New Fast find update

[jorm]

I will try to take a look at these over the next few days.

[Heyt]

Hi jorm!

First of all thanks for looking after my probs.

I don't know if you found out something on the problem of skinning the boxes so far. But yesterday as i skinned the weather plugin, i saw that it is a very easy way to achieve the skinnability of boxes by just not rendering them at all. In the weather plugin the boxes are drawn in the background and that's it. So this might be an easy way for your plugins too. Ok i'm not a coder and don't know if this solution is easy to program, but it seemed to me a good idea to do it in this way.

[jorm]

If I do not draw the boxes at all you will see overlap of text and it will become difficult to read. Or do you mean pushing the boxes into the skin. The problem with that is it becomes complicated when I hide a box when the user wants to search a different way.

I might be misunderstanding.

[Heyt]

OK, maybe it was not so clear what i mean.

It is that way, you have there these three boxes. One for the letters, the channels or the description, the second for the titles and the last for the the time. And now you draw these rounded rectangles around every box and fill it with the text. At the moment you can change the position of the box (with the text and the rectangle) and the width and there is that problem with the hight which i mentioned in my firs post - all done by the skin.xml.
And now my idea was that you don't draw the rectangle but just draw the text. So that the "special element" woundn't be anymore the rectangle and the text in it but only the text. Of course you leave the rest as it is. So you can still set the position and size of the elements (then only the text).
The boxes around the text then will be placed in the background which looks absolutely the same as if you draw them on a second layer over the background as you can see on my first shots of my "Water/Leaf" plugin (Weather plugin is designed that way).

Quote[/b] ]Or do you mean pushing the boxes into the skin. The problem with that is it becomes complicated when I hide a box when the user wants to search a different way.

That's no problem as i think. If your elements just contain the text you can hide them without any problem. And the boxes for the letters or channels are no problem too. Now you have different box sizes for letters and channels. But i don't think you need that. In my oppinion it would look quite nice if the skin doesn't change when you change the search criteria.

[jorm]

ok the boxes are drawn in the skin a comment is in the xml indicating it. As for the list having to much entries if you shrink the box, there is no a list count that you can use to set the number of entries to show.

The keyboard stuff is there as well. Let me know if I missed anything.

Downloadable from wiki.

[Heyt]

Hi Jorm!

All seems to work perfect. Thank you for that. I think now your plugin is fully skinnable now. I will post a screen later on in my skin topic.

OK here is the screen i promised:

[jorm]

Cool. I will do the same for the boxes in the news plugin as well.

[Heyt]

OK i know you will kill me now, but as i just builded the skin for the ff-plugin today i had some ideas for more improvements:

- The selection within the boxes is at the moment hardcoded execpt the selection color. Would it be possible to use seperate "Composite Images" here for the selections?
- If you select an Item at the first box the "selection rectangle" switches to the next and then to the third. Is it possible to keep the item in the first box and later on also in the second selected (it's a question which colors can be used for the selected text, at the moment i can't use the background color)?
- Is it possible to make the keyboard sizeable especially in the height?
- The keys you enter with the keyboard are at the moment shown directly over the keyboard. Could you put this line in a seperate moveable "special element"?
- And then there are the popup windows. Could you make them skinnable too? Like a "Composite Image" for the window itself. For the buttons standard "Composite Images" SelectedButtonImage and NormalButtonImage. And all the Elements (First popup Title, Channel, ChannelItem, Description and Start/Endtime and on the other popup Title, Channel, Starttime, Recording options and buttons) moveable and sizable?

Quote[/b] ] I will do the same for the boxes in the news plugin as well

That is an excellent idea, i'd loved to it on this plugin too. And this way i don't have to ask you and maybe you won't kill me at once.

[jorm]

I have started working on your new list.

Added a flag that auto moves the focus so you can turn it off.
Can now specify the size of the keyboard key width and height
The current entered text is now moveable.

And then there are these. I have not looked into how composite images work. I only know how the background one works.

- The selection within the boxes is at the moment hardcoded except the selection color. Would it be possible to use seperate "Composite Images" here for the selections?

The location of the selections? I am not quite clear.

- And then there are the popup windows. Could you make them skinnable too? Like a "Composite Image" for the window itself. For the buttons standard "Composite Images" SelectedButtonImage and NormalButtonImage.
again my lack of knowledge on composite images. Can I make a call to an api so it draws the composites given a name?

[Heyt]

The easy one first

Quote[/b] ]- The selection within the boxes is at the moment hardcoded except the selection color. Would it be possible to use seperate "Composite Images" here for the selections?

The location of the selections? I am not quite clear.

No, the position is good as it is and size is good as well. But i have always to use the rounded rectangle. But for example i liked to use a 70% transparent brown/yellow rectangle with edges. I think this is only possible if they were CompositeImages as i can edit them in any way i like. The position would stay hardcoded as far as i saw in other plugins.

Second is the thing with moving the focus. The switch for deactivating the automoving of the focus is a nice feature i did not think about at all. But it sound very useable to me. But my problem was that you kill the selection box if you move the focus. And this means the selected text color stays as it is (all right with that) but you have the box as background and not the selectionfill. So if i chose a black box for the letters and use a red selectionfill and a black selectedtextcolor the text would "disappear" when you move the focus to Titelbox because the redselection box is gone. (I hope it's a bit clearer this time). So it would be nice if you don't kill the selection in the last box when focus is moved to the next one.

Quote[/b] ]Can I make a call to an api so it draws the composites given a name?

OK i'm not a coder but i took a look into the source of the wheatherplugin 2.21 and found this in the "wheathertask.cs":
args["@buttonText"] = BUTTON_CURRENT;
Image normal = skinHelper.getNamedImage("NormalButtonImage", args);
Image selected = skinHelper.getNamedImage("SelectedButtonImage", args);
XmlNode node = skinHelper.getNode("/settings/Buttons/Button[@name=\"Current\"]"
int xPos = int.Parse(node.Attributes.GetNamedItem("loc&quot.InnerText.Split(','[0]);
int yPos = int.Parse(node.Attributes.GetNamedItem("loc&quot.InnerText.Split(','[1]);
screenButtons.Add(new ScreenButton(BUTTON_CURRENT, normal, selected, xPos, yPos));

This seems to be the point were the buttons are drawn and it is the first time the item selected is defined.

Here is the line were the popup is drawn (also from WeatherTask.cs):

Graphics.FromImage(compositeScreenImage).DrawImage(skinHelper.getNamedImage("PleaseWa
it&quot,0,0);

Maybe this can help you. Or you should look into the source of the wheatherplugin 2.21 yourself. The WheatherTask.cs seems to be the only file were the skinning is done (or are there dependancies to other files?!