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<table width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=2><tr><td bgcolor="#99ccff"><a href="manual_30.html"><img border="0" alt="9 Writing ipelets" src="next.png"></a></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff"><a href="manual.html"><img border="0" alt="Top" src="up.png"></a></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff"><a href="manual_28.html"><img border="0" alt="7 Style sheets" src="previous.png"></a></td><td align="center" bgcolor="#99ccff" width="100%">8 Page views</td></tr></table>

<h1>8 Page views</h1>

When making a PDF presentation with Acrobat Reader, one would often

like to present a page incrementally. For instance, I would first like

to show a polygon, then add its triangulation, and finally color the

vertices. Page views (or simply views in the following)

make it possible to do this nicely.

An Ipe document consists of several pages, each of which can consist

of an arbitrary number of views. When saving as PDF or Postscript,

each view generates a separate PDF/Postscript page (if you only look

at the result in, say, Acrobat reader, you cannot tell whether two

pages are actually two views of the same Ipe page or two different Ipe

pages).

An Ipe page consists of a number of objects, a number of layers, and a

number of views. Each object belongs to exactly one layer. A layer

can be shown by any number of views--a view is really just a list of

layers to be presented. In addition, a view keeps a record of the

current active layer--this makes it easy to move around your views

and edit them. Finally, views can specify a transition style,

a graphic effect to be used by the PDF viewer when proceeding to the

following PDF page.

To return to our polygon triangulation example, let's create an empty

page. We draw a polygon into the default layer "alpha." Now use

the New layer, new view function (in the Views menu),

and draw the triangulation into the new layer "beta." Note that the

function not only created a new layer, but also a second view showing

both "alpha" and "beta". Try moving back and forth between the

two views (using the PageUp and PageDown keys, or the little buttons

on the View counter). You'll see changes in the layer list on

the left: in view 1, layer "alpha" is selected and active, in

view 2, both layers are selected and "beta" is active. Create a

third layer and view, and mark the vertices. In the Document

properties (in the Edit menu), turn cropbox off and

fullscreen on, and save in PDF format. Voila, you have a

lovely little presentation.

The result is available <a href="polygon.pdf">here</a>.

In presentations, one often has slides with mostly text. The

<a href="manual_17.html">textbox</a> object is convenient for this, as one

doesn't need to use the mouse to create it. To create a slide where

several text items appear one by one, one only needs to press F10 to

create a textbox, then Shift+Ctrl+I to make a new view, F10 again for

the next textbox, and so on. Finally, one moves the textboxes

vertically for the most pleasing effect (Shift+Ctrl+Middle

Mouse does a constrained vertical move, or Shift+Left Mouse

in Move mode).

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