Warning
This manual was written and recorded with the Windows-only version of Mr. Softie. If you are using the recent versions, 1.0b and above, be aware that some information might not apply, but the general tips are still helpful.
About Mr. Softie
Mr. Softie is an application for typographic manipulation that provides writers, graphic designers, animators and typographers a particular control over textual objects. It is based on the NextText framework, which facilitates the implementation of an interface that specifically targets the authoring of textual content.
Mr. Softie includes a growing set of SoftType which allow spaciotemporal transformation of textual objects. SoftTypes are real-time effects that transform the form of glyphs they are applied to. They are used as sculpting tools to create static compositions with a kinetic feel and as dynamic behaviours to generate animations.
The application’s interface contains a toolkit that eases the process of writing with digital type. It facilitates the manipulation and transformation of text on the screen and allows to output compositions in different formats (e.g. PNG, TIFF, PDF) compatible with common graphic design and video editing applications. Mr. Softie is built to ease the incorporation of produced documents into a larger workflow to further refine your compositions with the tools you already know and use.
Download
Mr. Softie is free. In order to download Mr. Softie, you may either request it by email and/or register to the Mr. Softie Google group, where you will find the latest updates of the application and a place to share comments and ask questions.
You will need to install Quicktime to export animations directly to video.
Installation
When you download Mr. Softie and extract its content to a folder of your choice, you will find that it contains two files. The one labeled ‘MrSoftie.msi’ is the Windows Installer package, and the other named ‘Setup.exe’ is the loader that you must execute to install Mr. Softie. This bootstrap loader file first checks for and, if necessary, installs required software like the Windows Installer and the .NET framework v3.5 before installing the .msi package. Find out more about the .NET installation process.
Depending on the Windows version you are currently running, you might already have version 3.5 of the .NET framework installed.
You can verify this by opening Internet Explorer and inserting “javascript:alert(navigator.userAgent)” into the address bar. Press enter. A dialog box will pop up. The most important piece of information here is the .NET version, so if you see .NET CLR 3.5.xxxxx or something similar, you should be all set. If you have an older version of the .NET framework installed, you will need to update it to run Mr. Softie.
The .NET framework is included with Mr. Softie but you may also download it separately here.
To install Mr. Softie you execute ‘Setup.exe’ located inside the folder and follow the instructions. Click ‘Next’ to continue on with the installation, ‘Previous’ to go back, or ‘Cancel’ to cancel the installation. Choose the directory in which you would like to install Mr. Softie, click Next. The program will install.
Starting a New Project
If you are familiar with other Windows applications, Mr. Softie should not be too complicated to navigate.
- To start a new project, navigate to the menu and click File > New. A blank document will open up in a new tab.
- Before starting to write in your document, you might want to modify the properties of the canvas.
- To change canvas size navigate to Edit > Canvas. This will open a window where you change the properties of the canvas:
- Screen Size indicates the size of the canvas as it appears on the screen (in pixels).
- Export/Print Size indicates the size of the canvas (pixels) and its resolution (pixels per inch) that will be used when exporting or printing the document.
- Background Color allows you to change the color of the canvas. Click on the solid color palette, then use the color picker to choose the background color you want.
Mr. Softie provides some useful tools to help you create typographic compositions. We will go over the different panels and toolbars surrounding the document later in this manual, but some basic features of the canvas can be mentioned here.
In the menu, click on View to unfold a list of different tools and guides you can activate and deactivate. The list should include: Anti-aliasing, Caret, Work Area and Grid.
- Anti-Aliasing indicates if the application uses anti-aliasing to render text. In general, you will want anti-aliasing to be active, but it might be helpful to deactivate if your machine is slow or you have large amounts of text on the canvas to gain some speed.
- Caret allows you to hide or show the text editing cursor on the canvas.
- Work Area allows you to hide or show the objets located outside of the canvas. The Work Area is the frame surrounding the canvas if the size of the application window is large enough.
- Grid allows you to hide or show the guiding grid that appears on the canvas, below the text objects.
Some of these guides have properties that you can adjust to fit your personal needs.
- To change guide settings navigate to Edit > Guides. A window will open where you can modify the properties of the guides, like the Grid’s size, color and opacity.
Writing Text
Editing Caret
Writing and positioning your text in Mr. Softie is quite simple. First, you have the text cursor that indicates where the text is going to be typed out. You can either position the cursor by clicking wherever you want on the canvas, or by navigating to properties panel, ‘Editing > Caret‘ and choosing the x and y coordinates.
Type Toolbar
The Type Toolbar allows you to change the text properties of typed text objects. The visual options you can set:
- ‘Font’ drop down allows you select which font to use / a preview of the selected font can be viewed there as well.
- ‘Font Properties’ drop down allows you to select the font style of that specific font.
- ‘Font Size’ drop down allows you to change the size of the font. You can also use the scroller to accomplish the same thing.
- ‘F (for Fill)’ allows you to choose a fill color. Select a color through the drop down color palette and then select a level of transparency (default is set to 100%).
- ‘S (for Stroke)’ allows you to choose a fill color. Select a color through the drop down color palette and then select a level of transparency (default is set to 100%).
- ‘Stroke Width’ allows you to modify the stroke thickness (default is set to 1px)
The Textpad Panel
The Textpad panel, located on the right side, allows you to add notes and/or copy-paste those notes into your Mr. Softie document.
A very cool feature of the Textpad is that it acts like a text nozzle allowing you to ‘spray’ the written text onto the canvas. You can also select how you would like the text to be sprayed. By clicking on the drop down menu, select one of the following: ‘Glyph’, ‘Word’ or ‘Cluster’. The ‘Speed’ scroll allows you to select how fast the text sprays.
Selecting Text Objects
Once you have written text on the canvas, you will probably want to select some text objects to change their properties. There are multiple ways to select glyphs located on the canvas.
- Click the left mouse button on the canvas and drag to opposite corner of the area you desire to select. A dashed rectangle will show the boundaries of the selection area. Release the mouse button to select all glyphs in the area.
- Double-click on a glyph to select it. Double-click it again to select its parent text object in the text hierarchy (e.g. double-clicking a selected glyph will select its parent word).
- Navigate to the top menu bar and click Select > Select (glyphs/words/passages) will select all text objects of the chosen type.
- Navigate to the Hierarchy Panel (see below for an explanation).
- Right click on the canvas to view the context menu.
- Use the shortcut commands.
The Hierarchy Panel
The hierarchy panel is a much quicker way to select glyphs and/or words. Typing multiple passages in a specific order will trigger the hierarchy panel to list those passages. You can select a word by clicking on the word located inside the hierarchy panel. You can also select individual characters of a specific word; click the word to list each character. You can then select any character from the drop down list.
This allows for much greater and more control over which text objects you want to select, change text properties and/or apply behaviors to.
The Properties Panel
The properties window is divided in three separate sections:
Editing Properties
This section allows you to view and change the properties of elements used to edit text on the canvas:
- ‘Mouse’ indicates the current mouse x/y coordinates relative to the canvas. Read Only.
- ‘Caret’ shows the location on the canvas of the editing cursor. Text typed appears at this location. Instead of moving the cursor by clicking on the canvas, you can adjust its x/y coordinates precisely by entering their value here.
- ‘Selection’
indicates the x/y coordinates of dragged selection box on the canvas (in pixels). x/y represents the (0,0) coordinates of the selected box and width/height indicates its dimensions.
Text Properties
This panel allows you to change and view the type aesthetics of a selected glyph or word. When multiple objects are selected, the properties indicate the value of the first object in the text hierarchy, but changing the value will affect all selected text objects.
- ‘Selection’ shows a string of currently selected text object(s). Read only.
- ‘Position’ indicates the x/y coordinates of the selected text object(s).
- ‘Font’ indicates the font of the selected text object(s).
- ‘Style’ indicates the font style of the selected text object(s).
