Inspectors Window
Think "Book of Controls and Information, Divided by Topic"
The Inspector panel provides controls and entry fields for your objects and documents, organized into six tabs, or inspectors:
- Library of Smart Objects
- Repeat: easily layout repetitious, regularly spaced objects
- Object: controls for individual and several objects
- Object Layout: alignment and distribution of objects
- Attribute of objects
- View Colors of axes, grid, print margin, dimensions, and selected object faces
The Inspector concept (as used by Design Intuition)
Do you find it bewildering when programs present a cluster of panels, banners and panes full of technically cryptic controls? Do you feel as though you stepped into the cockpit of a commercial airbus? Design Intuition is organized using a different principle of user interface design: (a) put all controls into only two windows (the design document controls and the inspectors), (b) keep those windows always open, and (c) make the inspectors responsive to actions you take.
Why should you have to look all over creation to find the controls you want to use, when what you really want is one place to find them. The Inspector panel gives you precisely that.
You can think of the Inspectors window as a book with several chapters (Inspectors). Each inspector has a name, (chapter topic): its specific area of focus or control. These topics are represented by tabs, arranged roughly from most general at the top to most specific at the bottom. So, the Library and Repeat are at the top and the Attributes and View Colors inspectors are at the bottom.
Why does the Inspector suddenly change?
Sometimes the book's chapter is opened for you, based on what you're doing at the moment. For example, when you click on an object, the Object inspector is opened for you. And, when you click on a dimension, the Attribute inspector opens.
Nice! But sometimes I don't like it
Sometimes this can be undesireable. For example, in the Details View, when you click on an object, the document window shows that object as selected. You may or may not want the Objects Inspector to open. You can disable this unchecking the checkbox labeled Auto-Switch, located near the top of the inspector window.
What is the "Inspect Something Else" area?
Whenever you select an object (or group), this area displays some possibilities for other objects (and groups) you might want to select instead. Furthermore, if the item selected is an attribute, this area also displays attributes that are "related in some way" to the selected attribute.
Out: The popup menu labeled Out lists the groups which contain the currently selected object, beginning with the group that contains the object. If an attribute is selected (and is the only thing selected), this list begins with the object containing the attribute. If nothing is selected, this popup contains the outermost group.
In: The popup menu labeled In lists the objects (and/or groups) contained by the currently selected group. It is blank if the currently selected object isn't a group.
Referring To This: The popup menu labeled Referring To This lists the attributes which, in their expressions, refer to the selected attribute. This can be useful when you'd like to delete the currently selected attribute, but Design Intuition warns that other attributes refer to it and that therefore it can't be deleted.
This References: The popup menu labeled This References lists the attributes referenced in the selected attribute's expression. This can come in handy if you notice that the attribute behaves as though its value is locked, but it isn't. Chances are that the attribute listed here has its value locked.
The "This References" list can also be useful if the expression for the selected attribute looks right but seems to compute to the wrong value. Try selecting each of the attributes in this list and then examine the Out list to make sure the expression refers to the intended attribute in the intended object.
