With the help of Pablosan a few weeks ago, I got down how to add reflection to buttons to make them look 3D. However, I’m having issues now with text on buttons. I did read the post “Adding Text To Graphics.” My question is: is it better to add the text to a button while within Intaglio or would it be better to add it in Freeway? I want to add headers like Home, etc to my buttons. If I add them in Intaglio, they appear distorted and fuzzy in Freeway. If I try to add them in Freeway, the text block moves behind my page. What’s the best way? Could the problem be that my buttons are 400X100 pixels in Intaglio and I scale them down to 100X25 in Freeway? I have saved them as PDFs to import. I essentially want to make buttons that use the Rollover action.
Somebody else would be better to suggest how to use Freeway but I can suggest a couple things about Intaglio.
If you add effects to a text block element or a group containing your text block that text will be converted to a bitmap image to create the effect. In some situations this can cause it to become fuzzy. Exporting as PDF is the best way to preserve text sharpness but it won’t help in this situation because your text is already a bitmap.
I’d suggest that you try to add the text as a separate graphic above the button without effects and export as PDF. If your text is still fuzzy it’s most likely something within Freeway itself.
Save the Intaglio artwork as a TIFF. On a G5 iMac with a 20” screen, the Intaglio document, the TIFF placed in Freeway and the web page in Safari look identical. However, if the button is too small. the subtle gradients and translucency virtually disappear. A 2” wide button works—the glows, bevels and translucency effects look good, but if the same graphic is reduced to 1”, the subtle details disappear into a fuzz.
In Safari, text effects created in Freeway look slightly sharper than graphics created in Intaglio. If possible, create graphics actual size and turn on Graphic Preview to see how the images will appear in the browser.
(Possibly connected to the above)
I’ve noticed that screengrabs which look sharp in Text Edit and Preview become fuzzy when pasted into Intaglio. A workaround is to create a new Preview document, copy in Preview and paste that into Intaglio.
Thanks for the information Nick & Ian. I greatly appreciate it. Ian, I tried your suggestion but I still get some distortion on the button. Do you mean to make the button around 2 inches in Intaglio but then maybe have it a smaller box in Freeway?
Also, when I make two buttons of differing colors to use with a Rollover action, they don’t accept the rollover. I can only get one appear in the Action window. I know this is more Fewway than Intaglio, but am hoping it seems related somehow.
Thanks again to the both of for help. Sorry I’m slow at responding.
When you say distortion do you mean the button is squashed? If so, go to ‘Item>Graphic>Scale and Pad’. The graphic is scaled in proportion to fit the width of the box.
<Do you mean to make the button around 2 inches in Intaglio but then maybe have it a smaller box in Freeway?>
Small graphics with complex effects such as glows and bevels don’t always scale properly, so I prefer to work same size. That way, you see more or less what you’re going to get. There could be other, better ways, however.
Intaglio has greater graphics capabilities than Freeway, but Freeway’s ‘Buttons’ Action creates decent glow and drop shadow effects and there’s also a nice Action which creates a round button with blends.
It can be tricky to get the Rollovers Action working, but the procedure in the Help file works. Make sure that ‘Layer’ is deselected in the Properties Inspector for all 3 rollover images (Normal, Mouseover and Click).
When the mouse is placed over the ‘Normal’ button, the ‘Mouseover’ button replaces it. When the ‘Mouseover’ button is pressed, the ‘Click’ button appears, but only if the image has no link.
If the ‘Mouseover’ image has a link, the browser opens the page, ignoring the third, ‘Click graphic’.
Thanks again for the help. It all makes a little more sense now. I’ve gotten rollovers to work just fin when they are made totally in Freeway. I’m just very new to Intaglio.