Attributes Inspector: how to use "Stretching" - interface-builder

What are the numbers in the Stretching box in the View sub-box Interface Builder's Attributes Inspector?
(as a side question - I suppose a respectable company such as Apple would have actually released documentation for its tools, as opposed to letting developers just guess everything; so, where's this documentation?...)

This blog post Karol seems to explain it pretty well. - http://macoscope.com/blog/stretchable-images-using-interface-builder/
Stretching properties are pretty simple (I don't think so, but the
articles does :).
The fraction of the original image left without stretching on the left
is specified by X The fraction of the original image that gets
stretched in the x-axis is specified by Width The fraction of the
original image left without stretching on the right is equal to 1 – X
– Width If we use 0 for Width the stretched area will interpolate
between the last pixel of the left part and the first pixel of the
right part The y-axis works analogously

Viewing a .storyboard file in a text editor (figures it's an XML file) revealed the answer: it is linked to UIView's contentStretch property.

FYI - this was deprecated in iOS 6.0 https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UIKit/Reference/UIView_Class/index.html#//apple_ref/occ/instp/UIView/contentStretch
(updated link)

Deprecation Documentation
Instance Property
contentStretch
The rectangle that defines the stretchable and nonstretchable regions of a view.
Deprecated
To achieve the same effect, use resizableImageWithCapInsets: instead.

Related

Xcode: difference between BACKSPACE + CMD and BACKSPACE?

I don't understand the difference between using BACKSPACE+CMD and just BACKSPACE.
I see that when I use BACKSPACE+CMD on a element in the Storyboard, that element becomes opaque, and using just BACKSPACE it deletes the element. I can't find the answer in the documentation.
As far I know, when opaque, it means the component (constraint or UI element) has been unistalled for a particular size class. For me, the combination is Command + Delete.
From About Designing for Multiple Size Classes (in bold the key part).
With size classes, a storyboard or xib file can be used for any
available screen area. You build your interface as it will look in
most sizes, then update only the parts that need to change when the
available screen size changes.
A size class identifies a relative amount of display space for the
height and for the width. Each dimension can be either compact, for
example, the height of an iPhone in landscape orientation, or regular,
for example, the height or width of an iPad. Because much of the
layout of an app does not need to change for any available screen
size, there is an additional value, any.
Hope it helps.
P.S. Did you check the key binding for your Xcode?

Unity 4.6 - How to scale GUI elements to the right size for every resolution

The new Unity 4.6 comes with a new GUI, when I change de resolution on Unity the UI Button scales perfectly but when I test on the Nexus 7 device the Button looks too small. Any idea how to solve this?
Unity's new GUI system uses "anchors" to control how gui elements (like buttons) scale in relation to their parent container.
Unity has a tutorial video on how to use the new "Rect Transform" component (where the anchors are configured) here: http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/beginner/ui/rect-transform.
The last half of the tutorial is all about anchors. That page has links to the entire tutorial series. It's not too long. You should watch the whole thing.
Specific to your question:
The anchors are visible in your first screen shot. They are those 4 little arrows at the top left of your button.
Right now, your button is only anchored by it's top left corner.
The two right anchors need to be dragged to the right so that the right edge of your button is anchored to a space inside its parent container.
Depending on your situation, the two bottom arrows may need to be dragged down so that the bottom edge of your button is anchored as well.
The video I linked above covers all this in detail.
Lastly, for the font size to scale nicely on different resolutions, you will need to add and configure a reference resolution component to the base canvas of your UI, as Ash-Bash32 wrote earlier.
Update: The best way to add a Reference Resolution component is through the inspector window for the base canvas in your UI.
1) click the "Add Component Button" at the bottom of the inspector.
2) type the word "Reference" in the search filter field.
3) select the "Reference Resolution" component in the search results.
The Reference Resolution is now renamed as Canvas Scaler.. Along with the renaming they have added many more features for the dynamicity of the Canvas. You can go through the Unity Doc of Canvas Scaler and also take a look at this article for a practical example of how and why to use Canvas Scaler. Also make sure you use the Anchor Points to good effect to make this more robust...
To Scale UI added the ReferenceResolution Component to the Canvas you want to scale.
P.S. Theres no Documention for ReferenceResolution
If you want the button to be the same size for all screens and resolutions, you have to add the canvas scaler component to the canvas and the set the screen match mode to: match width or height, here is the link to the docs, this helps a lot if you want to aim to different sizes or resolutions:
http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/HOWTO-UIMultiResolution.html
This becomes giant and convoluted once you start laying things out in code AND using a canvas scaler, so I wish to provide a thorough answer to save someone the hours I went through.
First, don't use anchoredPosition to position anything, unless you fully realize it is a 0.0 to 1.0 number. Use the RectTransform localPosition to do the actual laying out, and remember it's in relation to the parent anchor. (I had to lay out a grid from the center)
Second, put a canvas scaler on the parent layout object AND the inner ui pieces. One makes the layout in the right position, the other will resize your elements so they actually show up right. You can't rely on the the parent unless the children also have scalers (and Graphic Raycasters to touch them).
Third, if you have a scaler, DON'T use Screen.width and height, instead assume the screen is the same value you put for the scalers (hopefully you used the same, or know what you're doing). The screen width always returns the actual device pixels, retina devices too, but the canvas scalers DO NOT account for this. This probably gives unity the one remaining way to find actual screen dpi if your game wants it. Edit: This paragraph applies to any parent canvas connected to the code doing your laying out. Not stray canvases, you can probably mix it up. Just remember unity's guidelines on performance with canvases.
Fourth, the canvas is still a bit buggy. Even with the above working, some things don't render until you delete and recreate a canvas, if you re-open the scene or it crashes. Otherwise, the above is the general "rules" I've found.
To center a "grid of things" you can't just use half of the canvas scaler's width or height, you have to calculate the height of your grid and set the offset by half of it, otherwise it will always be slightly off. I just added this as an extra tip. This calculation works for all orientations.

