[Release] SKINbedder V3 - Preview - Page 2

PURDooM · 09-23-2005, 07:45 PM

Whats the > doing there?

Edit: Regarding JIT's last post

justintime · 09-23-2005, 08:32 PM

That was typo in the message.

Copy pasting now, I have exactly this: (there is really no space after the last parenthesis)

StartUp=Run(D:\GENERA~1\INAV\IGUIDA~1\IGUIDA~1.EXE )

Quote: Originally Posted by PURDooM

Whats the > doing there?

Edit: Regarding JIT's last post

RPM_VR4 · 09-23-2005, 11:05 PM

You have a space before the ")" at the end. ...or is that another typo?
Edit: Sorry, I guess I didn't read your whole post at first

Also, you don't need to abbreviate iGuidance\iGuidance.exe.
If neither of those fix it, make sure D:\GENERA~1 is the correct folder (are you sure it's not ~2)?

...in short: You can use long file-names, as long as they don't have a space in them. If they have a space, you have to use the ______~? equivalent.

Edit: Cut and paste it into the address bar of any explorer or IE window. If you do that and press enter does it run?

RPM_VR4 · 09-23-2005, 11:13 PM

If you still can't get it working, you could always just put an auto-it script in the SKINbedder directory (or maybe the iGuidance sub-dir of Sb), and then you don't need to specify a path, just a filename.

RPM_VR4 · 09-23-2005, 11:34 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by PURDooM

-put all of your interface on a new window
-set the new window to layered transparency (with no borders or caption)
-use BitBlt to copy the contents of iguidances window into memory somehow so you have a fresh copy of the iguidance display every time you refresh
-Have the new window follow around the status changes (minimize, zorder changes, ect) of iguidance/skinbedder (with set parent or something) by making it a modal window
-Have the new window follow around the size/position of iguidance/skinbedder

And then you have buttons that appear to be in the window, and arent affected by iguidances redraw. Its alot of codeing though

Hummm... that's kinda what I do...

All PNGs are drawn using "TPNGObject.Draw()" on to a "TSkinLayer" (you can think of it like a panel). The CreateParams of "TSkinLayer" uses ExStyle = ExStyle || WS_EX_TRANSPARENT. The "TSkinLayer"'s have there Parent set to the main SKINbedder form. The "TWindowLayer"'s (which each window is embedded to) have the main form as their parent too, but the buttons are always on-top of the map window.

The WS_EX_TRANSPARENT property still allows windows behind it to draw over it. It should recieve a WM_PAINT whenever that happens, but it doesn't??? If I do not use WS_EX_TRANSPARANCY (nor WS_EX_LAYERED), I can still make it transparent by setting the Canvas.Brush.Style to bsClear in the creator. However, when I do that the "transparent" parts never update (even on a minimize/restore??? ...they come out transparent to anything behind SKINbedder sometimes).

Any clue? Does your method still apply? How whould I use WS_EX_LAYERED to my advantage? Thanks for the help.

PURDooM · 09-24-2005, 01:40 AM

igzoom v2 uses the same method that i use for zoomed speed boxes where a top level layered window doesnt count for what is captured using a bitblt screencapture. See for yourself; use this example: http://www.thescarms.com/vbasic/capture.asp and try to screenshot my igmod windows (for the menu or the speed). You can't because the layered effect is in place.

Using that if your window was actually on top of the iguidance window (not same parents but a top level window) iguidance will still redraw and not cover up your window, and you can poll the contents into memory somewhere to do your png effect.

I would make you a sample function but a: I dont know delphi and b: i have had one too many drinks tonight to think on that kinda stuff. I have some freetime tommorow though, so ill try to make an example function that quickly alpha blends 2 images together (it will be in vb6, but ill try to make it simple enough that you can adapt it)

RPM_VR4 · 09-24-2005, 03:13 AM

I think you may be on to something, but I'm a bit confused about some of what you said. For one thing, I do not do any drawing myself... I downloaded a PNG component so all I do is "Norm: TPNGObject; Norm.LoadFromFile(filename.png); Norm.Draw(Canvas,Top,Left,Width,Height);".

