Home » U++ Library support » Look and Chameleon Technology » Office Ribbon skin
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| Re: Any function to draw gradient color? [message #11390 is a reply to message #11384] |
Mon, 10 September 2007 20:33   |
piratalp
Messages: 26
Registered: September 2007
Location: Argentina
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Promising Member |
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Hi Mirek,
| luzr wrote on Mon, 10 September 2007 14:15 |
| piratalp wrote on Mon, 10 September 2007 13:07 |
NOTE: I've just wrote it in seconds from what's in my mind, I've done a Ribbon Chameleon Skin for Ultimate++ that can render both Office 2003 and Office 2007 styles with any combination of colors, I would like to contribute it to Ultimate++ but I'll have to add some code to Chameleon to support very basic things like Palettes and also change some widgets that have no ChPaint calls, how can I stay in synch with development version (uvs?)? Mirek?
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Sounds good. I can provide you the read access, but that IMO would not solve the problem anyway.
IMO, CtrlLib and Draw is relatively stable these days. So if you have latest dev, just do what you need and then send here a .zip of all packages (or perhaps files) you have changed, we will merge it...
Mirek
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I've done all modifications on 2007.1 package and mantained all code inside external files, however, much of this code should go into Draw/Cham.h & Draw/Cham.cpp. Should I merge it and send to you?
NOTE: I've only Ribbonized current skinnable controsl, ChPaint for controls like ToolBar is pending... (I can make it but I have to study internal control Paint & Chameleon calling inside widget classes first)
Mauricio
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| Re: Any function to draw gradient color? [message #11408 is a reply to message #11393] |
Tue, 11 September 2007 19:28 |
piratalp
Messages: 26
Registered: September 2007
Location: Argentina
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Promising Member |
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| luzr wrote on Mon, 10 September 2007 16:33 |
Maybe send the files first and let us decide what is the best course of action? (So far I have no clue what exactly these changes are about).
Mirek
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Don't worry, it's not sooo much code, but it adds cool new features (mainly the "palette" part, it's why ribbon skin can render any combination of colors, even office 2003 being a non ribbon theme, it's just a matter of choosing right colors)
It may introduce some questions however, like "Do we preserve SColor*() functions or change all skins to be drawn using global Chameleon palette?", "Should things like window background have that 'static color' background or be 'chameleonized' (Don't ask me that, I'll for sure vote for chameleon)", same last question goes for things like ToolBar background, Menu background, TopBar background, etc, if we don't add chameleon support to those things we'll never have a fully flexible skin system, and skins like ribbon will never be complete, OTOH if we do it (it's no so much work nor difficult) we'll have the most advanced and up to date crossplatform skin system, rendering ribbon styles even on Linux 
I only have to add: Don't be afraid, adding chameleon + drawing utils + palette + ribbon skin will not affect at all current skins, so you'll not notice it until you call ChRibbonSkin() from your app..
Regards
Mauricio Abre
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| Re: Any function to draw gradient color? [message #11479 is a reply to message #11408] |
Sat, 15 September 2007 10:30 |
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mirek
Messages: 14164
Registered: November 2005
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Ultimate Member |
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| piratalp wrote on Tue, 11 September 2007 13:28 |
It may introduce some questions however, like "Do we preserve SColor*() functions or change all skins to be drawn using global Chameleon palette?"
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SColor is meant to be the global chameleion palette
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"Should things like window background have that 'static color' background or be 'chameleonized' (Don't ask me that, I'll for sure vote for chameleon)"
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Chameleonized. Basically, PaintRect for SetBackground should be replaced by Value IMO. (Maybe we should add emulation of PaintRect too).
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, same last question goes for things like ToolBar background, Menu background, TopBar background, etc, if we don't add chameleon support to those things we'll never have a fully flexible skin system, and skins like ribbon will never be complete, OTOH if we do it (it's no so much work nor difficult) we'll have the most advanced and up to date crossplatform skin system, rendering ribbon styles even on Linux
I only have to add: Don't be afraid, adding chameleon + drawing utils + palette + ribbon skin will not affect at all current skins, so you'll not notice it until you call ChRibbonSkin() from your app..
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Yes. The missing chameleonization is not because of fear, but lack of time, in fact, because of priorities. In recent round, we got to state when U++ +/- matched Firefox and Openoffice in its capability of using host platform appearance. That was enough for that step, there are more important things for core team to deal with now.
