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Home » U++ Library support » Look and Chameleon Technology » native look
native look [message #466] Wed, 04 January 2006 13:24 Go to next message
hojtsy is currently offline  hojtsy
Messages: 241
Registered: January 2006
Location: Budapest, Hungary
Experienced Member
Hi,
I am very new to U++, I have been playing with Qt4 for a few months now. When coming from Qt background these things are immediately visible:
- both compilation times and runtime performance is far better than in Qt.
- library source code is much smaller than in Qt. In the beginning I was suspecting that I am only seeing a small subset of the code. Smile
- U++ applications have a distinct look which does not match the native Windows 2k look to the extent Qt does. Some examples are arrows in the combo boxes, the file open dialog, radio buttons, scrollbars

I see that there are substantial amount of quality work invested in the library. Compared to all this work it seems a minor effort to mimic the OS look more precisely. Am I speculating correctly if I say that this was intentional choice by the library authors, because they like this look better than the OS native? This seems to be a matter of personal taste. I respect your taste, but my preference would be to develop applications which matches the native look better. The reason is the Rule of Least Surprise: http://www.westnet.com/~gsmith/ppt/ppt23.htm
My question is: is there any option/add-on/existing application to mimic the native OS look more precisely or is such planned for U++?

best regards,
Sandor
Re: native look [message #468 is a reply to message #466] Wed, 04 January 2006 13:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mirek is currently offline  mirek
Messages: 14162
Registered: November 2005
Ultimate Member
More fitting native look is planned, but in fact, currently it was considered to fix Linux (Gnome/Qt) look.

It is true that initially (several years ago) we reproduced Win2K look&feel with some "improvements". From the current perspective, it perhaps was not a good idea. There are some minor differences in XP look (U++ scrollbars look a little bit differently) as well, but this time those are much less serious than those introduced by M$ to its apps Smile
Re: native look [message #970 is a reply to message #468] Sat, 11 February 2006 13:18 Go to previous messageGo to next message
hojtsy is currently offline  hojtsy
Messages: 241
Registered: January 2006
Location: Budapest, Hungary
Experienced Member
I modified CtrlLib/Ctrl.iml to make radio buttons, checkboxes & scrollbar look more native is Win2000 style. I modified these images:
switch0, switch0d, switch0f, switch1, switch1d, switch1f,
optionedge, optionedged,
smallup, smalldown, smallleft, smallright
The original images were renamed by appending a "_custom" to the end, for example switch0_custom. I left in some non-native look, such as the yellow hotspot color: I think that is good, and does not seem alien.

If you think that the original "improvements" to the radio buttons & checkboxes are no longer justified, then could you replace Ctrl.iml with this file, and maybe remove the "_custom" images?

But if you still like the custom look, maybe a command line option, or macro could be made which triggers either the custom look or the native look images. I searched in the code, and there are very few places where these image names are used (Button.cpp, Switch.cpp), so extending them to deal with two versions would not seem much work. I still think that the native look should be the default. One ide for the implementation (part of Switch.cpp):
#ifndef CUSTOM_LOOK
  #define CUSTOM_LOOK_IMAGE(imageName)  imageName
#else
  #define CUSTOM_LOOK_IMAGE(imageName)  imageName##_custom
#endif
...
img = v.value == value ? dv ? CtrlImg::CUSTOM_LOOK_IMAGE(switch1d)()
  : pushindex == i ? CtrlImg::CUSTOM_LOOK_IMAGE(switch1f)()
                   : CtrlImg::CUSTOM_LOOK_IMAGE(switch1)()
  : dv ? CtrlImg::CUSTOM_LOOK_IMAGE(switch0d)()
       : pushindex == i ? CtrlImg::CUSTOM_LOOK_IMAGE(switch0f)()
                        : CtrlImg::CUSTOM_LOOK_IMAGE(switch0)();

  • Attachment: Ctrl.iml.zip
    (Size: 12.30KB, Downloaded 1992 times)
Re: native look [message #971 is a reply to message #970] Sat, 11 February 2006 13:31 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mirek is currently offline  mirek
Messages: 14162
Registered: November 2005
Ultimate Member
Well, I was deferring this issue till chameleon technology when I planned to resolve much more that this issue, but I have no problem about changing it now.

Mirek
Re: native look [message #973 is a reply to message #971] Sat, 11 February 2006 13:34 Go to previous message
mirek is currently offline  mirek
Messages: 14162
Registered: November 2005
Ultimate Member
OK, done...

Mirek
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