How to specify approximate margins in Galen Framework? - layout

I am using galen framework in a responsive designed website. And I need to check the elements by not giving fixed pixel amounts but percentages. For example I have to check one element to be on the left by approximately 10%. How can I say it in galen? I know how to say "approximately 10% width", but I have nothing to do woth the width and height here.
I need to say approximately %10 left of screen.
Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!

you could use ranges for that, see here:
width 10 % of screen/width
or
inside screen ~10 % left

Related

What dimensional units are used in PyQt4?

When using "setMinimumHeight(...)/setMinimumWidth(...)" what units are the arguments in? I'm not turning up anything online, the book I bought doesn't address it and based on my experiments the units certainly aren't pixels. Thanks in advance.
Those parameters are measured in pixels, but there are other things at play here as well that unfortunately are harder to deal with and may be complicating your measurments.
Take a look at the following two images. The resolution of my screen remains at 3840x2160 but the "Scale Factor" that Windows suggests varies between 100% and 250%.
Scale Factor = 100%
Scale Factor = 250%
The ruler has actually changed size which could give you the impression that the size policy of these isn't equivalent to the pixel size. Note the size of each of these widgets starts at the grey, not at the blue. Additionally, even though Qt maintains the size of the widget in pixels independently from Windows' "Scale Factor", the same can't be said for the label in the center which does change in size depending on the scaling.
I don't know exactly how you are taking your measurements, what the GUI is, or what your display setting is, but those all can contribute to the confusion around sizing in Qt.

How to make a custom textiled background

<------This is an image I made in Photoshop...
It's basically a 160 x 160 box of white with a texture applied.
Below is what it looks like with "background-repeat" in the CSS. I was hoping it'd balance out. Is there a certain percentage the textile has to be at, or size of the original box? For it to be a perfect repeatable texture?
Im trying to do this myself, since I cant find grid patterns that fit the style.
Question: Whats the trick on making textures in Photoshop, that appear as balanced whole backgrounds when repeated?
If you look at the below image where it's in effect, on the very basic start of what Im working on, you can notice it doesnt quite fit together.
Any and all help greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
If you want that background for a webpage is better the use of repeating-linear-gradient. It is very easy of implement, less assets to download and it is supported by major browsers.
Look in the top left corner of your image. You'll note that the dark line starts at roughly 4-5 pixels from the top. Then look at the top right corner, and you'll note that the top line starts at just perhaps 2px from the top.
When this image is repeated twice side by side, there will be a disconnect. Just crop the image and shave off the two or three pixels until your lines connect. Repeat by cropping the bottom of the image for vertical alignment.
If you want to do this experimentally, increase the size of your canvas, and copy the pattern into a new 160x160 layer. Place them side by side, and then move the layers one pixel at a time so that they overlap. Where the overlap aligns is where you should crop the image.

Contact area size in MultitouchSupport private framework

I've been playing around with the carbon multitouch support private framework and I've been able to retrieve various type of data.
Among these, each contact seems to have a size and is as well described by an ellipsoid (angle, minor axis, major axis). However, I haven't been able to identify the frame of reference used for the size and the minor and major axis.
If anybody has been able to find it out, I'm interested in your information.
Thanks in advance
I've been using the framework for two years now and I've found that the ellipse is not in standard units (e.g. inches, milimeters). You could approximate millimeters by doubling the values you get for the ellipse.
Here's how I derived the ellipse information.
First, my best guess for how it works is that it's close to Synaptics "units per mm": http://ccdw.org/~cjj/l/docs/ACF126.pdf But since Apple has not released any of that information for developers, I'm relying on information that I print to the console.
You may get slightly different values based on the dimensions of the device (e.g. native trackpad vs magic mouse) you're using with the MultiTouchSupport.framework. This might also be caused by the differences in the surface (magic mouse is curved).
The code on http://www.steike.com/code/multitouch/ has a parameter called mm. This gives you the raw (non-normalized) position and velocity for the device.
Based on the width's observed min & max values from mm (-47.5,52.5), the trackpad is ~100 units wide (~75 units the other way). The trackpad is about 100mm wide x 80mm. But no, it's not a direct unit to millimeter translation. I think the parameter being named 'mm' may have just been a coincidence.
My forearm can cover about 90% of the surface of the trackpad. After laying it across the trackpad, the output will read to about 58 units wide by 36 units long, with a size of 55. If you double the units you get 116 by 72 which is really close to 100mm by 80mm. So that's why I say just double the units to approximate the millimeters. I've done this with my forearm the other way and with my palm and the approximations still seem to work.
The size of 55 doesn't seem to coincide with the values of ellipse. I'm inclined to believe that ellipse is an approximation of the surface dimensions and size is the actual surface area (probably in decimeters).
Sorry there's no straight answer (this is after all a reverse engineering project) but maybe this information can help you find the answer yourself.
(Note: I'd like to know what you're working on?)

