Stupid windowshape tricks
Is there any cool hack to make resizeable windows from a custom windowShape? -- Richard Gaskin Fourth World Media Corporation Developer of WebMerge 2.1: Publish any database on any site ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.FourthWorld.com Tel: 323-225-3717 AIM: FourthWorldInc ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Stupid windowshape tricks
Recently, Richard Gaskin wrote: Is there any cool hack to make resizeable windows from a custom windowShape? If you're talking about draggable, on-the-fly resize, that would be cool. Otherwise, I think the best you can do is simple a toggle action -- click and use the masked image you want as the new shape. Regards, Scott Rossi Creative Director Tactile Media, Multimedia Design Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: www.tactilemedia.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: Stupid windowshape tricks
Scott Rossi wrote: Recently, Richard Gaskin wrote: Is there any cool hack to make resizeable windows from a custom windowShape? If you're talking about draggable, on-the-fly resize, that would be cool. Otherwise, I think the best you can do is simple a toggle action -- click and use the masked image you want as the new shape. Regards, Scott Rossi Creative Director Tactile Media, Multimedia Design Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: www.tactilemedia.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard You can simply set the rect of the stack, but this crops based on the new rect. Not very pretty. You're really talking about two different parameters, shape and size. I have created odd shaped windows (very cool by the way Mr. Raney) and I have scripted hidden title bars to grab and move the window. But dynamically resizing the window means you would have to provide for resize handles to scale the image used for the shape and reset the windowShape once the resize was complete. Very messy ... not to mention the problems you'll run into with any holes (transparent areas) in the window, maintaining proportions, now gray masked areas, and controls that disappear because the visible window is no longer supporting them. If a hack could overcome these obstacles, that would definitely exceed my definition of cool. Maybe a small palette of pre-defined window shapes would make better sense. IMHO, if you go to the trouble to create a custom-shaped window, you probably don't want users resizing it and themselves into trouble. Unless of course Mr. Raney is working on something like... set the vector_based_odd_shape of this stack to insert formula here ... one never knows Regards, John J. Theobald ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
RE: Stupid windowshape tricks
Hey Richard, I've given this a bit of thought. What you want is what some of us call the 'springs and struts' stuff. I've been successful using a plain window (no decorations) and creating a 'stretchable' interface. See some the images at: http://www.altuit.com/webs/leo/Stuff/InterfacePix.htm I've also used the custom outline (windowshape) as well. If I were to make them stretch, I think I would switch the interface to something square, stretch it, calculate the new alpha mask (alphadata property) and apply it, using the springs and struts graphics on top. -Chipp ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Windowshape
The new windowshape property is really, really super cool. I'm impressed. I did run into a problem though and would like verification before I bug report it. I imported an image, set the windowshape, added a card script, and saved the stack. No problem. Tinkered some more, saved repeatedly. No problem. Closed the stack, quit MetaCard, went to bed. This morning I launched MetaCard and tried to open the stack, and got the stack is corrupted error that tells you to look for the ~backup file. There is no such backup, which tells me that the original saves were okay. So, has anyone else had a problem re-opening a stack that has been saved with a custom window configuration? -- Jacqueline Landman Gay | [EMAIL PROTECTED] HyperActive Software | http://www.hyperactivesw.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
WindowShape
When setting the windowShape of a stack on Windows, MC's perceived height of the stack is apparently dependent on the height of the stack's titlebar. Is there a way to test the potential varying height of the titlebar and allow the mask to be correctly positioned? Thanks Regards, Scott Rossi Creative Director, Tactile Media [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.tactilemedia.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: WindowShape
Scott Rossi wrote: When setting the windowShape of a stack on Windows I tried to do that too, but I don't think I had the right kind of image. How do you make a masked image? I'm not entirely straight on what an alpha mask is. -- Jacqueline Landman Gay | [EMAIL PROTECTED] HyperActive Software | http://www.hyperactivesw.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: WindowShape
When setting the windowShape of a stack on Windows, MC's perceived height of the stack is apparently dependent on the height of the stack's titlebar. Is there a way to test the potential varying height of the titlebar and allow the mask to be correctly positioned? Speaking of windows, I ran into something, I'm sure I'm missing a piece of code somewhere. I have a menubar, to show for Windows. And I pretty much always have Edit Menus on while the project is open. Sometimes I forget to click the box, and Edit Menus are off. And frequently, the stack grows in height, adds the height of the menubar to the bottom of the stack, with Edit Menus off, and I have to manually resize the stack back to its normal size. I haven't edited Metacard's resize handler. And my menubar started off as Metacard's. I think the menu choice was Create Menu? And I of course added/deleted menuItems to suit my program, and deleted a couple of menu buttons and added a couple. Help is at the end as it should be. I could write a handler that sets the size of the stack every time it opens, to trap for this. But surely it's a bug in my code somewhere. Or something I failed to put in. I'm so new to Metacard's menubars. Has anyone else experienced this, and what did it turn out to be? Shari C -- --Shareware Games for the Mac-- http://www.gypsyware.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: WindowShape
Recently, J. Landman Gay wrote: When setting the windowShape of a stack on Windows I tried to do that too, but I don't think I had the right kind of image. How do you make a masked image? I'm not entirely straight on what an alpha mask is. Ever create a transparent GIF? That image has a mask that determines which parts of the the image are opaque and those that are transparent. You can use transparent GIFs or PNG images as the source images for your window masks, but note that the alpha mask needs to be 1 bit black and white only -- no shades of gray (but hopefully in the future...). Photoshop is the big player for creating these images but FireWorks and any other bitmap apps that allow you to save GIFs and PNGs will work. Regards, Scott Rossi Creative Director Tactile Media, Multimedia Design Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: www.tactilemedia.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
Re: WindowShape
Scott Rossi wrote: Recently, J. Landman Gay wrote: I tried to do that too, but I don't think I had the right kind of image. How do you make a masked image? I'm not entirely straight on what an alpha mask is. Ever create a transparent GIF? That image has a mask that determines which parts of the the image are opaque and those that are transparent. Oh THAT! Thanks Scott. I am your basic layperson when it comes to graphics but I do understand transparent gif. Now I can try this window thing, it sounds very slick. -- Jacqueline Landman Gay | [EMAIL PROTECTED] HyperActive Software | http://www.hyperactivesw.com ___ metacard mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard
