Hollywood forums

Note: This is an archived post that was originally sent to the Hollywood mailing list on Sun, 17 Aug 2008 10:23:07 -0000

Hi all

Some months ago I published some preliminary code in a folder called 'itemlist' to allow Hollywood 3.1 users to do their own user controls. It was very much experimental and a lot has happened since.

In the 'Files' section you can now find a new folder called 'JSPGui...'. It contains an LHA file with all the source code as well as a 40 page manual (a pdf file done in A5 format) and some examples and a PC executable demonstration of what you can do with JSPGui.

Unlike Fabio's SCUIlib with its impressive collection of colourful and featureful user controls, JSPGui does not provide you with lots of finished controls. Rather it allows those of you, who wish to dabble in making your own controls to do it much easier. There are half a dozen usable controls for you to use in your programs or as examples and blueprints for making your own stuff. So - finally you can have a 'Panic-button' for your interface!

I removed the old 'itemlist' folder, since its code is obsolete and buried.

It has been quite an effort to get this far, so if you like it and think that it should have a wider audience than this user group, feel free to pass on the LHA file to other forums.

If you have questions or comments, please contact me at email-address-removed@nospam.com or by opening a subject on this forum, which I read regularly. Feedback is part of what makes it worth doing an effort like this.

Have fun with JSPGui v1.0x

Jesper

Note: This is an archived post that was originally sent to the Hollywood mailing list on Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:06:32 +0200

Hi all

Some months ago I published some preliminary code in a folder called 'itemlist' to allow Hollywood 3.1 users to do their own user controls. It was very much experimental and a lot has happened since.

In the 'Files' section you can now find a new folder called 'JSPGui...'. It contains an LHA file with all the source code as well as a 40 page manual (a pdf file done in A5 format) and some examples and a PC executable demonstration of what you can do with JSPGui.

Unlike Fabio's SCUIlib with its impressive collection of colourful and featureful user controls, JSPGui does not provide you with lots of finished controls. Rather it allows those of you, who wish to dabble in making your own controls to do it much easier. There are half a dozen usable controls for you to use in your programs or as examples and blueprints for making your own stuff. So - finally you can have a 'Panic-button' for your interface!

I removed the old 'itemlist' folder, since its code is obsolete and buried.

It has been quite an effort to get this far, so if you like it and think that it should have a wider audience than this user group, feel free to pass on the LHA file to other forums.

If you have questions or comments, please contact me at email-address-removed@nospam.com or by opening a subject on this forum, which I read regularly. Feedback is part of what makes it worth doing an effort like this.

Nice work but I noticed that the behaviour of the push buttons is a little bit weird. First, they seem to have three different states (black, yellow, red) The buttons stay in some sort of highlight (yellow) state after they have been pressed. The red state appears only for a fraction of a second but it should stay as long as the LMB is down... also the state doesn't change when LMB is down on the button but then mouse pointer leaves the button's area etc etc. It's a little bit confusing. Check the gadtools/MUI/ReAction buttons to see how push buttons are supposed to behave.

The string button flickers a little bit when entering text which could also be improved.

Well, just my two cents

Note: This is an archived post that was originally sent to the Hollywood mailing list on Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:34:45 -0000

Hi

The flicker in the text box was bothering me too. Turned out I was too damn clever... My draw routine for the text box (and other controls as well) also draws any items (the frame) that are sub items of the main item (The textbox). So the bugger redrew the frame sub item too every time - not just the first time the control was displayed during setup. Fortunately this is easily fixed. Add an extra property for the textbox called 'doframe' set to True in the defaults[#TEXTBOX] table. Then modify the first If/Then statement in drawitem[#TEXTBOX] to look like this If/Endif block instead:
No more flicker...

The button is, as you say a bit 'nonstandard' . There is some purpose in the madness though with the colours. The yellow colour is there to signal, that the button has focus. In this way users can use keys (space or return) to trigger the button just like if they clicked on it. Move to another control and the button returns to its basic black for text when focus is lost. Generally speaking I use yellow to signal focus on all controls capable of receiving focus. It works well on some controls but on on text as it turns out. Perhaps I should rename my #BUTTON control to something like #TRIGGER and change its appearence a bit as its current functionality fits my purposes, but I can see that the #BUTTON name may imply some functionality according to current wisdom that isn't there. So maybe I'll do a well-behaved button control if no one beats me to it at some time in the future.

In any case, thanks for your feedback, which sort of goated me into finding the explanation for that flicker thing here and now.

Regards Jesper