5.2 Button edit dialog

This dialog allows you to turn an object into a button that reacts on user input.

Every button can listen to six different standard events. The following standard events are available to every object:

‘On mouse over’

This event is triggered, if the user moves the mouse pointer over the object.

‘On mouse out’

This event is triggered, if the user moves the mouse pointer out of the object's area.

‘On mouse click’

This event is triggered if the user clicks on the object with the left mouse button.

‘On mouse click release’

This event is triggered if the user releases the left mouse button again after he pressed it. You can use this event for example to highlight a button as long as the left mouse button is down over it.

‘On mouse right click’

This event is triggered if the user clicks on the object with the right mouse button.

‘On mouse right click release’

This event is triggered if the user releases the right mouse button again after he pressed it. You can use this event for example to highlight a button as long as the right mouse button is down over it.

After you have selected one of the standard events, a new dialog will be opened. This dialog allows you to add one or more action events to your object. These action events will then be executed every time the respective standard action gets triggered. For example, you could define an action event that changes the object's color to red when the mouse is over it, and to blue when the mouse leaves it.

Furthermore, the following options are available for every button:

‘Pixel-exact collision detection’

If you enable this option, the button will use pixel-exact collision detection. By default, Hollywood Designer regards every button as a simple rectangular area. If this is not precise enough for your purposes, enable this option and button events will only be triggered when the mouse pointer is really over a visible pixel of the object. Enabling pixel-exact collision detection is not recommended for text objects though, because these have many empty areas and it can confuse the user if these empty areas do not trigger the button.

‘Hide button with object’

If you enable this option, the button will be automatically hidden when the object is hidden.

‘Immediate availability’

If you select this option, the button will be available as soon as its object becomes visible. If you do not select this option, the button will not be usable until Hollywood Designer has handled all objects of the current page.

‘Compatibility mode’

Before Hollywood Designer 6.0, the layer z-order of overlapping buttons was not respected. Starting with version 6.0 Hollywood Designer respects the layer z-order so that you can also have overlapping buttons and the events will be handled with respect to the current layer z-order. To maintain compatibility with old Designer projects, however, there is a compatibility mode which will be activated if you tick this option. It allows you to enforce the old behaviour. This option will be automatically activated for Designer projects saved by version 5.0 and earlier.