Design Dilemma: You have a ton of content that ideally, you'd like to contain on one page without cutting it or placing it over multiple pages within a layout. The solution? Scrolling Frames!
That's right, in this tutorial, we'll go over how to create a scrolling menu with rollover effect buttons that trigger other content in a layout using the Object States panel.
Before we get started, it's important to download the In5 extension from Adobe's Exchange website.
Downloading in5 extension and Scrolling Frames panel
In InDesign, go to Window > Find Extensions on Exchange
When the Exchange site is loaded, in the search bar, type in5 (InDesign to HTML5) locate it. You can also click here to go right to the download page.
Click Free to download the Extension — this will automatically install the extension to InDesign. Be sure to restart Id if you have it running following installation of in5.
The top dropdown menu in the Id interface should now include an in5 option. Click this and you will notice there are free features and PRO options.
Under the Interactive Widgets, select Scrolling Frames. This will open a web browser to input your name and email. You will receive an email with the Scroll Panel information and file for manual installation.
Great! You have installed the extension and the scroll frames panel — now it's time to start applying the interactivity to the frame and buttons.
Create the content you would like to have in the scroll frame container. In this tutorial, I created four image buttons with teaser headlines, enticing the end user to click on one, scroll through and click the others for more information to appear.
Go ahead an open the Scrolling Frames panel by going to the in5 dropdown > Interactive Widgets > Scrolling Frames for the next step.
Setting Up the Scrolling Frame
With the Selection Tool, click on a single text frame or a grouped set and go to Edit > Cut or Command/CTRL + X to cut the content.
With the Rectangle Frame Tool, draw out a frame roughly the width (for vertical scrolling) or height (for horizontal scrolling).
With Selection Tool, click on the container frame, right-click and Paste Into.
Double click on the content within the container to adjust where you want the scroll to start and end.
In the Scrolling Frames panel, select the Scroll Direction specific to your setup, or leave on Auto-Detect.
Also, set whether you'd like the Scroll Indicators to be visible or hidden. I left them on, being it is a scrolling bar after all!
Follow along in the video tutorial to learn how to add rollover effect and set up Object States to buttons within the scrolling frame for a pretty awesome navigational and user experience in this mock online magazine layout.
Here's a preview of how the scrolling frame will appear at the end of this tutorial lesson!
