EEGUI Updated

[EagleEye]

I have updated EEGUI and put up a new complete demo package (including the EEGUI DLLs), as well as the stand-alone DLLs RAR.  This update is just to get current with the newest TV3D65.DLL requirements for licensing, etc...

Note: You will need to provide your own developer license and reference its path in the demo.  Read the README.TXT file in the package for details.

http://www.eeisi.com/tvprojects/index.php/Main_Page

[EagleEye]

The update I posted about above had a problem with the protected DLL.  I had to update .NET Reactor to the latest version to fix the problem.

If you already have the demo, please re-download the DLLs using the DLLs only download.

[nateslunaXX]

how will this work in VB6?

[aspurgeon]

I'm no VB expert (hooray C#), but since it's a .NET library, I don't believe it will work in VB6, only in VB.NET... 

[nateslunaXX]

awww....

[aspurgeon]

Hey Eagle Eye,

I sent you a PM with a couple questions/issues.  Let me know if you need any more info.

-Andy

[KamiGazz]

Hi everyone...

I'm just just an average progrtammer and I don't really know anything about the difference between c++ or c++ .net.

Is there any way to use EEGUI with Visual Studio C++ express 2005?

Thx

[EagleEye]

I'm really not sure!  I'm guessing you can, but I'm not aware of the particular details.

[darqSHADOW]

No, VC++ used in Managed C++ is possible, but not the other way around.

John

[Rynus_Rein]

I'm no VB expert (hooray C#), but since it's a .NET library, I don't believe it will work in VB6, only in VB.NET... 

There is a way to use .NET assemblies in VB6. I'm sure Google has some answers...

[EagleEye]

Updated again to match the latest DLL...

The only thing that's been updated is the DLL-Only download...

[EagleEye]

Another EEGUI update...

Evidently, C# users were having trouble passing in derived classes in to the base class functions because the base class functions were taking those objects "ByRef" instead of "ByVal"... the use of ByRef was unnecessary because all custom classes are passed as a pointer rather than a copy of the object anyway, so changes made to the passed-in class are reflected back to the original object either way...

So... there is a new DLL-only package up at the website shown in my sig.  The main package isn't updated YET... so make sure you get the updated DLL pack.

[racingspider]

What's the status on this GUI? Your site seems to no longer be around.

[EagleEye]

What's the status on this GUI? Your site seems to no longer be around.

Uh, no... the site is still there.  I just checked it.

Maybe the web server was down temporarily?

[racingspider]

Must have been, cuz now its working. Go figure. Comes back just in time to make a liar of me. lol
Thanks for all your work on GUI stuff. I'm off to download it before I can't for some magical reason. hahah.
 

[EagleEye]

Hehe, no problem.

And remember... I'm here for you if you have any questions.

[EagleEye]

New DLL on the EEGUI google group...

1/28/08
:- guiComboBox bug fixed - The checkbox overlay should display properly now.  (It was using the 0 to 1 alpha instead of the 0 to 255 alpha value)
:- GUITexture now has a GUIColor object in it, defaulting to RGBA 1,1,1,1 - When the control alpha changes, the color's alpha is changed.  This means you can now specify an RGB value to the texture for color blending in to your texture.  (Thanks to Andy for this suggestion).

1/2/8
:- Added functionality to guiTextBox to raise event "TextAccepted" when TabPressed event is raised.

12/30/07
:- Added cursor blinking capability to guiTextBox.  CursorBlinkRate is an integer that specifies the half-cycle rate (the amount of time the cursor is visible, and the amount of time it's invisible).

12/28/07
:- Fixed the focus handler in guiControlBase to work properly.
:- The above was necessary to build in a long-awaited feature: proper tab ordering!  Tab orders and tab stops are now fully supported.
:- -- Tab now moves focus to the next tab stop, shift-tab moves backwards.
:- Moved escape key handling to control base.  Was in the textbox control.  This shouldn't effect any existing code.
:- Removed the "CloseWindow" option from EscapeActions enum.  Generally it's best to simply handle the EscapePressed Event to do what you need to do.

[EagleEye]

Minor bug fixes in this update.

FYI, the DLLs are now stored exclusively in the google group files section, rather than my web host... just to avoid confusion.

And the Demo is not available at the moment, because it needs to be repackaged.

3/20/08
:- Changed default behavior of guiTextBox and guiButton to automatically have AllowFocus = True, and isTabStop = True.

3/19/08
:- Fixed bug in guiTextBox.  Was causing overflow error when enter was pressed and no controls were set up as tabstops.

2/26/08
:- Modified guiControlBase.RemoveAllChildren to be more efficient, and maybe not crash things?  *cringe*

[EagleEye]

You would not believe how difficult it has been for me to get back "in the groove" here.  The last few months have been HELL for me... I got my first teaching job then lost it... going through a Chapter 7 bankruptcy... family events, holidays, birthdays, 3rd child born, etc, etc, etc...

So anyway, the last week or so, I finally got the motivation to get back in to EEGUI and make it even more solid than it is.  There have been, it seems, quite a few bugs with it that have cropped up in the past 6 months... all of which I had not had the motivation to figure out and fix... or if I had the motivation, I didn't have the right "coding mindset" to really tackle the problem, what with all the distractions and such...

SO yeah, I had a problem with focus that I thought I'd share.  It really turns out to be a case of "Using a sledgehammer to drive a nail".

