Creation of thumbnail image indices is easy with Slider. Simply size up the index to your liking in the Index Maker window then drag and drop the desired images into the available spaces and then save the resulting index.
Bring up the Index Maker window. The can be done by choosing the Index Maker option from the Controls or Display menus.
The following adjustments can be made within the Index Maker window to control the size, shape, and colors of the index.
Resizing the Index Maker window itself will adjust the overall size of the index. The larger the window, the more space for thumbnail images.
The width of the vertical borders may be changed by clicking the mouse on the left-most vertical border. Click and hold on this border and then drag the mouse either left or right to change the size. A black rectangle will be drawn as the mouse is dragged to show the proposed width. Upon releasing the mouse button, the index will be redrawn using the new vertical border width.
The height of the horizontal borders may be changed by clicking the mouse on the top-most horizontal border. Click and hold on this border and then drag the mouse either up or down to change the size. A black rectangle will be drawn as the mouse is dragged to show the proposed height. Upon releasing the mouse button, the index will be redrawn using the new horizontal border width.
The size of the thumbnail images themselves may be changed by clicking on the upper left thumbnail image well. Click and hold within this well and then drag the mouse in any direction to change the size. A black rectangle will be drawn as the mouse is dragged to show the proposed size. Upon releasing the mouse button, the index will be redrawn using the new thumbnail image size.
The actual sizes in pixels of these elements can be viewed from the Index Maker Control Panel. From this control panel the colors used for the background, thumbnails and borders can also be changed. One last option is the inclusion of the name of images which are dragged into the thumbnail image wells.
The next step is to fill the index with thumbnail images. This is accomplished by dragging images from the dragging source in the advanced control panel into the thumbnail image wells on the index. As the dragging takes place, the well into which the image will be dropped should the mouse button be released will display the icon of the currently dragged image. When the mouse button is released, the image will be displayed in the image well. Previously dropped images can also be replaced by dragging a new image on top of them.
An alternative to placing each image individually onto the index is to use the "Fill" button available on the Thumbnail Control panel. It will automatically fill empty thumbnail spaces in the index with images from the loaded image list. This process will begin filling with the currently selected image in the list and proceed down the list, wrapping around to the beginning if necessary, until either all empty thumbnail spaces have been filled or until the starting image is reached.
The "Clear" button can be used to remove all images from the index and effectively start over with a clean slate.
When finished placing images onto the index press the "Save" button on the Index Maker control panel. A standard Save Panel will be displayed allowing the location and name to be specified. Once saved, the new index image will be automatically loaded into Slider and placed at the end of the loaded file list.
Note that any thumbnail image wells which are empty at the time the index is saved will be drawn in the saved image using only the selected background color for thumbnails. The "well" border will not be drawn.