HGUI

INTRODUCTION

After more then 4 years of development I’m really near to a release of the
ScuiLib successor: HGui.

I’m posting this news and creating this page to check out how much interest
could be in a commercial release, and if there is enough interest I will start
to write tutorials and a comprehensive developer guide for people who will
decide to support this project. Writing docs is a big job because the library
offer many features and documenting all the stuff supported will require a lot
of work. Along with the docs and tutorials I will offer support through e-mail
or through forum and of course bug fixing.

I’d like to release HGui in two versions:

Hollywood applet + tutorials + developer guide.
Hollywood source code + tutorials + developer guide.
Along with the HGui library you will get additional libraries required by HGui
that could be useful for you and your projects.
Prices will be defined later depending on how much feedback and interest will be
around this project.

CURRENT DEVELOPMENT STATE

At the current state HGui is usable and stable, I’m using it for various
projects, you can check and test by yourself with the provided demo at the end
of this post.
I need to complete some planned features and a couple of missing classes. I’ve
also to fix some small bugs.

FEATURES

GENERAL FEATURES

Object Oriented Programming
Flexible and multi-layered skin system
Easy of use
Fast
Scalable (tuning the cache system and the theme)
Since HGui does not depend on any system specific command/library all developed
projects can be compiled for any system supported by Hollywood, your GUIs will
be the same on every platform, exactly the same.

WINDOWS SYSTEM

Each window you create supports the following events:
OnClose
OnMove
OnActivate
OnDeactivate
OnHide
OnShow
OnSize
User definable minimum and maximum sizes
Automatic control of the window’s order
Methods to control/edit on the fly the created windows
Various background type supported
Special windows to build up quickly progress indicator and/or messages for long
operations.
Window’s menu (not the ones available with Hollywood but a custom one that allow
you to include any gadget type into it.
Functions to find window objects by name, by Hollywood ID, and to check if a
window exists or not.
Ability to attach hotkeys to any window to execute specific tasks when a
keypress occurs.
GADGETS SYSTEM

Supported gadget classes
Box
Vertical Divider
Horizontal Divider
Label
Group (Generic, Radio, Check)
Button
Switch
Scrollbar (Vertical/Horizontal)
Slider (Vertical/Horizontal)
ProgressBar
Knob
Text (for user input)
ListView
TreeView
DropDown
Image
Virtual Area
Planned gadget classes
Spin
Tabs
Ability to switch the cache system on or off
On: each gadget state will be cached, faster but more memory required
Off: each gadget state will be rendered directly, slower but with a lower memory
footprint.
Each gadget can be skinned individually
Each gadget class can be skinned globally
Support for icons inside gadgets with custom alignment and text adjustment
Flying tips for some gadgets
Sounds on some actions (OnOver, OnOut, OnPushed, OnDown)
Supported actions:
OnPushed
OnDown
OnOver
OnOut
OnDrop
OnDropOut
Some classes can have additional actions
Functions to search buttons by their names
Methods to control and modify on the fly existing gadgets
Gadgets drag and drop (planned)
Ability to attach a right-mouse action or a pop up menu (planned)


LAYOUT SYSTEM


Gadgets can be arranged using the MUI concept, you define some gadgets that will
be grouped inside another gadget, this way your GUI is represented by a tree
where the tree root is a special gadget called ‘rootGadget’ already created for
you when a window is created.
Supported layout are:
Vertical
Horizontal
Grid
When you define child gadgets you can define the following properties:
Gadget weights (percentual variable, percentual fixed, pixel variable, pixel
fixed)
Borders (top, bottom, left, right) from the father gadget
Gap between childs in pixel
WHAT’S MISSING/NEED MORE LOVE

Some little glitches to be fixed
Keyboard navigation system
Gadget’s hotkeys
Gadget’s drag & drop
ListView/TreeView column resize using the mouse
Tabs class
Spin class
Documentation
Tutorials
Global theme management functions are not completed
Support for XML Gui definition
FINAL WORDS

Below you can find some screenshots of HGui in action and a demo that show all
supported classes in action for every supported platform.

Just download the version you want to try along with the directory .
MacOS users does not need the resource folder because it’s already included in
the .app drawer.

I really hope that this work will help Hollywood to get even more users and more
applications, I also hope to get some feedback from you despite my English!

Please let me know if you have problems with the demo or if you notice some
bugs.

Do not forget to say if you are interested in a commercial release as I’ve
explained at the beginning of this post.