Digital Workshop

Stephen,

I'll have to look at your latest attachment later this week.


I had some ideas. But there's a lot of assumptions I am making too about what's in place (though you've managed to explain quite well over last couple weeks).


I wonder if using Panels is a way to accomplish such "partitioning" for enabling/disabling? More later.

I just sent you an email, as I wanted to include a couple images... and all the details may be a bit much for the forum. Always a chance to 'recap' later here to close the loop.

Morning Lar,

I think you'll need to add yourself to that deep well of Opus knowledge with all these interesting solutions.

Just a smaller pointer to keep things simpler - if working on an actual object passed to a function you can pass the object NOT the name IE:

theRotateFunction(this) rather than the RotateFunction(this.GetName())


It eliminates the need for the eval function which is better suited to executing sequential processing such as a group of objects named V1..V10.

Passing the object allows you to treat the object as an object in your function directly IE:

function theRotateFunction(thingy)
{
thingy.Rotate(45)
}

Mack

Hi Mack and Larry

I've been trying to add a means to delete an incorrect cloned line, yet also disable correct cloned lines so they don't get triggered by other user inputs. So, I've set a disable action (Enable(false) into the line. This works to disable it. However, if I need to enable the cloned line in order to drag/drop it elsewhere or delete it (DestroyClonedObject), I can't seem to name it properly to get these actions working. Using "this" doesn't seem to work.

I've attached an .imp and would appreciate any help in getting it to work. (I also need to solve the error messages generated when a user fails to get mouse positions before cloning the line.)

Kind Regards,

Mack, thanks for setting me straight on that (this?).
I have some problem understanding when Opus script takes something as an object and when as a value. Now I can look for it and push a little more, knowing what's supposed to work.


Stephen, rather than disable/enable... would it make sense to include a large empty 'overlay frame' (stop mo.clicks passing thru) and then manage runtime layers. Put the Clone to be edited at +2, and the Overlay set at +1 (either initially then Show/Hide as needed, or Layer( +/-...) for edit mode).

How about a Page Var 'ready' w/ default 'false'. When User DOES click the two objects, set 'ready' to 'true'. Then use that as a condition to allow clone the line.

Hi Larry

I've tried the layer idea, and given the complexity and number of objects that are dragged and dropped into the frame/canvas, it didn't work well.

The current example in the .imp would work OK if only the enable action would work. It appears that once the line clone is disabled, it can't be re-enabled or destroyed, or I'm not using the correct name for the object, because it is a "child" clone of the parent object, and I'm not sure how to script the naming and calling of these.

Any help would be appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Has anyone got a working solution with one frame and multi colored lines?

I have this working with four different colors using four different frames and hard coding colors for each frame.

Ideally I want the user to be able to select any color and draw the lines in different color on a single frame. Currently once the line color is changed all previous lines drawn in the frame change to that color.


Thanks.

I have this working now with 5 frames and a color for each, works fine. I'm not sure if it's possible to have multicolor with one frame.

Works good enough for the moment.

Just been looking through this.. see that live draw seems possible.. but can this be with a freehand line? Or is this only straight lines like in the example ?

Hi Craig,

If you are referring to the new features highlights in version 6, under sample publications>drawing tools, the second from left drawing selection (symbolized by the attached jpeg's image) draws freehand in run time. Is this what you are asking about?

HTH

Kind Regards,

i Saw the drawing tool for freehand when building something but I want to make a graffiti paint appliction that lets the user draw on screen - choose colours , change brush size, save image, clear screen, erase the lines possibly different brush types.

I've seen it done in flash - but wondered if opus could do it?

in the trial of 6 that I have - there's no sample publication called drawing tools?!

Hi Craig,

I had been very interested in achieving a similar result for one of my Opus apps. The v6 drawing tool is a great addition but for my app, I would need to give the user additional functionality: to be able to save every line drawn, erase these, change them, etc. Way beyond what I could figure out.

Like you, I came across AS that can allow drawing. I also came across a JS version, but I found no way to get these very complex scripts into Opus.

At one point I even thought of using a modified autocad executable with command lines which could be called in Opus. Problem here is that it would need to be commercially redistributable, and redistributable autocad apps are expensive and have many more drawing features than needed.

One hope is that Opus 7 will add some new features to the drawing tools, supporting the additional features that you mention. Wish list.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

Kind Regards,

From a little searching, it seems that applications developers will have (do have) some updated drawing and graphics widgets to work with. But that also means implementing new feature sets would be a challenge... because the OS is a moving target, and also if developers take on the new toolkits they close the door on legacy systems not too far back in history (i.e. XP).

from: http://blogs.technet.com/thomasolsen/ar ... d-api.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd756683(VS.85).aspx

I realize the above does not speak directly to getting basic drawing on screen at runtime for Pub users, but I thought it might shed some relevant light.

Is this a toolkit or embeddable utility?
http://www.sharewareconnection.com/thbimage.htm "no runtime fees".


And
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/ne ... &sloc=&p=1
Cairo (http://www.cairographics.org/) is a (crossplatform) C-library
for Vector-Drawing (working mainly with Double-Coords). It
supports different render-targets (in cairo-terms these are called
"surfaces") with antialiased rendering-algorithms, alpha-channel-
support, etc...


Interestingly... this last write-up is by Olaf Schmidt.
Does anyone else recognize that name?
Okay, here's a hint. About a year and a half ago, Olaf contributed a fully working 'wrapper' for using an SQLite database with Opus. [and he solved this in the course of ~two weeks, never having worked with Opus app prior!] Thank you Olaf. The significance of this is we have the ability to embed and ship an SQL database with our Opus Pubs --- and there is absolutely no need for ODBC or other client configuration set-ups. Removed the risk of failing to connect. Just run the Pub and access the database.
(fyiw, I am stuck in that project --- due to its scope and complexity, not due to any technical obstacle).

Is there a pure scripting version of the drawing method in Opus v7?

Also is there a way of stopping the tool slowing down. If you draw extensively with the freehand tool in the publication after a while it slows down and the lines get jagged.

This doesn't seem dependent on the system spec either, even high spec systems run into the issue.

Pure Scripting?

Opus 6 / 7 both use scripting for drawing - I don't recall there being any drawing actions....

As for slowing down, you're overloading the frame. Just use a new one.

Mack