I almost finished the Library. I will call it "toolbar.library", unless Mason likes it and allows it to call aiss.library.

As a side effect, it can not only load AISS images, also any kind of images (like JPEG, PNG, GIF, IFF, BMP etc.) and Icons, scale them and display them or provide access to the ARGB Bitmap.
It can also do some postprocessing, like adding a shadow or Glow-Effect (in any color).

The interface works like this:



You can query information or apply effects with



wheras

taglist[].ti_Tag can be...

e.g.


would fade the ghosted image 50% grey.


would resize the image to 32/32 and add a yellowish glow effect to the selected image.

Does that sound cool or do you have any suggestions/wishes?

@Mason

I can easily do an aiss.library, that loads, caches, resizes and adds glow-effect (or alternative, configurable effects) on-the-fly. The ghosted effect could be added on-the-fly as well. Might be even faster than loading the 2 additional images.
There are plenty of functions for this in AmiBlitz3.
It will also fix the problem of loading ARGB images on OS3.x, since there the datatype doesn't support this.

The shadow is a problem for Glow Effect indeed, unless I make pure Black "non-glowing". It would be better to have no shadow though, and calculate the shadow on-the-fly as well. (strength and distance could be configurable as well).

Plus, the whole stuff can get "stamped" into different Button-Sytles, like Aqua Bubble etc.

I dont know if such a library is in the interesst of Mason, I dont want to hijack the name "aiss.library". So what do you think about that? Your images would serve then as "raw-material" that gets finalized on demand.

@centaurz

> using ReAction's bitmap.image, for example.

A bitmap or an image?
There are two structures in AmigaOS, or is it something different?

Is it ok to deliver three ARGB AmigaOS "BitMap"s for the three States (normal, selected, ghosted)?
Or would be an ARGB PixelArray or an "screen friendly" bitmap and an alpha pixelarray better?

In my Toolkit (tui.include) I will probably just add an "AISS -Button" that handles all the stuff.

@Mason

Quote:
I know. But you did something that the same assign can access two different directories. OR what is the AISS program doing in the WBStartup?
I thought you added some kind of handler, who transparently selects the correct image. That handler could also create the images in the correct size on demand, just like opening a font.
But I think it is just a double assign...

Quote:
I know, it is hard for the artist to watch the painted details getting trashed. But from the user/app-developer point of view this is really handy. E.g. if you have a listview, the size of the images should depend on the size of the font. If the fontsize doesnt match the size of the icons, it looks very ugly or is wasting space.

Maybe I should write an aiss.library.
Doing something this:

AISS *img = aiss_Open("save",16,16);
BitMap *bmap = aiss_GetBitMap(img,state);
aiss_Blit(img,x,y,state);

I could do that quite fast. (68K)
If people are interessted, they can port it to C.
If I have time, I could port it to C as well, but I have all the code in AB3 and time is so precious...

P.S.: how do other developers need access to the image?
Is an ARGB bitmap ok?

Quote:
Yes and no. They have to hard border, which is ok for me, but some look a little bit over-anti-aliased.

I also agree that it is hard to reflect a selected state in the image, other than changing the color.
Therfore, the idea with the background would be really good. You can also offer different styles, Aqua-round, rectangle, simple etc.
The composing process could also be integrated in the aiss.library.

Quote:
Yes, but you need them if X/Y can be zoomed individually, plus "fitting" button.

I like the idea with the bubble image too, especially because they can make the buttons "physically" bigger.

As stated above, the bubble should clearly indicate the state, e.g. by changing the whole color from neutral to red, blue or something.
Different styles would be cool.

@Mason

Here is an example of the scaling alogrithm.
I used it on various Icons. They are not really painted scaling friendly, too much 1-Pixel Details, but it makes clear what the algorithm can do.



If you take a look:

a) no interpolation keeps the colors correct (black text stays black) and doesn't blur. But it looses Details (see the "T" in the "Text") and causes ugly aliasing (see the round explorer logo get scrambled).

c) this is what ArtEffect4 would do.
There is no aliasing, and round things stay round. But it doesnt keep the colors right (black Text gets grey) and get sometimes very blurred, e.g. the "Trashcan".

b) Well, that's my algorithm. Doesn't blur, and doesnt loose details. It is based on window interpolation, but doesnt mix all pixels in the window equally. Pixels that will give a higher contrast compared to the neighbour pixels are weighter higher.

Let me join the Wunschkonzert.

I just made HD-Rec capable of using AISS images.

The result is a bit dissapointing.

Fullscreen: http://hd-rec.de/pics/HD-Rec_AISS1_ex.jpg

I have a couple of suggestions for AISS:
1. The images are rather small.
A scaling solution would be really handy, would also make listview-images obsolete, since you could use any image in small size
I can offer an algorithm to scale GUI-Image-friendly and prepare an example preview if you are interested.

2. For being painted 1:1, they seem to be a bit blurry to me, see the comparism on the image above with the original HD-Rec images.

3. They are also quite pale for my taste, they could need a bit more contrast.

4. The selected state is almost no difference in many of the images, at least the ones I tried. E.g. see the tool bar in the notator window, it is impossible to see which tool is activated.

5. Missing images
For HD-Rec, I would need a couple of images more.
Best is if you would install it and check.
Most missing is something for the waveeditor, the notes, solo/mute buttons for the mixer.

6. The tape-play images are not clear enough for my tast. Compare them with HD-Rec tape-play images.

7. If you have buttons which are very likely to be placed together, like zoom in, zoom out and zoom fit, it is too much to have multiple magnifiers glasses. Looks kind of strings, see the right/bottom edges of HD-Recs windows.

In HD-Rec, I will also add the functionality to "stamp" the images onto a blank button, like Aqua oder simple rectangle. Maybe this could also be an idea for AISS.