neoGFX .. the ultimate C++ GUI library .. coming soon!

[Mr Flibble]

Hi!

Video of neoGFX's automatic GUI theme palette colourisation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9A5EGE5KYg&feature=youtu.be

neoGFX .. the ultimate C++ GUI library .. coming soon!

/Flibble

--
"Suppose it’s all true, and you walk up to the pearly gates, and are
confronted by God," Bryne asked on his show The Meaning of Life. "What
will Stephen Fry say to him, her, or it?"
"I’d say, bone cancer in children? What’s that about?" Fry replied.
"How dare you? How dare you create a world to which there is such misery
that is not our fault. It’s not right, it’s utterly, utterly evil."
"Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates
a world that is so full of injustice and pain. That’s what I would say."

[Rick C. Hodgin]

On 1/26/2018 3:29 PM, Mr Flibble wrote:
> Video of neoGFX's automatic GUI theme palette colourisation:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9A5EGE5KYg

Your work is excellent. It looks awesome. I would like to use it
in place of my OpenGL implementation.

--
Thank you! | Indianapolis, Indiana | God is love -- 1 John 4:7-9
Rick C. Hodgin | http://www.libsf.org/ | http://tinyurl.com/yaogvqhj
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Software: LSA, LSC, Debi, RDC/CAlive, ES/1, ES/2, VJr, VFrP, Logician
Hardware: Arxoda Desktop CPU, Arxita Embedded CPU, Arlina Compute FPGA

[Christian Gollwitzer]

Am 26.01.18 um 21:29 schrieb Mr Flibble:

> Video of neoGFX's automatic GUI theme palette colourisation:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9A5EGE5KYg&feature=youtu.be
>
> neoGFX .. the ultimate C++ GUI library .. coming soon!

I'm sorry to say that, but the 3D shiny buttons already look a bit
outdated to my eyes. Nowadays "flat design" is the new modern look - and
this will continue to change over and over again. Unless you are willing
to constantly adapat the styling, it will look old-fashioned very soon.

Christian

[Mr Flibble]

I on the other hand like the 3D look; style is by its nature very
subjective however neoGFX will come with multiple widget skins one of
which will be the "modern" flat style.

[red floyd]

On 1/26/2018 1:24 PM, Mr Flibble wrote:
> On 26/01/2018 21:17, Christian Gollwitzer wrote:
>> Am 26.01.18 um 21:29 schrieb Mr Flibble:
>>> Video of neoGFX's automatic GUI theme palette colourisation:
>>>
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9A5EGE5KYg&feature=youtu.be
>>>
>>> neoGFX .. the ultimate C++ GUI library .. coming soon!
>>
>> I'm sorry to say that, but the 3D shiny buttons already look a bit
>> outdated to my eyes. Nowadays "flat design" is the new modern look -
>> and this will continue to change over and over again. Unless you are
>> willing to constantly adapat the styling, it will look old-fashioned
>> very soon.
>
> I on the other hand like the 3D look; style is by its nature very
> subjective however neoGFX will come with multiple widget skins one of
> which will be the "modern" flat style.

We're seriously OT for c.l.c++ here, but I do agree with Flibble in that
I much prefer 3D look, if only because you have inherent discoverability
and visual feedback.

[bitrex]

On 01/26/2018 03:29 PM, Mr Flibble wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Video of neoGFX's automatic GUI theme palette colourisation:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9A5EGE5KYg&feature=youtu.be
>
> neoGFX .. the ultimate C++ GUI library .. coming soon!
>
> /Flibble
>

I'm looking forward to trying it because e.g. Qt is kind of a mess.

Only criticism is that the shading effect on the "Generate UUID" button
for example looks very harsh on my display, like almost instant
transition from light to dark. Can that be adjusted?

[Mr Flibble]

Hi!

I have just changed the code for shiny 3D button rendering so the
transition is less harsh (it was old code using two separate gradients
for top half and bottom half but now it uses a single gradient):

http://neogfx.org/temp/new_button_3D_look.png

[Rick C. Hodgin]

Leigh, I have to say again what fantastic work you've done on
this project. Multi-line button text in multiple languages or
with graphics, top and bottom sliders with color cues, hot track-
ing, menus with icons, intuitive display, nice color separation,
nice borders and frames.

