AROS Window Themes

[AMIGASYSTEM]

I like it, the white sliders are very nice, I will probably borrow them to improve the look of some of my themes 

[miker1264]

I like it, the white sliders are very nice, I will probably borrow them to improve the look of some of my themes 

No problem. I hope that my themes are useful. And I hope that they inspire others to make new window themes. 

[miker1264]

As far as AROS window themes I intend to made some additions to intuition window decoration class while at the same time maintaining compatibility with existing themes. As with anything these changes may take some time. 

At first I will verify the latest code from ABIv1 to make sure the changes haven't been made yet so as to not duplicate it.

The main change will be the addition of code to draw three new image objects - Border Right, BorderBottom & Border Left. The workflow will be "if these images exist then draw them before drawing the window gadgets. Otherwise just draw a default flat window frame to maintain compatibility."

Also, if not already present I'd like to add TitleVOffset. We already have TitleOffset which is the Left Offset of the TitleText from the Left Edge of the TitleBar Image in pixels. The TitleVOffset if present would be the Top Offset of the TitleText from the Top Edge of the TitleBar also in pixels.

Otherwise, if not present, the TitleText will be centered. The only constraint for TitleVOffset is that the lower edge of the TitleText based on font size should not extend beyond the very bottom edge of the TitleBar itself to avoid clipping. So the possible values of TitleVOffset range from 0 to some magic number that is the greatest vertical offset that does not cause clipping of the text. If TitleVOffset isn't present any existing themes will still work as they did previously.

The advantage to using TitleOffset with TitleVOffset is that it allows for more elaborate themes such as Tiffany where the TitleText may need to be adjusted so that it is not exactly centered in the TitleBar but rather centered in the desired area such as a colored area instead of the decorated area. If there is a band of colors at top or bottom that act as decoration the text would be too close to the top or bottom of the colored area without using TitleVOffset. Instead the user can choose to center text in a colored area.

That's the long version and hopefully very informative explanation. 

[miker1264]

So my intent with above mentioned proposed additions to window decoration class is to allow for more elaborate themes and to be more fully compatible with Amiga skins.

This would allow to draw the 3d rounded mitered corners for the bottom right corner of the window frame where the arrow gadgets & size gadget are located. Many themes including Tiffany, Tree Hugger & AfA OS FourOne to mention a few, actually use this type of 3d imagery for the corners.

In the Tree Hugger concept that I posted earlier you can see in the bottom right the 3d rounded & mitered corner that I hand painted. At the moment AROS can't display these frames.

So in order to test these new image objects I will plan to make three different themes. The first is a modified (squared) Tiffany. The next will be a Reverse Tiffany & the last will be a Full Tiffany theme with 3d mitered corners.

Although the equivalent or similar versions of Tiffany & Tree Hugger & FourOne themes already exist for os3.9 or os4 the AROS versions of these themes are completely re-done. All the artwork is re-painted by me in a similar style to resemble the originals but they are not simple "translations" of those original themes. Mostly because Amiga OS 3.5/3.9 & AfA skins aka themes are completely different so they can't be used.

These Amiga  skins are arranged in folders with numbers that represent the max height for the images in each folder such as '28' which contains sub-folders Titlebar & STitlebar. Inside each subfolder such as Titlebar are separate small 24bit PNG images such as LeftSide.info & MidSection.info & RightSide.info that would need to be re-assembled since AROS uses a single Titlebar image that is named "default". So all the artwork for these new AROS themes are redone. This still involves two hours or more of work per new theme.

[miker1264]

Upon investigation some things are obvious.

First is that Intuition in ROM is huge! It's beyond my ability to add three new image objects related to drawing borders.

The best I can hope for is to increase the max width, max height in window decorator class. That would provide the appropriate overlap between arrow gadgets & size gadget.

With those gadget image overlaps the 3d imagery for the bottom right corner can be drawn directly in these gadgets.

If you look at the bottom right corner in the screenshot the black rectangles are the current gadget limits. Max width is set at 18 pixels. That leaves large gaps. The red rectangles represent the gadget limits if max width & max height are set to 24x24 pixels. That provides adequate image coverage. This is all in window decoration class. That's do-able. 

[AMIGASYSTEM]

In the new InstallerAROS present in the last Build of "ABIv1", the buttons "Back", "Proceed" "Cancel" and "Help" (I just improved her colors), now have a Gadget, guess where it looks for these Gadgets ?

I'm trying to find out from where it gets the icon placed in the "ata.device" Tab (I would like to improve it), that icon in the system doesn't exist, other thing I need to find out is why the "NoDOS" Disk is recognized (use my Def_Icons)

[miker1264]

There is a "mysterious" location where AROS stores it's images. It's a directory called "Images". That may be where you find the elusive grey hard disk icon. I believe it's somewhere in Prefs/Presets/Images or maybe Prefs/Presets/Patterns/Images. You have to search.

As for the small buttons I would also look in the current theme for "Images" as well.

[miker1264]

I have an idea...

To speed up theme production some automation would be helpful. What about a theme parser/builder to make themes? So how would it work?

We setup a small text file obviously called "settings.txt". In it we include the width & height of the TitleBar gadgets as they may vary. That also goes for the close gadget. We can include as much information as possible that goes in config. We also include the width & height of the arrow gadgets and the size gadget as well as the  BorderGadget values for right side & bottom. Then what?

We paint a full concept mockup of our window theme design. Many graphics artists are good at painting but processing the images for gadgets, Titlebars, sliders, containers then renaming them all is very tedious. As long as the theme mockup is of the proper dimensions & in the correct format the Theme Builder will slice the mockup image into all the correct images, rename them & copy them to the subfolders where the settings.txt file is found. I believe the process is called Bit Blit to PNG image. Actually, it may be as easy as ReadPixelArray from the RasterPort using rectangular coordinates then save the pixel data using PNG datatype to the correct file & location (folder).

The programming for such a theme parser/builder is also tedious work but once it works correctly then it makes it so much easier to build new window themes. Just paint it. 

[AMIGASYSTEM]

There is a "mysterious" location where AROS stores it's images. It's a directory called "Images". That may be where you find the elusive grey hard disk icon. I believe it's somewhere in Prefs/Presets/Images or maybe Prefs/Presets/Patterns/Images. You have to search.

As for the small buttons I would also look in the current theme for "Images" as well.

About the images, that ata.device icon doesn't exist, consider on AROS One there is no default icon (first operation I usually do on builds is to delete all icons "for targeted search")  that icon I think is embedded in some file, usually that icon AROS uses it when the icon doesn't exist, to replace it I should find out AROS where it looks for that icon and its name, Sashimi didn't help me, I will try to examine the InstallAROS executable.

No mystery, for System Images, AROS does use the System/Images path, the images go unnoticed because they have no extension, on AROS One I replaced all of them.

In System/Images, there you find BoingIconBar backgrounds, some small Gadgets, AROS Logo (Install, login, Floppy, AROS logo), Pointer, Network Prefs images: wireless, interface and host.

About the buttons "Back", "Proceed" "Cancel" and "Help, yes they are new buttons found in the current Thema, folder "Images/Gadgets", so you have to copy them on all themes.


For THEMES editing, you could take a cue from the "ThemePrefs" since it is a LUA script, maybe enable the "Use" Button as well, in addition to a hot restart like on AfA OS.

[Amiwell]

Here is AROS Modern Blue theme if you'd like to try it.

the length of the STitlebar is not exact for resolutions more| high on the subject os4_green is exact

[miker1264]

Here is AROS Modern Blue theme if you'd like to try it.

the length of the STitlebar is not exact for resolutions more| high on the subject os4_green is exact

You can customize the Screen Titlebar & Logo how you like to fit your needs. The one included in the themes are a sample.

[Amiwell]

ok many thanks

[AMIGASYSTEM]

You can customize the Screen Titlebar & Logo how you like to fit your needs. The one included in the themes are a sample.

The Titlebar stretches and shortens according to the size of the screen, this also involves moving a logo if it is present on the right-hand side, which is why I have placed Digiclock before the "AROS One" text logo

[miker1264]

This is the status of my Modified Tiffany (Geometric) theme.

The two-color Titlebar with decorative band on top wasn't easy. I spent a few hours designing the Titlebar graphics. Then I spent a few more hours researching & adjusting the config values. If you have good eyes you can see in the screenshot that it keeps drawing an extra column of pixels at the very right edge of the TitleBar. I'm not sure about it. The arrow gadgets & size gadget will use a black outline.

At some point I hope to assemble a comprehensive PDF that will act as an instructional guide about making AROS window themes. It's not as easy as drawing graphics. As others can agree who have made themes it is a science. It requires precision at the pixel level & in depth knowledge of the structure & functions of the values in the config file.

I'm still working on this Geometric Blue theme. I've started the TitleBar graphics for Geometric red (it looks great). 

[Amiwell]

very good Miker