Vertical NSLevelIndicator OSX

I wonder if there is a way of creating/modifying a NSLevelIndicator object so it can be positioned vertically, i.e. display discrete levels from bottom up, not from left to right, so it can be also used as element of interface-building library in Xcode?
There are lots of examples of such level displays in Apple and non-Apple OSX applications, and quite a few reasons why such an object should exist, yet how to create such an object for some reason (from what I can see in developer forums) seems either not worth asking or a "best kept secret".
Is there a template code which can be modified to into an object of such properties?
I haven't even faintest idea if such an object should really be written from scratch? Mission impossible?
Thanks in advance!
Try using
[NSView setFrameRotation:90];
it's sketchy but easier than a custom view
Edit: Alternatively try
[levelView setFrameCenterRotation:90];
SetFrameRotation:90 rotated it around the bottom left axis for me so it ended up being clipped. This one rotates it around the centre so you should be able to see it. I just made a quick swift playground showcasing it: http://cl.ly/WsL8/Vertical%20LevelIndicatorView.playground.zip
Edit again: If you're still stuck, I made a sample project with a vertical level indicator in objective-c: http://cl.ly/WrdH/levelindicator.zip
Swift 5.5.1 on macOS 11.6
myLevelIndicator.frameRotation = 90
If you need to reposition the indicator to fit within the view, realize the center of rotation is the origin of the level indicator.
So, to set the rotated level indicator 20px in from the left of the view, compute that for the new frame origin of the level indicator, not forgetting to adjust for the indicators height when it is horizontal because the original height will affect the final position when rotated.
myLevelIndicator.frame.origin = CGPoint(x: self.view.frame.minX+20+myLevelIndicator.frame.height, y: myLevelIndicator.frame.minY)
Of course, this can be avoided by placing the control in the correct position to allow for rotation within IB if that works for you. Some may not be using IB and creating these controls programmatically.

font size bug with CGContextShowTextAtPoint

I have some rather simple code drawing some text into a CGContext. Here is an excerpt (slightly edited).
CGContextSelectFont(context, "Helvetica", 1.5, kCGEncodingMacRoman);
CGContextShowTextAtPoint(context, xpos, ypos, "Hello", 5);
The text renders ok. For some unknown reason, however, the font changes to a smaller size after I click in the view containing the context. Also when I resize the window containing the view the font returns to original size. What is the reason for this?
1.5 points is mighty tiny to begin with. Assuming no other scaling is in effect, that will be one whole pixel and a blurry pixel above it on the screen.
You're probably seeing a bug that I ran into myself: On entry into drawRect:, the current context's text matrix was not the identity matrix. In my case, I saw it contain a scale by 13 on both axes, plus a translation. (Possibly left over from drawing the title bar.) I filed this in Radar as #10585106, in case you want to file your own and cite it.
The solution is to set the text matrix back to the identity transform before trying to draw text.
Once you do that, you'll find that your text will be exactly as tiny as you asked for it to be. You should change your font size to something more reasonable; Core Text contains a function to get the system fonts (from which you can get their sizes), and AppKit's NSFont class contains methods for the same purpose.

#font-face problem, Firefox adds padding, Chrome does not

When using a custom font via #font-face, it does render just as I think it should in Chrome. In Firefox, though, additional padding (top and bottom) is added to the font.
Here is my example page that outlines the problem.
Is there anything I can do about it?
FYI, this also happens in Firefox on Linux (and not in Chromium). I tried to load your font in FontForge and immediately got a warning:
The following table(s) in the font have been ignored by FontForge
Ignoring 'LTSH' linear threshold table
Ignoring 'VDMX' vertical device metrics table
Ignoring 'hdmx' horizontal device metrics table
I think the problem is that the VDMX (Vertical Device Metrics) table is defect:
In order to avoid grid fitting the
entire font to determine the correct
height, the VDMX table has been
defined.
This looks exactly like what happens in Firefox: somewhere the minimum and maximum height is incorrectly calculated. This is also clear when you select the text: the selection box extends to the utmost top and bottom of the line; if the h1 element really had padding, you would see a gap between the top and bottom of the line and the selection box.
Also, validation revealed that almost every glyph is “missing points at extrema”:
Both PostScript and TrueType would
like you to have points at the maxima
and minima (the extrema) of a path.
A quick search showed:
The only other problem I had was a
rather nasty condition called "Missing
Points at Extrema". With a font,
there needs to be a point (or node, as
they are called in Inkscape) at the
extreme left, right, top and bottom of
a glyph. Normally they are there
anyway simply because of the way your
glyph is built, but diagonal lines
with rounded ends often cause problems
[source, including picture (scroll down)]
Just Add:
line-height:1;
to your CSS rules

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