Make Global Changes with Masters
Learn about masters and how to use them to build reusable assets and save time making global changes.
Contents
Masters Overview
Create and Organize Masters
Set Master Behaviors
Add and Edit Masters
Video
Masters Video (2:45 min)
Masters Overview
Masters are collections of widgets that you can reuse throughout your design. Common elements created as masters include headers, footers, navigation and page templates. A change to a master is reflected everywhere that master is used. You can add masters to pages as well as other masters.
Masters can have three different behaviors: normal, place in background or custom widget.
Normal (Default): When placed on a wireframe, you can move and position the master as needed.
Place in Background: When placed on a wireframe, the master is placed behind the other widgets on the page and locks into the position it was originally created. This is helpful for page templates and layouts.
Custom Widget: When placed on a wireframe, the custom widget master loses its relationship to the original master and can be edited like other widgets. This is useful for creating a library of widgets with predefined properties, annotations and/or interactions (e.g., a blue button with white text). To create libraries of widgets that can be more easily shared with others or used in other files, please visit Create custom widget libraries.
Create and Organize Masters
To create a master, click on the “Add Master” button in the toolbar of the Masters pane, or right-click in the pane and select “Add Master”. Double-click the master to open it for design in the wireframe pane. You can design masters the same way you design your wireframe pages.
To organize masters into folders, click the folder icon in the toolbar of the Masters pane. Drag and drop masters into the appropriate folder.
Set Master Behaviors
Right-click on the master in the Masters pane and choose the behavior from the “Behavior” submenu.
The behavior of a master can be changed at any time. However, the new behavior only applies to instances of the master added after the behavior was changed. For example, if an instance of the master was added as a custom widget, changing the behavior of the master to Normal does not affect that instance.
The behavior of an instance of a master can be changed. The context menu of a master instance has options to “Place in Background”, “Remove from Background” and “Flatten” (which copies the widgets out of the master).
Add and Edit Masters
To add a master to a wireframe, drag and drop the master from the Masters pane onto the wireframe pane. Depending on the behavior of the master, the instance of the master might have a pink (normal) or grey (place in background) mask. To remove the mask, uncheck Wireframe->Mask Masters in the main menu.
To edit a master, double-click on the master in the Masters pane or on the instance of the master in a wireframe.
Summary
Think you've mastered masters? (Sorry, couldn't help ourselves). If not, let us know at support@axure.com and we can help.
