The Banner

At the top of the window is a Banner where the Ultra Color logos are placed. If you click on the logo, the default browser on your system will open to Ultra Color's Home Page.

The Banner appears by default but it can be hidden in the ROES Preferences to provide a larger work area in the ROES software.

The Thumbnail Area

The Thumbnail Area is the large area on the right side of the window where image thumbnails and filenames are shown, and includes controls for the thumbnails. Thumbnails can be rearranged by dragged them to a new location in the thumbnail area. A blue insertion bar will mark the point of insertion for the images.

Several selection options are available in the thumbnail area. Typical selection rules apply, so the <shift> key will select a range of images, and <control> (<command> on Macs) selects individual images.

SHORTCUT: If you select multiple images from the Thumbnail area and drop them into the image editing area, ROES will create an item in the order for each image that was dropped. This is a quick way to create the same product for a number for different images, and is useful for situations such as proof orders.

Thumbnail Area Contextual Menu

Right-click in the thumbnail area to display its contextual menu. (Mac users with a single button mouse hold <control> and click the mouse button). This menu offers several abilities:

Rename Feature

NOTE: The rename capability will alter the name of the original files, so use with caution. Example filenames are shown beneath the options, and are updated whenever the user selects a new field or presses <enter>.

Thumbnail Buttons

Beneath the thumbnail area are several buttons, "Zoom" and "Folder...":

Image Layout Area

The Image Layout Area is the region on the left of the main window, next to the thumbnail area. This region shows the currently selected product & allows precise cropping of images. To add an image to the currently shown product, drag it from the thumbnail area, or from the local filesystem. You can also double click one or more images in the thumbnail area to place them in a product. The current product label name (e.x. 5x7) is shown beneath the layout area.

To change the cropping of an image, simply drag the image with the mouse.

HINT: The main window space devoted to the thumbnail area and layout area can be controlled by dragging the divider between the two areas. At the extreme positions of this divider, not all buttons may be visible due to differences in font sizes on various platforms.

	Maximize Area: Clicking on the right pointing arrow maximizes the thumbnail area within the window to provide more horizontal space. Clicking on the left pointing arrow maximizes the layout area.
	Expand Work Area: collapses the tools area and gives more vertical space to the work area; the arrow when pointing up will restore the tools. Toggling the hotkey combination of CTRL/CMD-T will perform this function as well.

The Rotate Image button rotates the image 90º counterclockwise. To change the direction of rotation, hold the <alt> or <option> key and click on a Rotate button. The triangle to the right of the Rotate Image button displays a slider which allows rotation of the image in 1º increments to ± 180º..

The Rotate Layout button will rotate the layout counterclockwise 90º.

The Zoom control shows a zoom slider similar to the one in the thumbnail area for zooming or cropping in on an image.

Pro Tools

Some commonly used tools are displayed between the image controls and the product and service controls. THis row of Pro Tools can be turned off in the Preferences section. These have the following functionality. The tooltips of each control summarize each. When the icon for the control is badged with a padlock or check box, it is enabled.

	Hold Crop: holds the crop when a new product or image is selected. This is only possible when the image and product have the same aspect ratio as the ones currently in use. If the aspect ratios differ, a best approximation is used.
	Hold Options: holds the options on a product after pressing "Add to Order". When this is unlocked, options on the working product will be removed after adding the item to the order.
	Hold Quantity: holds the quantity on a product after pressing "Add to Order". When this is unlocked, the quantity on the working product will be revert to one after adding the item to the order.
	Hold Image: holds the image in a node by ignoring drags and drops. This is useful to lock a photographer logo into a node while adding many images to an order. This tool is only enabled on multinode products.
	Lock Image: Locks the image in place by ignoring drag and drops (only in multi-node products)
	Crop or Fit: changes the behavior of the node to crop the image or fit it entirely. Fit will scale the image so that the image bounds are entirely within the product bounds; this frequently introduces white space into the product, but is useful for proof sheets. Hold <alt>/<option> to set crop or fit mode on all nodes in a product.
	Rotate Image: attempts to match aspect ratios on an image by applying a rotation when an image is dropped.
	Reticle: Shows a cross-hair over nodes. Useful for centering and aligning images.

Below this is another row of controls for selecting Print Size and Options.

Sizes and Options

This area also contains the Quantity for the current product and the Add To Order button which adds the current product and crop to the order.

Click on the Sizes button to select the product, or print size, you want by selecting it in the hierarchical Print Sizes menu.

At the bottom of the Print Sizes menu is an option to show the products as a hierarchical set of tabs in a separate palette, called the Print Sizes Palette.

Selecting a product in the Print Sizes menu or Print Sizes palette will show it in the layout area. Cropping is constrained so that white space isn't introduced into the print. This avoids common errors with differing aspect ratios, yet provides a high degree of control.

To select various lab options for the current print size, click on the Options button. This will bring up the Options Menu which contains a number of items that you can select. To select an option click on the checkbox to the left of the one you want.

At the bottom of the Options menu is the choice to show the options in a separate palette, called the Options Palette.

Adding to Order

To set the quantity of the print size added to an order, simply type the number in the "Quantity" field.

When you have your image positioned and cropped as you would like and have selected any options you would like applied click on the Add To Order button. This will add the image with your selection to your order. After you click on Add To Order the text in the button will change momentarily to “ Added! ” to let you know that the item has been added.

HINT: If a product's nodes aren't filled with images, the "Add to Order" button will be disabled. To force a product to be added to the order even with empty nodes, such as with a partially filled proof product, hold the <alt>/<option> key and "Add to Order" will enable and change to "Add with Empty".

Settings Area

The settings area is the region at the bottom of the application, containing several photographer, order, and application-wide settings.

The Help button contains items to help new users and troubleshoot problems. The "Help" item in the help menu overlays a series of steps on the main window to help new users through their first order.

Preferences

Open & Save allows orders that have already been sent to be opened again for the purpose of starting a new order based on the previous one. To open a previously saved order, select "Open an Incomplete Order..." from this menu, then use the file dialog to browse to an incomplete order file, typically ending in ".xml.enc" or ".zip.enc".

".xml.enc" files don't have the images included in them, and are saved via the "Save this Incomplete Order..." menu item. These are intended for use when a user's order entry is interrupted and she wishes to continue ordering later. ".zip.enc" order files have the images in them and are ready for processing by a lab. Although these types of orders can be reopened, doing so simply starts a new order based on the previous one. This does not modify the order sent to the lab. If a ".zip.enc" order is opened and then sent to the lab, a duplicate order will be created.

The "Show Queued Orders..." item in "Open & Save" will open a dialog of orders waiting to be sent, as well as past orders. Select the queued orders you wish to send now in the top area, and press the "Send" button. While uploading queued orders, other orders can be created and manipulated. Queuing orders is covered in the Order Completion section.

Review Order shows the Order Review dialog and is covered in the Order Review section.

Exits the ROES program.