TechNote (Archived)

The Fireworks MX Property inspector

A new feature in Fireworks MX, the Property inspector is a dynamic panel full of options that change as you do your work. Choose a tool from the Tools panel, and the Property inspector displays tool options. Select a vector object, and it displays stroke and fill information. You can change these and other options;including Effects, blending modes, and opacity;directly from the Property inspector, instead of having to click to open or activate panel after panel.

The context-sensitive panel will display most or many of the common options for a currently selected object or tool. When no object or tool is selected, options for the document appear. This convenience will greatly enhance your workflow. You'll then find it easier to move between Fireworks MX and Dreamweaver MX or Macromedia Flash MX (both of which have a similar inspector).

The Property inspector is docked at the bottom of the workspace, but may be moved by dragging the gripper dots located in the upper-left corner of the panel. You can also expandor collapse the panel by pressing the small white triangle (also on the upper-left corner of the panel).

Some Fireworks 4 panels replaced
Some of the Fireworks 4 panels have basically been absorbed into the Property inspector. You'll no longer find the Object, Stroke, Fill, or Effects panels in the Window menu. The options that appeared on those panels will automatically appear on the Property inspector when you select an object which can respond to those options. Below you'll find a more detailed discussion of how the Property inspector interacts with the various elements of a Fireworks document.

Document and canvas options
The Property inspector displays several options relating to the document or the canvas. When no objects on the canvas or tools are selected, you can use the Property inspector to quickly change the Canvas Size, the Image Size, the Canvas color and the Default Export Options (for optimization). Most of these frequently-used options were previously only found in the Modify menu. (You can still access them in the Modify menu or on the Optimize panel if you wish.)

Working with text
The Property inspector will prove especially handy when you create text or make changes to it. Previously, using the Text Editor was necessary (which, by the way, is still available in the Text menu). Once you select the Text tool, many options will automatically appear on the Property inspector, including Font, Size, Fill Color, Anti-Aliasing level, and so forth. You'll also see the Opacity slider and Blend modes. When you select a Text box, other options are added to the Property inspector, including Height, Width, X,Y coordinates, Text outline color, and Effects.

Object options
When you select an object, the Property inspector provides you with the most commonly-used options relating to that object. An object can then be transformed in only a few clicks;with little or no "panel-searching." Below is an example of the choices you have when a group of objects is selected: Name, Width, Height, X,Y coordinates, Fill color, Edge, Texture, Opacity, Blend mode, Effects and so on. You can see that many options that had previously been spread out over several panels are now conveniently located in one panel.

Tool options
For most of the tools on the Tools panel, the Property inspector makes the tool's popular options readily available. (If no options are available for the tool;for instance, Zoom;the document and canvas options will appear.) For some drawing tools (such as Line, Pen and shapes), more options will appear after you start to draw. Moreover, some options won't appear after you have finished drawing. For instance, if you select the Rectangle tool, the Rectangle Roundness option and the Effects menu will not appear on the Property inspector until after the shape is drawn.

Additional information
For a comparison of the Property inspector in Fireworks MX with the one in Dreamweaver, read the Designer & Developer article, Improved roundtripping with Dreamweaver MX and Fireworks MX.You can also review other new Fireworks MX features in What's New in Fireworks MX.