[vwnc] floating/palette window in VW?
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Hello, I would like to create a window in VW that floats on
top of another, linked, window (the so called ‘master’). A bit like
a palette window in painting applications. I know there exists a window type #reserved
in VW that can turn a window into one that always floats on top of every other
window. It also reduces the title bar height a bit which gives it a nice look. There are however a few problems with it: First, it is called #reserved so it may not be a
long term solution. Second: the window floats on top of every window on
your computer. Not only the master window, not only VW windows, but every
window (also outlook, word, explorer). I would like to have it floating above
the master window only, not the other ones. Third problem: I want to display a list of items in
the window and offer a menu to do some things with it. When I open a menu in
this window, it appears underneath the floating window which makes it useless. Do you have some ideas about how to accomplish this? On top of this: people around here would like to see
this window with ‘rounded corners’, a bit like modern UIs such as
used in the Vista look of MSN messenger, not the windows 95 look. How could I
do that? The ideal solution may be to just have a window that
doesn’t draw anything itself and on which I can draw whatever I want and
that floats on top of another master window. If I could specify its shape that
would a plus, but if it could only have ‘rounded corners’ (whatever
that may be) it would also be ok. I already found some windows API calls (in James
Robertson’s Twitter application) that allow me to make a specific color
of a window completely transparent and act as a hole (when you click on it, the
window below receives the click), so this can be used to achieve the round
corners effect, at the expense of not using that color anywhere else in the
window. Thanks, Mark _______________________________________________ vwnc mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc |
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This is a continuation of my first email about 'floating/palette window in VM'.
Runar Jordahl already gave me a tip to look at the Epigent packages in the public repository which put me on track right away. Thanks again Runar. Then I did some experiments and I'm getting close to what I want. There is however a problem with transparant windows. To reproduce it, load the " Epigent Application Window Styles" package from the public repository and then do this: |applicationWindow| applicationWindow := ApplicationWindow new. applicationWindow open. applicationWindow makeTransparent: 0.2. Next do this: Rectangle fromUser. When you do the 2nd statement, the transparent window disappears, only to reappear a first time (very briefly) when you select the top left corner of the rectangle, and then reappearing completely when the entire rectangle is selected. So I've looked in the VM source to see what could cause this. The #fromUser method calls two primitives that are handled by "ntanim.c" (primDragShape & primResizeRectangle). I think the cause for this problem has to do with 'createHiddenFullScreenWindow();' both of them perform. This is the function: static void createHiddenFullScreenWindow() { ignoreRepaintEvents = TRUE; if (!hiddenTopWindow) hiddenTopWindow = CreateWindowEx(WS_EX_TOPMOST | WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW, kHIDDEN_WINDOW_CLASS_NAME, AppName, #if !defined(WS_EX_TRANSPARENT) # define WS_EX_TRANSPARENT 0 #endif WS_POPUP|WS_VISIBLE|WS_EX_TRANSPARENT, screenOriginX, screenOriginY, screenCornerX - screenOriginX, screenCornerY - screenOriginY, NULL, NULL, gblhInstance, NULL); } It creates a full screen window that's transparent and top_most. I'm not very sure what the reason for this window is, but I suspect it to be the cause for the disappearing window. At first I thought the reason for this window was to be able to draw anything onto the screen, but then I found this primitive: private oop primDisplayShape(oop receiver, oop shapeOop, oop lineWidthOop, oop xOop, oop yOop, oop millisecondsOop) ...which does something similar as the aforementioned primitives, but doesn't call createHiddenFullScreenWindow() and the problem doesn't occur when I call this primitive. Does anyone have an idea what might be the reason why the window temporarily disappears and what I can do about it? Thanks in advance, Mark -----Original Message----- From: Runar Jordahl [mailto:[hidden email]] Sent: woensdag 15 oktober 2008 12:58 To: Mark Plas Subject: Re: [vwnc] floating/palette window in VW? You might want to look at http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/publicRepository/Epigent%20Application%20Window%20Styles.html 2008/10/15 Mark Plas <[hidden email]>: > Hello, > > > > I would like to create a window in VW that floats on top of another, linked, > window (the so called 'master'). A bit like a palette window in painting > applications. I know there exists a window type #reserved in VW that can > turn a window into one that always floats on top of every other window. It > also reduces the title bar height a bit which gives it a nice look. > > > > There are however a few problems with it: > > > > First, it is called #reserved so it may not be a long term solution. > > > > Second: the window floats on top of every window on your computer. Not only > the master window, not only VW windows, but every window (also outlook, > word, explorer). I would like to have it