Graphviz DOT arrange Nodes in circles, layout too "compact"

I'm halfway there please see the edit
OK here's my problem, I'm generating a graph of a python module, including all the files with their functions/methods/classes.
I want to arrange it so, that nodes gather in circles around their parent nodes, currently everything is on one gargantuan horizontal row, which makes the thing >50k pixels wide and also let's the svg converter fail(only renders about the half of the graph).
I went through the docs but couldn't find anything that seems to do the trick.
So the question is:
Is there a simple way to do this or do I have to layout the whole thing by myself? :/
EDIT:
Thanks to Andrews comment I've got the right layout, the only problem now is that it's a bit to "compact"... so the question now is, how to fix this?
i've mentioned all of the most significant parameters that influence your current layout and then suggested values for those parameters. Still, i suspect you can get the layout that you want just from applying a couple of these suggestions.
reduce the edge weight, eg, [weight=0.5]; this will make the
edges longer, causing the tight
clusters you currently see in your
graph to 'fan out'.
get rid of the node borders, node_A
[color=none; shape=plaintext];
especially for oval-shaped nodes, a
substantial fraction of the total
node space is 'unused' (ie, not used
to display the node label).
explicitly set the font size for
the nodes (the node borders are
enlarged so that they surround the
node text, which means that the font
size and amount of text for a given
node has a significant effect on its
size); [fontsize=11] should be large
enough to be legible yet also reduce
the 'cluttered' appearance (the
default size is 14).
increase minimum separation between
nodes, via 'nodesep'; eg, nodesep=2.0; this will
directly address your objection
regarding your graph being "too
compact." ('nodesep' and 'ranksep'
probably affect how dot draws a graph
more than any other parameters for
node, edge, or graph. In your case,
it looks like you have only two ranks
of nodes; 'ranksep' sets the minimum
distance between nodes of different
ranks--it looks like all of the nodes
that comprise your graph are of the
same rank (except for few top level
nodes in the centers).
explicitly set total graph size, eg,
size="7.75,10.25" (ensures that your
graph fits on an 8.5 x 11 page and
that it occupies the entire space)
And one purely aesthetic suggestion
that at most will only help your
graph appear less cluttered: the
default fontcolor for both edges and
nodes is black. The majority of the
ink on your graph is from those two
structures (particularly if you
remove the node borders), so i would
for instance set either the node
(text) fontcolor or the edge
fontcolor to "blue" to help the eye
distinguish the two sets of graph
structures.
If it is too compact, you will want to mess with the edge length. You have a couple options depending on the graph layout:
If your layout is sfdp or fdp, tweak the graph property K. Default is 0.3.
For neato (or fdp), tweak the edge property len. Default is 1.0 for neato and 0.3 for fdp.
For dot you can use the edge property minlen which is the minimum edge length. Default is 1.
You might also want to mess with the graph property model which determines clustering behavior. Specifically, try subset. I believe this handles len for you:
http://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/attrs.html#d:model
Also, you can remove overlaps all together with scaling techniques: http://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/attrs.html#d:overlap
I have around 500 nodes and used doug's recommendation.
This is my sample code that works (in python):
f = Digraph('companies',filename='companies.gv',
edge_attr={'weight':'1',
'fontsize':'11',
'fontcolor':'blue',
'len':'4'},
graph_attr={'fixedsize':'false',
'bgcolor':'transparent'},
node_attr={'fontsize':'11',
'shape':'plaintext',
'color':'none',
'fontcolor':'black'})
f.attr(layout="neato")
f.attr(nodesep='3')
f.attr(ranksep='3')
f.attr(size='5000,5000')

Smallest recommended button size

Is there a recommended smallest button size under normal conditions?
By "recommended" I mean prescribed by some document like:
Apple HCI Guidelines
Windows UX Guidelines
or some ISO standard..
By "normal" conditions I mean:
desktop/office use
standard 96dpi monitor resolution
mouse/touchpad for pointing (no touchscreen)
non-disabled or visually impaired users
standard "theme" (no large fonts/icons)
Microsoft's UX Guide for Windows 7 and Vista recommends:
"Make click targets at least 16x16 pixels so that they can be easily clicked by any input device. For touch, the recommended minimum control size is 23x23 pixels (13x13 DLUs)." where"A dialog unit (DLU) is a device-independent metric where one horizontal dialog unit equals one-fourth of the average character width for the current font and one vertical dialog unit equals one-eighth of the character height for the current font. Because characters are roughly twice as high as they are wide, a horizontal DLU is roughly the same size as a vertical DLU, but it's important to realize that DLUs are not a square unit."
You may also want to look up Fitts' Law, which calculates the time necessary to complete an action as a function of the target size. That can help mathematically determine the trade-offs of different button sizes.
Well, I try to make important/common mouse targets as large as possible without looking bad, something about 20 pixels (assuming 96 DPI) height, and as much width as needed to accomodate labels. If the button has no labels, which is very rare, I found out it's actually comfortable to have an aspect like 20w/50h (with the icon on top, not center), since the mouse is easier to move horizontally. So it's also good to keep them in the same row.
In addition to what MsLis suggested the UX Guide also suggests a minimum width of 75 pixels specifically for Command Buttons.
UX Guide - Recommended sizing and spacing

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