I do agree with bitrex's comment:

> Only criticism is that the shading effect on the "Generate UUID" button
> for example looks very harsh on my display, like almost instant
> transition from light to dark. Can that be adjusted?

Also, some of your color algorithms need little tweaks so they're
not quite so contrasting relative to others, such as buttons C,I
at the bottom at 0:04. They're very strong, but buttons B,D are
softer, not so much contrast between top and bottom sections.

An algorithm adjusting that coloring based on baseline hue would
help out.

Truly excellent work overall. I am thoroughly impressed. And I
am completely serious about that. I showed my son your screen and
he liked it. He said he would use the blue theme. :-)

--
Rick C. Hodgin

[Rick C. Hodgin]

On 1/26/2018 3:29 PM, Mr Flibble wrote:
> Hi!
> Video of neoGFX's automatic GUI theme palette colourisation:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9A5EGE5KYg

> neoGFX .. the ultimate C++ GUI library .. coming soon!

How do you do render the text? Do you draw to an off-buffer bitmap
and then map it onto a polygon? And how do you do the kerning? Is
it a feature of the font generation engine, or do you draw each char
individually, and then determine geometry from the edges and overly
things where possible based on the indented parts?

[Mr Flibble]

On 27/01/2018 18:20, Rick C. Hodgin wrote:
> On 1/26/2018 3:29 PM, Mr Flibble wrote:
>> Hi!
>> Video of neoGFX's automatic GUI theme palette colourisation:
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9A5EGE5KYg
>> neoGFX .. the ultimate C++ GUI library .. coming soon!
>
> How do you do render the text?  Do you draw to an off-buffer bitmap
> and then map it onto a polygon?  And how do you do the kerning?  Is
> it a feature of the font generation engine, or do you draw each char
> individually, and then determine geometry from the edges and overly
> things where possible based on the indented parts?

If you want me to engage with you with on topic discussion then you must
first stop your off topic religious spam.

[Rick C. Hodgin]

On 1/27/2018 1:38 PM, Mr Flibble wrote:
> On 27/01/2018 18:20, Rick C. Hodgin wrote:
>> On 1/26/2018 3:29 PM, Mr Flibble wrote:
>>> Hi!
>>> Video of neoGFX's automatic GUI theme palette colourisation:
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9A5EGE5KYg
>>> neoGFX .. the ultimate C++ GUI library .. coming soon!
>>
>> How do you do render the text?  Do you draw to an off-buffer bitmap
>> and then map it onto a polygon?  And how do you do the kerning?  Is
>> it a feature of the font generation engine, or do you draw each char
>> individually, and then determine geometry from the edges and overly
>> things where possible based on the indented parts?
>
> If you want me to engage with you with on topic discussion then you must
> first stop your off topic religious spam.

Okay.

[Mr Flibble]

On 27/01/2018 12:44, bitrex wrote:

Thanks to customer feedback the 3D shading effect used for rendering
push buttons is now more subtle (less shiny) in neoGFX's default widget
skin:

http://neogfx.org/temp/new_button_3D_look_v2.png

[Rick C. Hodgin]

On Saturday, January 27, 2018 at 5:39:44 PM UTC-5, Mr Flibble wrote:
> Thanks to customer feedback the 3D shading effect used for rendering
> push buttons is now more subtle (less shiny) in neoGFX's default widget
> skin:
>
> http://neogfx.org/temp/new_button_3D_look_v2.png

I would like to see the edges more shiny, 67% left, 33% right,
and the middle like you have it. It's too much of a reduction
for the entire button IMO.

--
Rick C. Hodgin

[Mr Flibble]

For personal taste button appearance is entirely customizable by using,
among other methods, CSS3. I think what I have now will keep most
people happy.

[Juha Nieminen]

Christian Gollwitzer <auri...@gmx.de> wrote:
> Nowadays "flat design" is the new modern look

And it sucks.

[Rick C. Hodgin]

Have you ever noticed that you are always mean and hurtful in your
posts? Do you like being like that (being servant to hate and harm)?

There is nothing about Leigh's work which is anything other than
praise-worthy. He's a highly skilled developer, and his work bears that
out most clearly.

Your replies speak much about you, Juha.

If you want to change that hate and hurtful life you live into something
else, then please know: it is possible.

