Did you know you can make new cell palettes in Clicker 5®? When you are building a grid set with customized buttons that you use often, it saves time if you only have to make them once. The way to have them available every time you need them is to store them on a new cell palette.
A good example of a project that used this strategy is The Haunted Castle. I wanted the exploration of the castle to feel as real as possible, so I used some 3-D arrows to indicate where to go next. The cells with the arrow pictures were linked to the next grid, and they played a walking sound.
I placed them on top of the scene picture in appropriate places, such as pointing at a door or along a path. They were used on many grids of a very large grid set.
To speed things up, I made a new cell palette with the arrows all ready to use. Here is how I did it!
Follow the steps in this tutorial and you can make your own cell palette with custom art. There is a link at the foot of the page to download a PDF version with more detail than this post. There is also a link to an online version of the PDF that may be easier to use in a workshop than the printed version.
Creating Art For The Cells
The first step in making a set of customized cells that will act like buttons is to create the little pictures to go in them. You want fairly small pictures, to avoid adding to the file size. I made my arrows 400 x 439 pixels, and they display well as large buttons on the grids.
The pictures scale in the cells, so size is not critical, but smaller sizes help keep the file size down. Most clip art files will work. Make sure you have a bit of art for each custom cell you plan to make, and place them all into a single folder where you can easily find them to load.
Duplicating The Standard Cell Palette
Next, I needed to make a new cell palette to put my 3D Arrows in. You can’t make the cells from scratch. Instead, you must duplicate the standard cell palette, rename it, and make changes in the duplicate. Go to Clicker 5 Shared files. Look for a folder named _Resources.
In it, open the Cell Palettes folder. Select Standard.clkt and right-click to duplicate it. Rename the copy. I named mine 3DArrows.clkt. Caution: It’s important that you choose a unique name, because you don’t want to accidentally change the standard cell palette!
Making Custom Cells
When I opened my new cell palette,d it looked like a standard grid set, made with small grids, and each grid covered with small cells. I started by deleting all the grids in the duplicated cell palette except the first one, which was named Simple. Then on the Simple grid I deleted all the cells except the first one.
I opened the Properties of that remaining cell, and set everything that would be the same on all my custom cells. I closed Properties, selected and copied the template cell, and pasted until I had a copy for each of my 3D Arrows. You would follow the same steps, pasting as many copies as needed for your own custom set.
Arranging Cells And Setting Properties
I arranged the cells in rows, opened the Properties of each cell in turn, and loaded in the picture for that cell. Under Sound and Video, I clicked Speak or play this… in the lower window (Ctrl + Click) and typed the name of that cell/button. I also selected and copied the name, and pasted it into the Tip box under General.
Saving The New Cell Palette
That’s all I could set up ahead of time, since the grids to which these arrows would eventually link would vary with each project. When I had set up all my custom cells, I saved the grid into the Cell Palettes folder. Saving into the Cell Palettes folder ensures that your custom cell palette will be available from the Cell Palette button in the Editing Tools.
Using The New Cell Palette
To use my new cell palette, I opened the grid set I was building, The Haunted Castle. I got into Editing mode, then clicked the Cell Palette button on the Editing Tools bar. When it opened, I clicked and held the Palette button at the top to open the drop-down menu. There was my new cell palette 3D Arrows listed along with Standard and Arrows! I chose it and was able to drag cells from it into my grid set, just as I would from the Standard palette.
It’s Your Turn!
Download the tutorial from the link at the foot of the page. It takes you through these steps in much more detail. It’s only four pages, and once you follow the steps you will be able to create custom cell palettes of your own!
How about a cell with your school or organization logo, maybe to link to your web site? Or go all-out and make your own style set of directional arrows! You could even have a set of cells with each student’s face, leading to a menu grid of all their work.
Not only can the new cell palettes be used in the project for which you designed them, but they will be in your installation of Clicker 5 to use in all future projects!
Bonus: 3D Arrows Cell Palette
I’ve given you a copy of my 3D Arrows cell palette to download as a zip file from a link at the foot of this page.
Decompress the file, open the folder, and then move the 3D Arrows.clkt file into the Cell Palette folder inside your _Resources folder in Clicker Shared files. It will appear in the drop-down menu of your Cell Palettes the next time you run Clicker 5!
Applications needed:Acrobat Reader, Clicker 5 or Clicker 6.
Subject area: Tip.
Level: Author.
Download-Printable Tutorial
NewCellPaletteClicker.pdf (1.5 MB) Create A New Cell Palette In Clicker tutorial to print. Acrobat Reader.
Online Link-Tutorial
CLICK HERE to preview the Create A New Cell Palette In Clicker tutorial online.
Downloads-Resources
3DArrowsCellPalette.zip (202 KB) Zip file of a folder containing a cell palette with 3D navigation arrows to add to Clicker 5.
