Action Bar

The Action Bar not only displays information about objects you have selected on your page, it also enables you to manipulate and transform those objects. If you do not see the Action Bar along the bottom of your document window, you can view it by clicking Action Bar on the Window menu (or press F3). The Action Bar is empty until you select at least one item.

The Action Bar with one object selected:

Reference Point

The  Reference point in the Action Bar lets you tell Expression Design what part of the selected object you want to stay stationary during scaling, rotating, or skewing. For example, if you choose the center point and then change the Angle  control, the object rotates around its center point. If you choose the lower-left corner instead, the object will rotate around that point. The Reference point also reflects the position of the X and Y coordinates (see below). So, if you choose the lower-left corner, and set X to 100 px, Expression Design places the lower-left corner of the selected objecct at 100 px horizontally from the zero point.

Transforming Objects

The Action Bar lets you transform a selected object (or objects) in several ways.

  • X and Y  You can set an object's position by changing its X and Y values. The X field determines the object's horizontal position based on the document page. The Y field determines the object's vertical position. For more information on page measurement systems, see Units and Grid Options.
  • W and H  The W (width) and H (height) values control the size of the object. The W and H fields are typically linked together, so changing one value changes the other. You can turn the linking on or off by clicking the Link icon  between the two fields. To view the W and H fields in scaling percentages instead of absolute measurements, choose Scale as Percentage from the Transform options  pop-up list in the Action Bar . For more information, see Scaling .
  • The Rotate value controls the angle of the object around the reference point. Positive numbers rotate counter-clockwise. For more information, see Rotating .
  • The Skew field controls the skew amount of the object. Increasing the value skews the top of the object to the right. Note that setting the Rotate and Skew fields to the same value "shears" the object (skews it vertically). For more information, see Skewing.

Note that if you click on any one of these controls to adjust its value numerically, you can press the TAB key to the next field, or press SHIFT+TAB to get to the previous field.

By default, the Action Bar controls reflect the current position, scaling, rotation, and skew of your selected object. However, if you choose Relative Transform from the Transform options  pop-up list, the Action Bar values always revert back to zero. For example, if you adjust the X field to 10 pixels, the object will move 10 pixels and then the X field will be reset to zero.

Manipulating objects and paths

When you select two or more objects on your page, the Action Bar displays the Align, Stack, and Path controls. If you select three or more objects, you'll also see the Distribute control. These are all pop-up lists that allow you to control the position or shape of objects. For more information, see  Aligning Objects, Stacking Objects, Distributing Objects, and Path Operations .

Additional Action Bar options, displaying the Align pop-up list