Changing a button size

[aquanaut]

I am newbie to cappuccino and so far I find it quite impressive. As a learning exercise, I decided to develop a clone of OSX Lion's calculator app, I aimed to mimmic the UI as close as possible. Using the interface builder, I was able to replicate most objects with the exception of the equal button. Some how nib2cib doesn't know how to handle square or texture buttons and when I tried to change the size programmatically with code below, I don't get the expected result.

- (void)awakeFromCib

{

    size = [equalButton frameSize];

    

    size.height = size.height * 5;

    

    [equalButton setFrameSize:size];

    

    [theWindow setFullPlatformWindow:YES];

}

Since changing the button type in Interface Builder and coding the button size didn't work. I am reaching out to your collective expertise for some advise. 

Thanks,

Jaime

[Aparajita Fishman]

> size.height = size.height * 5;

You could also do:

size.height *= 5;

> Since changing the button type in Interface Builder and coding the button size didn't work. I am reaching out to your collective expertise for some advise.

Button heights in Cappuccino are currently fixed, because buttons are drawn using a three-part image-based bezel (left, center, right), which means there is no way to stretch them vertically without looking bad.

Theoretically buttons could be done with a nine-part bezel, which would allow them to resize vertically. Maybe a talented artist out there could come up with a nine-part bezel that would have a nice vertical gradient that would look ok when it is resized vertically.

Regards,

Aparajita
Cappuccino Core Developer

[aquanaut]

Theoretically buttons could be done with a nine-part bezel, which would allow them to resize vertically. Maybe a talented artist out there could come up with a nine-part bezel that would have a nice vertical gradient that would look ok when it is resized vertically.

Do you know if cocoa buttons also based on images, instead of real-time renders? Could you please point me out to the implementation source and resources? I am planing to ask some of my graphics friends to implement your suggestion.

[Aparajita Fishman]

> Do you know if cocoa buttons also based on images, instead of real-time renders?

They are drawn, no images. We probably could draw buttons as well, but gradients don't do well in VML, and there is no Canvas until IE 9.

> Could you please point me out to the implementation source and resources? I am planing to ask some of my graphics friends to implement your suggestion.

The original artwork is here:

https://github.com/madebysofa/aristo/tree/master/aristo-1

In order to switch to a nine-part image, you would generate the nine parts and change ThemeDescriptors +button to use nine elements in the array passed to PatternColor(). For an example of a nine-part PatternColor, see +themedStandardTextField.

[Aparajita Fishman]

> I am planing to ask some of my graphics friends to implement your suggestion.

Thank you!

[Alexander Ljungberg]

In my experience, drawing widgets using code is rarely a good idea even in Cocoa. Many programmers are not used to dealing with artistic considerations and are more of the engineer mindset, so you end up having to iterate for a long time to come up with pixel perfect drawing code. Images provide precision and flexibility for the designer.

There is one type of drawing which is best done in code: if a widget needs to stretch in the direction of a gradient, or if it needs to stretch and has a noise pattern. If you use images for this the result cannot be perfect. Scaling noise isn't possible at all - your pattern of 1x1 noise dots turns into 1x1.34 dots or other arbitrary sizes. Scaling gradients is somewhat possible if done lightly, but if you scale a gradient to be to be larger you may get banding and destroy any dithering effect.

If you try to switch buttons to use a 9-part image you'll get this problem as well. The taller the button is made, the more wrong the vertical gradient in it will look.

Alexander

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[Todd Freese]

Should you decide to draw the GUI, check this app out. http://www.paintcodeapp.com/ It is a vector drawing program that generates Obj-C code. I find it very helpful in these situations. 

Todd

[D. Rimron]

On 19/06/2012 02:15, Aparajita Fishman wrote:
>> Do you know if cocoa buttons also based on images, instead of real-time renders?
> They are drawn, no images. We probably could draw buttons as well, but gradients don't do well in VML, and there is no Canvas until IE 9.

And I presume some designer magic via a css3 background image, that
degrades to a "less than perfect" scaled PNG in the 9-part for IE, etc.
would be totally against the Cappuccino way? Neglecting a long-dead
browser for sake of awesome[0]...

-Dx

[0] Troll? eh, pardon? ;-)