--
Rick C. Hodgin

[Öö Tiib]

On Monday, 29 January 2018 10:50:59 UTC+2, Rick C. Hodgin wrote:
> On Monday, January 29, 2018 at 3:39:48 AM UTC-5, Juha Nieminen wrote:
> > Christian Gollwitzer <auri...@gmx.de> wrote:
> > > Nowadays "flat design" is the new modern look
> >
> > And it sucks.
>

> There is nothing about Leigh's work which is anything other than
> praise-worthy. He's a highly skilled developer, and his work bears that
> out most clearly.

Have you noticed that you have reading comprehension issue?
Juha did AFAIS give opinion about modern flat GUI look not
about Leigh's work.

[Rick C. Hodgin]

On Monday, January 29, 2018 at 4:37:48 AM UTC-5, Öö Tiib wrote:
> On Monday, 29 January 2018 10:50:59 UTC+2, Rick C. Hodgin wrote:
> > On Monday, January 29, 2018 at 3:39:48 AM UTC-5, Juha Nieminen wrote:
> > > Christian Gollwitzer <auri...@gmx.de> wrote:
> > > > Nowadays "flat design" is the new modern look
> > >
> > > And it sucks.
> >
> > There is nothing about Leigh's work which is anything other than
> > praise-worthy. He's a highly skilled developer, and his work bears that
> > out most clearly.
>
> Have you noticed that you have reading comprehension issue?

Yes. I have dyslexia and I misread things often. Daily. I
also type things incorrectly, even in code. It's why CAlive
is designed around an edit-and-continue ABI, because I make so
many littke mistakes I waste time recompiling.

> Juha did AFAIS give opinion about modern flat GUI look not
> about Leigh's work.

My mistake. I completely missed that it and thought he was speaking
about Leigh's implementation.

I apologize, Juha.

--
Rick C. Hodgin

PS - Juha, even though I misunderstood that aspect, your posts are
still as I indicated.

[Juha Nieminen]

Rick C. Hodgin <rick.c...@gmail.com> wrote:
> My mistake. I completely missed that it and thought he was speaking
> about Leigh's implementation.
>
> I apologize, Juha.

I was indeed talking about the modern trend of making user interfaces to
be as simplistic, flat and mono-shaded and evenly-colored as possible,
sometimes even at the cost of usability. Sometimes that simplification
goes so far that it actually becomes hard to visually distinguish between
different types of UI elements. Not only are user interfaces (and other
visual elements) becoming as ugly as possible, they are also becoming
less user-friendly.

And the strange thing is that every major software developer seems to
be following that trend.

[Jorgen Grahn]

Any screenshots? I'm afraid I use so few modern GUIs that I'm not
quite sure what you mean.

Also annoying: modern web pages with lots of empty space and some
huge text. Possibly made for smartphones?

/Jorgen

--
// Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Oo o. . .
\X/ snipabacken.se> O o .

[Ben Bacarisse]

Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> writes:

> On Mon, 2018-01-29, Juha Nieminen wrote:
>> Rick C. Hodgin <rick.c...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> My mistake. I completely missed that it and thought he was speaking
>>> about Leigh's implementation.
>>>
>>> I apologize, Juha.
>>
>> I was indeed talking about the modern trend of making user interfaces to
>> be as simplistic, flat and mono-shaded and evenly-colored as possible,
>> sometimes even at the cost of usability. Sometimes that simplification
>> goes so far that it actually becomes hard to visually distinguish between
>> different types of UI elements. Not only are user interfaces (and other
>> visual elements) becoming as ugly as possible, they are also becoming
>> less user-friendly.

Personally I much prefer flat UIs. I've favoured them (on web pages for
example) for a very long time. I don't have any data on usability, but
I suspect that if they are well-designed they are not too bad.

I don't like fake 3D at all, and I dislike fake wood, fake steel, fake
plastic and fake controls that look like my stereo even more! At least
all those seem to be a thing of the past.

>> And the strange thing is that every major software developer seems to
>> be following that trend.
>
> Any screenshots? I'm afraid I use so few modern GUIs that I'm not
> quite sure what you mean.

For example:

http://www.bsb.me.uk/tmp/eg.png

I'm sure you've come across flat designs on web pages maybe without
realising.