- ‘Size’ indicates the font size of the selected text object(s).
- ‘Fill’ contains the properties for the inside area of the selected text objects(s). It has two values:
- ‘Color’ of the selected text object(s) (hexadecimal). If you do not know the hexadecimal code of the specific color you can click the drop down menu and open up the color palette. Click ‘Other…’ to show a popup window with more precise control over color selection.
- ‘Opacity’ is the alpha channel of the selected text objects, where 0 is completely transparent and 255 is fully opaque.
‘Stroke’ contains the properties of the outlines of the selected text object(s). It has three values:
- ‘Color’ of the selected text object(s) (hexadecimal). If you do not know the hexadecimal code of the specific color you can click the drop down menu and open up the color palette. Click ‘Other…’ to show a popup window with more precise control over color selection.
- ‘Opacity’ is the alpha channel of the selected text objects, where 0 is completely transparent and 255 is fully opaque.
- ‘Width’ is the width of the stroke. Entering ‘0’ will remove the outline completely.
SoftTypes
You can access each individual softtype for a selected text object by simply clicking on that specific softtype listed at the bottom of the ‘Properties Panel’. A softtype properties window will pop up. Here, you can customize the various settings for each softtype that have been applied.
Applying SoftTypes
SoftTypes behaviors are an important part of Mr. Softie. They allow you to easily transform and animate text, in real-time, using the mouse and adjustable parameters.
Begin by selecting the glyphs of groups of glyphs you want to apply the behaviors to. With the text objects selected, navigate to the top menu bar and click SoftType > Add > (Select a SoftType).
Once you choose a SoftType, the settings panel for that specific SoftType will pop up. You can use the default settings to get a quick idea of how a SoftType affects glyph, and then adjust the settings to fine-tune the effect you desire. See the “Properties Panel” section to know how to adjust the settings of SoftTypes that you have already applied to text objects.
In order to activate the SoftTypes, you must start the SoftType simulation. To start the simulation, you can either press the shortcut command CTRL + ENTER* or CTRL + SPACE on your keyboard or simply navigate to the top menu bar and click SoftType > Start. To stop the simulation, press the same shortcut command or navigate to the top menu bar and click SoftType > Stop.
It is possible to revert back to the previous state if you do not want to keep the SoftType modifications. If you want to undo the transformation of SoftTypes, you can press CTRL + Z on your keyboard (standard undo command also available under the menu Edit > Undo) to undo the last action, which will revert the text back to how it was before you started the last simulation. The simulation must be stopped before undoing.
If you navigate to the Object menu located on the top menu bar, you can change/reset certain attributes of a certain object:
- ‘Transform’ allows you to rotate the selected object. You can also press the CTRL + T shortcut after selecting text to access the transform tool.
- ‘Arrange’ allows you to layer your text objects.
- ‘Reset Deformation’ allows you to reset a selected text object after a softtype has been applied to it.
- ‘Set as Original’ sets the current state of a selected text object to its default state.
- ‘Convert To’ changes the aesthetic of a selected text object. You can either choose ‘Curves’ (set by default) to modify the text into smooth curves or choose ‘Lines’ to convert it into tangents.
*If you are using Mr. Softie in Parallels, you might prefer using CTRL + ENTER over CTRL + SPACE because of some conflicts with Parallels shortcuts.
Exporting Your Projects
Exporting to other applications allows you to modify and update various aspects of your Mr. Softie projects.
By going to Edit > Canvas, you can modify the width and height of the canvas. When exporting to another file format, it is important to keep track of these dimensions because those are the dimensions they will be exported at.
You can export your project into various formats:
- .TIFF stands for Tagged Image File Format. Created to store images, such as photographs or line art. The pixels will be dependent on the width and height in the canvas dimension settings. Therefore, if you do decide to resize the image, make sure you modify it in Mr. Softie or else it will appear pixelated.
- .PDF stands for Portable Document Format and are vector-based.
- .MOV is a multimedia file format used by Apple’s Quicktime software.
List of Shortcuts
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