BTW, speaking about it, it looks like you understand the whole issue pretty well. What about writing something (e.g. short tutorial) about chameleon? We desperately miss docs...
Mirek
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| Re: Any function to draw gradient color? [message #11640 is a reply to message #11479] |
Thu, 20 September 2007 00:25 |
piratalp
Messages: 26
Registered: September 2007
Location: Argentina
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Promising Member |
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| Quote: |
| Quote: |
It may introduce some questions however, like "Do we preserve SColor*() functions or change all skins to be drawn using global Chameleon palette?"
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SColor is meant to be the global chameleion palette
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I know, but it is far from being complete for color-intensive skins like Office 2003 (aka .Net 2.0) and Ribbon skins, that's why I created ChPalette, similar to ProffesionalColorTable in .NET, I need 4 colors to make each gradient in each state of each widget, so ChPalette has Value Button, Value ButtonHighlight, Value ButtonPressed, Value ButtonDisabled and so on, each of these hold values managed by themes themselves, I store ChGradients (the 4-color gradients I stated above plus Border color)
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Chameleonized. Basically, PaintRect for SetBackground should be replaced by Value IMO. (Maybe we should add emulation of PaintRect too).
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Good to agree
[quote title=Quote:]
Yes. The missing chameleonization is not because of fear, but lack of time, in fact, because of priorities. In recent round, we got to state when U++ +/- matched Firefox and Openoffice in its capability of using host platform appearance. That was enough for that step, there are more important things for core team to deal with now.
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BTW, speaking about it, it looks like you understand the whole issue pretty well. What about writing something (e.g. short tutorial) about chameleon? We desperately miss docs...
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Ok I need to finish ribbon skin first, then I'll see if I make some tuto.. 
Regards
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| Re: Any function to draw gradient color? [message #11706 is a reply to message #11640] |
Sun, 23 September 2007 10:40 |
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mirek
Messages: 14164
Registered: November 2005
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Ultimate Member |
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| piratalp wrote on Wed, 19 September 2007 18:25 |
I know, but it is far from being complete for color-intensive skins like Office 2003 (aka .Net 2.0) and Ribbon skins, that's why I created ChPalette, similar to ProffesionalColorTable in .NET, I need 4 colors to make each gradient in each state of each widget, so ChPalette has Value Button, Value ButtonHighlight, Value ButtonPressed, Value ButtonDisabled and so on, each of these hold values managed by themes themselves, I store ChGradients (the 4-color gradients I stated above plus Border color)
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Hm, I still do not understand the issue..
Anyway, going to look up ProffesionalColorTable Perhaps that will give me a clue
Mirek
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| Re: Office Ribbon skin [message #11733 is a reply to message #11384] |
Mon, 24 September 2007 02:51 |
sergei
Messages: 94
Registered: September 2007
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Member |
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I just found this on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbon_(computing):
Microsoft is in the process of acquiring a patent on the ribbon user interface concept[citation needed] and is licensing the ribbon design to third party developers royalty-free, as long as the user interface conforms to the Microsoft's design guidelines and they can get an approval from Microsoft. The ribbon design guidelines are confidential and an evaluation copy is only available when a non-disclosure agreement has been agreed to.[2][3] However, until the patent has been filed, one does not have to agree to the license to implement this user interface concept on their own.
Does this concern U++ in any way?
