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4.7 Navigation Builder

The navigation builder creates, based on two images (the one containing all unselected, the other containing all selected states of the navigation elements), fully automized a vertical or horizontal navigation bar incl. HTML- and respective image files. The navigation elements have to be seperated strictly from each other and not "float" into each other. Clearly spoken, there have to be some exactly identical rows/columns in the original and changed image.

For better understanding, here are some simple examples. On the left you can see the unselected, in the middle the selected menu elements. On the right you can see a browser displaying the result while the mouse pointer is over the middle element.

The options in detail:

Output directory
Enter the destination directory to save the created files to, here. ATTENTION: Already existant, equally named files will be overwritten!

Format and JPEG-quality
Here you can choose the format for the graphics. Though PNG-files are bigger in size in most cases you should preferably use them as navigation images mostly contain detailed graphics and fine text that are disturbed by the JPEG artefacts.

Orientation
Select here, which orientation the navigagationbar has: vertical (menu from top to bottom) or horizontal (menu from left to right).

Minimal space
As said before in this subchapter, two navigation elements have to have identical columns (horizontal) or rows (vertical) between two navigation elements. This is necessary so the Navigation Builder can automatically locate navigation elements. The minimum number of identical rows/columns can be specified with this option. The default value should work fine in most cases but you may want to modify them if your navigation elements share common lines or columns.

Original and Changed
Select here two images/projects in fxPAINT. Basing on them the navigation bar will be created.

Build navigation
Starts the creation of the navigation files.


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