A Title is text that is rendered into a bitmap image format. Rendered Titles have the following advantages over Text Objects.
They can be shaded to add transparency, liner, radial or cylindrical shading.
They can be texture or transparency mapped.
They can be anti-aliased to produce smooth edges.
They can be rotated, skewed and transformed.
Tites have the following limitations.
Since a title is rendered into a bitmap it will take longer to download.
Titles can only have a single format.
Titles cannot include text links. (A hyperlink can however be assigned to the Title Object).
For these reasons a title is best used as a high quality header. Text Objects are best used for large blocks of formatted text such as these instructions.
To create a new Title select the red Title button on the component toolbar at the left or select the Title command from the Object Menu.
Lets try changing a title.
Double Click the Title "Unshaded Title" above. Edit it so that it says "Shaded Title" and press OK to exit the editor.
Use your mouse to make the bounding box a little larger. The text should increase in size to fit the box. If one of the words disappears make the box wider until they are both visible. You may wish to move the Title with your mouse so that you can see it and read these instructions at the same time.
Look to see if the Quick Editor is visible. If not, select the
Quick editor button at the top left of the component toolbar to the left.
Select the Shading Dialog (Shd Tab) on the Quick Editor. If it asks you to "Create a new Shading definition?" say yes. If it does not ask, select the "New" button to add shading to the Title. The Title should now appear Gray.
Adjust the RGB sliders in the Quick Editor Shading dialog to change the color. You will see the change in the Title as you make them. Below the sliders you should see four buttons labled "flat", "linear", "cylinder" and "radial". Try selecting these then adjust the sliders. Above these buttons you will see two buttons labeled "Col 1" and "Col 2". The "Col 2" button will become highlighted when the shading supports 2 colors. Select this button when it is available then adjust the sliders to change the second color. The bottom sliders is used to adjust transparency. You can use it to adjust the transparency of either "Col 1" or "Col 2". In Web Engine and SiteSpinner, Texture Mapping, Transparency mapping and other shading options can be set in the Main Shading Dialog. See the Shading tutorial for more examples.
Select the Object Dialog (Obj) in the Quick Editor.
When the "Anti-Alias" box is checked, the Title will be anti-aliased when you Publish or Preview your project. When the "Hi Render" box is checked all anti-aliased Objects will be displayed with anti-aliasing in the Work Widow. This will show you the quality of the Title when you publish but it may make the work window sluggish especially if you are working with a large project or on a slow computer. In this instance you may wish to leave the Hi Render box unchecked.
Titles can be rotated. Uncheck the Hi Render box in the Quick editor to improve the performance of the work window editor.
Select the "Shaded Title" Object again if it is not the current Object. You can rotate Objects either in the Quick Editor or directly within Work Window. To rotate within the Work Window hold the Ctrl Key on your keyboard then press the Up or Down keyboard arrows. As you do the Title will rotate. To rotate within the quick editor either enter an angle into the Rotate Box or use the adjacent Up/Down arrows.
As the Title is rotated it may display significant aliasing at different angles. Use the Hi Render check box to view the quality of the Title when it is published. Titles rotated to 45 degrees will generally produce larger image files than titles that have 0 or 90 degree rotations.
Titles can be exported using PNG, GIF, JPEG or BMP image file formats. PNG will usually generate the best results at the smallest size and is consequently recommend. GIF files will usually produce extremely poor shading, transparency and anti-aliasing and is consequently not recommend. To change the Title from using the default PNG format select the Title then select the Geometry Editor on the components toolbar to the left (Web Engine V2 and SiteSpinner V2).