I do have the source to TPNGObject and I have already edited it so that it doesn't stretch/shrink fit image to size, but I haven't looked at its bit-bliting stuff

.

BTW, Thanks... don't listen to 0l33l... I'll try anything LOL

0l33l · 09-24-2005, 03:13 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by PURDooM

I was thinking over your blending bug the other day... am I correct to assume that the blending bug blends whatever its drawing over with the new image with some kind of function you write? If so, it may take some altering of the code but you could pull off a trick like igzoom v2:

-put all of your interface on a new window
-set the new window to layered transparency (with no borders or caption)
-use BitBlt to copy the contents of iguidances window into memory somehow so you have a fresh copy of the iguidance display every time you refresh
-Have the new window follow around the status changes (minimize, zorder changes, ect) of iguidance/skinbedder (with set parent or something) by making it a modal window
-Have the new window follow around the size/position of iguidance/skinbedder

And then you have buttons that appear to be in the window, and arent affected by iguidances redraw. Its alot of codeing though

Sounds like something a VB programmer would do

We try to minimize memory usage.

RPM_VR4 · 09-24-2005, 03:26 AM

oh... I just got that you were talking about a form. So I could put the TSkinLayers on a transparent modal form rather than treating them as graphic components on the main form. The problem is CF doesn't like sub-forms very much (when switching away from nav and then back).

That gives me an idea though... maybe it would work if I embedded the map directly to the main form rather than to a components canvas. wait a second... got to go program.

0l33l · 09-24-2005, 03:30 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by RPM_VR4

oh... I just got that you were talking about a form. So I could put the TSkinLayers on a transparent modal form rather than treating them as graphic components on the main form. The problem is CF doesn't like sub-forms very much (when switching away from nav and then back).

That gives me an idea though... maybe it would work if I embedded the map directly to the main form rather than to a components canvas. wait a second... got to go program.

I thought you said that forms take up too much memory

RPM_VR4 · 09-24-2005, 03:36 AM

I thought you told me that.

Anyway, as I said, we can't use them because they don't work when embedded in frontends.

I tried to embed to TForm.Handle instead of TWindowContainer.Handle, but it didn't work. Another dead-end. I still can't get over that it always looks perfect when you minimize and restore. I have tried to simulate that on a timer using windows API functions and using messaging (through the windows API). It didn't work. I've tried maying the map redraw before I re-draw my buttons so that you don't get the fade-up effect, but I could not do that without a lot of ugly flashing either. There has to be a solution for this. The problem is that windows has "fake" transparancy. **** just don't work right with it.

0l33l · 09-24-2005, 03:38 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by RPM_VR4

I thought you told me that.

Anyway, as I said, we can't use them because they don't work when embedded in frontends.

I tried to embed to TForm.Handle instead of TWindowContainer.Handle, but it didn't work. Another dead-end. I still can't get over that it always looks perfect when you minimize and restore. I have tried to simulate that on a timer using windows API functions and using messaging (through the windows API). It didn't work. I've tried maying the map redraw before I re-draw my buttons so that you don't get the fade-up effect, but I could not do that without a lot of ugly flashing either. There has to be a solution for this. The problem is that windows has "fake" transparancy. **** just don't work right with it.

Maybe you should look at some open source components with transperency. Maybe they have a parameter or two that we either have extra or don't have.

Hit me up on gtalk

12Vsystems · 09-25-2005, 04:17 PM

Just downloaded it. Really like the improvement made to the menu's.

The new on screen keyboard isn't working for me. I'll start looking through the readme.

RPM_VR4 · 09-25-2005, 09:52 PM

JIT: Did you get it working?

12V: The OSK doesn't work. The SKIN is not done

. Wanna complete it for me? LOL.

justintime · 09-25-2005, 09:59 PM

RPM:

My iGuidance.exe is all of a sudden broken (if I launch it directly, it says 'not a valid Win32 application). No clue if this has any relation to SkinBedder, but I don't think so.

Will need to re-insyall iGuidance to continue testing

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