Cropper Manual

A visual tool for cropping images with a Marquee. No more Registration Point hassles, no more jitter from differently sized rollover images, and a very quick way to crop multiple images for use in Director.

Requirements

CROPPER is for use in Director 7.0.2 or higher.

Installation

Place the three files "CROPPER.DXR" and "marqueeWindow.dxr" and "helpWindow.dxr" into Director's Xtras Folder. Alternatively, place a Shortcut or Alias of CROPPER.DXR in the Xtras Folder.

Quit and Restart Director, and then select "CROPPER" in the Xtras Menu. DO NOT SELECT "MarqueeWindow" or "helpWindow": they are Movies-In-A-Window that are used by "CROPPER".

Instructions

Getting Started

Select an image in a cast library, press "Select Image", drag a marquee over the area to be cropped, select "Single" as the Crop Mode, hit CROP, enter the name of your new cast member, and the cropped image will appear at the end of the same cast library as it's source image.

If you want to make buttons, select the Off State image in your cast library, making sure that the On and Roll State images follow it immediately. Drag a marquee over the area to be cropped, select "Buttons" as the Crop Mode, hit CROP, enter the prefix of your new cast members, and the new cropped buttons will appear at the end of the same cast library as the source images, suffixed with "_Off", "_On" and "_Roll".

1) Modes of Operation

CROPPER has two Modes, which can be selected at any time during the use of the tool, allowing multiple crops in multiple modes on the same image.

a) Buttons
b) Single (Default)

a) Buttons

In Buttons mode, CROPPER takes the Marqueed area, and produces identical crops of the selected area in the visible image AND the subsequent TWO images in the Castlib. The Order the images should be in is:

OFF State
ON State
ROLL State

These images are easy to generate from Photoshop... just export a flattened image with all the OFF states of your buttons, and do the same for all the ON and ROLL States.

When the CROP button is pressed, CROPPER will produce three new Members in the Active Castlib, suffixed with "_Off", "_On" and "_Roll".

b) Single

Self explanatory, really... CROPPER simply produces single crops from the Marquee selection, and appends a "_Crop" suffix to the cast member's name.

2) Select Image

Highlight the cast member you want to crop in the castLib in which it sits, then press the "Select Image" Button, and the selected image will appear in the Marquee Window.

Once an image has been selected, you can move between images in the cast library by using the Left and Right Arrow keys.

3) CROP

When a Marquee has been created that you are happy with, press "CROP" to crop the image, fill in the name of the new cast member, press "Go Ahead", and your image will be appear in the same cast library as the source image.

Credits

created and maintained by Christian Wach
please email any comments or suggestions to needle@haystack.co.uk