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	Xara X. The Frame Gallery




	The Frame Gallery is only available when working in the Animation window, and only when there is more than one frame to the animation. (A one-frame animation is not much of an animation if you ask me). It is similar in appearance to the Layers Gallery and operates in much the same manner. The beauty of the Frame Gallery (shown here) is it overcomes some of Xara's animation shortcomings. If you are anything like your editor, (Mr. Short Fuse), you get torqued when you discover you need an extra frame at the start of your animation, and/or a few extra frames in the middle, and don't want to go through the drill of copying and pasting the contents from one frame to the next, over and over. With the Frame Gallery, you just click New and a blank frame is instantly added, which you can drag to any location you desire. If you use the Frame Gallery for nothing more than this, it was worth the price you paid for Xara X! Clicking on a frame's title automatically jumps to that frame on the screen, curing another of Xara's animation vexations, the lack of frame numbers on the Infobar. You can use the eye and pointer icon to make all frames visible or invisible and/or editable or non-editable, although for the life of me, I cannot think why you would want to do this. The B and O stand for Background and Overlay. Notice that the B is checked for Frame 1 and that the display time is set to 0. This displays the contents of Frame 1 on all following frames. Setting the display time to 0 makes the contents of Frame 1 act as a background image only. The Background option, usually used in Frame 1 (if it is used at all), makes all the contents of the frame visible in all following frames thus reducing the overall file size. The Overlay option displays the contents of the previous frame under the contents of the current frame. You can use the overlay option to create an animation where each frame builds upon the previous frame.

Right clicking on any frame pops up the pop up menu shown here. New Frame adds a new frame at the very end of the animation. (Remember, you can drag this new frame anywhere you wish). Copy Frame places a copy of the current frame at the very end of the animation where it too can be moved to a new location. Delete Frame does just that. Preview Frame opens Xara's animation preview window (shown in the next paragraph) in which you can preview your entire animation, or step through a frame at a time. Show Frame makes a frame visible or invisible when the animation is previewed.

Preview Frame opens the Preview Frame or Preview All Frames viewer in which you can preview your animation. The first arrow on the left plays the animation continuously until you press the black square to stop the animation. The two arrows after the black square let you step through the animation one frame at a time, forward or backward.

If you have made changes to your animation since your last playing, and you have not closed the Preview Frames window, you can press the Refresh button to update your animation.

The Properties button in the Frames Gallery opens the Animation Properties dialog, shown here. In this dialog, you can modify the collective time all frames or a single frame are displayed, and set the number of times you want your animation to loop. You can determine the best number of colors for your animation, and preview your animation in your default Web Browser.

NOTE: Any time you make a change to a frame, you must press Apply for the changes to take place.

ANOTHER NOTE: I do not advise changing the Animation Colors settings. Unlike Xara 2 in which this was an easy way to reduce file size by reducing the number of colors used, Xara X has been optimized for the best number of colors needed to produce the smallest file size. Changing the color settings has produced cries of anguish from your editor (Mr. Instability).

FURTHER NOTE: Users of Xara 2 will miss the ability to create a transparent background in Xara X's animation window. This was another compromise made by the Xara X design team in favor of achieving the smallest possible file size.

RELATED TIP: To achieve the appearance of a transparent background, make frame 1 a Background layer and use the same color or texture that you will have on you web page as your background. If the texture is simple enough, the animation will appear to have a transparent background. (This works in Flash too!).

BONUS TIP: To get the most accurate preview of your animation, along with some useful information, preview your animation in your Browser. Select Properties, then select the Preview In Browser tabbed section. This previews your animation as it will appear in your Browser (the animation may appear different in different Browsers) as well as provides useful information such as animation dimensions, file size, number of colors, and download times for a variety of modem speeds.