I want to create a desktop mockup on Elementary OS 0.2. By "mockup" I mean something that shows off the aesthetic of the mockup, mostly just showing what selecting/clicking/hovering over a button or widget does to that particular part of the UI. I'm thinking about creating the various parts on GIMP and coding animation and transition logic into the final result. I know that something like this can be done in HTML/JS, but I want to avoid using those. Is there anything optimized for a project like this? I'm open to most languages.
Try WireframeSketcher wireframing tool. Unlike Gimp or PowerPoint, WireframeSketcher is designed specifically to help you create mockups and wireframes. It comes pre-packaged for Debian systems and can also be found in Software Center and so it works on Elementary OS too. Note that it's a commercial tool, but you can try it freely for 14 days.
Most PMs at large companies mock these things up using a presentation package like PowerPoint. If you know the routine and where to click it can look fantastic with minimal effort.
MockupUI does both wireframe and Windows native looking mockups. It uses your desktop's visual style which makes screens and widgets look as a standard Windows application. MockupUI lets you export screens as individual images, docx, pdf or html.
Actions/interactions can be explained by highlighting widgets and adding text annotations.
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I have a few windows on my linux machine using the xfce4 desktop enviorment.
I wish to have a grid-like view where i can see only the part of each window im intrested in.
An example for the general vision:
see a script running without the window borders on terminal across the header
see work status of F#H client out of the advenced client view in the middle left
see only the turrents status list of qBittorrent at middle right
have another terminal at footer (again without header/borders)
My best way to describe it shortly is to generate a view from selective parts of windows.
Added a picture for illustration
Is there any way of doing such thing in a practical way? Am i missing out on a great software?
There are several tiling helpers for Xfce.
Perhaps try xpytile , which is a tiling add-on for Xfce. It offers
automatic tiling, manual tiling and can simulaneously resize side-by-side windows (like AeroSnap for MS-Windows).
Some Background here:
I've downloaded this example and made it run on my Ubuntu. Everything's fine. I put my own OpenType font into the project and it works fine too! I made sure that HarfBuzz supports my font and my language.Now I need to go further.
I need some guide here:
In the above example,three kinds of language each has it's own font to support the display. I mean,these three languages is rendered separately(as to my understanding of the code).
So, how to make HarfBuzz to select the correct font when many kinds of language are mixed together and render them at once? I mean,without making a font file that supports all languages in the world.
In this example,Chinese script is vertically displayed(which is just as I want),but if I make the Latin script's text_directions to HB_DIRECTION_TTB,which is of course not what I want. I want the whole word 'LATIN' to rotated 90 degree.
So, how can I achieve that? how to make that happen without breaking anything about Chinese layout?
3 .Last but not least,after solving the above problems, I want to make a Text Editor to display and edit many languages at the same time,same place. I don't know if I have to do some work on HarfBuzz or FreeType or implement a text editor that supports this complex text layout? Is there any example that I can refer to ?
Thanks in advance for help.
HarfBuzz is doing shaping just on same script and directionality, you should first split your text, guess or find language and direction of that chunk (using ICU or smt else) then send it to a shaper. Generally on Linux for finding right installed font for a script, you can use fontconfig.
I do not know, I suggest making separate question for that.
Making a text editor starting from shaper is not easy task. You should do bidi, line wrapping and ... that all have their challenges. I suggest use higher level abstraction (pango). For instance browsers doing a lot to support these.
I've always used TextWrangler/ Notepad++ to develop websites from scratch. I'm now coding what I'd say are very advanced websites this way.
I want to know if it's efficient to do things this way and whether I should learn DreamWeaver and use that
I use Dreamweaver, basically because I'm a designer not a coder. I find it useful to use Dreamweaver, because it has all the tools you need to create a website. Dreamweaver has the ability to be a WYSIWYG in the "Design" mode, but you can easily switch to the raw code and mess about with the code. Which is what I tend to do anyway.
Dreamweaver isn't a cheat way of web design, it is a tool. Much like a pencil and paper would be to an artist, or a hammer to a joiner. It's not what is used to create a website that should be ridiculed or the designer who uses Dreamweaver should be abused. But in fact the website itself, and the application of web design skills/knowledge.
