The Zone Component

Fundamentals

Zones are first citizen in Scenemator. Every scene starts and contains at least one. They subdivide the scene into sites or areas which receive elements. Their mission is essentially to answer the Where question.

Overview

A zone is composed of one more elements an every element belongs to zone. Always! Like a planet, it has a gravity center and applies forces on its elements, dictating their position. You may want to have a look below to understand how they work.

You can change the zone of an element by dragging it over the gravity center of another one zone.

Describe a Zone

In Scenemator, a zone is described in 3 dimensions: text — for what you have to say about it, morphology — to define how it looks, and force — for how it behaves. Click on and try them all!
Use in emator
Text
What do you have to say ?
Name A short and meaningful name
Description A hint about this zone, typically to answer the Where question it addresses

* Note that text properties are not carried over from type.

Morphology
How it looks ?
Shape Use a glyph alone or with a border by choosing between border shapes like circle, limited or shaded
Color Nothing fancy here, you can choose any of the predefined colors
Size If the size matters, then you have 6 different sizes to choose from
Glyph Browse and select a glyph from one of the categories
Force
How it behaves?
Surface If you think the gravity center of a zone as a planet, then you understand what its surface is. For Scenemator the surface is the limit over which it considers being outside the gravity center. This is quite handy to detect collisions with other components
Alignment This is the force field deployed by the gravity center attracting elements belonging to the zone . Maybe not as strong as the one of a planet but it does the same with clusters and orbital forces attracting elements to its surface or in orbit around it (see orbit below). You can also choose a horizontal or vertical force which a planet cannot offer you!
Orbit If the alignment is orbital this defines the distance elements orbit around the gravity center

Zones in Composition

In this view, you introduce all zones of your scene using or by cloning them.

Actions
What you can do here
Introduce Click on to introduce a zone
Drain Click on to remove a zone from the scene. Note that this will work only if the zone is not empty
Clone Make an identical copy of a zone
Describe Describe an zone or its type using the on

Zones in Layout & Pathway

In this view, you position zones. Also notice the presence of . The magnet is there because in this view a zone without a name has no surface and elements will go over it (it will be hidden in presentation...). Use the magnet to attract elements the time you describe it (try it with zone #3 ).

Actions
What you can do here
Move Click and drag a zone to give it a specific position
Describe Describe a zone

Zones in Presentation

This is the show time view for your scene. Note that zones without name are hidden here.

Actions
What you can do here
Describe Describe a zone