tobors.com

In this posting I am going to explain to you exactly how to create a typical (generic) page for a Tobors Book.

There are 5 Tab Buttons across the top. Four of them are numbered, for convenience sake. The Select Panel is what was displayed when you started Tobors BookMaker. It gave you three possible choices: NEW, CHANGE and COPY. They have already been explained.

This is what the Settings Panel in Tobors BookMaker looks like.

The Settings Panel is divided up into areas. You are expected to work your way down from the top until you have completed a page, then go back up and do it all again, until you have finished writing your book.

Each of the areas will be highlighted in red as you are supposed to be using them.

To the right of the Settings Panel, a visual menu of the pages in your book will be displayed. Further over to the right you will see exactly what the actual page will look like.

The first thing you should do is Click a page.

When you do, the Main Page Area (at the extreme right) will display the image and text for that page.

The Image Entry Area of the Settings Panel will then be highlighted in red.

There are 6 buttons available here. They let you select what should be displayed in the image area for this page. Click the first button (the one with the picture of a cat on it) to select an image. There is a more detailed explanation of how to enter an image in the blog posting titled Adding and manipulating images with BookMaker - 1

The second button (the top centre one with the crayons on it) will let your budding artist draw his/her own picture for the page. A more detailed explanation of what can be done with this button is coming soon.

The button at the top right has a pussy cat and crayons on it. Why? because you can use any photo, AND you can then draw on top of the picture. As a example, you could select a picture of a child, then DRAW whiskers and ears on top of the picture. More on this one in a future posting.

The button with the walking person on it is the ANIMATION Button. It lets you add a Flash/SWiSHMax animation (an SWF file) in the picture area of the page. If you use this, the SWF file should be 450 pixels wide by 510 pixels high and it should be totally self-contained. You could use this to show Jack actually walking up the Hill.

More on this one in a future posting.

Button 5 (the one that display a video on the button) is used to put a FLV (FLash Video) video in the picture area of the page. More on this one in a future posting.

Button 6 is the SPECIAL button. It has been set up to allow you to include almost anything in the picture area. It involves using a ‘plugin’ that was specifically created to fit in the space that the image goes. The inclusion of video files is a typical example but since video is ‘in’, it was given its own separate button.

There is one ‘plugin’ that has been created for Tobors BookMaker and is part of the present incarnation. It lets you take any picture and turn it into a JIGSAW Puzzle.

This could also be used to add a drawing program right on a page for the child reading the book. Other possibilities are a test, a colouring page, a ‘connect the dots’ game, a maze, or even a mini browser. Just about anything is possible if a ‘plugin’ is created for it.

More on this one in a future posting.

Once you are finished with the picture for the page, it’s time to add the text. All you have to do is type the words that you want on the page into the box, then click the CHANGE button. If you do NOT click the CHANGE button, the words will not be added to the page.

There will (eventually) be a dictionary to assist your child (or you) with the spelling of the words. A small demo of it already exists as part of the program now. It is in the bottom right corner of the Settings Panel. Here’s what it looked like when I had typed the letters ‘na’ into the text entry area.

The final thing to do when creating a page for your book is to click the SAVE A PAGE Button. If you don’t do it, the page will NOT be saved.

Once you finish a page, click another one and start over again. Keep repeating these steps until you have finished your book.

There are two buttons at the bottom left that we have not discussed yet. They are used to ADD or REMOVE pages to/from your book.

They will be explained in a future lesson.

That’s all there is for this lesson. Have fun!