World: r3wp

I think Gradient Lab should be made into a useful tool, rather than 
just show off gradients.

I'll build a few usefull nodes in liquidator... its almost ready 
for a first public show-case  :-)  I never thought it would be this 
quick.

A just-in feedback message to REBOL.org:
<<

How to find the documentation for the use of VID and RebGUI} description: 
{Hi;

I find the RebGUI is good, but how can I find the help document for 
the use of this package?

the wewpages in the website donot tell people how to use his software.

How to find the detalied documentation for VID? like how to build 
botton, box, drop-list,combo list?

It seems Rebol is weak in teaching people about how to use the GUI.

Normally people like to learn software quickly, so a good help documentation 
is always welcome.
Thanks,
>>

Can someone give me a useful list of URLs to pass on to the enquirer? 
Thanks.

Maxim, Henrik: I agree current DRAW gradients aren't the best solution 
and I'm aware about this issue from the time Shadwolf's requests. 
But this improvement will happen probably once the new 2.7.x release 
merge get to more stable state. As you might know Carl don't want 
to add new features until 2.7.x is at the same level like 1.3.2.

Sunanda: I think there is couple of good View documents directly 
on rebol.com: http://www.rebol.com/docs.html

Thanks Anton! :-)

cyphre, I realised that drawing two shapes and using alphas to blend 
between them is the best additive method so far... its obviously 
a little bit slower, but at least it looks good.

once we understand how the values work I guess its ok... there should 
just be a little bit more info on the fact that things like grad-start 
are in pixel distances...  it might seem obvious... but with my background 
in CG I was expecting shape size relative scale.  Its ok, as long 
as the info is made explict  :-)

a wish?  allow two color gradients ... I now understand  the middle 
color is used as a curve to bend the way the gradient occurs, but 
in many case a linear curve is all that's needed. especially since 
we can edit the start/end of the gradient.

(just my two cents ;-)

How to find the documentation for the use of VID and RebGUI

 How about Desktop|Demos|EasyVID? Sounds like he wants a step-by-step 
 introductory tutorial. I'll think about how I can address this need 
 for RebGUI (my site makes the assumption that people are somewhat 
 familiar with VID already). Thanks for the heads-up.

Thanks Cyphre and Ashley......I should of course have asked in the 
!RebGui group

Maxim: I agree. There should be more info about the arguments. And 
yes, the need for 3 colors is just because the current gradient interpolation 
uses curve (this was some default AGG code we have used for DRAW 
but  now I think it would be better to rewrite it from scratch. The 
new code will use linear interpolator among other changes.)

re your wish: I'll try to add 2 color arg possibility. At the moment 
as a workaround you can easily compute the 'middle' value and use 
3 args insetad.

thanks for the heads up... If you are going to rewrite it... please 
allow more selections in this kind of thing... curved interpolation 
IS much better, for things like shadows, for example... but the need 
to select filter types (from all available... not just one or two), 
interpolation curve types, start-end snap on beziers, things like 
this are all essential, if we want to allow the next REBOL to be 
able to properly compete.  


defaults are good and often this is all that is needed, but for any 
graphic app, this quickly becomes essential (as you will agree, on 
your own usage), and is a weekness of current toolset.

the other big weekness is our inability to extract any kind of data 
from the AGG computed visuals.  cv info (for a text curve, for example... 
to match a graphic to its corner) , curvature data (length, coord 
+ angle at offset,  etc), box size, centroid (for quick searching 
of  computed visuals), all of this is vastly faster (we are talking 
like 10000 times or more here) when done in binary and available.

but dumping top of my head since the topic was opened briefly  :-)

it might spur other ideas from other gfx coders.

yes, the new gradients will be even more configurable. Regarding 
the access to the AGG  internal representation. I have talked about 
 this with Carl and we agreed in R3 it would be allowed to do functional 
programming of DRAW blocks. But all this needs more thinking...

Maxim, regarding this: "somehow, it seems like its missing a color 
blend mode selection, multiply, add, screen, etc. right now its a 
ramp which fades to 0 on each side, such that when two successive 
colors do not have any bit in common it creates an alpha channel 
premultiplication grey zone..."

blending is not a part of gradient definition, look at Flash or SVG. 
Gradients work the same as in Rebol inthis case.

A style a day keeps the doctor away:

New idea for a style: A "FLATTEN-PANEL" is a PANEL which "explodes" 
its
pane directly into the parent face's pane. eg:

A normal PANEL and resultant face hierarchy:

	layout [
		panel [
			label
			field
			check
		]
	]

	window
		panel
			label
			field
			check
	
A FLATTEN-PANEL and resultant face hierarchy:

	layout [
		flatten-panel [
			label
			field
			check
		]
	]
	
	window
		label
		field
		check

Implementation and test:

	view window: layout [
		style flatten-panel PANEL with [
			append init [
				foreach face pane compose [

     face/offset: face/offset + (do bind [where] first find second :layout 
     [new-face:])
				]

    append get in get first find second :layout [new-face:] 'pane pane
				clear pane
			]
		]
		
		at 500x200
		flatten-panel [
			label "hello"
			field
			check
		]
	]

Full document here:
http://anton.wildit.net.au/rebol/doc/flatten-panel.txt

updated.

Hmm.. not as useful as I would like.

Hi, has anyone any newer version of Todo List script? My intention 
is not to replace Qtask, just having something VERY easy, kind of 
check-list, for controlling tasks - http://www.xidys.com/rebol-view/image38.jpg

retask?

I can give you an .exe for windows if you want to test it out.

its even fully documented!


http://www.pointillistic.com/open-REBOL/moa/steel/retools/retask/index.html

retask? what is that? liquified version of qtask? :-)

bzzzz .... loading

nope just simple task tracker.

with presets and a bg mode which asks you what you are doing...

instead of you having to remember to fill out forms.

I've juste noticed the nice values we get for event key when pressing 
function keys !!!

in order: console listen tcp udp icmp dns local odbc oracle

is that 2.7? that is a bug, will be fixed in next release.

they should give f1 f2 etc of course :)

Hmmm, I've always gotten f1, f2, etc., though I don't use them much, 
so this may be new.

gregg, yes, they are supposed to be f1 etc.

I know they have been in the past.

there's a bug with 2.7 where event/key, when it should be a word, 
is wrong

that's probably because of the internal changes... probably wrong 
pointer or something like that

ins, del, home, end, pgup and pgdown have the same problem

1.3.2 is OK.

Ah, just 2.7 then; OK.

yep. the bug was introduced in 2.7

sorry... forgot to specify that its only 2.7 related... I just tought 
the values where funny... I assumed the break was that the keys didn't 
actually trigger... but then, on inspection... figured out what was 
really happening.

When is the next release, by the way ? I ask because we keep stumbling 
on this same bug, and I think it's an easy one to fix, judging by 
how fast those other string bugs were fixed.

i guess when Carl manages to escape from thread prison ;)

Does anyone know a way how to detect when all rebol windows are inactive 
(ie. because a non-rebol window became active) ?

I can trap inactive events sent to a rebol window, but I want to 
know whether that was because another rebol window was activated 
or a non-rebol application window was activated.