Regarding colors, there's GetSysColor API function for Win32 to get system colors. I don't know how Chameleon works, but ProfessionalColorTable does not provide a complete set of colors for an application, there are other colors needed (ProfessionalColorTable+SystemColors might be enough, though). For Linux, don't know, maybe this can be emulated, or just leave some XP theme as a skin. Here are system colors for default XP themes:
Color Blue Olive Green
ActiveBorder (212, 208, 200) (212, 208, 200) (212, 208, 200)
ActiveCaption (0, 84, 227) (192, 192, 192) (139, 161, 105)
ActiveCaptionText (255, 255, 255) (14, 16, 16) (255, 255, 255)
AppWorkspace (128, 128, 128) (128, 128, 128) (128, 128, 128)
ButtonFace (236, 233, 216) (224, 223, 227) (236, 233, 216)
ButtonHighlight (255, 255, 255) (255, 255, 255) (255, 255, 255)
ButtonShadow (172, 168, 153) (157, 157, 161) (172, 168, 153)
Control (236, 233, 216) (224, 223, 227) (236, 233, 216)
ControlDark (172, 168, 153) (157, 157, 161) (172, 168, 153)
ControlDarkDark (113, 110, 100) (113, 111, 100) (113, 111, 100)
ControlLight (241, 239, 226) (241, 239, 226) (241, 239, 226)
ControlLightLight (255, 255, 255) (255, 255, 255) (255, 255, 255)
ControlText (0, 0, 0) (0, 0, 0) (0, 0, 0)
Desktop (0, 78, 152) (88, 87, 104) (157, 172, 189)
GradientActiveCaption (61, 149, 255) (200, 200, 200) (198, 210, 162)
GradientInactiveCaption (157, 185, 235) (238, 239, 247) (212, 214, 186)
GrayText (172, 168, 153) (172, 168, 153) (172, 168, 153)
Highlight (49, 106, 197) (178, 180, 191) (147, 160, 112)
HighlightText (255, 255, 255) (0, 0, 0) (255, 255, 255)
HotTrack (0, 0, 128) (100, 139, 203) (0, 0, 128)
InactiveBorder (212, 208, 200) (212, 208, 200) (212, 208, 200)
InactiveCaption (122, 150, 223) (255, 255, 255) (212, 214, 186)
InactiveCaptionText (216, 228, 248) (162, 161, 161) (255, 255, 255)
Info (255, 255, 255) (255, 255, 255) (255, 255, 255)
InfoText (0, 0, 0) (0, 0, 0) (0, 0, 0)
Menu (255, 255, 255) (255, 255, 255) (255, 255, 255)
MenuBar (236, 233, 216) (224, 226, 235) (236, 233, 216)
MenuHighlight (49, 106, 197) (187, 183, 199) (147, 160, 112)
MenuText (0, 0, 0) (0, 0, 0) (0, 0, 0)
ScrollBar (212, 208, 200) (212, 208, 200) (212, 208, 200)
Window (255, 255, 255) (255, 255, 255) (255, 255, 255)
WindowFrame (0, 0, 0) (0, 0, 0) (0, 0, 0)
WindowText (0, 0, 0) (0, 0, 0) (0, 0, 0)
The tricky part is to find how ProfessionalColorTable builds its 56 colors from these system values (it probably does since it has UseSystemColors property). I used reflection to get out colors, few were returned as known colors, but most are just RGB values. Probably interpolations between system colors or something.
I could try to decipher these values. Would that help - can U++/chameleon paint stuff according to ProfessionalColorTable-like color palette?
[Updated on: Mon, 24 September 2007 02:55] Report message to a moderator |
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| Re: Office Ribbon skin [message #11735 is a reply to message #11733] |
Mon, 24 September 2007 09:11 |
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mirek
Messages: 14164
Registered: November 2005
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Ultimate Member |
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| sergei wrote on Sun, 23 September 2007 20:51 |
I just found this on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbon_(computing):
Microsoft is in the process of acquiring a patent on the ribbon user interface concept[citation needed] and is licensing the ribbon design to third party developers royalty-free, as long as the user interface conforms to the Microsoft's design guidelines and they can get an approval from Microsoft. The ribbon design guidelines are confidential and an evaluation copy is only available when a non-disclosure agreement has been agreed to.[2][3] However, until the patent has been filed, one does not have to agree to the license to implement this user interface concept on their own.
Does this concern U++ in any way?
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Hard to say. In any case, such patent is valid only in U.S....
Also, to my knowledge, this patent is more about GUI, while what we are trying to do here is traditional toolbar with Office like visuals.
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Regarding colors, there's GetSysColor API function for Win32 to get system colors.
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Yep, this is already fully covered by SColor*() set of functions (and used in practice).
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I could try to decipher these values. Would that help - can U++/chameleon paint stuff according to ProfessionalColorTable-like color palette?
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No need, alredy done and also implemented in Linux/GTK.
Mirek
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| Re: Any function to draw gradient color? [message #11741 is a reply to message #11708] |
Mon, 24 September 2007 17:22 |
piratalp
Messages: 26
Registered: September 2007
Location: Argentina
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Promising Member |
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| luzr wrote on Sun, 23 September 2007 05:47 |
ff / ss
Anyway, I have had a look at it.