Dreamweaver has it's own project file system, so you know exactly what is in your project and what isn't. You can also see all the external files that are linked in one HTML file, such as a JavaScript file. You can swap between the source code of the HTML file and the external file source code, with one click and with no other open "windows".
Dreamweaver is quite easy to learn (in my opinion), and should at least have a fair trial run.
If I were you, I would download a trial version of Dreamweaver, and try it out.
I hope I've helped in some way.
There are code editors with assists that are far better than DreamWeaver, like Espresso, Brackets or the upcoming TweakStyle.
Each software have a different added value depending on what you're searching for.
Browsing the TkDocs website, it looks like Tk has come a long way in the "native look and feel" department. But looking at some of these screenshots, it seems to be let down in Linux. If you scroll down that page, you'll see a Mac screenshot that looks exactly like Mac, a Windows XP screenshot that looks exactly like Windows XP, and a Linux screenshot that looks like ... well Windows 98 (or Windows XP with classic style).
I know Linux doesn't really have a "native look and feel", since every toolkit does its own styling. But I'm wondering if there is any way to style Tk so it looks like either GTK or Qt (preferably Gtk), so it would blend in to most other apps on the Linux desktop.
What about Windows Vista/7? I haven't seen any Tk screenshots on those platforms.
Tk has basically two sets of widgets, the classic widgets and the themed widgets. The classic widgets are default because of the need to support old applications, but new code should use the themed widgets. (They can't be overloaded because they work in quite different ways, and there's a lot of code out there that depends on the old classic way. Alas.) With the right theme, the themed widgets (typically referred to as Ttk) look native and behave natively on Windows and OSX.
There are partial Ttk themes that delegate to Gtk and Qt available (this presentation from last year shows them in action) but they're partial, in large part because of the poor quality of the themes (Gtk/Qt themes, not Ttk themes; this is confusing!) in typical use with those toolkits. The major problem is apparently in the reporting of metrics, which often seems to be wrong (resulting in widgets getting the wrong size or visual elements being put in the wrong place); I understand from talking to the author of that paper that a significant fraction of themes only happen to work with Gtk/Qt, but cannot verify this from personal experience. (I'm on OSX so I use Ttk's direct native support.)
For the impatient users of a modern Linux distribution:
echo '*TkTheme: clam' >> ~/.Xresources
xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources
Then restart your Tk based app.
Here is what to expect (shown is git gui):
On the left is git gui started after the above command was issued. Notice how the bar changed, buttons did too.
PySolFC includes a nice, modern look and feel, which can also be used with other Tk apps.
Stephan Sokolow writes about this in his blog:
Making Tk applications a bit less ugly (how to change the Tk theme)
Installing a new Ttk/Tile theme (how to use PySolFC's theme)
Just from what I've heard in Python's main mailing list from time to time, Themed TK (TTK) widgets are themable and can either mimic native widgets or do their own thing and look good. See http://www.tkdocs.com/tutorial/styles.html.
From experience, Tk (at least through Python) looks like crap. I pulled up a test for you on windows 7: http://sadpanda.us/images/542945-LNUGO0F.jpg. Not really a looker by default!
I really like to have some graphic on my startup/login screen when starting my applications.
In one of my past employments, we had this on startup/login screen:
Image missing: Head bangs on computer
Where do you get your graphics for this purpose, and what are your favorites.
For some reason, I recently found this and am finding it very uplifting...
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/1132735/2/istockphoto_1132735-running-man.swf
I'm a big fan of using fotolia.com. For a couple of dollars you get licensed, professional quality images and graphics.
Another good source for icons such as above is iconfinder.net. There's tons of free for-business icons there.
You should get a graphic designer to create a splash screen for your product. You should be careful not to use others' copyrighted imagery in your software, unless you know it is licensed under a non-restrictive license like one of the Creative Commons licenses. Make sure you understand and comply with whatever license your imagery has.
We have an official logo for our core products, and in release, that's what we use for the splash screen.
During development, we put funny pictures that we find from around the internet into a folder on a shared network drive. The debug build will randomly pick a picture from that folder, if it can access it, and use that as the splash screen.
Some favs:
Seriously though, whatever you end up going with for your official splash screen, make sure you don't violate copyright, etc, etc...
Legally you can use a www.istockphoto.com