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Re: A little theming [message #22233 is a reply to message #22218]

Fri, 26 June 2009 13:34

mirek
Messages: 14162
Registered: November 2005

Ultimate Member

Is it time to move this into theide as an alternative scheme?

Mirek

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Re: A little theming [message #22237 is a reply to message #22233]

Fri, 26 June 2009 14:28

cbpporter
Messages: 1425
Registered: September 2007

Ultimate Contributor

Well the theme is ready. I've been using the new version for TheIDE for quite a while now and all visual elements fit it pretty good (except QuickTabs).

But I would wait, since in next update I'll add the support to load from an achieve. I would rather have way of selecting any external archive as a theme rather than only one.

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Re: A little theming [message #22258 is a reply to message #22237]

Sun, 28 June 2009 09:29

cbpporter
Messages: 1425
Registered: September 2007

Ultimate Contributor

Added Zip support. Skulture and Skulpture Stone now have two Zip archives in bazaar/Theme. As time passes I'll probably delete the non Zip versions if nobody has anything against it.

The implementation of temp folder unpacking may break if you do not have sufficient privileges on your system because I couldn't use RealizeDirectory on the result of GetTempFileName. It seems like a bug. It won't work under Linux, but I guess it's time to start Linux testing.

After I'm done with Linux testing, I'll consider this project done. One thing that I might add is a full set of widgets BlueBar theme, but I don't know exactly the source of the style.

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Re: A little theming [message #22359 is a reply to message #22258]

Tue, 07 July 2009 20:05

mirek
Messages: 14162
Registered: November 2005

Ultimate Member

BlueBar is no really a theme, it just paints bars blue Smile

(Which is considered "cool" for some reason, as demonstrated by many existing Win32 apps).

Mirek

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Re: A little theming [message #25567 is a reply to message #22359]

Mon, 01 March 2010 13:42

cbpporter
Messages: 1425
Registered: September 2007

Ultimate Contributor

Well it's them update time, and an interesting question arises: should I add support for Splitter style? If I do I cut off support for SVN versions 2152 or lower.

Also if I cut of support, there are two enhancements to Chameleon which should be added now, so that I am not forced to take this decision again at future SVN version.

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Re: A little theming [message #25580 is a reply to message #18450]

Mon, 01 March 2010 19:52

Sgifan
Messages: 37
Registered: February 2010
Location: France

Member

Just a quick question, where is this theming package to be found. I did not find it in the bazaar assemblies from any version of UPP (from 2070 to svn)

thanks

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Re: A little theming [message #25613 is a reply to message #25580]

Wed, 03 March 2010 20:36

cbpporter
Messages: 1425
Registered: September 2007

Ultimate Contributor

Sorry for the delay, but there was a bug and I tried to fix but failed.

It is in bazaar/Theme and the themes are in bazaar/Themes.

As for the bug, I have the temp folder hard coded which will fail on a lot of systems. I remembered why this was so: GetTempPath return the path in short-file name format. And RealizeDirectory fails at this short format. I'll investigate further but googling it has not returned any worth while results.

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Re: A little theming [message #25614 is a reply to message #18450]

Wed, 03 March 2010 21:20

Sgifan
Messages: 37
Registered: February 2010
Location: France

Member

Thank, I just listed main packages, thats why I did not see it.

I'm new to Upp but very impressed about it. Only thing that would be missing for me is using vectorial GUI rather that bitmap based ones.

Having something as performance oriented as upp and have all the advantages of WPF like user interface, all this with a BSD license, this would be a dream...

but I digress.

thanks again

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Re: A little theming [message #25631 is a reply to message #25614]

Thu, 04 March 2010 20:28

Mindtraveller
Messages: 917
Registered: August 2007
Location: Russia, Moscow rgn.

Experienced Contributor

Actually U++ has something like internal graphic engine which supports vector graphics too. Different antialiasing modes, rotation/scaling, alpha blending, JPG/GIF/PNG - everything is supported even for console projects.

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Re: A little theming [message #25632 is a reply to message #18450]

Thu, 04 March 2010 21:19

Sgifan
Messages: 37
Registered: February 2010
Location: France

Member

I'm aware of that. but as a canvas only. The controls use draw not painter...

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Re: A little theming [message #25635 is a reply to message #25632]

Fri, 05 March 2010 08:50

Mindtraveller
Messages: 917
Registered: August 2007
Location: Russia, Moscow rgn.

Experienced Contributor

It's because of efficiency. Blitting pixels is much faster than rasterizing vector graphics. And I actually see no sense in making controls vectorized by default: in 99% of cases it is unneeded overhead.

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Re: A little theming [message #25637 is a reply to message #18450]

Fri, 05 March 2010 10:01

Sgifan
Messages: 37
Registered: February 2010
Location: France

Member

It highly depends on the kind of user interface you want to provide.

When I do not write firmware I have to write PC software using touchscreens. When you use have a 6 inch screen in 800x600 resolution you do not use standard controls. At least you have to strech them, and most of the time this ends up rather ugly.

So the 99% you talk about are the 99% of desktop applications using a big screen a keyboard and a mouse. I guess I'm in the
other part of the panel...

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Re: A little theming [message #25638 is a reply to message #25635]

Fri, 05 March 2010 10:06

cbpporter
Messages: 1425
Registered: September 2007

Ultimate Contributor

Actually, I think that with carefully selected vector images, it would be a lot faster than scaling bitmaps. No heap activity for one. No need to apply smart scaling/filters. Just one computation with floating point precision for every coordinate, round it to pixels and draw. Skulpture can be represented almost 100% with nothing but non-overlapping rectangles, some filled with gradients.

But back to the subject, using some vector images with Theme is not out of the question. I can only load PNG files now, but with image format registration it could work with anything.

The problem is what kind of format to store the pictures. SVG is far too bloated and large and very hard to implement in a full compliance mode. Tiny spec is not that hard but I don't think we are there yet. Other popular vector images are quite proprietary, like the enhanced PNG from Adobe I think (The one that is not used as external format) or Corel draw files.

PS: The GetTempPath problem is XP only. No progress yet. I'm investigating the use of GetLongPath WIN API.

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Re: A little theming [message #26062 is a reply to message #25638]

Sat, 27 March 2010 13:56

cbpporter
Messages: 1425
Registered: September 2007

Ultimate Contributor

OK, hopefully fixed the XP bugs this time and it works cross platform.

PS: In anticipation of probable future deprecation of Win98 support, Theme will not work under Windows 98 without "unicows.dll". Not tested under Windows 98 so it is possible for it to not work even with DLL.

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Re: A little theming [message #26103 is a reply to message #26062]

Thu, 01 April 2010 13:36

mrjt
Messages: 705
Registered: March 2007
Location: London

Contributor

Have you heard of XAML? It's used by Microsoft WPF as an alternative to Windows Forms. It's a pretty cool way of theming, basically a giant XML file similar to SVG I guess but more suited to GUIs.

MediaPortal (open-source HTPC front-end) are using it for their 2nd version skinning engine, which is where I came across it.

[Updated on: Thu, 01 April 2010 13:38]

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