I'm joining an Eiffel project that has a horribly outdated GUI design. The GUI is built with EiffelVision2 and the application is Windows platform only.
how can I change the look/design of the widgets, like defining shape and color of scrollbars, buttons, window borders and so on?
thank you!
I think this can be done using manifest file.
For instance, https://svn.eiffel.com/eiffelstudio/trunk/Src/Eiffel/Ace/ec.exe.manifest allows EiffelStudio to have nicer look than default classic theme.
You can check similar question/answers from http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/eiffel_software/message/8791
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I managed to interpret a mmstyles file through a tool called "msstylesEditor" but I can't find where I can modify the values for the background and font color of the context menu.
Also if anyone could link me to some tutorials on how to make theme like those found on DeviantArt i'd be glad ! I couldn't find anything !
Here is how msstylesEditor looks
The background can be changed under Menu -> POPUPBACKGROUND. This is an image (1x1px). You have to export it, change its color, then replace the old image.
You also might want to look at the POPUPBORDER and POPUPITEM parts, in order to fully change the menus appearance. I havent verified where the font color is located, but i guess its the TEXTCOLOR properties
of the just stated parts.
The aim of the tool you linked, is mainly to modify existing themes. The styles on DeviantArt are probably made using a (commercial) tool called "Windows Style Builder".
Does anyone know if it is possible to apply custom themes to Delphi applications. Example, changing the default colour, font, tab styles, etc. of a whole application (i.e. set of forms) at once. Kind of like css files for webpages.
Change the color and font of most of the vcl controls is relative easy to do, you can iterate over all the controls of a form and then set the propertiesFont and Color for each control. Now to customize the drawing of a VCL control you must owner draw each control your self. Another way is using a skinning library which do this for you, for example try the VCLSkin component which let you skin the entire application with no need for modifications in your VCL controls. Btw the new incoming version of Delphi (XE2) has great changes in this area introducing FireMonkey and VCL Styles.
Devexpress has something like that, ExpressSkins for VCL
Try Alphaskins it is easy and have a lite free version but make the work you want...
I want to build an OS X application, in which one of the requirements is for the user to be able to generate PDF output according to a layout that they, the user, will create. Typical items on the page would be things like a corporate logo (a JPEG or PNG), an address (a block of text) and a narrative (another block of text).
I'd like the user to be able to move and resize the items using the mouse to drag handles around on-screen.
Is there an Interface Builder object that will let me do that, or some third-party library that exists for this purpose?
Try GCDrawKit if you're looking for a drop-in solution. It's still in beta (and has been for ages) but you might find it useful.
You seem to be looking for an all-encompassing, self-contained "Pages" control or some sort of reporting suite. That's asking a bit much.
There is nothing in the Cocoa frameworks that gives you this. Unfortunately, there's no Cocoa equivalent of Crystal Reports either. You'll have to roll your own.
I suggest using standard CSS / HTML templates with WebKit. The only drawback is WebKit doesn't yet support CSS pagination, so there's no concept of "8.5"x11" page 1...15" but it's the closest you'll come without writing your own Pages application (NOT an easy project by any stretch of the imagination).
As much as I love Netbeans for Ruby programming the traditional white background and drab color coding leave me with Textmate envy.
Is there any solution to this in the absence of buying a Mac?
Dark color schemes in NetBeans
Aloha Color Theme
Google netbeans color schemes
there is a plugin called Extra color themes:
Additional editor color themes designed for use with the Ruby file types in NetBeans. The 'Dark Pastels' theme was designed by Jerrett Taylor. The 'Aloha' theme was created by Mike McKinney (http://huikau.com)
did you tried it?
I use the Dark Psstels theme from the Extra Ruby Color Themes plugin. Be advised, though, that NetBeans only allows you to style the editor, the rest of the IDE will still look as butt-ugly as it did before. (Pardon my French.)
If you want to change that, you will have to change the entire Swing Look&Feel. There are also some plugins which do that, but they are mostly for testing. (There is one which switches NetBeans to the Napkin LAF, which as the name implies makes everything look like it's scribbled on a napkin. This is very useful if you use the NetBeans Application Platform to build your own NetBeans-based applications (does anybody do that?), but otherwise pretty useless.)
Note that this isn't much of a problem if you maximize the editor and put NetBeans in fullscreen mode.
I'm making a Cocoa application, and I would like a panel like the 'Attributes Inspector' in Interface Builder. So with big tabs on the top and collapsable/expandable groups. Does anyone know how I can do this?
This is an image of the Attributes Inspector:
Attributes Inspector http://developer.apple.com/documentation/DeveloperTools/Conceptual/XcodeQuickTour/Art/hello_win_attributes.jpg
So I actually want to make a window like the one shown in the image above.
InspectorKit is FOSS on github.
There's no built-in Cocoa controls to do this. You're going to have to write some custom views which replicate the functionality.
There some good advice for creating custom controls in the answers to this question: Looking for info on custom drawing of interface components (Cocoa)
If you need additional help, I recommend you ask smaller, more specific questions explaining what you've tried and what hasn't worked.
I've written some custom classes to do this- it ended up being less work than I expected. I broke it down into two separate components which can be used independently- the first handles the icons at the top and performs the view switching and the second handles the expandable panes:
My code is available at github and is under the BSD 2-clause license.