First, is there a way how to obtain these values from OS? Would be nice set of complementary Color values, IF it is possible to have a reasonable emulation when not available (e.g. in Linux). If not, this should be hidden in ribbon emulation:
Second you do not really need this palette in U++ to get things work. You can store them into Value for specific chameleonized elements IMO.
Mirek
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Hehe, so we're the only ones having a fff color table? :s
Well, going to the questions.. There is for sure a way to retrieve them, how? I DON'T KNOW, I never liked windoze internals.. but they are set by XP when you change color scheme (usually Blue -default-, silver and olive) and ProfessionalColorTable always reflect correct colors acording to system palette..
Of course there is _very_ reasonable emulation and it is already done and working (and looking nice by using current limited set of SColor functions. I called it ChSystemPalette(). OTOH final Office 2007 Blue palette is harcoded in program, so it works in Linux, Mac, Windows, BSD.. no matter the platform, Office 2007 comes with its own set of palettes independent from system colors.. I plan to make other Office 2007 palettes and custom ones with very nice look but that will be when I have a bit of time, now I'm very busy chameleonizing widgets that were harcoded until now..
For the second.. Yes, it was exactly what I was doing but it had some cons, major one the need to have 8 set of values for each existing widget, and the need to add a new set each time a new widget needs to be chameleonized with this kind of skin, so I decided to drop all thos Values from ChPalette and replace them with a set of colors for: Face (Normal, Highlight, Pressed & Disabled states) wich are used for practically any widget that does not have _very_ customized look, the rest have their own set of palette colors (e.g. Buttons -including Ok & Cancel ones-, Menus, ScrollBars and ProgressBars)
It sounds a bit more complicated than it is, so let's illustrate it:
What I was doing (sth like what you proposed):
| Quote: |
struct ChPalette {
Value Background; // Used for window bg
Value Text; // Used as global text color
Value Button; // Normal button state
Value ButtonText;
Value ButtonHighlight;
Value ButtonHighlightText;
Value ButtonPressed;
Value ButtonPressedText
Value ButtonDisabled;
Value ButtonDisabledText
// These last 8 repeated for every existing widget
}
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This way I had to hardcode widget painting INSIDE palette and add lots of members to the struct, so I decided to refactor it and look more like ProfessionalColorTable (fff  )
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struct ChPalette {
Color FaceLight;
Color FaceMedium;
Color FaceNormal;
Color FaceDark;
Color FaceBorder;
Color FaceText;
// So with this kind of palette it is the skin wich decides how widgets are rendered
// This set of colors repeat changing Face with Highlight, Pressed & Disabled and are used for every widget, except the ones I mentioned above, for which this set of 4-state * 6 components is repeated
}
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Hope it is more clear now...
Regards
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| Re: Office Ribbon skin [message #11742 is a reply to message #11733] |
Mon, 24 September 2007 17:49 |
piratalp
Messages: 26
Registered: September 2007
Location: Argentina
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Promising Member |
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| sergei wrote on Sun, 23 September 2007 21:51 |
I just found this on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbon_(computing):
Microsoft is in the process of acquiring a patent on the ribbon user interface concept[citation needed] and is licensing the ribbon design to third party developers royalty-free, as long as the user interface conforms to the Microsoft's design guidelines and they can get an approval from Microsoft. The ribbon design guidelines are confidential and an evaluation copy is only available when a non-disclosure agreement has been agreed to.[2][3] However, until the patent has been filed, one does not have to agree to the license to implement this user interface concept on their own.
Does this concern U++ in any way?
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I don't know, IANAL but I don't think it will, as I'm doing all this stuff on my own, w/o any help or docs from m$.
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I could try to decipher these values. Would that help - can U++/chameleon paint stuff according to ProfessionalColorTable-like color palette?
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Please don't!
You've already done too much by providing XP standard palettes colors, I was about to write a C# program to dump these values.. many thanks!
Yes, this is what I'm doing, adding ribbon skin to chameleon, which render U++ widgets with Office 2007 style (technically known as ribbon style) and it uses a Palette similar to ProfessionalColorTable implemented by me..
