Gobe Productive User's Guide - Designing Graphics

- Designing graphics
- Building a Word Processing document
- Developing a spreadsheet
- Creating a chart
- Laying-out a presentation
- Touching up a picture
- Being Productive: Tips for Integrating and Getting the Most from Gobe Productive

# Designing Graphics

In this section, you will learn how to design a simple graphic. For this exercise, we will create a simple graphic with some text.

This section contains the following exercises:

Draw a Circle | Add Some Color | Sending Back and Forward | Adding a Text Frame
Reshaping and Smoothing Curves | Making a Graphic Style | Saving and Printing Your Work | Conclusion

## Launch Gobe Productive and Begin a New Document

- Run Gobe Productive.
- When the New Document dialog box displays, select Graphics and click OK. This starts a new graphic document.

## Draw a Circle

1. Click the Ellipse tool on the ToolBar . The tool darkens. This indicates that the application is now ready to draw a circle.
2. Position the crosshair cursor in the workspace. Click and hold the primary mouse button. Drag out the shape of the circle. Don't worry about the size or location, you can move and reshape it later.
3. Release the mouse button. The circle is displayed.
4. Now, let's draw a line. Click the Line tool on the ToolBar and draw a line in the workspace.
5. Your document might look something like this:

## Add Some Color

Let's fill the circle with a gradient and change the color of the outline.

1. Click and hold on the fill color tool .
2. Drag the tool until an outlined box appears. Locate the box some place on the screen where it is not covering your workspace.
3. Release the mouse button. A fill "tear off" palette is displayed.
4. Use the buttons at the top of this new dialog box and select the gradient button . A list of gradients displays.
   NOTE: These procedures work the same for a pattern fill as well.
5. Select a gradient you like. You can edit gradients, patterns, and colors. For more information about this and other features of the graphics environment, see the Graphics section of this documentation.
6. The circle is filled with the gradient you selected.

Now, let's make the outline of the circle thicker and a new color.

8. Click and hold the pen attributes tool in the FormatBar . A popup menu appears to the right of the button.
9. Continue to hold the mouse button and position your cursor over the line width tab, as shown in the following image.
10. Select 8 pt. This will make the outline of the circle thicker.
11. Using the same menu, position your cursor over the color tab and select a color for the outline.

## Sending Back and Forward

1. Select one of the graphics you created and move it on top of another image. Notice how the graphic you are moving slides "over" the other image.
2. Drop the graphic "on top" of another graphic.
3. From the Arrange menu, select Send to Back. The image you had selected will disappear behind the other image. This demonstrates the layering qualities of the graphics environment. You can have many items, including text and spreadsheets, overlap graphics.
4. Notice the commands Move Forwards, Move Backwards, and Bring to Front. Use these commands to layer your graphics. The move commands will send the selected graphic forward or back one layer.

## Add a Text Frame

In this task, you'll insert a text frame into the graphics sheet.

1. From the ToolBar, click and hold the frame tool .
2. From the popup menu, select Word Processing.
3. Position the cross-hair cursor over a blank part of the workspace.
4. Click and hold the mouse button to "draw" the text frame.
5. After you finish drawing the text frame, the frame is active. Notice that the PartBar changes and displays tools exclusively for working with text.
6. Type some text. Then highlight the text.
7. Click and hold the text color tool . A popup menu displays color, pattern, and gradient tabs. Select one of these buttons and then select a text color for the text you typed.

For more about working with text, see the next topic "Word Processing" or the Word Processing section.

## Reshaping and Smoothing Curves

Using the reshaping and smoothing features of the graphics environment, you can edit the curves and turns in Bezier curve and freehand shapes.

1. Click the freehand tool .
2. Click and hold the mouse button, and draw your freehand item in the workspace. If you have already selected a fill color, the area above and below the freehand lines may appear shaded.
3. Release the mouse button when you are finished drawing the graphic.
4. Make sure the freehand graphic you just drew is selected.
5. Select Reshape from the Arrange menu.
6. The line displays many small squares as shown in the image below.
   Each of these squares is a handle. You can click and hold on each of these handles and reshape the curve of the freehand graphic.

You can select multiple handles.

- Hold down the [SHIFT] key and click on multiple handles.
- The handles will change from an outlined square to a shaded square.

Any number of handles in an image can be "unsmoothed". Unsmoothing changes a handle from a nice, gentle curve to a sharp angle.

- To do this, simply select one or more handles.
- Then right-click on one of the handles. From the popup menu, select Unsmooth Handle(s).
- The handle will change from a smooth curve to a sharp angle, like the corner of a polygon.

## Making a Graphic Style

Any graphic can be a style. A style is a pre-defined look for a graphic item. Once a graphic is a style, you can apply the style to any other graphic thus "copying" the pre-defined look to the new graphic.

For example, you create a color and pen-size scheme you really like. You want to apply that same scheme to many other graphic items. Follow these instructions to create a style from the original graphic item.

1. Create a graphic. Set the graphic properties such as color and pen size exactly how you want them.
2. Click and hold the Styles button . A popup menu appears.
3. Select the New Style... from the popup menu. A New Style dialog box is displayed.
4. Type in a Style Name.
5. Click and hold Style Type. If you want the style to appear in ALL document types, select Basic. If you want the style to appear in only graphics documents, select Graphics.
6. Check the Copy formatting from selection box.
7. Click OK.

The Style button will now list your new style. You can now draw any new graphic item, then apply your style to it. The fill and pen properties will be set based on the style you created.

## Save and Print Your Work

Don't forget to save your work.

1. From the File menu select Save As... A BeOS standard save dialog box is displayed.
2. Locate the appropriate folder where you wish to save your file.
3. If you want to save the graphics in a different file format, select the format you wish to use from the File Format menu.
4. Enter a file name and click Save.

## To Print Your Work

See the How to Print topic for more information on printing documents.

## Conclusion

Now you have a basic understanding of the graphic features of Gobe Productive. There are many other features and functions in the graphics environment. Try experimenting with all the tools. It does not take long to learn the tools and start making fantastic graphics for business or fun.. For more information about the features of the graphic environment, see the Graphics section.

Copyright © 1999, Gobe Software, Inc