Mozilla-like about box (wxMax SVN)

BlitzMax Forums/Brucey's Modules/Mozilla-like about box (wxMax SVN)

Brucey(Posted 2009) [#1]
Just to keep my fingers in the wx pie, I ported this small dialog today :



It's called a wxMozillaLikeAboutBoxDialog, and gives you an About Box in that Mozilla style, which I think is quite nice.
Text and header-graphics are configurable at runtime - obviously.

There's a sample too - see "mozaboutbox"

Enjoy :o)


Note that this is only available via the 2.9.0 SVN - so if you want to try it out be sure that you want to use the SVN version with its current problems (wxPropGrid etc)


plash(Posted 2009) [#2]
Cool! I shall use this when I get on 2.9.0.


Brucey(Posted 2009) [#3]
And on Linux :


(looks like on Linux, the window is a few pixels too wide).


plash(Posted 2009) [#4]
(looks like on Linux, the window is a few pixels too wide).
Indeed. Was the module built for Mac specifically?


Brucey(Posted 2009) [#5]
No it's entirely generic.

I imagine it was originally written for Windows, and may not even have been tested on the other two. (ah, the joys of these cross-platform libraries ;-)


Mark Tiffany(Posted 2009) [#6]
I imagine it was originally written for Windows, and may not even have been tested on the other two. (ah, the joys of these cross-platform libraries ;-)

One thing that bugs me about this cross-platform gui stuff is that the Mac seems to have such ridiculously large fonts. Look at the two examples above and the font sizes are massively different, resulting in completely different layout (see location of Compiled in last sentence).

Without trying to cause offence to Mac-ites, are all Mac users blind or something? ;-) Is there some genuine logic behind macos using such large fonts? Or did Mr Jobs just decide big fonts look nice?


Brucey(Posted 2009) [#7]
It's a known feature of wxWidgets on Mac - using a slightly larger default font size.

I usually add this in the App init section :
?macos
		' make the default Mac font for controls not so big
		wxSystemOptions.SetOption(wxWINDOW_DEFAULT_VARIANT, wxWINDOW_VARIANT_SMALL)
?

Which sets it to a more normal size - well, one that you usually see everywhere else.
Why they chose to default it one size larger, I'm not entirely sure. Many they are half-blind ;-)


Brucey(Posted 2009) [#8]
With a bit of magic, the Linux version now has a snugger fit against the image...



plash(Posted 2009) [#9]
How big is the image? Does it extend all the way to the OK button?


Brucey(Posted 2009) [#10]
It's 151 pixels high.
From the solid white of the red text until the bottom of the white panel, is just a panel with various static text fields.
The more text you add, the taller the window will be.
In the same way... if you make the image wider, the window will be wider also.


Grisu(Posted 2009) [#11]
Looks awesome!

Will you add the mozilla-like-credits window too?


Brucey(Posted 2009) [#12]
Well, unless you have at least 50 things you need to list/mention, a scrolly window seems a little like over-kill :-p

I can see how one would do it though... at least in theory. I think for Mozilla they scroll an actual webpage (or div), which allows them to mix and match the fonts, etc. Perhaps it's possible to do something similar in wxMax.


markcw(Posted 2009) [#13]
Is there some genuine logic behind macos using such large fonts? Or did Mr Jobs just decide big fonts look nice?

Not that this answers your question but, did you know that if it wasn't for Mr Jobs proportional fonts wouldn't have appeared on Mac until much later? Also, since Microsoft copied Mac fonts they would likely have had the same problem.