--
Ben.

[Scott Lurndal]

Personally, I've always been happy with X Athena Widgets myself. Simple
and efficient.

[Mr Flibble]

On 29/01/2018 15:59, Ben Bacarisse wrote:

> Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> writes:
>> Any screenshots? I'm afraid I use so few modern GUIs that I'm not
>> quite sure what you mean.
>
> For example:
>
> http://www.bsb.me.uk/tmp/eg.png
>
> I'm sure you've come across flat designs on web pages maybe without
> realising.
>

The screenshot is just awful.

[Ben Bacarisse]

sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
<snip text on "flat" UIs>

> Personally, I've always been happy with X Athena Widgets myself. Simple
> and efficient.

Thanks for reminding me that the earliest UIs where flat! I'd forgotten.

--
Ben.

[Mr Flibble]

The earliest UIs had a major design constraint: they had to look good on
monochrome displays.

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Mon, 2018-01-29, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
> Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> writes:
>
>> On Mon, 2018-01-29, Juha Nieminen wrote:
>>> Rick C. Hodgin <rick.c...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> My mistake. I completely missed that it and thought he was speaking
>>>> about Leigh's implementation.
>>>>
>>>> I apologize, Juha.
>>>
>>> I was indeed talking about the modern trend of making user interfaces to
>>> be as simplistic, flat and mono-shaded and evenly-colored as possible,
>>> sometimes even at the cost of usability. Sometimes that simplification
>>> goes so far that it actually becomes hard to visually distinguish between
>>> different types of UI elements. Not only are user interfaces (and other
>>> visual elements) becoming as ugly as possible, they are also becoming
>>> less user-friendly.
>
> Personally I much prefer flat UIs. I've favoured them (on web pages for
> example) for a very long time. I don't have any data on usability, but
> I suspect that if they are well-designed they are not too bad.
>
> I don't like fake 3D at all, and I dislike fake wood, fake steel, fake
> plastic and fake controls that look like my stereo even more! At least
> all those seem to be a thing of the past.

Yeah -- I remember looking at Motif GUIs in the 1990s, with bevelled
boxes inside bevelled boxes, and thinking "yeah, this looks cool for
the first few weeks".

>>> And the strange thing is that every major software developer seems to
>>> be following that trend.
>>
>> Any screenshots? I'm afraid I use so few modern GUIs that I'm not
>> quite sure what you mean.
>
> For example:
>
> http://www.bsb.me.uk/tmp/eg.png
>
> I'm sure you've come across flat designs on web pages maybe without
> realising.

That screenshot doesn't look too bad. Too large text (the way I see
it on a decent-sized LCD), too much greyed out text, too much unused
space, and the whole thing is pastel-colored for no good reason ...
but it's not at all unusable.

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Mon, 2018-01-29, Ben Bacarisse wrote:

And there's now an xaw3d, hailing from the days when people still
wanted the Athena widgets, but with that fancy 1990s 3D look.

I suppose either Motif or Windows 3.1 popularized the 3D thing.
AmigaDOS 1.x didn't have it; AmigaDOS 2.x did when it came in 1991 or
so. What the Mac did, I cannot quite remember.

[Öö Tiib]

On Monday, 29 January 2018 22:05:12 UTC+2, Jorgen Grahn wrote:
> What the Mac did, I cannot quite remember.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_graphical_user_interface#/media/File:AppleIIGSOS.png

[Robert Wessel]

On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 17:35:49 +0000, Mr Flibble
<flibbleREM...@i42.co.uk> wrote:

>On 29/01/2018 17:33, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
>> sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>> <snip text on "flat" UIs>
>>
>>> Personally, I've always been happy with X Athena Widgets myself. Simple
>>> and efficient.
>>
>> Thanks for reminding me that the earliest UIs where flat! I'd forgotten.
>
>The earliest UIs had a major design constraint: they had to look good on
>monochrome displays.

Low resolution and 16-color displays pretty much also required a
flat-ish approach.

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Tue, 2018-01-30, Robert Wessel wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 17:35:49 +0000, Mr Flibble
> <flibbleREM...@i42.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>On 29/01/2018 17:33, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
>>> sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>>> <snip text on "flat" UIs>
>>>
>>>> Personally, I've always been happy with X Athena Widgets myself. Simple
>>>> and efficient.
>>>
>>> Thanks for reminding me that the earliest UIs where flat! I'd forgotten.
>>
>>The earliest UIs had a major design constraint: they had to look good on
>>monochrome displays.

