Advanced Scrollable Frames
Scrollable Frames are great for scrolling a secondary text inside a longer article.
In my digital magazine DONE (available for iPad and Android, for free) I used them alot. I also added a fadeout effect on top and bottom.
Here is how:
- creating the scrollable text frame as usual
- put a super overlay that can sit above the scrollable frame ontop of it
Many of these visual tricks are about “what to put in this super overlay”? For this effect, I need a solid colored rectangle with a greadient feather that I will turn into a two-state-multistate-object autoplaying slideshow (aka super overlay). The important thing is that the both states are identical. So there are no visual changes in the slideshow.
Rectangle with text width and gradient feater
Turned into a two-state-multistate-object (identical states)
Autoplaying Slideshow
This “super overlay” object will be put at the top of the scrollable frame. A vertically mirrored version of it will be put at the bottom. Therefore, the text from the scrollable frame (underneath these gradients) will look like it fades out.
For best results, apply a spacing inside the text frame at the top and bottom (so that the first and last line of text will not fade out) and on the right side to have some space for the appearing scrollbar while scrolling.
Result in InDesign
Magenta: Scrollable Frame with text frame inside.
Blue: Solid rectangles with gradient feather.
—Johannes
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