It all started with a ZOrder number on all controls.  I allowed the user to set that so they could specify the rendering order of children on the same parent.

Then came all of the complicated handling of zorder numbers.  No two children were allowed to have the same zorder number, so there were all sorts of complicated loops through all the children to increment all of the zorder values when something was added, etc...

Then there was the FocusSorter class, which implemented IComparable... it compared Control1.ZOrder to Control2.ZOrder, and returned appropriate values to sort the list of controls.

Then I had a "BringToFront" method, that did really complicated looping and keeping track of the highest ZOrder value, and making the control that was to be on top that highest ZOrder + 1, etc... the reverse for "SendToBack".

It was a pretty big mess and hard to figure out.

It was last week when I realized... I'm rendering children by looping through the children list... which is built by adding children to it... adding them to the END of the list.  The first object in the list is rendered first... the last object is rendered last...

Code:

    Private Sub BringChildToFront(ByVal Which As guiControlBase)
      Children.Remove(Which)
      Children.Add(Which)
    End Sub

Duh... REMOVE the child from the list and immediately just ADD IT to the end of the list!

BOOM, it's on top!

Similarly:

Code:

    Private Sub SendChildToBack(ByVal which As guiControlBase)
        Children.Remove(which)
        Children.Insert(0, which)
    End Sub

*sigh*...

No more ZOrder...

That left me with another small issue, though... what about "AlwaysOnTop" controls?

Basically, I had all sorts of ways to keep the "AlwaysOnTop" controls at the end of the zorder list... but I realized last night, I could just render all children in two passes, filtering for alwaysontop = false on the first pass, and alwaysontop = true on the second pass...

Code:

    Public Sub RenderChildren()
        For Each Child As guiControlBase In Children
            Child.RenderArea = RenderArea
            Child.SetRenderArea()
            If Not Child.AlwaysOnTop Then Child.Render()
        Next
        For Each child As guiControlBase In Children
            If child.AlwaysOnTop Then child.Render()
        Next
    End Sub

Soooo yeah....

New update coming very soon.. maybe even today...

[EagleEye]

New DLLs are posted to the EEGUI google group.

7/12/08
:- BUG FIX: guiComboBox caused exception when first clicking the drop-down button.  This was caused by an attempt to access the "selected item" object while it was still "nothing".
:- BUG: "Unclick" a button
:- - Unable to verify.  May have been fixed by fixing the focus handling.
:- BUG: Mouse-over events triggering for controls under the active control.
:- - Not really a bug... behavior is as intended.
:- BUG: Tooltip object unable to be changed?
:- - Unable to verify.  Was able to change background color, foreground color, etc, just like a normal guiTextBox.
:- BUG: Textboxes not getting focus, or at least, not raising an event when they do?
:- - Unable to verify.  Works now at least (could have been fixed with focus revamp)
:- BUG: SetTextPadding in guiMultiLineLabel causing white area around text.
:- - Unable to verify.  Background behind the text area is probably not being enabled or set.
:- BUG: TextPadding on guiMultiLineLabel cutting off text on right.
:- - Fixed
:- BUG: guiComboBox exception
:- - Fixed
:- BUG: guiListBox.SelectedItemChanged event not firing
:- - Fixed
:- BUG: guiImage, when not visible, still rendering the layers.
:- - Fixed

7/11/08
:- Version 1.4
:- Re-Added RedrawThrottle flag to GUICore object, to prevent bog-down performance caused by too many "Redraw = True" calls.  This is to prevent the GUI from redrawing unnecessarily each frame.
:- Added Modal functionality to EEGUI!
:-- Setting a control to "isModal = true" will cause it to be rendered last, over the top of everything (except the tooltip object).  It is basically the "ultimate Always-on-top control".
:-- Added "SuppressInputWhileModal" flag (default false) to guiControlBase, which will suppress input to all other controls while the modal control is visible.
:-- Internally added "HasModalParent" flag to controls, for the purpose of filtering input.  Controls on a modal object will have this set so if the modal object is not nothing, and this flag is set, input will still be processed.

7/10/08
:- Removed ZOrder property.  All ordering is handled internally based on the order the controls are added to their parent.  Alternately, you can do "BringToFront" on the children, in the proper order, to re-arrange the controls the right way.
:- Added "BringToFrontOnFocus" property, defaulted to true.  If you want a control to NOT be brought to the top when it gets focus, set this property to false.

7/9/08
:- Released beta version of changes below.

7/5/08
:- Version 1.3
:- Changed min/max height/width so if you attempt to set them < 1 they will be set to 1.  Also changed the resize functions to not allow widths/heights < 1.
:- There was a problem with horizontal and vertical scrollbars where a stack overflow would happen if you attempted to make them smaller than the combined height or width of the buttons on each end.  Fixed it so they can't be resized smaller than the button size * 3.  The buttons used to auto-resize down to accomodate smaller windows, but no longer do so.  Such functionality can be handled by developers by handling the resize event of the scrollbar, and by adjusting the height of a horizontal, or width of a vertical, scrollbar.
:- Made it so the minimum size of horizontal and vertical scrollbars determines the minimum size of the control they're attached to.  Controls will no longer be allowed to be resized below the scrollbar minimum size.
:- Made it so if a dragging object is "stuck" in place due to sizing or positioning restrictions (like "ConstrainWithinParent", or for a resizer object, or a scroll bar), the object will wait to move the other direction until the mouse is back over the object.