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Clearwin enhancements with Win 7 in mind

 
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LitusSaxonicum



Joined: 23 Aug 2005
Posts: 2388
Location: Yateley, Hants, UK

PostPosted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 2:12 pm    Post subject: Clearwin enhancements with Win 7 in mind Reply with quote

So I find that no-one knows how to put icons against menu text (other than the enhanced menu system, which puts icons in the text space). A similar thing happens with radio buttons in enhanced menus. Check boxes are, however, dealt with “correctly”, i.e. in the right place as far as (say) Windows 7 is concerned. The Windows User Experience Interaction Guidelines clearly distinguishes the cases where each is used.

My first suggestion is to incorporate icons and radio buttons in the spaces reserved for them in ordinary menus. Since # denotes a tick (with a tick on/off code required as an additional argument) then a code would be required for a radio button instead. I looked at my keyboard for suitable symbols, and could only really see $, or maybe £, although `# is a possibility for a radio button as you can’t have it AND a tick at the same time. Actually, you can’t have an icon at the same time either.

Presumably, ## and ### are also available combinations to go into WINIO@ format strings. For a radio button instead of a tick you again need an integer on/off argument in WINIO@. However, for an icon, you would need its symbolic name.

On recently moving to Windows 7, I note that the dialog boxes are designed generally with a more colourful (or should that be “colorful”?) appearance than in earlier versions. They also seem to be designed with the aspect ratio of wide screens – i.e. they are often much wider than tall, and have the buttons parked over at the right. The buttons are often closer to %tt height than %bt height – easy to switch to in Clearwin. However, many of the Windows 7 dialog boxes have a “footnote area”, and that effect I cannot duplicate. I could, if there was an equivalent to %bx but for the bottom of a window.

Suggestion 2 is therefore to enhance %bx. It occurs to me that %`bx is available, and would fit in with the ethos of Clearwin format codes. It would be necessary to be able to have both %bx and %`bx in the same window. I am worried by the prospect of breaking existing code, but as %`bx would not compile and run at present, then it is unlikely to. It would be extremely useful to be able to change the colour of the reserved ribbon. I have given some thought to this, and to the FTN95 user it could be done by allowing a construct such as %bx[colour]. Again, this would not compile and run at present, and so to provide it would not break existing code. For compatibility with the present, the absence of a colour code would make %bx simply continue to use grey by default.

On the downside of this suggestion, the provision of a background colour other than grey does have the potential to interact adversely with %ib[flat] and %ib[coloured].

The existing functionality of %bx is much more than simply providing a grey bar, as it does affect the way toolbars of both the %ib and %tb kind operate when a window is resized. I did not have in mind such additional functionality for %`bx, but of course attention would need to be given as to how it might interact with the control given a pivot (%pv) in a resizable window.

A further benefit of having %`bx would be to simplify the creation and positioning of status line information. For a long time, I have been puzzling over how to incorporate the small resize glyph in the bottom right hand of a resizable window, but had put it in the “nice to have, but inessential” category. However, I note that in the Windows User Experience Interaction Guidelines such resize glyphs are now obsolete, as all sides and corners of a resizable window can be dragged (although the latest Windows Internet Explorer still has one! – and, I guess, so too do many other MS applications).

Many of the dialog box windows in Windows 7 use separator lines. Unlike %bx, these respect the borders of the window client area. On inspection, they seem to be generated with a 2 pixel high image, where the upper pixel is dark grey, and the lower one very light grey or off-white, and this combination is very effective overlaid on any colour background. It does not seem to require additional
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LitusSaxonicum



Joined: 23 Aug 2005
Posts: 2388
Location: Yateley, Hants, UK

PostPosted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 7:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh Drat, I came up against the maximum length! It continues ...

... spacing, because at 2 pixels it is already rather slim. It seems to work on almost any colour combination backdrop, as the light line shows on dark backgrounds, and the dark one on light backgrounds: together they show on mid range backgrounds.

So, suggestion 3 is to have a separator line. I note that %se is "free", and this would be highly compatible with the use of se in toolbars.

Finally, the drop_shadow for borderless windows has gone to solid black in Windows 7. It was always a bit crude, but now (in comparison to the "glass" style) is now rather brutal. Is it something that could be tinkered with?

Eddie
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LitusSaxonicum



Joined: 23 Aug 2005
Posts: 2388
Location: Yateley, Hants, UK

PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 5:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Allow enough time, and do enough experimentation, and eventually you find something in Clearwin that does the trick - or sometimes, nearly does it. My suggestion for %`bx above is more or less what %ob[status] does ....

Eddie
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LitusSaxonicum



Joined: 23 Aug 2005
Posts: 2388
Location: Yateley, Hants, UK

PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 8:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

... but of course, just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, that darn shark re-appears!

Inside an %ob[status] / %cb, the %rj doesn't work! It looks to me as though space is allocated in steps in a status "line", just like %tt buttons change size in biggish steps.
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