Motif looked kind of ugly on Sun's (excellent) monochrome displays.

> Low resolution and 16-color displays pretty much also required a
> flat-ish approach.

I think I disagree: here's what people tended to do with four colors:

http://scacom.bplaced.net/Collection/600/amiga202.png

[Juha Nieminen]

Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:
> Any screenshots?

Consider, for example, the window decorations between Windows 7 vs.
Windows 10:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IUMenO3IjH8/Vea5AgZneuI/AAAAAAAAAf8/62mXnt3g6pE/s1600/Windows7_vs_Windows10.png

In Windows 7 buttons looked clearly like buttons, and the menu bar was
clearly distinct from the title bar. (For example, it's quite clear where
you have to click to drag the window by its title bar, and where the menu
area is instead. Likewise the clickable area of buttons is very clear and
delineated.) The outer edge of the window is much more visible and shaded.

In Windows 10, however, suddenly buttons have no borders at all (why?!?)
and there is no edge delineating the header bar from the menu bar.
The button icons have become nothing more than one-pixel-wide lines.
Likewise the outer edge of the window has become one-pixel-wide, and
harder to distinguish from other elements.

That last thing, for example, makes it visually very confusing if you
have several inactive windows on top of each others. It can be hard
to visually see where a certain window is, and misclicks happen
often (they happen to me annoyingly often). In Windows 7 this was
an almost inexistent problem because window edges were much better
visually defined and visible, and header bars actually looked like
header bars, quite clearly distinct from the other window elements.

[Öö Tiib]

The problem is not with flat look but with its ambiguity. When there
are no room nor colors then there are less artistic freedom.
That does not mean that the user interface has to become vague
and unintuitive.

Current era when everything runs on hand-held devices users are
typically confused if what they touched already reacted and is
waiting for some server, or wasn't supposed to react to touch
at all or may be their finger was too dry or what? So the
lame lists of text and unintuitive icons plus poor interaction
feels like made by someone stupid, unfriendly or both.

That can not be blamed on situation.The Borland's text-only GUI
(Turbo Vision) all GUI elements did stand out as different and had
clear extent. There was least surprize if and what happens when
you click, touch or drag at any spot of screen. Even the keyboard
accelerators were hinted:
https://thomasjensen.com/software/buchfink/buchfink.gif

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Wed, 2018-01-31, Juha Nieminen wrote:
> Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:
>> Any screenshots?

I should explain that that didn't mean "I don't believe you" --
I was just wondering if it was the same kind of thing annoying me.

And it seems it was:

Ah, all that. Yes, the borders between things -- even between windows
-- seem to become more and more vague in Windows. I don't understand
why anyone would want that.

OTOH, I don't use Windows much, and I tend to force it to use a
"Classic" theme.

[Paavo Helde]

On 31.01.2018 14:28, Jorgen Grahn wrote:
> Ah, all that. Yes, the borders between things -- even between windows
> -- seem to become more and more vague in Windows. I don't understand
> why anyone would want that.

You are forgetting those lovely effects from semi-transparent windows.
You cannot even tell the window contents apart, not to speak about borders.

I especially like the semi-transparent system tray notification windows
which slowly fade away, but are clickable up to some undefined time
point during their fading process.

[Richard]

[Please do not mail me a copy of your followup]

Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> spake the secret code
<slrnp73dj9.e...@frailea.sa.invalid> thusly:

>On Wed, 2018-01-31, Juha Nieminen wrote:
>> Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:
>>> Any screenshots?
>
>I should explain that that didn't mean "I don't believe you" --
>I was just wondering if it was the same kind of thing annoying me.
>
>And it seems it was:
>
>> Consider, for example, the window decorations between Windows 7 vs.
>> Windows 10:
>>
>http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IUMenO3IjH8/Vea5AgZneuI/AAAAAAAAAf8/62mXnt3g6pE/s1600/Windows7_vs_Windows10.png
>>

>Ah, all that. Yes, the borders between things -- even between windows
>-- seem to become more and more vague in Windows. I don't understand
>why anyone would want that.

