Gobe Productive User's Guide - Frames & Graphic Items

- Documentation conventions
- The Productive documents
- The Productive interface
- The MenuBar
- The FormatBar
- The PartBar
- The ToolBar
- Frames & graphic items
- Selecting
- Sheets
- Cutting and pasting
- Tear-Off tools
- Page setup
- How to print
- Document size, margins, & history
- Headers & footers
- Views & windows
- Keyboard & mouse mappings
- Preferences
- Translators

# Frames and Graphic Items

Selecting & Activating | Selection Options | Linked Frames
Cloned Frames | Opening Frames or Grouped Graphics into a New Window | Specialized Frames

Graphics are a fundamental aspect of the Gobe Productive suite. Frames, like a spreadsheet or word processing frame, behave the same as graphic items. You can apply borders, fill colors, even rotate a frame in the same way you can manipulate a box, oval, or line.

Unlike graphic items, frames have content inside them. A frame is essentially a floating version of an environment. If you insert a word processing frame into a graphics document, the word processing functions are all fully available when the frame is active. This introduces the important concept of selecting and activating in the Gobe Productive suite.

## Selecting and Activating

Selection in the word processing and spreadsheet environment is the process of highlighting cells or text. To select text, you position the cursor in the text flow, hold down the mouse button, move the mouse, and highlight the text you want to select. Selecting cells in a spreadsheet works in the same way.

However, when you are working with frames and graphic items (in any environment), selection works slightly different than selecting text in a text flow or cells in a spreadsheet. When you select a frame or graphic item, small "handles" appear on the edges of the item. Since all frames behave like graphic items, when a frame is selected, it can be resized, rotated, etc.

If you want to work on the content inside a frame, though, it must be activated. To activate a frame, double-click anywhere inside the frame. The Gobe Productive interface then changes to display the tools and menus applicable for the activated frame. For example, while working in a word processing document, if you insert a spreadsheet frame, the interface changes to display tools and menus applicable for the spreadsheet environment.

In this example, a word processing frame and a graphic item (the red box) are placed inside a spreadsheet document. When the word processing frame is selected, small handles appear on the edge of the frame. Notice that the PartBar is in "graphics mode". This is because the frame is behaving like a graphic item.

In this example, the word processing frame is active. Notice that the PartBar has changed to display the word processing tools. This is because when a frame is active, the PartBar and MenuBar display the appropriate tools and menus for the active environment.

### Instructions for Selecting and Activating

To select a frame: Click the frame once. You can now manipulate the frame like a graphic object.

To activate a frame: Click twice on the frame. You can now work on the contents of the frame. (If the frame was already selected, you only need to click once).

To "unselect" or "deactivate" a frame: Simply click anywhere else in the workspace or select/activate a different frame.

## Selection Options

You can also use the following options to select frames or graphic items. Some selection options are not available while working inside a frame.

> ### Box Selection

> Using the mouse, draw a selection box around the items you want to select. Make sure to begin the box outside the borders of any existing items.

> ### Multiple Selection

> Hold down the [SHIFT] key and click on the graphic items or frames you wish to select. Each item clicked is selected.

> ### Rapid Selection

> Hold down the [ALT] key and draw a selection box. Any item the box touches is selected.

> ### Select All

> From the Edit menu select Select All. All items in the document are selected.

> If you are working in a spreadsheet or word processing document, the Select All command selects all the text or cells in the document unless a floating frame or graphic item is already selected. In this circumstance, all floating frames or graphic items are selected.

## Linked Frames

Linked frames are a great way to layout text or spreadsheet flows into multiple frames. For example, if you had a long selection of text that needed to be placed in different locations on the same page, two linked frames could handle this design.

Generally, layouts such as this would be better suited for a graphics document. However, you can place linked word processing frames like this in any document type, including word processing documents.

See the Working with Word Processing Frames or Working with Spreadsheet Frames topics for more information about linked frames.

## Cloned Frames

Cloned frames are "live-linked" duplicates of a frame. Making edits in one frame duplicates the same changes in the other frame. This can be very useful if you need to have the same text or graphics in different places within a document. Using a series of cloned frames, you can make a change to one frame and all the other frames change as well.

See the Working with Word Processing Frames or Working with Spreadsheet Frames topics for more information about cloned frames.

## Opening Frames or Grouped Graphics into a New Window

Frames, as well as grouped graphic items, can be opened into their own window. You can use this window to edit the contents of the frame or grouped graphic objects. The opened window is "live-linked" to the source frame or graphic items. Any changes made in the opened window are made to the source item.

1. Select the frame or grouped graphic items you wish to open into a window.
2. Select Open Frame Window from the Frame menu. The contents of the frame is opened in its own window. If the frame has multiple linked frames, all contents of the linked set is displayed in the frame window.

Frame windows are somewhat limited in their functionality because they are "live-linked" to the original document window. You can format the items in the frame including editing text, cells, or graphics. However, many document features such as headers and footers and setting margins are not available.

## Specialized Frames

The Gobe Productive suite has specialized frames that although available in all environments are especially suited or catered to one particular document type.

An example of a specialized frame is the table. The Table frame is not a full document type. It has its own specific PartBar and MenuBar, yet it can only be used as a frame within another document.

Tables are specifically catered to the word processing environment where they are used to organize text, numbers, or graphics in columnar form. Although tables can be created in the other environments, this is the document type in which a table frame is most useful. For more information, see the Table Frame topic in the Word Processing section.

Another specialized frame that is available in the Gobe Productive suite is the Clock frame. This frame is available in all environments, yet it is probably best suited for use in the graphics environment. The clock frame has the same PartBar and MenuBar as the graphics environment.

Copyright © 1999, Gobe Software, Inc