In this Motion^R tutorial, we will continue looking at the workspace controls used to set attributes or parameters values for the design elements in your project. We will continue to use our text example.

Checkbox

Checkboxs, also called Activation Checkboxes, are used to toggle a parameter on or off and display a check in the box when the parameter is applied to the object on the Canvas. Parameters controlled by checkboxes cannot be keyframed for animation.

Dials

The dial control allows you to set a value in degrees. Sometimes you will find that these dials have a set range such as 0 to 360 degrees. However, sometimes you can set the dial to a negative value or set it to have more than one 360 degree rotation. You will notice that this type of control also has a number on the right of the dial, which can be used like the Slider control by dragging your cursor over the number. Again like the Slider, you can double-click the number to type the value.

Value Fields

This control is really a text input box which takes either letters or numbers, depending on the type of parameter. For our text example, the box contains the text that we have on the Canvas. Changes to the text in the value field will automatically update the text on the Canvas. Parameters controlled by value fields cannot be keyframed for animation.

Color Controls

Many objects in Motion have color parameters, including our text example. Some of these parameters are for one color and some require you to set a gradient of colors. There are several tools for setting color parameters which are the Eyedropper, Color Sliders, Color Palette, Color Well and Mac OS Colors window. Clicking on the Color Well, the small colored box in the Inspector, opens the other color controls.

Source Well

The source well is one control that you may not have encountered before. Although our text example does not have a source well, the best example of a source well is the Motion Drop Zone. After you create a Drop Zone on the Canvas, you will see an empty square on the Drop Zone layer in the Layers panel. That empty square is the source well. To assign an image, clip or other media to the Drop Zone, simply drag the media from the Motion File Browser, Layers panel or Media panel to the source well. The name of the media will appear on the layer and a thumbnail will appear inside the empty source well. To replace one media in the source well with another, simply drag the new media to the source well. To empty the source well, drag the thumbnail out of the well.

← Back

Apple, Motion, iBooks Author, GarageBand, TextEdit, Pages, iMovie and Mac are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. BellaOnline is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Screenshots used by permission.