Not only that but it appears that the width of the resize area on the
borders of the windows has decreased (or perhaps it's a consequence of
high DPI displays). I find when I want to resize something I have to
really carefully position the cursor in order to get a grip on the
sizer.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book <http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline>
The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals-wiki.org>
The Computer Graphics Museum <http://computergraphicsmuseum.org>
Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

[woodb...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 2:19:07 AM UTC-6, Juha Nieminen wrote:
> Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:
> > Any screenshots?
>
> Consider, for example, the window decorations between Windows 7 vs.
> Windows 10:
> http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IUMenO3IjH8/Vea5AgZneuI/AAAAAAAAAf8/62mXnt3g6pE/s1600/Windows7_vs_Windows10.png
>
> In Windows 7 buttons looked clearly like buttons, and the menu bar was
> clearly distinct from the title bar. (For example, it's quite clear where
> you have to click to drag the window by its title bar, and where the menu
> area is instead. Likewise the clickable area of buttons is very clear and
> delineated.) The outer edge of the window is much more visible and shaded.
>
> In Windows 10, however, suddenly buttons have no borders at all (why?!?)
> and there is no edge delineating the header bar from the menu bar.
> The button icons have become nothing more than one-pixel-wide lines.
> Likewise the outer edge of the window has become one-pixel-wide, and
> harder to distinguish from other elements.

I've been looking for a new laptop and was leaning toward
Windows 10. What about Windows 8? Is it also a mess?


Brian
Ebenezer Enterprises - In G-d we trust.
http://webEbenezer.net

[Rick C. Hodgin]

On 1/31/2018 12:16 PM, woodb...@gmail.com wrote:
> I've been looking for a new laptop and was leaning toward
> Windows 10. What about Windows 8? Is it also a mess?

It's worse than Windows 10. Windows 10 restored some of the original
desktop features, but not all. Its graphics are a little better than
Win8, more user-friendly. But, it's still bland. I don't know what
they were thinking.

My personal goals are to use a Win7-like OS. Even Win7 itself would
work, but they aren't going to support it forever. They will force
us to upgrade if we want to keep using Windows.

Personally, on my own private machines, I will never switch to anything
beyond Windows 7. Overt and invasive spyware is not my thing.

--
Thank you! | Indianapolis, Indiana | God is love -- 1 John 4:7-9
Rick C. Hodgin | http://www.libsf.org/ | http://tinyurl.com/yaogvqhj
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Software: LSA, LSC, Debi, RDC/CAlive, ES/1, ES/2, VJr, VFrP, Logician
Hardware: Arxoda Desktop CPU, Arxita Embedded CPU, Arlina Compute FPGA

[red floyd]

On 1/31/2018 4:28 AM, Jorgen Grahn wrote:
> Ah, all that. Yes, the borders between things -- even between windows
> -- seem to become more and more vague in Windows. I don't understand
> why anyone would want that.
>
> OTOH, I don't use Windows much, and I tend to force it to use a
> "Classic" theme.

Because... "I'd better do something to justify my job... and...
"OOOH!! SHINY!!!!"

[Alf P. Steinbach]

On 1/31/2018 5:52 PM, Richard wrote:
>
> Not only that but it appears that the width of the resize area on the
> borders of the windows has decreased (or perhaps it's a consequence of
> high DPI displays). I find when I want to resize something I have to
> really carefully position the cursor in order to get a grip on the
> sizer.

Nothing to do with C++ but, just press Alt+Space and use the "move"
choice in the window menu.

That also works nicely for minimizing a fullscreen window.


Cheers & hth.,

- Alf (missing the old IBM keyboard guidelines (I don't even remember
the name))

[Rick C. Hodgin]

On 1/27/2018 1:38 PM, Mr Flibble wrote:
> On 27/01/2018 18:20, Rick C. Hodgin wrote:
>> On 1/26/2018 3:29 PM, Mr Flibble wrote:
>>> Hi!
>>> Video of neoGFX's automatic GUI theme palette colourisation:
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9A5EGE5KYg
>>> neoGFX .. the ultimate C++ GUI library .. coming soon!
>>
>> How do you do render the text?  Do you draw to an off-buffer bitmap
>> and then map it onto a polygon?  And how do you do the kerning?  Is
>> it a feature of the font generation engine, or do you draw each char
>> individually, and then determine geometry from the edges and overly
>> things where possible based on the indented parts?
>
> If you want me to engage with you with on topic discussion then you must
> first stop your off topic religious spam.


