Using the MultiFrame Tool

On the Tools toolbar is the MultiFrame tool $image\Icon_Object_MultiFrame.jpg$ . Use this tool if you want to create a series of frames that appear in the same position on your page. A MultiFrame is made up of a series of Frame objects, each frame can contain images, vectors, text, buttons or any combination of objects but only one frame is visible to the user at a time. Furthermore, as you create a MultiFrame only one of the Frame objects is displayed in the Opus Editor at a time, this is particularly useful when frames occupy the same space because you do not have to move or hide frames in the Editor as you add objects to another frame.

Note:
A good example of when to use a MultiFrame object rather than individual Frame objects is when the contents of each frame is similar and occupy the same space on the page but only one frame will ever be visible at a time. Consider this example, a page containing a catalogue of products: each product could contain a text heading, text description, product image, voice over and a more button. You could create this using individual Frame objects, with each one containing a different product, however, this would be more time consuming than using a MultiFrame object. Two reasons why this would be more time consuming are: (i) during development you would need to hide all frames that you were not working on in the Editor as you added objects to a specific frame – with a MultiFrame object you simply select the name of the frame in the Objects tab of the Page Organiser and all other frames in the MultiFrame are hidden; (ii) each individual Frame would require a Show and Hide action to show only one frame at a time – with the MultiFrame object a single Go to a Specific Frame action will do this for you.

To add a MultiFrame to a page:

Draw a MultiFrame object on the page as described in Adding Object to a Page. This will create a new Frame Set containing an outer MultiFrame and one inner Frame object. The object’s Properties dialog box will open showing the MultiFrame tab.
The outer MultiFrame object is also a frame and has exactly the same properties as other frames. However, the MultiFrame object has an extra MultiFrametab in its Properties dialog.

Note:
To open the Properties dialog for the MultiFrame, select the MultiFrame icon $image\Object_View_MultiFrame.jpg$ in the Objects tab of the Page Organiser, right-click on the icon to open the right-click menu and select the Properties option.

The inner Frame object works in exactly the same way as any other frame in your publication, that is, it can be used as a container for other objects.

Note:
You can add as many new frames to a MultiFrame as you want.

To add new frames to a MultiFrame:

Right-click the mouse when it is over MultiFrame object in the Objects tab of the Page Organiser, this will open the right-click menu.
From the menu, select the Insert Frame option. A new Frame object will be added above the last frame entered – see Example.
Continue adding frames as required.

To add contents to a frame:

Click on the name of the frame within the MultiFrame object in the Objects tab of the Page Organiser, the frame will be highlighted like so $image\Object_View_Frame.jpg$ , other frames will be greyed out like so $image\Object_View_Frame_Grey.jpg$ .
With the frame selected, click on the tool in the Tools toolbar that you want to draw in the frame as described in Adding Object to a Page.
Repeat point 2 above for each new object you want to add to a frame.
When you want to add objects to a different frame, repeat the steps from point 1 above.

Note:
If each frame in the MultiFrame object contains the same objects, it may be quicker to create one frame with all of its contents and then use the Duplicate tool to make a copy of the frame. Then all you will need to do is change the specific contents of each object in the new frame.