I want to know if there is a way to highlight specific points on the windows or Mac screen without impacting on application that is running and its clickable area.
To better understand the question, imagine some area of the LCD of laptop is malfunctioning, e.g. pressed and highlighted with purple color. We can still see what is going on underneath the purple area and it is clickable and regardless what is the color of item on that point, it shows purple.
Is it possible to do it by software and programmatically ? Is there any API or something to manipulate output of graphic card for specific point, draw something or highlight without impaction on the application running under it.
I know that I could write it better way, but excuse me since English is not my first language...
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In MacOS there is a simple App called Calculator, that I would like to recreate using Swift for learning purposes. A button like the plus button on the calculator has two images associated with it, one when the button is up and one when the button is down, as seen on the images below.
As you can see, when the + button is pressed down, its image changes to a darker orange color and the text gets a dark grey color. My question is: How to implement this button behavior?
Is it possible to do it with NSButton (and if so how)? or is it easier to implement it using CALayer? Or maybe there is some other way that I have not thought of?
You should be able to use a single image and configure it in code or in your asset catalogue to be a "template image". That means the shape is taken into consideration, much like a stamp, and the stamped-out area is filled with color dynamically. That means you don't have to provide a white and dark gray/black variant. One variant will suffice, usually black to see the lines well, and the rest can be configured through.
See the SO question "How to NOT highlight the NSButton's template image when clicked?" for details about the setup: How to NOT highlight the NSButton's template image when clicked?
I lost my text in CS6 Photoshop. I have no clue where it went - all I know is that it went off canvas. How can I zoom in dead center on that piece of text?
I realize I could just delete it and restart, but knowing how to will help for pictures I'd work on in the future.
This isn't a programming question and is more suited to other forums.
However, if you loose text or part of a layer as described above, just zoom out (to something small like 5%) and then press CTRL + T (free transform), this will allow you to see the transform box of the text. You'll be able to move the text back from the canvas from there.
I made a flyout window in the notification area using WinAPI and my goal was to make it similar to the flyout windows that show up when you click some of the icons in the notification area, like the Volume icon.
I already succeeded in making it look and behave similar to the other ones, but there is one thing I can't seem to figure out. The link area of the flyout windows has a darker blueish background and there is a subtle difference in the look between Windows 7 and Windows 8. A picture of it in Windows 7 can be seen here
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa511448.aspx#flyouts
I achieved this by painting this link area of my flyout window manually in the right colors (including the gradient at the topmost part of the section) using the WM_PAINT message, but I just feel like it's too much of a hack, especially because it's not affected by changing themes in Windows. For example, if I set the "Windows Classic" theme this area should be grey and not blue.
So, my question is, am I missing something in how this can be achieved without painting the window manually. I noticed that the details pane in Explorer windows in Win 7 has the same look. I've searched quite a bit for answers but I haven't found anything yet. This is my first time doing a GUI using the WinAPI so I have very little experience, and therefore I'm assuming there is something that I just don't know about.
UPDATE:
I did manage to figure out how to draw this area without painting it manually. It can be drawn by using the OpenThemeData and DrawThemeBackground functions
HTHEME aeroTheme = OpenThemeData(hWnd, L"FLYOUT");
DrawThemeBackground(aeroTheme, hdc, FLYOUT_LINKAREA, 0, &rect, &rect);
This obviously only works when themes are enabled, so for non-themed cases I draw a normal rectangle with the appropriate color.
I'm not an expert in WinAPI so I can't offer any advice on achieving the look you want without manual painting.
However, if you're successfully achieving the appearance for a particular color theme, I'd suggest you look at the GetSysColor function and use this when creating your brushes for painting. This should allow you to get the correct colors based on the theme that has been set. More info (including a swatch table) can be found here.
Hope this helps.
Is it possible to draw a custom shaped window in Qt which inherits color and transparency (glass) effects from current system theme. Ultimately I need it to look & feel just like user's taskbar adjusting to his theme. Like in this concept. I realize that it might not be possible to achieve such perfect integration, but at least make a custom shaped background which look the same as the taskbar (glass look&feel) I believe is achievable.
Partially it is answered in similar questoin - Displaying translucent / irregular-shaped windows with Qt. But still not sure how to read system theme information and apply it to QPainter.
The tricky part is that slope on the left. I'd wager you could get a title bar on a window to be taller and have the rest of the window be 0 height so the window was entirely a title bar but that slope would require rendering functions that just won't exist on Windows.
Also, you're wanting your window hide the taskbar's bevel under where your window appears. That will probably not be possible either as your window will be semi-transparent so it won't be able to block the rendered bevel of the normal taskbar.
Sorry. Might have to go back to the drawing board on your design.
The context menu from dock items is not only translucent but also blurs the contents behind it, Is this effect availible for translucent floating panels? This is the same effect used in Sheet Alert dialogs (e.g. quit with unsaved changes) but in that case the transparency is different, and the background is light rather than dark
Some background, we have a pro app that is frequently used full screen, and our floating palettes have some transparency, but obviously the more transparency we have the harder it is to read the text on them when the background is very active/noisy, if we could have a slight blur we would be able to greatly improve the readability on the text while still allowing some context of "whats behind the palette"
I think this is what you want: Using Core Image Filters On/Under a NSWindow
Beware that this is private API though, so if you're developing for the Mac App Store, this would be a problem.