I want to be able to re size everything that is displayed - taskbar, windows, desktop - everything and put it in a border. What is the best way to accomplish this? I'm thinking DirectX, but I am not that familiar with it. I'm not sure what technologies would accomplish this, but I bet it would have to be rather low level.
DirectX has its own API's, but if you want to change the taskbar and desktop, I rather think you have to go for the Windows API.
The direct API call to use is ChangeDisplaySettings() or ChangeDisplaySettingsEx(), but you need to get a filled-in DEVMODE structure to use it properly. DEVMODE is a beast. You're going to need to fill it using EnumDisplaySettings(), identify which display is your main screen, and fiddle with the dmBitsPerPel, dmPelWidth, and dmEplHeight members. Not every possible setting is supported: I think DeviceCapabilities() can tell you that... this should get you started.
You haven't told us explicitly that it's Windows you're after, nor in what language you're working.
Related
I need a reliable way to get the dimensions of the screen.
I know MediaQuery.of(context), but it removes the bottom padding when the bottom UI item is visible.
This appears to be impossible from within dart at the moment on Android due to flutter ignoring the bottom system UI (i.e. the buttons).
I thought this might be a bug, but if you look closely at the documentation it never states that window.physicalSize or MediaQueryData.size are the physical dimensions of the screen, but rather the size to which flutter can render. That probably makes sense, or else every single app would have to make sure to take that into account.
So what you're going to have to do is use method channels to communicate with android directly. I took a look already and there doesn't appear to be any plugins doing this, so you could wrap it up into one if you feel ambitious. But what you'll want to do is make a call to native and then get the physical screen size directly in java code. If you do that you'd probably be best off implementing it for iOS as well, although this same problem doesn't exist there (you could even do it directly in flutter with an if/else).
Luckily, someone has done this before so you can use it as an example: https://github.com/magnatronus/flutter-displaymetrics. Assuming that displayMetrics gives you the right size.
Hope that helps and sorry I don't have a simpler answer for you!
Simple question. Does anyone know why Interface Builder doesn't allow for applying custom styles on UI elements? Why is it only possible to do this programmatically?
I can see how this might be difficult for custom UIView subclasses but the default controls definitely only have a tiny subset of the style options available through IB, such as background color or changing font colors. Why is this the case? Is there any way to approach a concept like application themes through IB?
My personal feeling is that Apple does this right. They provide the elements and styles that fit the HIG. If they start adding other elements/styles then where do the start, and where do they draw the line?
Also, it isn't like Apple actively prevents using custom elements/styles, they just don't include it in the tool set.
The last thing we need is a tool set full of bloat.
You'd really have to ask Apple as to the why. I'd guess that it's some combination of promoting consistent use of standard interface elements and limited development resources.
You can, of course, build interfaces using your own custom subclasses of the standard interface elements in IB. It's a little more work, since you have to change the type of each object you add from UIButton to MyGreenButton or whatever, but it's not difficult.
It's also not hard to imagine coming up with a controller-type class that could connect to all your controls and whatnot to customize their appearance in some consistent, theme-like manner. Add an instance of that to each nib, connect all the controls, and let it do it's thing. You wouldn't see the effect until you actually run the app, of course, but it sounds like you're talking about customizing colors and fonts rather than size.
Unfortunately you are at the mercy of the Almighty Apple Deity..... Bow at their feet and give thanks that you have what they give you..... lol...
Seriously tho. Apple puts in what apple wants and you can request additions, but the IB is fairly minimal in the way of features.
I think this may be by design. Somehow an Elegant Simplicity ?
The ability to customize the controls is given to the programmer however I think they want the controls standardized. I just dont know why they didnt give a little more variety in the controls that are available. Like a few more button styles for the ios devices...
If you find out otherwise I would definitely be all ears.
