OS X Widget Set in the works...

[bongwater]

I'm planning on designing a custom OS X app entirely via Axure and am
in the process of creating my own set of custom widgets to prototype
and spec an OS X-centric UI.

I'm not completely done but almost there. If anyone is interested, I'm
open to open sourcing my widgets once the project is done.

Here's a link to a pic on the Axure forums:

http://axure.com/cs/forums/thread/3452.aspx

The only bitmaps used were the TextEdit component and the search field
icon. The rest are all generated using Axure's built-in vector tools.
The symbols (arrows and checks) are Dingbat fonts and the system font
is Lucinda Sans, which is similar but not exactly the same as the
Mac's Lucinda Grande font but good enough for these purposes.

Thoughts?

[Terence Nelan]

This is really cool. Not only would I be interested in the widget set,
I'd really like to know how you got the drawing tools in Axure to
perform so well!

Best,

Terence

tne...@gmail.com

[bongwater]

Thanks!

I'm actually about 80% done - need to replicate some system dialogs
(open, save, printer, etc.), add a some tool bar buttons with dingbats
and add a few additional objects like vertical splitter, an horizontal
scroll bar. Any item that has an icon will have a placeholder in its
place.

Should be able to distribute v1.0 of the Widget set within the next
week or so, if not sooner.

Axure's drawing tools aren't all that bad and I've had a lot of
practice as I've created a 200+ object widget set for my company's web
and rich media applications. My main challenges in both projects has
been the lack of drop shadows, the lack of a circle shape and the
inability to save gradients.

I'll post info on the availability of the OS X widget set both here
and on the forums when ready.

On Oct 7, 6:47 pm, "Terence Nelan" <tne...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This is really cool. Not only would I be interested in the widget set,
> I'd really like to know how you got the drawing tools in Axure to
> perform so well!
>
> Best,
>
> Terence
>
> tne...@gmail.com
>

[Loren Baxter]

The elusive circle shape is actually under the "flow" tab of the widgets pane.  Took me months to discover it :)  It could certainly be made more obvious.  I definitely agree that dropshadows would be nice, and all around I think the color management in Axure needs some help.

Those stencils look really cool, can't wait to see them!

Cheers,
Loren

[bongwater]

I've attached another comp with additional elements displayed,
including a rules dialog and a system file dialog. it's been uploading
to the group's file section.

work beckons but i just have a few more elements to add, some clean up
to do and a little documentation and it should be available next week.

actually, i did know about the ellipse object but it's not a true
"button" but a flow shape, meaning it has some restrictions that
buttons items don't when it comes to transforming them, etc.

On Oct 8, 1:23 pm, "Loren Baxter" <loren.bax...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The elusive circle shape is actually under the "flow" tab of the widgets
> pane.  Took me months to discover it :)  It could certainly be made more
> obvious.  I definitely agree that dropshadows would be nice, and all around
> I think the color management in Axure needs some help.
>
> Those stencils look really cool, can't wait to see them!
>
> Cheers,
> Loren
>

[jterryf]

I looked at Axure after receiving this message and I also cannot see
how you developed the widgets there. For instance, how did you do the
gradient fill?

[bongwater]

Axure has a gradient tool. You can define multiple gradient points to
create or rather simulate various gradient effects and with clever
manipulation, you can achieve fairly decent effects - it's powerful
but a pain in the ass to use since you can't save your gradient
settings into a separate library.

I'm just about done with my initial OS X Widget collection and plan to
post it next week for all to have and see how did things.