds (ie mouse over and mouse out/off). It is kind of like a template which you can paste to your whole nav bar and all the buttons should conform to that template. (The text on the nav bar gets molded but stays the same actual text). It's a bit of a fiddle in parts, what with having to clone all the time before set design, and also having to demold if you want to edit text ... etc. But then again I find doing some types of molding a bit fiddly anyway.

You can also paste mold envelope shapes, but I have found it tricky as the results mostly aren't as expected. Although I didn't experiment a lot with different shapes, set design does seem to be a more stable way to paste a mold envelope to another object, at least so far (see attached).

Regards

Su

[This message was edited by Su Lawrence on August 08, 2002 at 00:26.]

[This message was edited by Su Lawrence on August 08, 2002 at 00:58.]

[This message was edited by Su Lawrence on August 08, 2002 at 01:01.]

[Anna]

Randy, that is it, but I am guessing that the text can't be simply changed when making more buttons with the button/navbar tool. Did you happen to try it? I need to be able to duplicate the button and simpy click and replace the text.

Su, thanks. I am still working at trying to duplicate what you have done here to see if it works for me. (My own ineptness.) I can't seem to get the text changed or find where to save a mold (although I am working on a deadline for something else and haven't had as much time to do this as I would like.)

I'll keep working on it.

Thanks, team. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_cool.gif[/img]

Anna B.
http://www.AngelChild.com/

[rsallen]

I think this is what Su is alluding to above, but I have not noticed a problem with it. I basically think that Xara will not allow you to simply change the text - because once moulded - it is no longer raw text.

Anyway... Here goes - remember - for this to work consistently - you should operate within the Mould menu!

When you create a piece of text with a mould applied and you get it just right... you can then copy the mould shape and apply it to a new piece of text and create the same effect. See the Mini-Tute I put together below.

Hint: I used the box mould - applied it to the text and then used the shape editor to grab the sides and make the curves. It was quicker than fussing with the Mould handles to get the right shape.

Anyway, this is the quickest way I have found to do this consistently.

Good Luck! (Actually it goes pretty fast)

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

"Wherever you go, there you are."

Randy Allen