Chapter 10: Creating Buttons And Pop-Up Menus; Creating Button Symbols - MACROMEDIA FIREWORKS MX 2004-USING FIREWORKS Use Manual

In Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004 you can create a variety of JavaScript buttons and pop-up
menus, even if you know nothing about JavaScript.
The Fireworks Button Editor leads you through the button-creation process, automating many
button-making tasks. The result is a convenient button symbol. After you've created a button
symbol, you can easily create instances of the symbol to make a navigation bar, or nav bar.
Fireworks also has a Pop-up Menu Editor, which allows you to quickly and easily create vertical or
horizontal pop-up menus. The Advanced tab of the Pop-up Menu Editor gives you creative
control over cell spacing and padding, text indention, cell borders, and other properties.
When you export a button or pop-up menu, Fireworks automatically generates the JavaScript
necessary to display it in a web browser. In Macromedia Dreamweaver, you can easily insert
JavaScript and HTML code from Fireworks into your web pages, or you can cut and paste the
code into any HTML file.

Creating button symbols

Buttons are navigation elements for a web page. Buttons created in the Button Editor have the
following characteristics:
•
You can make almost any graphic or text object into a button.
•
You can create a button from scratch, convert an existing object into a button, or import
already created buttons.
•
A button is a special type of symbol. You can drag instances of it from the symbol library into
your document.
This allows you to change the graphical appearance of a single button and automatically
update the appearance of all button instances in a nav bar. For more information on symbols,
see "Using symbols" on page
•
You can edit the text, URL, and target for one button instance without affecting other
instances of the same button, and without breaking the symbol-instance relationship.
•
A button instance is encapsulated. When you drag the button instance in the document,
Fireworks moves all the components and states associated with it, so there is no need for
multiframe editing.
Creating Buttons and Pop-up Menus
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CHAPTER 10
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