If you ever change your mind on this, I would be very keen on learning
about your kerning algorithm. I gather from your UI that it's custom.
I'd be interested in hearing your thinking on how/why you did it as
you have.

[Mr Flibble]

On 31/01/2018 19:18, Rick C. Hodgin wrote:
> On 1/27/2018 1:38 PM, Mr Flibble wrote:
>> On 27/01/2018 18:20, Rick C. Hodgin wrote:
>>> On 1/26/2018 3:29 PM, Mr Flibble wrote:
>>>> Hi!
>>>> Video of neoGFX's automatic GUI theme palette colourisation:
>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9A5EGE5KYg
>>>> neoGFX .. the ultimate C++ GUI library .. coming soon!
>>>
>>> How do you do render the text?  Do you draw to an off-buffer bitmap
>>> and then map it onto a polygon?  And how do you do the kerning?  Is
>>> it a feature of the font generation engine, or do you draw each char
>>> individually, and then determine geometry from the edges and overly
>>> things where possible based on the indented parts?
>>
>> If you want me to engage with you with on topic discussion then you
>> must first stop your off topic religious spam.
>
>
> If you ever change your mind on this, I would be very keen on learning
> about your kerning algorithm.  I gather from your UI that it's custom.
> I'd be interested in hearing your thinking on how/why you did it as
> you have.

If you want me to engage with you with on topic discussion then you must
first stop your off topic religious spam.

[David Brown]

If you want a good, sensible system for software development, then I'd
recommend Linux (Linux Mint, unless you have particular reasons for
something else). From personal experience, it is simply a better system
for that kind of work - /except/ for writing Windows software, of
course. (Windows has its good points too. For my work I use two
computers - one Windows, one Linux. I could not do my job with only one
of them. At home, where I have the choice, it's Linux all the way.)

But if you need to have Windows, then my understanding is that Win10
fixes many of the bad points of Win8 and only introduces a relatively
small number of new ones. (I have Win7 on my machine.) It also adds
some new features, and is a bit more efficient on many-core systems and
at handling lots of ram, and it has a sort of virtual desktop manager
(only about 30 years after unix). Of course, every new version of
Windows screws around with the settings and configuration so that you
have to re-learn setup and administration of basic things such as
networking and printers. Usually, however, you only need to do that
once or twice. Once you have your programs started, you work with them
in the same way as you always have - the OS version doesn't actually
matter that much.

So skip Win8, and go straight to Win10. Win7 has been fine, but you'll
have a lot of trouble getting it on a new machine.

MS has always had a pattern of alternating good and bad versions of
Windows - it looks like Win7 and Win10 are "good" ones, Win8 is a bad one.

[red floyd]

On 1/31/2018 2:30 PM, David Brown wrote:
>
> So skip Win8, and go straight to Win10.  Win7 has been fine, but you'll
> have a lot of trouble getting it on a new machine.
>
> MS has always had a pattern of alternating good and bad versions of
> Windows - it looks like Win7 and Win10 are "good" ones, Win8 is a bad one.
>

Depend on if you want some unknown portions of all your activities to be
reported to Microsoft...

[David Brown]

That can be reduced by turning off the more obnoxious options, and not
having a microphone on your computer. But of course you are at the
mercy of Microsoft if you use their software.

[Christian Gollwitzer]

Am 31.01.18 um 13:28 schrieb Jorgen Grahn:

> Ah, all that. Yes, the borders between things -- even between windows
> -- seem to become more and more vague in Windows. I don't understand
> why anyone would want that.
>
> OTOH, I don't use Windows much, and I tend to force it to use a
> "Classic" theme.

Well, and now consider that the programmer used QT vs. the programmer
used neoGFX. The first program will adapt its look to the setting
"Classic theme", the second one will not. My (originally intended) point
was not that flat design it should be, but that painting your own GUI
doesn't convince me. If possible, the GUI should use native widgets
which look and behave like native widgets.

