Things You Need to Know to Do This Tutorial

Xara 2 has two basic modes, drawing and animation. By default Xara 2 opens in drawing mode. To access animation mode you click the New Animation button (located on the Infobar at the top of the screen next to the New Page button). Animations are comprised of frames with a minimum of two frames required to make an animation.

When you open a New Animation window, the animation buttons on the Infobar become operable. (In the drawing window they are grayed out.) Here is a brief description of each button and its function.

a) When you open a New Animation window you open on frame 1, to add a new frame (or frames), press the New Frame button. (Makes sense doesn't it?)

b) If you want to create a new frame (or frames), that has some or all of the elements from the current page, press the Copy Frame button and a new frame is created with the same contents as the last frame.

c) Delete Frame deletes the current frame. Pressing this button repeatedly deletes frames in reverse order (5, 4, 3, 2, 1, etc). If you accidentally delete a frame you can always undo (Ctrl Z) the deletion.

d-e) When you have more than one frame, these two buttons move to the Last or Next frame.

f) Frame Properties brings up a dialog of properties for the selected frame including length of time the frame is displayed, number of colors, and more.

g) Preview Frame opens the Preview Frame dialog which not only displays the current frame, but can also play the animation or preview individual frames.

h-i) Animation Properties and Preview All Frames are in essence the same as f and g, and in my humble opinion, are redundant.

j) Press this button to Export your animation as an Animated Gif file.

k) This last button launches your Web Browser (Netscape or Internet Explorer) and shows how your animation will look on the small screen. It also displays useful information including file size and approximate loading times for a variety of modem speeds.