Topic: Horizontal Menus In 9i (Read 146 times)

BenJeremy · « **on:** April 28, 2003, 08:36:00 AM »

QUOTE (Weavus @ Apr 28 2003, 12:06 PM)

QUOTE

Classical preview menu screen. Now it may be defined as horizontally or vertically (default) oriented, giving skin designers the ability to define radically different screens. A menu block will be required here, and there are several options available, including two vertically-oriented menu blocks (MenuX and MXM), and a horizontally-oriented block. Many resources can be defined as game-current here.

Whats the syntax to define a horizontal menu? I cant see to find anything in the manual apart from this line that says its possible.

Also, can descriptions be multi-lined yet?

Ta
Weavus

Hey! Welcome back!

Well, as with a few other things, I ran out of time on that. I was thinking that it should be possible to do a horizontal menu with what's there, but there are two issues (both of which I will clean up in the next release, later this week)...

1) Horizontal menus need to be configurable from the skin, but currently are only configurable from the main mxm.xml (which should NOT handle it)

2) Text and conditional arrow gadgets might be used, but there is an issue with the conditional logic, since it depends on a menu telling it that there are 'more entries' previous or next to be displayed.

I'll fix both of these issues, and if possible squeeze in a true horizontal menu gadget.

As for multiline, it may work.... to be honest, I haven't tried it (I'm at work right now). I'll check that out.

You can support more than one screenshot/cover image... just add entries in the item's xml node, or define 'automatics' in the skin.

I was also looking at supporting a skin-definable polygon for the image, so you can have those slick diagonal-cut corners

but that will take a bit more work.

I hope you will at least work something up with the new system for now... I should have "K" out by the end of the week (I'm skipping "J")

Weavus · « **Reply #1 on:** April 28, 2003, 08:57:00 AM »

QUOTE (BenJeremy @ Apr 28 2003, 04:36 PM)

Hey! Welcome back!

Well, as with a few other things, I ran out of time on that. I was thinking that it should be possible to do a horizontal menu with what's there, but there are two issues (both of which I will clean up in the next release, later this week)...

As for multiline, it may work.... to be honest, I haven't tried it (I'm at work right now). I'll check that out.

You can support more than one screenshot/cover image... just add entries in the item's xml node, or define 'automatics' in the skin.

Well, I saw you released a new version with skinning so I thought I had better follow up on my promise of making a skin.

I'll wait for the horizontal menus before releasing it, but I might do a pre-release if the verticals dont look that bad.

I've got mutli-screens in so thats great.

I'll check to see if multi-line descs work.

I'm also trying to get the ftp server working....I'll post on that later.

Toodle Pip!

BenJeremy · « **Reply #2 on:** April 28, 2003, 09:47:00 AM »

QUOTE (Weavus @ Apr 28 2003, 12:57 PM)

QUOTE (BenJeremy @ Apr 28 2003, 04:36 PM)

Hey! Welcome back!

Well, as with a few other things, I ran out of time on that. I was thinking that it should be possible to do a horizontal menu with what's there, but there are two issues (both of which I will clean up in the next release, later this week)...

As for multiline, it may work.... to be honest, I haven't tried it (I'm at work right now). I'll check that out.

You can support more than one screenshot/cover image... just add entries in the item's xml node, or define 'automatics' in the skin.

Well, I saw you released a new version with skinning so I thought I had better follow up on my promise of making a skin.

I'll wait for the horizontal menus before releasing it, but I might do a pre-release if the verticals dont look that bad.

I've got mutli-screens in so thats great.

I'll check to see if multi-line descs work.

I'm also trying to get the ftp server working....I'll post on that later.

Toodle Pip!

Awesome! Look forward to whatever you come up with.

Weavus · « **Reply #3 on:** April 28, 2003, 12:07:00 PM »

Well multi-lined descriptions do work but I need some slight enhancements for them.

Could you make it so that (slash)t will act as a tab and space the text properly?

Could you make it so that could can specify the exact point size you want to use for the text if you dont want to use scaling?

Can you make text like the other resources and allow you to specify it from the menu.xml file as EntryNamed?

Ta
Weavus

Weavus · « **Reply #4 on:** April 28, 2003, 12:09:00 PM »

How do I specify that a menu should only have 1 item displayed at a time? You used to be able to say how many elements should be on screen at once, can you still do this?

BenJeremy · « **Reply #5 on:** April 28, 2003, 12:20:00 PM »

QUOTE

Well multi-lined descriptions do work but I need some slight enhancements for them.

Interesting... I suspected as much, I just hadn't tested it.

QUOTE

Could you make it so that (slash)t will act as a tab and space the text properly?

I'll have to give this some thought. Multiline text is a whole new world of headaches.

