When you have more than one image or object on the
canvas, Fireworks gives you a variety of ways to work with those images,
from showing and hiding objects to positioning and grouping them.
You’ll find that steps like these are a common part of most design
workflows.
Adjusting the watch position
To experiment with this
feature, you’ll adjust the position of the watch image you’ve already
got open. Because you are dealing with exact measurements here, you need
to be aware of the exact x and y coordinates of the image.
1. | Select the watch with the Pointer tool, and check the values for x and y in the Properties panel. The watch should be positioned at X: 30, Y: 135.
Tip
To nudge a selected
object 10 pixels at a time, hold down the Shift key as you press the
arrow keys. You can also change a selected object’s position by entering
new values in the Properties panel.
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2. | If the watch is not in position, use the arrow keys on the keyboard to move the image one pixel at a time.
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Hiding and locking objects
With the watch cropped, there’s no need for that large ellipse, so let’s hide it from view for now.
1. | In the Layers panel, locate and select the ellipse.
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2. | Lock
the ellipse object in the Layers panel by clicking the empty box beside
the eye icon. Locking the object prevents you from accidentally
selecting it.
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3. | Click the eye icon to hide the ellipse from view.
To give the design a grittier feel, you’re also going to replace the
gradient backdrop with a bitmap image, so we’ll set up for that now.
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4. | Hide the gradient rectangle by clicking its eye icon in the Layers panel.
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5. | Lock the rectangle in the Layers panel by clicking the empty box beside the eye icon.
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Working with guides
In
this exercise, you will use guides to help ensure an exact position and
height between the canvas and an image you will import into the design.
Guides are great tools for aligning and placing objects on the canvas.
1. | If rulers are not visible, choose View > Rulers.
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2. | Move the cursor to the ruler at the left of the window.
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3. | Click
and drag toward the canvas. A vertical guide appears. You will also see
a tooltip appear beside the guide, with an x value. (If you don’t see
the tooltip, choose View > Tooltips.) This value is the horizontal
position of the vertical guide.
Note
The right and bottom guides will
not display on a Mac but objects will still behave correctly in
proximity to them—snapping to guides, showing distances between guides,
and so forth.
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4. | When the tooltip displays 0, release the mouse. The guide drops at that location.
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5. | Drag in another vertical guide, and place it at 500.
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6. | Drag
guides from the top ruler to these positions: 0 and 500. If you need to
reposition guides, you can simply select them with the Pointer tool and
drag them to a new position. Doing so effectively boxes in the canvas. |
