Page 448 - Xara Web Designer Premium

448 Page & Layer Gallery

another group which is on a completely different layer called Holiday photo 2.
Four layers are hidden (called Holiday photo 4, Holiday photo 3, Holiday photo 1 and
MouseOver). The 'Page background' layer is locked.
Make the current layer always visible
It's possible that the current layer can be hidden or even locked. Just clicking on a layer
to select it and making it the current layer does not normally change its visible or locked
state. But there is a preference in the General (on page 496) tab of the Options dialog
(right click a page and choose PAGE OPTIONS or choose OPTIONS from the UTILITIES
menu) to make the current layers always visible and editable (unlocked). If you select this
option then whenever you select any layer in the PAGE & LAYER GALLERY it's made visible
and unlocked. Moving to another layer will restore the previous visible and locked state of
the layer you just moved from.

Layers on websites
In websites saved from Web Designer Premium, layers are used for mouseover or pop-
up effects (in the web browser the contents of these layers are displayed when you click
on or move over items on the page).

You can find more details on this in the Web Graphics and Web Sites chapter in the
Layers, Mouseover (Rollover) & Pop-ups (on page 57) section.

Soft Groups and Layers
Soft Groups (on page 118) are unusual because they are groups of objects that can span
different layers. (Normal groups have to be contained within one layer). When you select
any part of a soft group the other parts are also selected, even if they are on hidden or
locked layers. The PAGE & LAYER GALLERY will show all selected items highlighted in blue,
but in the case of soft groups these items may be on other layers that you've not
expanded, and so are not immediately visible.

See the section on Soft Groups (on page 118) in the Object Handling chapter to find out
more.

Layer Operations

Clicking the LAYERS button on the top of the PAGE & LAYER GALLERY will display only the
layers on the current page. This is a mode - the layers button stays depressed. While in
layers mode, as you move to different pages the layers for the current page are always
shown and all other page nodes are collapsed. Click the LAYERS button again to turn off
layers mode.

You can re-order the layers, that is the stacking order on the page, by using drag and
drop on the layers in the PAGE & LAYER GALLERY.

You can rename a layer by performing a second (slow) click on the layer name. (The first
click would select the layer.) This is very like file renaming in Windows Explorer.