Guide to the Comic Life User Interface
When you first launch Comic Life two windows are initially displayed: the Comic document window where you'll create your comic and the Browser where you'll find your photos and page templates for quick layout.
Windows
Comic document window
The Comic document window is divided into two sections - the page organizer and the page editor. The page organizer shows a list of the pages you've created (initially empty) and allows you to quickly jump to a particular page and reorganize pages by dragging page icons up and down the list.
The page editor is where you layout and edit the selected page in the page organizer. The page editor is fully zoomable allowing you to get in close for fine editing or zoom out to be able to visualize the entire page.
The page editor displays ticks to illustrate the size and location of the margins (if any) and can display the snap grid if desired (see the View menu).
Browser window
The Browser window is normally divided into three tabs: iPhoto Albums, Finder Files and Page Templates (unless you have no iPhoto Albums - in which case that tab will not be displayed).
- iPhoto Albums
- Provides a popup menu where you can choose between your iPhoto albums
- Finder Files
- A convenient file browser that will display the images inside image files instead of their icons.
- Page Templates
- Contains various page templates and template collections that let you quickly layout a page of cells ready to be illustrated.
Inspector window
Changes its contents to reflect the attributes of the current selected element in the page editor - if any. You can also select the sub-style for a particular element.
Stylesheet window
Lets you set comic-wide attributes such as cell outline color, shadowing etc. You can also create sub-styles for finer control.
Menus
This section describes the menu items that are special to Comic Life. Standard menu items are not described.
Comic Life Menu
- Register...
- Brings up the Registration dialog.
File Menu
- Quick Comic...
- Brings up the Quick Comic dialog which lets you specify an iPhoto album and a page format among other settings and will then automatically layout a comic for you with those settings.
- Export To HTML...
- Create HTML pages to display your comic.
- Export To QuickTime...
- Create a QuickTime movie of your comic.
- Choose Stylesheet...
- Load a different stylesheet into the comic.
- Save Stylesheet As...
- Save the current stylesheet into a file.
Edit Menu
- Place
- Add cells, captions, bubbles etc to your comic.
Page Menu
- New Blank Page
- Adds a new blank after the current selected page and selects it.
- New Page with Cell Matrix...
- Creates a page with cells laid out in a tabular manner.
- New Page with Template...
- Presents a standard file browser within which you can choose a page template for creating a new page.
- Delete Page
- Deletes the current selected page
- Save As Template...
- Presents a standard save sheet located at your local template library. Templates saved in this location are automatically added to the Browsers Page Template display for your convenience.
- Tag Cells
- Lets you indicate the order in which cells should be assigned images when used with the Quick Comic feature.
Format Menu
- Comic
- Adjust the page size, margins and background color of the comic.
Arrange Menu
- Bring Forward
- Bring an element one level forward in its container
- Bring Front
- Bring an element to the front of its container
- Send Backward
- Send an element back one level in its container
- Send Back
- Send an element to the back of its container
- Align
- Align an element to various parts of its container
- Lock
- Locks an element preventing you from moving or resizing it
- Unlock
- Unlocks an element allowing you to move or resize it
- Snap To Grid
- Enables or disables grid snapping
- Set Grid Spacing...
- Displays a sheet on which you can adjust the grid spacing and the snap tolerance
View Menu
- Next Page
- Display the page after the current page
- Previous Page
- Display the page prior to the current page
- Zoom
- Zoom in, out, fit in window or to actual size
- Show Alignment Guides
- Shows guidelines when elements are aligned
- Show Grid
- Shows the grid
- Show Cell Tags
- Shows the tag number associated with each cell
- Show Browser
- Shows or hides the browser window
- Show Stylesheet
- Shows or hides the stylesheet window
- Show Inspector
- Shows or hides the inspector window
Window Menu
Standard.
Help Menu
Standard.