- Choose your design application
- Use a single artboard with multiple layers
- Group complex objects
- Flatten artwork with filters and effects
- Name everything
- Embed images in the design document
- Manage fonts when sharing files
- Set component properties in Flash catalyst
- Create sample artwork for a list of images or text
- Hide, show, and lock layers
- Exporting an FXg file from adobe Fireworks
From the book
Use a single artboard with multiple layers
If you’ve designed user interfaces in the past, you may have used more than one file or artboard to represent the different areas or screens of the application. But Flash Catalyst does not support multiple artboards. Instead, you use a single document with one artboard and multiple layers to specify the different pages and states of the application and its components.
Any layers, sublayers, and groups that you define in Illustrator, Photoshop, or Fireworks are maintained when you import the project into Flash Catalyst.
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The organization of your content is extremely important. You’ll need to identify and select these objects when separating artwork onto different pages and states or converting artwork into functional components in Flash Catalyst.
Here are some tips for organizing your artwork using layers:
- Use top-level layers to represent the main pages or screens of the application.
- Add a layer for common objects that appear on every page. For example, you may want a layer named “background” or a layer named “navigation.”
- Use sublayers to represent the elements on each page.
- Use sublayers to organize the building blocks or parts of individual Flash Catalyst components, such as scroll bars, menus, and buttons.
- Stack layers from the bottom up (page 1 appears below page 2).