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	Xara X. The Bitmap Gallery (Continued)




	Insert This button places an image (selected in the Bitmap Gallery) onto the page. The selected image is placed in the exact center of the page, which makes this feature useful for stacking and/or centering a series of images. Images may also be dragged directly from the Bitmap Gallery onto the page to any desired location. Images contained on other open pages can be inserted without the need to make the page containing the desired bitmap image the current one. TIP: You can fill any object on the page with a bitmap from the Bitmap Gallery by dragging the image from the gallery and dropping it onto the object to be filled. There is no need for the target object to be selected. Hold down the Ctrl key to drop a fill into an object that is part of a group. NOTE: If you have several documents open, you will find a list of these documents, including the current document, at the bottom of the Window pull down menu. You can select any of these pages to go directly to that page. TIP: A keyboard shortcut for going from one opened page to another is Ctrl > Tab. Hold down the Ctrl key and press the Tab key. If you have several documents open, press the Tab key repeatedly until you find the desired page. The keyboard shortcut for going from one open application to another is Alt > Tab. This standard Microsoft Windows shortcut works in most applications except (oddly enough) Microsoft Word. Go figure as they say.


	Fill Fills a selected object or objects on the page with the bitmap image selected in the Bitmap Gallery. If the selected object on the page is larger than the selected bitmap, the image will be tiled inside the selected object as shown here.

Bitmap fills can be repositioned, resized, rotated and skewed by selecting the filled object with the Fill Tool. The outer borders of the fill are indicated by a red rectangular outline that is visible when you edit the bitmap fill. (The entire image is not visible and is shown here to illustrate the size of the fill bitmap only).

The two sets of arrows indicate the height and width of the fill bitmap. Drag the center box with the Fill Tool to reposition the fill within the object as shown in the top right image.

Drag the outside handles (small squares) to resize the fill bitmap. You can resize the fill bitmap non-proportionately by dragging the horizontal or vertical control handle (the small box at the end of the arrow). To resize the fill bitmap proportionately, hold down the Shift and Ctrl keys and drag either control handle.

To rotate or skew the fill bitmap, drag the outside control handles separately or to rotate the fill bitmap proportionately, hold down the Shift and Ctrl keys while dragging the control handles.

In addition to manually dragging the control handles with the Fill Tool cursor, you can use the arrow keys. Select either of the outside control handles with the Fill Tool cursor. Press the up arrow key to rotate the fill bitmap counter clockwise. Press the down arrow key to rotate the fill bitmap clockwise. Press the left-facing arrow key to reduce the size of the fill bitmap. Press the right-facing arrow key to increase the size.

ADDITIONAL CONTROLS: These controls apply to nudging (moving a selected object with the arrow keys) but they also can be employed when resizing and rotating fill bitmaps. These apply to the nudge amount specified in the General tabbed section of the Page Options dialog (Utilities > Options).

Ctrl + arrow key = 5 times the nudge amount

Shift + arrow key = 10 times the nudge amount

Shift Ctrl + arrow key = 1/5 the nudge amount

Alt + arrow key = 1 pixel

Shift and Alt = arrow key = 10 pixels

The light and dark values of a bitmap can be transparently applied to a selected object as shown in the two far right examples. The two Linear filled rectangles on the far left represent the objects before the Trans (transparency) button was pressed. The bitmap transparency can be resized, skewed, and rotated using the same process as used to modify bitmap fills except using the Transparency Tool instead of the Fill Tool.

This next example is for historical purposes only as Xara X now supports Alpha channel transparency. But this technique still works to create a transparent background. The text in the upper left hand corner was filled with a bitmap image and then converted to a 24-bit True Color bitmap. The black text was also created as a 24-bit bitmap. When placed over the lighthouse photo, both show a white background. Placing the colored bitmap only over the lighthouse photo, then selecting the black bitmap in the Bitmap Gallery and pressing the Trans button, makes the white background invisible. You can also apply a shadow with the Shadow Tool and it will only apply to the masked portion of the text bitmap.

NOTE: This is now unnecessary because you can create a bitmap copy (Arrange > Create Bitmap Copy and specify True Color + Alpha which automatically masks the white page color.

Any time you create a bitmap or import a bitmap into Xara, Xara places a copy in the Bitmap Gallery . The bitmap remains in the gallery even if the bitmap on the page is deleted until the document is closed (at which time unused bitmaps are automatically deleted). While this is convenient, the Bitmap Gallery can quickly become filled with bitmap copies. You can select a bitmap, or group of bitmaps and delete them from the gallery by pressing the Delete button. Be warned, however, that if the bitmap(s) you delete is still on the page, deleting the copy in the Bitmap Gallery will delete the bitmap on the page as well replacing it with the default Xara bitmap shown here. Once a bitmap has been deleted from the gallery, there is no way to undo the deletion. So forewarned is forearmed.

You can use any bitmap in the Bitmap Gallery to create a tiling background pattern and apply this repeating pattern to the entire page.

Select the bitmap in the gallery then press Background.

This will give you a good idea how the selected bitmap will work as a repeating background image for your Web site.

To return your page background to the default white color, right click on the page and select Default Page Background from the pop up menu.

If your Web site's background image is colored or textured, and you plan to use images and text that contain transparent backgrounds, Export the images as GIFs from Xara with the background image filling the page. The images will export anti-aliased to the page background and will appear sharp and clean on your Web page.

The left half of the image, shown here, was exported over the white page background and shows a distracting white fringe. The right half of the image was exported over the bitmap background image and blends cleanly into the background.


	The best source of context-sensitive information is right at your fingertips. Press the Help button and only the features that apply to the Bitmap Gallery (or any other of Xara's dialogs and galleries) will appear making it easy to quickly and efficiently get the answers you need.