Claudio,
I shrunk the height, just to make the text look centered. I was just playing
with the code, and I don't know where I will end up. The clCharcoal is a
custom color that I defined in one of my units. I just cut and pasted the
code without removing the custom stuff, sorry. As far as what XP looks like,
I have never used it.

When you read the Cooper philosophy, it makes you think a little. It
reinforces something that I have realized for years. That is, most software
is written by programmers that can't think at the rudimentary level of most
users. Thus, most apps are very difficult and unintuitive to use. For
example, IBO's LookupDialog is an extremely powerful control, but 9 of 10
untrained users(non programmers) would not have a clue how to use it. The
subject of transactions, and posting, and all that technical stuff is
completely foreign to most users. As programmers we need to reduce it to the
most fundamental level, (i.e. an OK button).

Paul


""Claudio Valderrama C."" <cvalde@...> wrote in message
news:a9d527$f3i$1@......

> ""Paul Gallagher"" <paul@...> wrote in message
> news:a9clek$9mn$1@......
> > Jason,
> > Have you given any thought to making IBO edit controls "framed", similar
> to
> > the Infopower controls? Has anyone else done this? If the IBO controls

are

> > descended from the standard VCL controls, I wonder if it is even

possible.

>
> I'm not sure why you say this. Isn't that standard controls take the style
> of the operating system where the program runs? You have to do nothing for
> your forms to look like XP windows is you run your program in XP, AFAIK.
>
>
> > With the new MS .NET stuff, and with the new look of WinXP, it seems

that

> a
> > lot more applications are coming out with the more colorful and new

style

> > controls. The standard button gray and borders just isn't "cool" enough
> > anymore.
>
> That's the part I don't understand and it isn't about you, sino MS.
> When Windows v1 and v2 were done, the looked like a parody of Apple's GUI.
> They were B/W and totally flat, with tick borders around controls to
> distinguish them. Most windows and dialogs used white background.
> Then the Excel team created ctl3d.dll to give the impression that the

cells

> are illuminated by a lamp in the top left corner of the screen. The king

of

> mammon saw it was good and integrated it into Win3.1. The buttons in

Win31.

> may look like cartoons now (or children's drawing), but they left no doubt
> what they were. Also, a gray background was adopted as the de facto color.
>
> When D1 was shipped, Borland knew the upcoming ideas, so TBitBtn had Style
> (now it doesn't have any effect) and TSpeedButton had Flat property. Then
> W95 softened the controls and we got toolbars. With MSIE 3 or 4 we got
> coolbars in all their glory, with arbitrary background taken from a

bitmap.

> Suddently, my SW world became flat, but still acceptable. However, MSIE 4
> explored the idea "hover around me with the mouse and if I blink, I'm a
> button". W98 and W2k abuse that idea of things that only come to life when
> you point at them with the mouse.
>
> Your toolbars don't work properly on W95 if you don't install MSIE4 or run
> comupd40 directly on the system. Your coolbars don't work in NT4 if you
> don't run comupd50 on it. However, there's no much indication about it at

MS

> and I was asking Borland for months why tool-buttons didn't work in NT4
> (including the ones in the isql window of IBConsole) and they were

clueless.

> Hence I decided to look for a new commctl package and found comupd50. It's
> incredible that Borland continued shipping comupd40 for 2 years at least

in

> Delphi/BCB after the MS update was released. This is the mess MS has

created

> with its chaotic innovations.
>
> Now, buttons in the toolbar don't have delimiters. They are simple images
> that you should assume are clickable. Has the GUI improved? The only
> vertical bars are to separate group of controls. Buttons still jump to the
> front when signaled by the mouse and get color.
>
> For what I read, it seems that MS considered that 3d look is out of

fashion

> for XP. Well, this is a good reminder that fashion is irrelevant. All

things

> seem to be flat. Instead of a shading, controls get a full flat colorful
> border, like when someone punches you in an eye. I hope buttons still

raise

> when activated. Being color impaired, I'm not happy at all with a
> Christmas-tree-like window and controls that only change from gray to teal
> when needed.
>
> What will be next, I mean in the next MS operating system? Borderless
> windows? The button in the system box (left upper corner of a window) died
> with Win3.1, now there's only a bitmap you should guess you can click to

get

> a menu. Maybe MS will hide the minimize, restore and maximize buttons so
> that you should point your mouse at the right upper edge and wait two
> seconds, then an animation will play a sliding panel that shows the three
> buttons for 5 seconds and if you don't click them, they will disappear
> again, sliding to the right edge. Hope nobody at MS is reading this or

they

> are going to implement the behavior. I have enough with MS-Office
> "intelligent menu items" that hide from you if not used for a while.
> Fortunately, this feature is easily disabled altogether. I assume the new
> hype will be edit boxes and list boxes whose background is taken from an
> arbitrary bitmap, provided that you provide one bitmap for the normal

state,

> another for R/O and another for the disabled state, so nobody will be able
> to tell what's the standard style for a disabled edit and reading the
> contents will be almost impossible if the programmer chose maroon text

over

> a background of Mickey Mouse.
>
> For one side, MS likes animations even for buttons and menus. I assume

combo

> boxes are subject to the same trick. A dancing dropdown with purple

borders

> should be too cool in an IBO application when you are trying to read the
> list of items and click one of them. For another side, they regret all the
> 3d effects and make everything flat and worse, tinier in XP. All users

will

> need glasses. In 5 years more, they will return to the old standards, but
> transmogrified: ctl3dcolorfulanimated.dll and all applications will have

to

> be revised.
>
> Regarding your example code, Paul, I've tried it against simple TEdit
> controls. You have shrunken the height from a default of 21 in Delphi to

14.

> Are XP controls smaller in height, too? Also, where did you get clCharcoal
> from?
>
> C.
> --
> Claudio Valderrama C. - http://www.cvalde.com - http://www.firebirdSql.org
> Independent developer
> Owner of the Interbase. WebRing
>
>
>
>

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