QUOTE

Could you make it so that could can specify the exact point size you want to use for the text if you dont want to use scaling?

Well, the point size is determined, in that case, by the font used. Otherwise, it gets to be a mess to deal with. I haven't looked into Truetype font support yet, though...

QUOTE

Can you make text like the other resources and allow you to specify it from the menu.xml file as EntryNamed?

?? Actually, there is a means to pull element text from an item's entry; I'll have to make up an example when I get home and post it. You can access any element/attribute two levels deep and use the value in a text string.

I think what this might demand is a multi-line gadget, to take things like word-wrap and tabs into consideration, as well as a possible scrolling window.

BenJeremy · « **Reply #6 on:** April 28, 2003, 12:32:00 PM »

QUOTE (Weavus @ Apr 28 2003, 04:09 PM)

How do I specify that a menu should only have 1 item displayed at a time? You used to be able to say how many elements should be on screen at once, can you still do this?

Again, I will have to look this up when I get home. There is a way to do this (In fact, when loading the 'Generator' skin, it does this with the MXM Menu gadget). I think it's the same keyword used before, but used with the gadget.

BenJeremy · « **Reply #7 on:** April 28, 2003, 02:40:00 PM »

<NumItems> is the XML element used to identify the number of items in the "MXM" Menu block gadget.

Just set that to one.

Weavus · « **Reply #8 on:** April 29, 2003, 12:12:00 AM »

QUOTE (BenJeremy @ Apr 28 2003, 10:40 PM)

<NumItems> is the XML element used to identify the number of items in the "MXM" Menu block gadget.

Just set that to one.

I tried:

QUOTE

But its still showing two menu items at a time...

BenJeremy · « **Reply #9 on:** April 29, 2003, 03:06:00 AM »

QUOTE (Weavus @ Apr 29 2003, 04:12 AM)

QUOTE (BenJeremy @ Apr 28 2003, 10:40 PM)

<NumItems> is the XML element used to identify the number of items in the "MXM" Menu block gadget.

Just set that to one.

I tried:

QUOTE

But its still showing two menu items at a time...

Oh... I think you NEED to scale in the "Y", otherwise it uses the area you lay out.

Try setting the "Y" scale to true.

Weavus · « **Reply #10 on:** April 29, 2003, 03:05:00 PM »

QUOTE (BenJeremy @ Apr 28 2003, 08:20 PM)

Actually, there is a means to pull element text from an item's entry; I'll have to make up an example when I get home and post it. You can access any element/attribute two levels deep and use the value in a text string.

Could you post that example when you get time please...

Thanks

BenJeremy · « **Reply #11 on:** April 29, 2003, 04:05:00 PM »

QUOTE (Weavus @ Apr 29 2003, 07:05 PM)

QUOTE (BenJeremy @ Apr 28 2003, 08:20 PM)

Actually, there is a means to pull element text from an item's entry; I'll have to make up an example when I get home and post it. You can access any element/attribute two levels deep and use the value in a text string.

Could you post that example when you get time please...

Thanks

CODE

   8PinMatrix
   0xFF80FF80
   0xFF000000
   3
   true
   true

Gets a string from the item entry that might look like:

CODE

Some Title
MyCover.jpg
: : :

Something long here to
describe something

Or you might go one level deeper....

CODE

   8PinMatrix
   0xFF80FF80
   0xFF000000
   3
   true
   true



From:

Some Title
MyCover.jpg
: : :

Something long here to
describe something

See? You can also add your own "extra" image entries.... from the above item entries...

CODE

CoverShot

You can define additional resources to use for each game!!

roar · « **Reply #12 on:** June 19, 2003, 08:54:00 PM »

BenJeremy · « **Reply #13 on:** June 20, 2003, 03:36:00 AM »

QUOTE (roar @ Jun 20 2003, 12:54 AM)

Not sure how horizontal menu's work...

Would this statement be true?

You don't add a tag to the <LayoutElement Type="Menu" Source="MXM"> to set it as horizontal, instead you add <IsMenu Horizontal="true">true</IsMenu> to the text gadget within this element in order to get the menu to scroll horizontally?

I read the skinning guide and did a search here, there was a post in regards to horizontal menu's but never discussed how to use them(This thread actually), but another post "Media X Menu 0.9k, Cinco De Mayo" had the <IsMenu Horizontal="true">true</IsMenu> tag in it and a brief discription. I'm new at this so go easy on me

You use a text element to do a horizontal menu.

Basically, you use a string that identifies the current item and there's a special tag to identify IT as the menu, so the system can handle things properly with conditionals.

The other tag is for orienting the controls.

Author Topic: Horizontal Menus In 9i (Read 146 times)