floating above the master window > only, not the other ones. > > > > Third problem: I want to display a list of items in the window and offer a > menu to do some things with it. When I open a menu in this window, it > appears underneath the floating window which makes it useless. > > > > Do you have some ideas about how to accomplish this? > > > > On top of this: people around here would like to see this window with > 'rounded corners', a bit like modern UIs such as used in the Vista look of > MSN messenger, not the windows 95 look. How could I do that? > > > > The ideal solution may be to just have a window that doesn't draw anything > itself and on which I can draw whatever I want and that floats on top of > another master window. If I could specify its shape that would a plus, but > if it could only have 'rounded corners' (whatever that may be) it would also > be ok. > > > > I already found some windows API calls (in James Robertson's Twitter > application) that allow me to make a specific color of a window completely > transparent and act as a hole (when you click on it, the window below > receives the click), so this can be used to achieve the round corners > effect, at the expense of not using that color anywhere else in the window. > > > > Thanks, > > Mark > > _______________________________________________ > vwnc mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc > > _______________________________________________ vwnc mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc |
Re: [vwnc] Transparent windows & createHiddenFullScreenWindow in ntanim.c problem
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I've not looked at the latest
VM code for Rectangle>>fromUser, so what I say is based on earlier VMs.
The full screen window was to be able to fake drawing outside of VW bounds
(which the VM can't do). Instead, it created a new window, the size of the whole
screen, and drew to that. It used to copy the whole contents of the screen and
display it in the new window, which was a real performance hog on some
graphics cards if the content was big (large screen, high colour depth).
If it now uses transparency, that's
an improvement.
Transparent windows can
however cause more flickering on open in my experience. With the
TransparentWindows (?) package it's best to make windows transparent by hooking
in to an event that occurs during opening, rather than after open:
postBuildWith: aBuilder
| w |
super postBuildWith: aBuilder. w := aBuilder window. w when: #opening send: #makeTransparent to: w. That might help you at the #open stage of
your example, but probably not at the #fromUser stage.
Steve From: [hidden email] on behalf of Mark Plas Sent: Thu 10/16/2008 10:21 To: [hidden email] Subject: [vwnc] Transparent windows & createHiddenFullScreenWindow in ntanim.c problem This is a continuation of my first email about 'floating/palette
window in VM'. _______________________________________________ vwnc mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc |
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Hi Steve, Thanks for explaining
the reasoning behind the hidden full screen window. In my code (not
in the example) I already make the window transparent while it’s opening,
not after it is open, so that’s not a problem here. The problems start
when calling the dragShape and resizeRectangle primitives. These make every
transparent window disappear until the primitive returns which is unfortunate
because I was going to use those to allow a user to resize and drag my window. I don’t
know why the windows disappear. Perhaps the code in the primitives still make a
copy of the whole screen but without the already transparent windows and then
display that, making every transparent window disappear, but I don’t see
where this is happening. The displayShape primitive
also draws on the screen but without making the windows disappear, so it is possible
to do this. The main thing that is different is the call to createHiddenFullScreenWindow. As a very short
term fix I was thinking about switching my window to opaque when trying to
resize or move it. In the longer term I’ll probably have to write the
primitive code in the image by using #displayShape, unless someone knows how I
can avoid to make the windows disappear of course. Best regards, Mark From:
[hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven Kelly I've not looked at the latest VM code for
Rectangle>>fromUser, so what I say is based on earlier VMs. The full
screen window was to be able to fake drawing outside of VW bounds (which the VM
can't do). Instead, it created a new window, the size of the whole screen, and
drew to that. It used to copy the whole contents of the screen and display
it in the new window, which was a real performance hog on some graphics
cards if the content was big (large screen, high colour depth). If it now uses
transparency, that's an improvement. Transparent windows can however cause
more flickering on open in my experience. With the TransparentWindows (?)
package it's best to make windows transparent by hooking in to an event that
occurs during opening, rather than after open: postBuildWith: aBuilder | w | That might help you at the #open stage of your example, but
probably not at the #fromUser stage. Steve From:
[hidden email] on behalf of Mark Plas This is a
continuation of my first email about 'floating/palette window in VM'. _______________________________________________ vwnc mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc |
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