Premise Attractive Theme
- Thread starter 123
- Start date
Motorola Premise
Do you have any examples of what you are looking for in the way of buttons and skins, I have Photoshop CS2, I have been playing around with making backgrounds and buttons but I am no expert at it.
123
Senior Member
John,
Does WebGUI provide a means of binding UI objects to Premise objects? It seems to me that if one uses sysconnector or minibroker, there'll be some handcoding needed to tie the UI to Premise. Could you shed some light on how you're doing this?
Premise's architecture (clear division between UI, logic, and data) is so well-suited for building custom UI's that it is surprising there are so few available. Damon's Jukebox application is the only custom web app I've ever seen other than what is generated by the AutomationBrowser (i.e. "Premise Browser"). I suspect that, for all the carping about Premise Browser's simplistic appearance, it remains a functional UI that is automatically generated and requires zero configuration.
My "dream UI designer" would have a treeview of all Home objects, drag a light onto the workspace, right-click it and select from a list of widget styles (i.e. different kinds of sliders or rotary knobs, or pushbuttons, for adjusting brightness), then choose its orientation. No coding required because it's a Home object and already contains programming logic. The end-result could be either XML that drives a Windows app (sort of like CQC's InterfaceViewer) or a web app.
Does WebGUI provide a means of binding UI objects to Premise objects? It seems to me that if one uses sysconnector or minibroker, there'll be some handcoding needed to tie the UI to Premise. Could you shed some light on how you're doing this?
Premise's architecture (clear division between UI, logic, and data) is so well-suited for building custom UI's that it is surprising there are so few available. Damon's Jukebox application is the only custom web app I've ever seen other than what is generated by the AutomationBrowser (i.e. "Premise Browser"). I suspect that, for all the carping about Premise Browser's simplistic appearance, it remains a functional UI that is automatically generated and requires zero configuration.
My "dream UI designer" would have a treeview of all Home objects, drag a light onto the workspace, right-click it and select from a list of widget styles (i.e. different kinds of sliders or rotary knobs, or pushbuttons, for adjusting brightness), then choose its orientation. No coding required because it's a Home object and already contains programming logic. The end-result could be either XML that drives a Windows app (sort of like CQC's InterfaceViewer) or a web app.
Wayne,
For starters, the class images that come with Premise (the icons that render on the Automation Browser for home level objects) are very lo-res. the don't scale up very nicely. Replacements for any of those would be great! GuiFX has some great skins and icons that would be nice, but I'm really not looking at spending any money on type of thing
Thanks,
-John
For starters, the class images that come with Premise (the icons that render on the Automation Browser for home level objects) are very lo-res. the don't scale up very nicely. Replacements for any of those would be great! GuiFX has some great skins and icons that would be nice, but I'm really not looking at spending any money on type of thing
Thanks,
-John
One could probably build some sort of data binding into controls using the WebGUI toolkit, but at the end of the day, you need to talk to premise to get data on the state of the object. So I'm using minibroker. It seemed to me that the overhead in trying to make databindings work in a generic way would slow me down (at least for the first release). I like your idea for a UI builder, but I'm not going to be that sophsticated this first release. I do intend (at some point) to allow for some sort of extensibility where one could build their own GUI widgets and either override the pre-builts or extend the platform with you ones.
What I've got built so far:
A skinnable canvas on which other UI Widgets will render. The Canvas has menu button ribbon across the bottom and a Date/Time/Weather Icon at the top right. There are buttons on the ribbon for "Home", "Locations", "Media", and "Weather". My intent is to make that configurable to allow user-defined widgets to be built and displayed in response to a button. The The rest of the space is available for widgets.
You can see everything that I've descried in the Screen-shots word document I posted yesterday. Does anyone know how to post an image that doesn't need a URL inline using this forum software? It might be easier to show you what I'm up to by just posting a screen shots.
Once I get this Silverlight wrapping issue sorted, I'll post a prototype version.
-John
What I've got built so far:
A skinnable canvas on which other UI Widgets will render. The Canvas has menu button ribbon across the bottom and a Date/Time/Weather Icon at the top right. There are buttons on the ribbon for "Home", "Locations", "Media", and "Weather". My intent is to make that configurable to allow user-defined widgets to be built and displayed in response to a button. The The rest of the space is available for widgets.
- I've got a Weather widget built that gets it's data from TWCi weather
- I've got a Location Widget built which browses any locations declared as "viewable" out of builder. I've extended the location class in Premise to add a property called "ShowinUI". When it's set to "Shown" (vs. Not Shown), the name of the location will be added to a horizontal scroll-bar on the Location Widget. I'll probably be adding other properties there as I evolve the interface. One simply scrolls the the scroll-bar and selects the location they want to view by clicking on it. That will render a panel that currently displays the Premise objects under that location. Once Gizmox enables wrapping of existing Silverlight controls, I was going to experiment with something other than a grid (possibly coverflow like iTunes for this as well). To manipulate one of those objects, you simply click the object and it's associated class widget appears.
- I've got a widget to deal with the Dimmer class of objects, and will be building others as I have time.
