How do u place buttons? Toolkit Window limits large-size 1366x768 profiles ?

[Waxer]

Hi All,

I think this is my third post. Huge thanks to WBK and the other moderators for developing and supporting this application!

If I have read correctly in the threads in this forum, the Toolkit Skins Window (where the background shows and where you place your buttons) has no scrollability, and there's no way to drag the background image around inside the window?

The Skins window size appears to be roughly 1020 x 550 (if I read the horizontal and vertical scales correctly). I am working on a 1366 x 768 profile.

I can "drag and drop" buttons onto the part of the background image that is visible in the Skins window; however, the part of the profile background that exceeds the Skins window size is not visible, so I can't drag and drop buttons to that part of the background.

Is the only way to get buttons onto that part of my background, to edit the profile and guesstimate the X,Y positions of the button, and place and move them via repeated trial and error? Or have I missed something.

If the Toolkit is limited in this regard, has anyone come up with a clever workaround? If I tried creating the profile in a smaller resolution, say 683x384, could I use

profile_scaling = 1
screen_resolution = 1366,768
preserve_aspect_ratio = 1

to scale the profile up at runtime to my desired size?
How do people with larger resolution touchscreens make their profiles using the Toolkit?

Thanks in advance,
Waxer

[Wild.Bill.Kelso]

Originally Posted by Waxer

Hi All,
If I have read correctly in the threads in this forum, the Toolkit Skins Window (where the background shows and where you place your buttons) has no scrollability, and there's no way to drag the background image around inside the window?

That's correct. If you have two monitors, you can place the position of one on top of the other one in Windows/Desktop options and then it will be like you have a larger monitor. It is kind of a workaround, like this:

Originally Posted by Waxer

The Skins window size appears to be roughly 1020 x 550 (if I read the horizontal and vertical scales correctly). I am working on a 1366 x 768 profile.

You can change the size of your profile window on the Window tab. There is a bug in it that limits the size of the profile window though. If you have this limitation, pm me and I have another .exe you can try that fixes it.

Originally Posted by Waxer

I can "drag and drop" buttons onto the part of the background image that is visible in the Skins window; however, the part of the profile background that exceeds the Skins window size is not visible, so I can't drag and drop buttons to that part of the background.

Is the only way to get buttons onto that part of my background, to edit the profile and guesstimate the X,Y positions of the button, and place and move them via repeated trial and error? Or have I missed something.

If the Toolkit is limited in this regard, has anyone come up with a clever workaround? If I tried creating the profile in a smaller resolution, say 683x384, could I use

profile_scaling = 1
screen_resolution = 1366,768
preserve_aspect_ratio = 1

to scale the profile up at runtime to my desired size?

See my first comment.

Your idea to make a smaller profile and use image scaling is creative, but would stretch your images. It would look better if you didn't do that. I use image scaling to rescale all 800x600 profiles down to 640x480, which is the native res of my little 8" touchscreen. Making profiles smaller doesn't degrade the quality much. Stretching them would degrade them more.

WBK

[Feed]

Waxer, my suggestion would be to create the basic layout using your choice of graphics apps (photoshop, paintshop, corel, etc.) and determine proper X/Y positions using that. Without too much trouble it should be possible to determine the proper placement of the upper left corner of each button component by noting the coordinate in the base image (which would be the size of your entire profile, but could be scrolled in the graphics app). The image could also be used only for reference while building the profile, and not used in the final profile, depending on what you wanted to do.

[Waxer]

Thanks for the quick replies!

Wild Bill: if I understand your post correctly, I can span Windows across multiple screens, and then drag the TB Toolkit Window down (for instance) which therefore will make the Skin window expand as well, exposing the previously-hidden part of the background? If so, that should do the trick; I'll give it a try!

Feed: thanks for the tip; I was thinking that was what I would have to do...and was going to ask what part of the button was placed at X,Y; you seem to imply it's the upper-left-hand-corner?

I'm spending the evening reading all the old posts in the "How To" and "Tech" formus, but I have a new question if it's a quick answer: I made my first transparent TIFF buttons a few days ago, and the "placeholder graphic" that appears in the TB Toolkit window for the "can't display this format graphic" is 100 x 100.

If your transparent button is smaller than this, it makes dragging-and-dropping to a precise location fairly tricky.

Where in the 100 x 100 does the real button location map to, does anyone know? Or is there any easy way to place a small (for example 30 x 30) transparent button precisely on the background that someone has figured out?

Thanks in advance,
Waxer

[Wild.Bill.Kelso]

Originally Posted by Waxer

Thanks for the quick replies!

Wild Bill: if I understand your post correctly, I can span Windows across multiple screens, and then drag the TB Toolkit Window down (for instance) which therefore will make the Skin window expand as well, exposing the previously-hidden part of the background? If so, that should do the trick; I'll give it a try!

That will allow you to make the Toolkit program window larger and see more of it. But there is still a bug in the Toolkit that limits profile sizes. I have a new .exe to fix that if you like. Then you can make larger profiles...

Originally Posted by Waxer

I'm spending the evening reading all the old posts in the "How To" and "Tech" formus, but I have a new question if it's a quick answer: I made my first transparent TIFF buttons a few days ago, and the "placeholder graphic" that appears in the TB Toolkit window for the "can't display this format graphic" is 100 x 100.

If your transparent button is smaller than this, it makes dragging-and-dropping to a precise location fairly tricky.

Where in the 100 x 100 does the real button location map to, does anyone know? Or is there any easy way to place a small (for example 30 x 30) transparent button precisely on the background that someone has figured out?

Top/Left corner of the placeholder is where the real image will be placed.

[Waxer]

Thanks! That was just the info I needed.

I finished the 1366x768 front instrument panel profile today; going to test it tonight.