2.2. Halos and HUDs
Interacting with Sophie is done with halos and HUDs. Halos are little icons that show up around things in Sophie when you select them. They stay on the screen until you click somewhere else in Sophie. Generally, these halos can be clicked to open a HUD; a few work slightly differently. HUD is short for head-up display. It’s a little window that opens up showing you different things that you can do with whatever you have selected. You can drag a HUD around by clicking on its background and dragging.
Different things in Sophie have different kids of halos. If you select an image on a Sophie page, you’ll see a frame appearance halo, which lets you put images, backgrounds, or drop shadows on the image; a frame properties halo, which lets you control where and how big the image is; a link halo, which lets you turn the image into a link; and an anchor halo, which lets you attach the image to a text flow. If you select a word of text, you’ll see the character halo, which lets you set the font settings for just that word; the paragraph halo, which lets you control how the paragraph that word is in appears; and the link halo, which lets you make that word into a link. Some halos are very specific: you won’t see the link color halo unless you’ve selected a frame that’s a link or text that’s part of a link.
The halo and HUD functionality in this release of Sophie 2 is not complete: more halos and HUDs will appear in the finished version of the application, and many of them will be implemented in different ways. Some halos and HUDs can be seen, however. They are:
Page halos and HUDs
In the upper left corner of every book page, the page halos appear, which look like this:
There are four halos here; from left to right they are the page halo, the multiple select halo, the lock frames to page halo, and the save page as template halo. The multiple select halo allows you to multiply select frames on the page. When the lock frames to page control is set, frames cannot be added to or deleted from the page, although the content of existing frames can be edited. The save page as a template halo saves the page as a page template.
If the page halo is clicked on, the page HUD appears, which looks like this:
The page HUD has controls for setting the border and fill of the current page. The width of the border can be set by entering a number in the Thickness field. Checking the Use template checkboxes will use the values of the current page template for the page's border or fill. When the locked checkboxes are set, the values cannot be edited. If you click on either of the C buttons, you'll see Sophie 2's color picker, which appears at various points in the Sophie interface when colors need to be set:
Color can be set in a variety of ways; click Okay to clear this dialogue.
At the bottom right corner of every page appears the page resize handle, which looks like this:
Dragging this will change the size of the page. This can also be done by manually entering the page size using Edit > Set Page Dimensions.
Frame halos
When a frame is added to a Sophie page and the frame is selected, frame halos are visible. They look like this:
Above the frame appear the drag halo, which can be used to move the frame, and the delete halo, which can be used to delete the frame.
Directly above the frame's upper left corner appear a variety of halos. From left to right, these are the frame size and position halo, frame appearance halo, margins and padding halo, lock frame, use template settings, and add frame to template. Lock frame will lock the frame's content, meaning that the frame's content cannot be edited; the frame's properties (size, position, margins, padding) can be changed while the frame's content is locked. The use of Use template settings and add frame to template are discussed in the section on using page templates.
If you click on the frame size and position halo, the frame size and position HUD appears, which looks like this:
The top settings allow you to set the width and height of the frame; the bottom settings allow you to set the position of the frame relative to the top left corner of the page. Choosing Lock will make it so that the settings cannot be edited. Choosing Use Template will use the template settings for the frame's size and position if the frame uses a frame template.
If you click on the frame appearance halo, the frame appearance HUD appears, which looks like this:
The top settings allow you to set the margins for the frame; the bottom settings allow you to set the fill for the frame. This HUD works just like the page HUD does.
If you click on the margins and padding halo, the margins and padding HUD appears, which looks like this:
The top settings set the margins values for the frame. Margins are extra space added around the frame so that text will wrap around it. The bottom settings set the padding value for the frame. Padding is extra space added inside the frame between the frame and any text within the frame. Choosing to use the template settings will use the settings from the template settings for the frames margins or padding if they exist. When Lock is set, the property cannot be edited.
Text halos
If you enter text in a text frame, the text halos will appear. They look like this:
There are a number of text halos; from left to right they are bold, italic, left justify, right justify, center, fully justify, color text, font settings, and paragraph settings. Bold bolds selected text; italic italicizes selected text. Left justify, right justify, center, and fully justify align the paragraph in which the cursor is currently inserted. Color text allows you to color text; it brings up the color picker. Font settings brings up the font picker, which looks like this:
This allows you to choose different typefaces and sizes for the selected text. Finally, the paragraph settings halo brings up paragraph-level settings, which look like this:
This lets you set the left and right indent of the paragraph, as well as the space above and below the paragraph and the paragraph's linespacing.
