All work in Moho takes place in the main window.
Overview
The Moho window has various palettes that are used for controlling different aspects of
a Moho project. In this chapter we'll briefly describe five general components of the
Moho project window. The more complex palettes in the Moho window, such as the Layer palette,
have their own chapters that follow this one. Although this chapter will describe how the
main window works, it won't go into detail about creating a drawing or animation.
For that, please refer to one of the chapters in the section entitled Using Moho.
Working Area
Most of the Moho project window is taken up by the working area. This is the region
where you will create and view your drawings and animations. In every project, even
an empty one, two items will be displayed in this area. The first is a cross marking
the center of the currently active layer. The second is a blue rectangle that indicates
the visible region of the project. Only objects that are within this rectangle will
appear in your final animation.
Although every project has a fixed image size (for example 640x480 pixels), the
working area is basically an endless flat space on which you can draw and animate.
The blue visibility rectangle mentioned above indicates the actual image area for
the project. While working, you may want to zoom in or out to see more or less detail
in your project. A quick way to do this is by using your right mouse button. By dragging
the right mouse button in the working area, you can move around from side to side. If you
hold down the shift key while right-dragging, you can zoom in and out. If you want to
restore a reasonable overall view in the working area, press the Escape or Home keys,
or choose Reset from the View menu.
The background of the working area is usually just a blank color, but if you drag an
image file into the working area, it will appear in the visibility rectangle. This
is a helpful feature meant to allow you to trace the image with the drawing tools.
The real work that happens in the working area is not covered here, but is
described in the Using Moho chapters.
Edit Mode
The Edit Mode tabs in the upper left corner of the working area control what editing
mode Moho is in. There can be several editing modes in Moho, depending on the currently
active layer, each of which is used to accomplish separate tasks. You can move back and
forth between editing modes at any time by clicking the mode tabs.
Some examples of editing modes are draw mode (for drawing objects), bone mode (for setting
up skeletons), and animation mode (for adding and playing back motion). Each editing mode
has its own chapter in this manual, and we won't discuss their details here. Just remember
that the tabs in the upper left of the working area are how you control the current editing
mode.
Toolbar
The toolbar on the left side of the Moho window is where you select which tool you
want to work with. The available tools will change depending on which editing mode
Moho is currently in, and what type of layer is currently selected. The purpose and
use of each tool is described in the Using Moho chapters, and isn't covered here,
with a couple exceptions.
There are two tools in the toolbar that are available in every editing mode. These
are the Pan and Zoom tools. They are used to control your view of the project,
and don't modify the project itself, just your view of it.
Pan
When the Pan tool is selected, you can click and drag in the working area to move
the project side to side and up and down. Note that this isn't the same as moving the
objects in your project - only your view of them is changing, not where they appear
in the final image. A shortcut for the pan tool is to click and drag in the working
area using the right mouse button - it's a quick way to pan, regardless of what tool
is selected in the toolbar.
Zoom
The Zoom tool is similar to the Pan tool: it moves your view of the project, without
modifying the objects themselves. With this tool, dragging the mouse zooms your view
of the project in and out. A shortcut for the zoom tool is to click and drag in the
working area using the right mouse button while holding down the shift key - it's a
quick way to zoom, regardless of what tool is selected in the toolbar.
Quality Bar
The quality bar at the top of the working area lets you toggle between four levels of
display quality in the working area. The left option is the fastest, but lowest quality,
while the rightmost option has the best quality, but can be rather slow. Generally,
you'll probably work with the second option from the left (Faster). These quality
settings do not affect the final output of Moho, but only the display in the
working area.
Status Bar
The status bar along the bottom of the Moho window displays a short description
of the currently active tool in the toolbar. If you don't know what a tool does, the best
thing is to read this manual. However, if you just need a quick reminder, the status bar
can be helpful.