Image with Hotzones

[eagledeer]

Hi:

How can I use a large image which incorporates different hotzones as in the large LOMAC F15 Radar image whereby pressing certain parts corresponds to those buttons?

Many thanks

[zorlac]

you will have to break it down a bit further than that. each hotspot is the rectanular size of the image supplied... and you cannot have multiple hotspots on one image.

if you use a back ground image (or button "type = static") to create the F15 radar, then place treansparent GIFs or PNG files over the locations you want to be buttons/hotspots, that would work. dont forget that with v1.0.2 you can now place buttons on layers, so you can arrange your buttons in the correct order.

This is rugg's WIP from a while back, and the buttons/hotspots have been highlighted in red

[AndyHill]

I wonder what is the preferred method of providing user feedback with skinnable stuff? I really really like how the "old" buttons give feedback when they're pushed and it's actually pretty important as far as usability goes (yes, I'm supposed to know quite a lot of stuff about usability, but I really don't).

[zorlac]

from what i see on TV and documentaries, when most touchscreens are pressed, the button under the finger "flashes" once, just to show it has been selected. i`ll look at something like this for v1.0.3.

[AndyHill]

Yes, that's how it goes, at least on simple MFD displays like the profiles I'm going to create. My touch screen is going into a cockpit and it needs to look like an MFD - which it actually is and that's why I'm looking for "realistic" symbology. Rugg's fantastic looking clickable cockpit-stuff is going to need something that looks a bit more like actually pushing the buttons. Making actual button presses look good is going to be a lot of work for the profile builder, I think.

[ruggbutt]

Originally Posted by zorlac

if you use a back ground image (or button "type = static") to create the F15 radar, then place treansparent GIFs or PNG files over the locations you want to be buttons/hotspots, that would work. dont forget that with v1.0.2 you can now place buttons on layers, so you can arrange your buttons in the correct order.

If you do that, you have to remember if you touch in the middle of the MFD then you're going to get the command from the top layer.

[Ripcord]

guys, I'm just not getting this.

I am using a picture of my console in the cockpit as my background. Now I want to place hotzones around a few of the buttons in the picture. How do I create those buttons so that they are transparent? Right now, I am seeing only a white box.... adjusting layer setting doesn't seem to help. Can somebody give me a step by step how-to lesson?

Ripcord

[zorlac]

when "hotspots" are mentioned, its really saying "button areas". To create a transparent button to place over an area, you will need to create a transparent image (a GIF of a single color and making that color "transparent", or a 24bit PNG/TIFF file that is totally transparent) of the correct size, then placing that over the area you want to act as a "hotspot".

Auto-Creation of hotspots is planned for v1.4

[zorlac]

Lets see if this work... this SHOULD be a 80x80 GIF file, single color (white), and this color is marked as the transparent color. The Toolkit doesnt cope well with transparent images, but if you place this in the right place, TouchBuddy *should* make it transparent, but still act as a button

Yes, there REALLY is a GIF image there, its right under the text "attached images"... but of course its transparent

[Ripcord]

OK, how do I mark white as the transparent color. Sorry if this is a stupid question, but today I tried to use the transparent.gif button from the demo profile and it just showed up as a white square in the middle of my screen. Not sure what I'm doing wrong.

Ripcord