Contentsa. Conventions
1. Notes2. Basic Examples
2.1 Framed Art
2.2 Bowling Balls
2.3 Map of Europe
2.4 House Design
2.5 Windmills
2.6 Puzzle
2.7 Working Clock3. Complex Examples
3.1 Aircraft Parts
3.2 Aircraft4. Secure Examples
4.1 Secure Aircraft
a. Conventions
BDI refers to the Basic Designer Interface
CDI refers to the Complex Designer Interface
CLI refers to your platform's Command Line Interface
Text in This Type refers to on screen buttons
Text in This Type refers to top level menu items
Text in This Type refers to specific menu selections, or input field labels
Text in This Type refers to file names
Text in This Type refers to text you enter into the CLI
Text in This Type is a special link, only available from the BDI/CDIHelp menu
1. Notes
There are 10 example drawing documents provided with this release. They are all in the Examples sub directory under your installed product's Root Directory (e.g. /root/jdk1.2.2/aex/Examples). Some require you to change Options settings before loading.If you're viewing this document from the Examples selection of the product's Help menu, you can automatically load any of the examples into your BDI, or CDI for CO Bin Files, by clicking on the words "Load Me Now" just below the example's description.
2. Basic Examples
Most of these examples can be tried with any edition of the product and require few special settings.2.1 Framed Art
FramedSisley.aex is a simple example of how the product can be used to create a frame for a picture found on the internet. The example uses both textures and solid color rectangles to frame a beautiful work by Alfred Sisley. The painting is a reduced version of the original JPEG. The lettering is a BrushScript font in a 14 point white over a 15 point gray (for the shadow effect).Load Me Now.
Framed Art
(shown here with width reduced to 90% of your browser width)
2.2 Bowling Balls
BowlingBalls.aex is a simple example of how you can create a virtual Complex Object. The bowling ball on the right was drawn using 4 simple objects. The ball on the left was created by Exporting the ball on the right as a transparent GIF file, using Crop-to-Minimum. Then loading the GIF file back as a dynamic image. The ball on the left will now behave as a single image object, which it is.
Note: the GIF file was included as a dynamic image, so it will not be found at its original location (on our PC) when the product tries to load it. This will force you to locate the BowlingBall.gif file in your Examples sub directory, under your Root Directory.Load Me Now.
Bowling Balls
(shown here with width reduced to 90% of your browser width)
2.3 Map of Europe
Europe.aex is an example of how the product can be used to determine distances on any map with a scale. It is a large map (1180 x 1480 pixels), so it requires either Scroll Bars or the Position Tool. The scale was made using Easy Scale. It was defined in miles from the legend in the lower right corner of the map, even though the map's scale is in metric. Use the Tape Measure with, or without, the Read Out Box enabled to show distances in the British measure.Load Me Now.
European Map
(Shown with the Position Tool for reference)
2.4 House Design
NewHouse.aex is an example of a how you can use the product to redesign a house. It's scale was created directly from the Pixel Scale... option. This is the largest example with 146 objects.Load Me Now.
House Design
(shown here with width reduced to 90% of your browser width)
2.5 Windmills
DynamicProp.aex is an example of how you can create a simple machine and set it into motion. This example loads 2 windmills from the DynamicProp.aex file and preset spin directives from the DynamicProp.sfx file. Assuming you don't have the Pause All Motion option selected, the props will immediately go into motion upon loading, at 2 different speeds and 2 different directions. You can, of course, alter this.
Important: to include the Complex Objects (props), you'll need to ensure the Option menu's Enforce CO Lineage Check is not selected.Load Me Now.
Moving Windmills
2.6 Puzzle
Puzzle.aex is a picture that was sliced up and moved around to form a puzzle. As the text suggests it is fairly easy to reassemble. Select the Split Clip Areas under the View menu to see the outlines of the pieces. Before moving things around, you may want to Remove the text (id #s 9-12).Load Me Now.
Puzzle
2.7 Working Clock
RealClock.aex is another example of how you can create a simple machine and set it into motion. This example loads 16 objects to form a clock. This includes 3 hands that were created by exporting them as transparent GIF files of twice the length of the hand itself, so that it will spin about the center of each object, which appears to be the at the center of the clock. They are loaded from the RealClock.aex file and preset spins are directed from the RealClock.sfx file. Assuming you don't have the Pause All Motion option selected, the hands will immediately go into motion upon loading.
The hand settings are those of a real clock - i.e. the second hand moves 6º every second; the minute hand turns 1º every 10 seconds and the hour hand turns 1º every 2 minutes.
To set to the correct time, select Pause All Motion, then set each of the hands, via the Rotate... option in the Edit menu. When all the hands are all in place, deselect the Pause All Motion option.Load Me Now.
Real Working Clock
3. Complex Examples
These examples require the Standard, Professional or Enterprise edition of the product.3.1 Aircraft Parts
The file AircraftParts.laex is an example of a CO bin file. It contains 3 parts for model airplane builders. Before loading this in the CDI, be sure to un-select the Enforce CO Lineage Check from the Options menu. Otherwise you'll get a lineage violation.
The drawing contains 3 parts plus an Easy Scale object. In the second example these parts are used to help design a plane. Since they are included there as Dynamic Transfers, so you can alter them here if you want to alter them in the Aircraft example. Be sure to make a separate copy of the CO bin file first, in case you want to return to the originals.Load Me Now.
Model Aircraft Parts
3.2 Aircraft
The file Aircraft.aex is an example of a drawing that includes simple objects and complex objects from the AircraftParts.laex CO bin file. As in the previous example, be sure to un-select the Enforce CO Lineage Check from the Options menu before loading this into the BDI.At this point you will see a warning similar to the following, because the file that contains the aircraft parts (AircraftParts.laex) is not in the location it was when the Aircraft.aex example was created. Select Yes to allow Express Designer to search in your current working directory (CWD) and in the Examples directory where the Aircraft.aex file currently lives. It will find it in the Examples directory and complete the the load.
File Location Warning
Notice that the scale on this drawing is slightly different from the scale on the parts drawing, so as the parts are included here they have been re-scaled. To see the exact scale of each drawing select Pixel Scale... from the Size&Scale Menu.
Load Me Now.
Model Airplane
4. Secure Examples
4.1 Secure Aircraft
The file AircraftSecureL1.aex is the same drawing as Aircraft.aex (above), but it has been secured as a Level 1 document. If you log in as "Guest" using password "abc" you will be able to see and move all the components, but you cannot copy or delete them. Notice that as user "Guest", you have no assess to the User/Token Admin... menu item. Nor can alter any object's owners or tokens.
To log in as the drawing owner, use "george" with the password "washington". As the owner you can make any changes you like.Load Me Now.
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