Glossary
background
The scenery behind the characters in a comic. May also refer to the background layer in Comic Strip Factory, which is one of two content layers in panels designed to make it easier to work on characters and background separately.
balloon
A shape with text in it in a comic, which represents narration, sound effects, or a character speaking, shouting, or thinking. A balloon can have one or more pointers to indicate who is speaking, shouting, or speaking.
bezier path
A path created using control points and a mathematical formula. Comic Strip Factory uses quadratic bezier paths, in which a segment of a curve requires two end points and only a single control point to define. Most graphics applications use cubic beziers, which have two control points for each pair of end points. Comic Strip Factory uses the less-standard quadratic beziers to make it easier for users who are not professional artists to create and edit paths.
catalog
A set of parts files with characters and backgrounds that are available to use in a comic. The catalog is shown at the bottom of the comic document window.
central casting
A set of parts files in the catalog containing characters.
character
A member of the cast of a comic. In Comic Strip Factory this may also refer to a parts file that contains all the parts you need to assemble a particular character in different poses.
clipping
A computer graphic technique to limit an object to being drawn only where it is inside the area filled by a particular shape.
contextual menu
A menu of commands that is shown when you click on an object in a special way. There are many ways to access a contextual menu. If you have a two button mouse, the traditional way is to click on an object with the right-hand mouse button. An Apple Magic Mouse can be configured to use the right half of its clickable surface as a right-mouse button. Also, holding down the Control key and clicking on something gets the contextual menu. And there are other ways to use the trackpad to get one too, configurable as Secondary click in the Trackpad panel in System Preferences.
cropping
A graphic technique where the edges of an image, such as a photograph, are trimmed to give it a smaller rectangular bounds and cut out unwanted edge details.
library
In Comic Strip Factory, a comic document can have a library of character and scenery files that it uses. When the comic file is opened, it will open all of the parts files in its library at the bottom of its window, in the tabbed view that also contains the catalog.
masking
In Comic Strip Factory, creating a set of paths of any desired shape to cut out unwanted opaque parts of an imported image. For example, a technique to put a person from a photograph against a different background.
part
A collection of paths in a drawing of a conceptual object, many of which will make up an entire comic. A part may be a head, torso, arm, foot, among other things if it is part of a character, or it may be ground, sky, an animal, a structure, or a number of other things if it is part of a background. A part is tagged with what type of part it is so they can be sorted.
part editor
An editing view in Comic Strip Factory in which a part and its contents can be edited. The part editor shows a tool palette with different tools for creating and manipulating paths and a properties panel with controls for setting the appearance of paths in the part.
parts file
A Comic Strip Factory file containing parts. It can be a character file, which might also contain groups of parts that are preassembled poses of the character, or a background file, which might also contain groups that are assembled scenes.
parts view
The main view of a parts document window, which can show all of the parts in the file or a filtered list of all the parts of a particular type. Parts shown in the view can be edited, moved and transformed, and grouped to better organize the file.
panel
An individual scene in a comic strip. In Comic Strip Factory, the page or comic is filled with panels with a uniform sized gap between them. Panels can be rectangles or other quadrilaterals. Panels are collected in rows, which are usually stacked within the page, but a row may contain another stack of rows as well.
path
A curve or set of curves created with one of many tools in the part editor. The basic building block of parts, characters, backgrounds, and comic strips.
pivot point
A point that is set on a part as its natural point of rotation. A pivot point can only be set of a part, not on other graphic objects.
right-click
The customary method of opening a contextual menu: to click the right mouse button. Since you may not have a right mouse button, or even a mouse, there are other ways to open a contextual menu which are listed under contextual menu . If the documentation says to right-click something, you may substitute one of these other methods.
scenery
A set of parts files in the catalog containing background graphics and props.