1.2. 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. Almost all halos can be clicked to open a HUD. 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.

In the Sophie interface, most halos are blue. Almost all of these halos can be clicked to open a HUD. Two exceptions are the move forward and move backward halo, on the right side of all frames. Clicking these halos will not open a HUD; each click will move the frame one step in front of or behind the other frames on the page. Halos that are green can be dragged. The rotate halo, to the bottom right of all frames, can be dragged to rotate the frame; the frame title bar, above the frame, can be dragged to move the frame on the page.

Halos are context-specific, and selecting different things in Sophie reveals different kids of halos. Selecting a page reveals the page halos; selecting a frame reveals frame halos; selecting multiple frames reveals the multiple frame halos; and inserting a cursor in text reveals the text halos.

There are other halos with very specific meanings: halos appear for comment frames, browser frames, audio and video frames, and embedded books. Those halos are discussed in the section of the documentation about those subjects.

1.2.1. Page halos
1.2.2. Frame halos
1.2.3. Multiple frame halos
1.2.4. Text halos