Using Smart Objects

Custom Blueprints 'R Us

The fastest way to design using Design Intuition is to add Smart Objects, and the fastest way to do that is to drag them from the Smart Objects Library Inspector.

What are Smart Objects?

Put simply, any Design Intuition file is also a Smart Object. One of my goals for creating Design Intuition was to make it easy to design a thing and then incorporate it into lots of other things. So, I made it easy to incorporate one Design Intuition file inside another. I decided to coin the term "Smart Objects." Of course, most files you create satisfy particular goals and you aren't likely to reuse them as Smart Objects. However, anytime you find yourself creating something you might want to use later, you might save this thing in the Smart Objects library.

To add a Smart Object to your document, open the Smart Objects Library Inspector and find the Smart Object you want to add. Simply drag it into the document, and you're ready to work.

All the Smart Objects supplied with Design Intuition document, have a few authored attributes added at the top level, giving you some control over the Smart Object. A Smart Object acts just like an ordinary group with one exception: to change author-supplied attributes, you must do so numerically.

Here are three ways to add a Smart Object to an already opened document

1. Open the Library Inspector and find a Smart Object you want to import. Drag it and drop it into your file, at the position you want it.
2. In the Finder, locate a Design Intuition document and drag it, just as above.
3. If the Finder folder containing a Smart Object you want to add, is open on the desktop and exposes this Smart Object, you can drag it into your document without switching to the Finder.

How do I change an author-supplied attribute?

In the Details View, expand the Smart Object to reveal its attributes. Double-click the right-hand colum of the attribue you would like to alter. Enter a new value and press Return. The Smart Object redraws using this new value.

Can I add my own Smart Objects?

It wouldn't be Design Intuition if you couldn't! An entire section of this user reference manual is devoted to Smart Object authoring.

 

 

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