I have 2 separate titles on 2 separate lines. I would like one to come in from the left and the other from the right and to meet at the center. I can make them move the way I want them to, but not without them appearing in their final positions first. How can I do what I am trying to do with the action editor?

Hi gsk67,

Try this.

Create a horizontal line (Objects > Shapes > Horizontal line). Now, select the object you want to animate, and open the Action Editor > Paths tab. For 'Follow Object Path', select the line. Now select the green arrow for the direction you want. Select OK and then Preview.

The object should follow the line from the beginning to the end. You can adjust the Timing. You can also adjust the line itself. If you select the line, and open the Quick Editor > Outline tab, you can make the line invisible.

Keep in mind that you can attached the object to any other object, such as a Polygon, etc.

Once you are happy with it, create another one coming from the other direction.

Hello All, glad to join, I am a new user of VM software, for just three days. I plan to purchase it soon. It has the right design philosophy and I'll be glad to create DHTML without tedious hard coding. Thanks to the designers for their efforts and bright programming.

Web Engine '2 beta j' still bears some bugs or difficulties. I want to add my comment to this thread: I found 'Action Editor' > 'Paths' > 'Follow Object Path' rather confusing. There is no "green arrow for the direction you want", just white arrows and they are in the neighboring section. The green ones below have different purpose. Without clicking on one of the direction arrows the object would end up far beyond the end of path, but when I click on it, still, it never quite reaches the end of path (variably by 40 to 80pix). How can I overcome this?

It would help combining 'Follow Object Path' and 'Follow Linear Path' in a more comprehensive way.

The distance that your text will follow the path will depend on the length of your text! It is a bit of trial and error.

If you are going to make your path line transparent, do that last so that until you are ready you can see it. It makes life a bit easier.

A long text line means a shorter path line.

Annie

Annie, thanks for your much to the point comments.

I found out with which manipulation the problem lies. In Object Editor / Joints I was setting the Origin, in hope that this would be used as reference point for tracing along the path. But it seems not to work properly although it is referred to somewhere in the Help. When leaving it alone or setting Origin to the center of the object, it works.

I hope this get fixed in a future version. It would help a lot for moving objects all the way from outside the page into it, while keeping full control on timing and specifity of move. As you mention it is better (the way things are now) to trim the texts for such moves, but I don't want this limitation! For specificity I need using an Object Path rather than a Linear, but that path object must not extend outside the page, especially not on the left side because the page content will be shifted to the right by the browser.

No problem to have an object (even a long one) starting its course just beyond the left edge of the page when the path is kept in-page and it is "pulled" along the path by an Origin Point placed on its right border.

Hi Fanti,

I have passed this on to the development team for review.