The other thing is that fashion changes. Most people tend to get used to
the modern looks, even if at first they appear odd, but when you look
back there are only few people who find Windows 3.11 prettier than
Windows 7, say. It is for sure that "your own GUI"(TM), no matter how
well crafted it is now, will look oldfashioned soon unless you
permanently redesign it. The CSS capability promised by Leigh is a bonus
point; however lot of things like the shape of radiobuttons seems still
hardcoded (the code draws a circle).

Concerning the usability and visual hints of flat design, there are good
ones and bad ones, as ususal. For instance, in OSX it is no problem to
distinguish overlapping windows, because the windows themselves are
flat, but they are put in 3D one above the other with shadows:

https://imgur.com/a/QLtzA

In addition, the active windows has coloured icons whereas the inactive
have grey icons. At work, on Win7, I'm often "typing" into the wrong
window because it is visually unclear where the input focus is.

Christian

[David Brown]

On 01/02/18 09:28, Christian Gollwitzer wrote:
> Am 31.01.18 um 13:28 schrieb Jorgen Grahn:
>> Ah, all that. Yes, the borders between things -- even between windows
>> -- seem to become more and more vague in Windows. I don't understand
>> why anyone would want that.
>>
>> OTOH, I don't use Windows much, and I tend to force it to use a
>> "Classic" theme.
>
> Well, and now consider that the programmer used QT vs. the programmer
> used neoGFX. The first program will adapt its look to the setting
> "Classic theme", the second one will not. My (originally intended) point
> was not that flat design it should be, but that painting your own GUI
> doesn't convince me. If possible, the GUI should use native widgets
> which look and behave like native widgets.
>

Why do you think so?

There are advantages in having a program "fit in" with other programs on
the same system. But there are also advantages to giving a program a
consistent look wherever you run it. I don't believe there is a "right"
answer to this - it is a choice with trade-offs.

> The other thing is that fashion changes. Most people tend to get used to
> the modern looks, even if at first they appear odd, but when you look
> back there are only few people who find Windows 3.11 prettier than
> Windows 7, say. It is for sure that "your own GUI"(TM), no matter how
> well crafted it is now, will look oldfashioned soon unless you
> permanently redesign it. The CSS capability promised by Leigh is a bonus
> point; however lot of things like the shape of radiobuttons seems still
> hardcoded (the code draws a circle).

I don't do much customisation of gui schemes. I sometimes change the
colours for virtual machines - it makes it a lot easier to avoid mixups.
And I used "classic" scheme on XP because the default Teletubby
interface looked ridiculous. But when I work on a computer, it is to
use /applications/, not the desktop - I don't much care how that looks.
(I have never set the background picture on any computer I have used -
I would never see it, so what's the point?). If I want to look at
something pretty, I go outside and look at the mountains - computers are
tools or toys, but not works of art. All that matters for the widgets
is that they are clear and easy to use.

[Mr Flibble]

On 01/02/2018 08:28, Christian Gollwitzer wrote:
> Am 31.01.18 um 13:28 schrieb Jorgen Grahn:
>> Ah, all that.  Yes, the borders between things -- even between windows
>> -- seem to become more and more vague in Windows.  I don't understand
>> why anyone would want that.
>>
>> OTOH, I don't use Windows much, and I tend to force it to use a
>> "Classic" theme.
>
> Well, and now consider that the programmer used QT vs. the programmer
> used neoGFX. The first program will adapt its look to the setting
> "Classic theme", the second one will not. My (originally intended) point
> was not that flat design it should be, but that painting your own GUI
> doesn't convince me. If possible, the GUI should use native widgets
> which look and behave like native widgets.

Qt does not use native widgets either however it does use OS provided
rendering library to make it look like it is using native widgets.

Similarly neoGFX will have a native widget skin upon release.

[Juha Nieminen]

woodb...@gmail.com wrote:
> I've been looking for a new laptop and was leaning toward
> Windows 10. What about Windows 8? Is it also a mess?

As an operating system, I suppose Win10 is a better choice at
this point than Win7 or Win8 because Win10 is much better supported by
Microsoft. I just wish they added a option to make it look&feel
like Win7. But I suppose that's too much to wish. Microsoft
has decided that everything must look as flat and simplistic
as possible, even at the cost of usability, and probably nothing
is going to change their mind.