Some Cocoa applications (for instance, Mail and Automator) have a special control usually in the bottom of their window:
alt text http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/9084/picture2vm3.png
Could you share the best practices of making the same action bar with standard images and popup buttons?
Thanks.
You probably want BWToolkit
Related
Is there a way to place a window in the main Menu on xCode?
Also, is there a decent way for a beginner to learn objective C to create a User Interface?
You don't put windows on menus, in Cocoa. But you are certainly talking about a "view", which is a general container for subviews, buttons, images and alike.
Are there any open source implementations of a tabbed scope bar like Xcode 4 has? I have seen MGScopeBar, but it doesn't have the icon tab appearance I'm looking for. It uses recessed buttons, while Xcode's tabs have a full-height highlight.
You might want to have a look at
DMTabBar:
DMTabBar is a simple segmented control / bar that mimics the XCode 4 Inspector segmented control.
CocoaControls also provides heaps of other great Open Source Cocoa controls.
You can also check DOTabbar and create your custom tabbar item cell.
Talking about Suggestion Bar as we can see here, I'd like to know if there's a way to show/hide this bar programmatically, and/or add/remove buttons in it programmatically?
That's Context Menu you are referring to. Checking this link for how to use Contextmenu in your app
WP7 ContextMenu in depth
Is there a way to show text along with the icons permanently rather than when a user clicks the "..."?
Or should I instead just use standard buttons instead of the application bar?
As far as i know there is no way to achieve what you are telling.. the user should click on the "..." to see the menu...
http://www.windowsphonegeek.com/articles/Things-to-consider-when-using-WP7-Application-Bar
http://windows-mobile-dev.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-to-use-application-bar-in-windows.html
I would say, if you have maxium two buttons to display on the page, you will probably be fine with standard text buttons, like the screenshot below from the windows phone marketplace. However, you probably don't want any icons on them.
Also try putting a rectangle behind the buttons so it looks like an application bar. :)
On Windows Phone 7, go to Settings, email & accounts, add an account, the Windows Live (or any other). Note at the bottom there is the gray panel with a rectangular [sign in] button. Click in the email address field, and the on screen keyboard pops up ABOVE the gray panel. Rotate the phone, and the gray panel does not rotate, although the page does. That gray panel is the Application Bar, is it not?
I only find docs for adding an icon-based round button (and menu items). How do we put a rectangular textual button on the Application Bar?
Adding buttons in the Application Bar is not supported for third party developers. The Application Bar itself is not a Silverlight control; it's a native one. Only OEMs, certain partners and MS have access to the native SDK, so you won't be able to template the Application Bar to have buttons. Of course, you could create your own Application Bar that mimics the real one, but I don't recommend that approach as it would be very tricky to get it exactly right and be consistent between apps.
Yes, that's the application bar. Well, it's the non Silverlight version of it. (The built in apps are not built with Silverlight.)
Unfortuanately it is not possible to use text buttons on the application bar. It's only possible to use buttons with images.
Yes it would be nice/useful in a number of situations but it's just not possible with the current SDK (even Mango). I keep hoping it'll be there in a future version...
The applications that come with the phone are not restricted to using developer APIs and the one you mention likely uses C++ and / or restricted APIs. As a third-party developer your only option is to stick with icons on the application bar.
You can always create a Panel colored like the application bar, aligned along the bottom of the screen and display buttons or whatever other UI element you want to.