Regards
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| Re: Office Ribbon skin [message #11745 is a reply to message #11742] |
Mon, 24 September 2007 19:28 |
sergei
Messages: 94
Registered: September 2007
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Member |
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| piratalp wrote on Mon, 24 September 2007 17:49 |
| sergei wrote on Sun, 23 September 2007 21:51 |
I just found this on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbon_(computing):
Microsoft is in the process of acquiring a patent on the ribbon user interface concept[citation needed] and is licensing the ribbon design to third party developers royalty-free, as long as the user interface conforms to the Microsoft's design guidelines and they can get an approval from Microsoft. The ribbon design guidelines are confidential and an evaluation copy is only available when a non-disclosure agreement has been agreed to.[2][3] However, until the patent has been filed, one does not have to agree to the license to implement this user interface concept on their own.
Does this concern U++ in any way?
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I don't know, IANAL but I don't think it will, as I'm doing all this stuff on my own, w/o any help or docs from m$.
| Quote: |
I could try to decipher these values. Would that help - can U++/chameleon paint stuff according to ProfessionalColorTable-like color palette?
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Please don't!
You've already done too much by providing XP standard palettes colors, I was about to write a C# program to dump these values.. many thanks!
Yes, this is what I'm doing, adding ribbon skin to chameleon, which render U++ widgets with Office 2007 style (technically known as ribbon style) and it uses a Palette similar to ProfessionalColorTable implemented by me..
Regards
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AFAIK that's the difference between copyright and patent - if you reinvent copyrighted stuff you're fine, if you reinvent a patent you still can get sued 
But if that's US-only it's of less concern.
You're giving me too much credit I wanted to get these colors too, went to MSDN for some info: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.drawing.syst emcolors.aspx (scroll down). But a dumper might not be such a bad idea when the skin is complete, so many nice XP themes could be converted to U++ skins 
Looking forward for office-style U++.
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| Re: Any function to draw gradient color? [message #11746 is a reply to message #11741] |
Mon, 24 September 2007 19:29 |
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mirek
Messages: 14164
Registered: November 2005
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Ultimate Member |
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| piratalp wrote on Mon, 24 September 2007 11:22 |
Hehe, so we're the only ones having a fff color table? :s
Well, going to the questions.. There is for sure a way to retrieve them, how? I DON'T KNOW, I never liked windoze internals.. but they are set by XP when you change color scheme (usually Blue -default-, silver and olive) and ProfessionalColorTable always reflect correct colors acording to system palette..
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Maybe you could also try some 3rd party theme / visuals...
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For the second.. Yes, it was exactly what I was doing but it had some cons, major one the need to have 8 set of values for each existing widget
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I do not get this. How are you using Values for chameleonization?
My (original) idea is that those Values just represent how things are about to be painted.
In this case you either put Images there, or you perhaps define your new Value and put those colors in it; it will then be interpreted by creating required gradient (if that is what you desire).
I definitely do not see a reason to add 8 Values per widget....
But maybe I just do not understand something....
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struct ChPalette {
Color FaceLight;
Color FaceMedium;
Color FaceNormal;
Color FaceDark;
Color FaceBorder;
Color FaceText;
}
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Hope it is more clear now...
Well, convert this to Value (e.g. RawToValue) and provide ChPaint ...
Mirek
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| Re: Office Ribbon skin [message #11748 is a reply to message #11745] |
Mon, 24 September 2007 21:05 |
piratalp
Messages: 26
Registered: September 2007
Location: Argentina
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Promising Member |
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| sergei wrote on Mon, 24 September 2007 14:28 |
AFAIK that's the difference between copyright and patent - if you reinvent copyrighted stuff you're fine, if you reinvent a patent you still can get sued
But if that's US-only it's of less concern.
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Read your original post again, it states that ribbon-like software made BEFORE the patent with no m$ specs help will not fall into patent infringement
I don't think it will be necessary, just screenshot + gimp, it's what I'm doing to rip Office 2007 Blue palette..
Your office-style sentence is ambiguous, both .NET 2.0 (Office 2003) and Ribbon (Office 2007) falls there, however I'm planning to make also an Office 2003 skin when Ribbon is completed (both are gradient skins, one doing linear light-to-dark gradient, the other with a two-step gradient bringing a glass-like efect)
Regards
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