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The Text Option The Text option launches the Text Drawing Options dialog box. The dialog box contains three sets of settings: Horizontal Origin, Vertical Origin, and General Options, as shown in Figure 13.27, and in the following bulleted items:

FIG. 13.27
The Text Drawing
Options dialog box.


The Rounded Rectangle OptionThe Rounded Rectangle option, as shown in Figure 13.28, launches the Rounded Rectangle Drawing Options dialog box. The box contains settings that determine the Corner Radius and Units. The Corner Radius specifies the amount of rounding that Forms applies when drawing the corners of a boilerplate-rounded rectangle object. The Units setting specifies the unit of measure. The units can be in inches, centimeters, and points.

FIG. 13.28
The Rounded Rectangle
Drawing Options dialog
box.


The Image Option The Image option launches the Image Drawing Options dialog box. This dialog box controls the Image Quality and Image Dither. Image Quality controls the quality of the image. The higher the quality, the better the screen looks. It also takes longer for the screen to redraw. Image Dither is a process by which Forms simulates colors that appear in the image but are not available in the color palette. If the image is not dithered, Forms substitutes colors. Dithered images look better, but the form has slower response. It will take longer to appear or refresh. Figure 13.29 illustrates the Image Drawing Option dialog box.

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FIG. 13.29
The Image Drawing
Options dialog box.


Using the Arrange Pull-Down Menu

The Arrange Pull-Down menu has a variety of options to arrange objects on the canvas. The menu, displayed in Figure 13.30, has three sections. The top section rearranges objects or figures that overlay each other, the middle section aligns objects vertically or horizontally, and the bottom section contains options to group sets of objects.

FIG. 13.30
The Arrange options
menu.


Moving Objects Forward and BackwardThe top section of the Arrange menu contains four options, which arrange objects that overlay each other, as shown in Figure 13.31. On the left side of the canvas are three overlapping objects. The text object, "SAMPLE TEXT," is at the base. The rectangle overlays the text object and is under the oval. These objects are the object piles before the move options are applied. The figures on the right are the object piles after the option is applied.

The Bring to Front option brings the selected object to the top of the object pile. In Figure 13.31, the top example places the selected text object on top of the rectangle and oval. The Send to Back option places the selected object on the bottom of the pile. In the Figure 13.31, in the second row, the oval was selected. The Send to Back option placed the oval beneath the rectangle and text.

In the third row, the Move Forward option brings the text object forward one layer. After selecting the text item and the object, the text item is moved above the rectangle. This function differs from the Bring to Front option in that it moves the selected object forward one layer or object at a time. The Move Backward option also differs from the Send to Back option in that it moves the selected object one layer at a time. In the bottom example, the oval is moved back one layer, overlays the text, and is under the rectangle.

NOTE
The canvas in figure 13.31 was created by using a file called MOVE.FMB. This file is on the CD. You can use this file to practice moving objects by using the menu options.

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FIG. 13.31
Examples of moving
overlaid objects by
using menu options.


The Align Objects optionThe Align Objects menu option, the formatting tool I use the most, aligns objects vertically and horizontally and also stacks and distributes objects. Pressing Align Objects brings up the Align Objects dialog box, shown in Figure 13.32.

FIG. 13.32
The Align Objects dialog box.


This dialog box has three sets of radio buttons: Align To, Horizontally, and Vertically. The base alignment object is determined by the Align To set of buttons. The options are to align the objects to each other or to the closest grid line. Selecting the each other option does not necessarily place the select objects adjacent to each other. It means the farthest edge of an object in the selected set is the base alignment object. For instance, if a set has two rectangles, the left edge of the farthest rectangle is the base alignment object for a left alignment. The right edge of the farthest to the right rectangle is the base alignment object for a right alignment.

The Horizontally radio buttons determine the horizontal alignment through the following options:

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Figure 13.33 contains examples of the various Horizontally settings. The alignments are based on the each other setting.

FIG. 13.33
Examples of Horizontally
alignment options.


The Vertically radio buttons determine the vertical alignment of objects through the following options:

Figure 13.34 illustrates the various Vertical settings.

NOTE
When I design a screen, I use Arrange options extensively. I first position the fields and boilerplate by eyeballing them. At this point, I am interested only in relative positions. When the objects are roughly in place, I select the items and objects on the first row. I then align the remainder of the objects, using this row as the base.

The Repeat Alignment option is a short-cut option for when the same alignment is repeated on another set of objects. It performs the same alignment performed the last time the Alignment dialog box was used, and saves one step over the normal Align Objects option.

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