I need another Mac test...
BlitzMax Forums/MaxGUI Module/I need another Mac test...
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This is how the following code looks on XP:  I need to know how it looks on a Mac so I can see if the smaller text size is legible and if the text fits in the textboxes nicely. Please post a screenshot. The tabber and button font are left at the defaults, so those may differ in size from the PC version. |
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Global FONT_Label:TGuiFont = LookupGuiFont(GUIFONT_SYSTEM, 7) ' 7 Pixels Global FONT_Textfield:TGuiFont = LookupGuiFont(GUIFONT_SYSTEM, 9) ' 9 pixels Global FONT_Tabber:TGuiFont = LookupGuiFont(GUIFONT_SYSTEM, 9) Global FONT_Panel:TGuiFont = LookupGuiFont(GUIFONT_SYSTEM, 10) ' 10 pixels Global FONT_Header:TGuiFont = LookupGuiFont(GUIFONT_SYSTEM, 9) You really shouldn't be putting in values for the sizes for the textfield and label fonts. LookupGUIFont() will find the system value for you. Also, scrollbars should be 18 pixels. |
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| Ked: The reason I am putting in values for the textfield and label fonts is because if I don't: A) With all the labels the same size, the interface would look cheap and ugly. And worse, it would be confusing to the eye with no cues to direct your gaze. The prinicples behind designing a good interface are not so different from those used for good web design. B) The fonts will be different sizes on the PC and the Mac. They may even be different sizes on different PC's depending on what operating system the user is running, and whether they have large fonts enabled. And MaxGUI doesn't allow me to handle those situations gracefully. There's no way to get the size in pixels of a font. And even if there were, there's no way to get the font a textbox uses by default, so there's no way to calculate the size the textbox needs to be to fit the font. As for the scrollbars, on the PC, in Windows XP at least, scrollbars are 16 pixels wide. At least, that is the default. It's possible the user may have changed it, and maybe it's different on the Mac, but again, MaxGUI fails because there's no way to get the size the user has set from the system. If the scrollbars do default to 18 pixels on a Mac though, I may add some compiler directives to handle that. I'll need confirmation of that though. Ps: Photoshop is a professional application used by millions of people and it uses it's own font sizes all over the place. Heck, they even have their own controls, many of which duplicate functions of the most basic gadgets like sliders and tabbers. I really don't think I'm doing anything horribly wrong here by using different font sizes for slider labels and section headers. |
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| I would use compiler directives to create different gui's for the different platforms. You won't get this right with one form, I think. Do what's right for each platform instead of trying to come up with a 'one size fits most' concept. |
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| It can't hurt to try. If I have to add some compiler directives and make stuff a little bigger on the Mac, then I will. But I need to know how big stuff is on the Mac so I can design an interface which scales well between the two platforms, and looks good on both. Heck, I had to redesign that form about twenty times just to get it to look good on the PC. I had the textboxes to the side of the labels with the sliders below. I had the textboxes on the left side like in the first texture generator. I tried both the group panel and the indent panel for surrounding the control panel. I tried having group panels within the group panel for each section. I also looked at various Mac interfaces to see how they divide things up. I think this will probably look pretty clean on the Mac as well, but until I see how it renders everything together, I won't know for sure. |
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| As for the scrollbars, on the PC, in Windows XP at least, scrollbars are 16 pixels wide. Sorry, my mistake. They are 17 by default when XP Themes are used, otherwise they are 16 when Win95/Win98 Themes are used. |
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| Initially your program didn't render on my mac. I had to remove the WINDOW_HIDDEN flag from the window creation function. Once rendered the writing on for the Slider labels are very small. They certain could be increased by a few points sizes. I will try an upload a piccy tomorrow if no one else has. |
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| Uncle: Thanks. I would definitely like to see a pic. If that text isn't legibile on the Mac, then a simple compiler directive will fix that. I'm also interested in seeing how the text lines up in the textboxes. As for the WINDOW_HIDDEN issue, I think I'll post that in the bug forum, because maximizing the window on the PC makes it visible, and that clearly isn't happening on the Mac, so either one or the other is not behaving as intended. |
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| As for the WINDOW_HIDDEN issue, I think I'll post that in the bug forum, because maximizing the window on the PC makes it visible, and that clearly isn't happening on the Mac, so either one or the other is not behaving as intended. I've already fixed this behaviour so that it is consistent with Windows, and will be available in the next MaxGUI release. |
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| Oops. Guess I didn't need to post about that then. :-) Did you fix that just now or was it an older bug? |
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| Did you fix that just now or was it an older bug? Fixed it a few days ago for both Linux and Mac. :-) |
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Here's the picture as promised... |
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| Where are the menus? |
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| Menus never appear in the actual window on a mac, but instead they appear at the top of the desktop in the equivalent of the Windows taskbar. They were fine in the example Sswift posted and I had the following menu options... File Open... Open recent Save Batch Exit Options Auto Update Render Help Search Contents About |
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| Of course, the About menu is in the wrong place. But don't worry, all MaxGUI apps are the same. |
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| I think that looks pretty good on Mac. I don't like the smaller fonts at the sliders though... I don't think it's needed to make them smaller. |
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| Brucey: Where does About usually end up on a Mac? Weibo: Well, somethings wrong with those. If you compare the PC and the Mac screenshots, the Mac fonts have ended up notably smaller. Two pixels smaller to be precise. Uncle: Can you post a screenshot of this one? I've added some compiler directives to adjust the size of the fonts on the Mac up by two pixels. |
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| Weibo: Yeah, it looks a lot better than the previous version did! [edit] Haha... I just noitced Uncle went to all the trouble of adding a drop shadow to the new screenshot above. :-) |
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| "Haha... I just noitced Uncle went to all the trouble of adding a drop shadow to the new screenshot above. :-) " nope thats just what happens when you take a screen shot of window on a mac. here's the latest version...  |
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| Where does About usually end up on a Mac? It should be in the Application Menu. (as per the HIG) |
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| Looks great! Almost perfect. I think I need to increase the size of those labels and textboxes by one more pixel though to bring them in line with the size I've set on the PC. That'll also bring them in line with the size of that button there, and, I think, the default size for labels and textboxes on the Mac. (Though I'm not certain of that, because I can't seem to find any information via Google on a Mac's default font sizes.) If you could post one more screenshot for me, that ought to do it for now. |
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| Brucey: So I guess there's no way to create a proper boldface application menu in BlitzMax huh? Uncle: Does an application menu even show up when you run my app, and if so, what is it's title? That thing Brucey linked me to indicates there's a "short name" you can put in the "application package". I don't know much about those, but sounds like something whoever builds the Mac version could specify when they put together the final version to go up on the website. But that still leaves the question of whether you can add anything to that menu, and if the Quit option shows up there regardless of whether I add one myself. |
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| Unfortunately the default appstub (see brl.appstub) implements its own take on an application menu. If you want to do it properly, you'll need to implement your own. Fortunately, bmk now accepts the -b option, which allows you to override the default appstub for one of your own, when building your application. I use it to enable Carbon functionality on Mac. (actually, I'm probably the only one who uses this build option at all. :-p ) |
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