I think that apple should let you to customize more the controls, for games it takes too much time to make the custom control ( you can make it faster in android as you can configure it in xml)
Btw PaintCode is another option to make your own style for components, it will generate the code but its more like interface builder
http://www.paintcodeapp.com/
We are developing a software that will automate many crucial activities in Photoshop.
This application is targeted for newbies.
In this application I want to embed Photoshop's window in my applications window. Currently Photoshop runs separately in its own window.
How can I get it to run in a particular location in given space in my application window?
How about this: find Photoshop's window handle using FindWindow, and after that use SetParent to embed it into your form/panel. You might also need to maximize and remove borders from Photoshop's window, see Windows API for more details on how to do this.
I don't know of any API to let you embed Photoshop into another application, and I don't think that API exists. However, why can't you accomplish what you want using ActionScript or a native plug-in inside Photoshop? This is accomplishing almost the same thing, just from a different direction.
I wonder how difficult it would be to be able to have a custom background or be able to draw on the datamodule canvas somehow so that the relationships of all the datasets can be nicely represented with arrows and stuff. Way back in Delphi 7 or so I seem to remember some sort of datamodule designer which has disappeared (I always found it annoying anyway).
Does anyone know if this is possible through some sort of IDE plugin or something?
TDataModule is a direct descendant of TComponent, and as such, it doens't have a Canvas or any such painting provisioned in it. As is, there is no way to draw or paint on it.
It is conceivable that you could create a descendent that has a TCanvas, but you'd have to really hack into the IDE to get it to be drawn on at design-time. It is an interesting idea, however.
There used to be a "Diagram" tab on the designer for Datamodules. It did have the ability to put notes, boxes with text, and data relations. It was not very understood or used, and the feature was dropped, I guess. (Before my time at CodeGear...)
Or, you may change the datamodule to a form. Leave it visible during development, for testing, documentation and debugging; and turn it it invisible for production. On the form you may put a visio viewer component and some datagrids, accessed thru a tab rack, for quick browsing of the data.
I believe that some way to organize the components in visible groups on
screen could be nice... I have a report DM which have tons of datasets,
dataset providers and Rave DataSources (circa 40 components)....
If I could create some groups to differentiate which is used in
what report.
But this in DM designer itself, not on a separate drawing space...
For accessibility purposes, I need to make the scrollbars for all scrollable controls (lists, list views) wider and the scrollbar arrows bigger.
How to get the scrollbars (handles) from a scrollable control (ex: TListView) ?
How to make the scrollbar and the arrows wider/bigger ?
10x for any hints and code...
Accessibility is something that does not concern a single application, but the whole system. That's why there is no API defined to adjust things like border widths, scrollbar size and similar properties of the native controls only for your program. You can however adjust these settings globally in Windows, either by using the Accessibility Wizard, or by adjusting fonts, colours, border sizes and scrollbar sizes in the Display Properties applet.
For more information you should check out the Microsoft Accessibility page and follow the various links.
Edit: Changing the global settings (as the accepted answer suggests) for the benefit of your own program is rude in the extreme. Please keep in mind that this interferes with all other running programs. It is maybe excusable for a system with a touch screen, where controls need to be large to be usable at all - but on such a system the control sizes would probably already be set correctly.
I'm not sure that you can - You have to change it (and restore back) for whole Windows.
http://www.greatis.com/delphicb/tips/lib/system-captionfont.html
Setting and reading property TNonClientMetrics.iScrollWidth
Edit: I know that this solution is rude, but in common cases is the best that you CAN do. If you have specialized TabletPC application then you usually use only that application at one time, not others. But - almost all Windows applications are not designed to work with so big scroolbars. So when you need to use OS dialogs and other applications then you have to switch it back.
There is no better solution than "while is my touchscreen application running set Window scroolbars big, then return it back". We have exactly this application in real world so I know what I'm talking about.
Of course you can write your own grid control (if you have so much time) or use some thirdparty controls (if you have money and time), but that was not question.