You can see everything that I've descried in the Screen-shots word document I posted yesterday. Does anyone know how to post an image that doesn't need a URL inline using this forum software? It might be easier to show you what I'm up to by just posting a screen shots.
Once I get this Silverlight wrapping issue sorted, I'll post a prototype version.
-John
123
Senior Member
I look forward to trying the prototype!
My understanding of the image-posting guidelines is that reference material should be centralized in the Downloads area. Material attached to a topic is for illustration purposes only (and the 100K ceiling helps to enforce that policy). I see the logic behind Dan's decision. I've tried to locate a diagram I posted in the past and had a devil of time recalling the topic containing it (so many posts about the neutral wire!). Had I posted it in the Downloads area, it'd be easier to find now.
I may may have misunderstood the question but isn't it just a matter of attaching the image file? That technique doesn't employ a URL. However, the uploaded files(s) cannot exceed 100K so the screenscrapes will have to be JPGs instead of clearer PNGs.
My understanding of the image-posting guidelines is that reference material should be centralized in the Downloads area. Material attached to a topic is for illustration purposes only (and the 100K ceiling helps to enforce that policy). I see the logic behind Dan's decision. I've tried to locate a diagram I posted in the past and had a devil of time recalling the topic containing it (so many posts about the neutral wire!). Had I posted it in the Downloads area, it'd be easier to find now.
C
chucklyons
Guest
Maybe we could divide and conquer? I've played around with some of the tools out there - CoPilot fm Guifx...and have created the basic Sirius and Network Files...I'll put them up (If I read correctly, the logos are free and as long as its not for commercial use....)
Wayne/George? Should we just go towards a Media Center Edition Color Scheme?
Wayne/George? Should we just go towards a Media Center Edition Color Scheme?
Wayne,
For starters, the class images that come with Premise (the icons that render on the Automation Browser for home level objects) are very lo-res. the don't scale up very nicely. Replacements for any of those would be great! GuiFX has some great skins and icons that would be nice, but I'm really not looking at spending any money on type of thing
Thanks,
-John
I am sure that we can come up with something as far as graphics go, the guys at GUIFX have a lot more experience with the tools then me but I will try and see what I can come up with.
I make my own backgrounds within the limits of Premise now but they don't scale well as you said.
This is the last background I made.
This is what I have been using for the rooms instead of say a picture of a toaster.
It needs to start out about this size on a large monitor to look good.
Whatever George wants is fine with me.
C
chucklyons
Guest
very nice, indeed!
Wayne,
This is good stuff. The main "canvas" (where we would put backgrounds) is 1024 X 768. If you can come up with a few backgrounds that I can incorporate, I'll do so as part of the initial release. At this point, the only buttons I have in the "Skin" logic are basic navigation (Right, Left, Back), so I wouldn't spend too much time on that. The main thing would be "Class Images". The program logic uses the the class of the Premise object to select the appropriate image to display. Take a look at the "Class Images" folder in the Premise directory. You'll find the default images there. Again, don't "boil the ocean" yet. If you want to come up with a few new images for Lighting objects, specifically; Table Lamp, Recessed, Chandalier, and Overhead, I can incorporate those quickly and post some screenshots for feedback. Maybe a new Media Zone image would be nice to incorporate. These need to be hi-res since they'll be bigger on the display.
I'm waiting for Gizmox to deliver their 6.3 version of the toolkit on January 20th. It will incorporate the ability to wrap silverlight controls. Once I get that, I'll put in a "Cover flow" (like iTunes) as an option to navigate through Premise objects and Media.
Thanks,
-John
This is good stuff. The main "canvas" (where we would put backgrounds) is 1024 X 768. If you can come up with a few backgrounds that I can incorporate, I'll do so as part of the initial release. At this point, the only buttons I have in the "Skin" logic are basic navigation (Right, Left, Back), so I wouldn't spend too much time on that. The main thing would be "Class Images". The program logic uses the the class of the Premise object to select the appropriate image to display. Take a look at the "Class Images" folder in the Premise directory. You'll find the default images there. Again, don't "boil the ocean" yet. If you want to come up with a few new images for Lighting objects, specifically; Table Lamp, Recessed, Chandalier, and Overhead, I can incorporate those quickly and post some screenshots for feedback. Maybe a new Media Zone image would be nice to incorporate. These need to be hi-res since they'll be bigger on the display.
I'm waiting for Gizmox to deliver their 6.3 version of the toolkit on January 20th. It will incorporate the ability to wrap silverlight controls. Once I get that, I'll put in a "Cover flow" (like iTunes) as an option to navigate through Premise objects and Media.
Thanks,
-John
I need to find some images I can use for the buttons that are royalty free and freely distributable. I did not realize that the clip art I bought over the years is so restricted.
It seems most of it is usable for my personal projects but if I were to paste an image on a button I make and then distrubute it I would be in violation of the terms of use and opening myself to a lawsuit.
Does anyone know of a good source of freely distributable clip art?
It seems most of it is usable for my personal projects but if I were to paste an image on a button I make and then distrubute it I would be in violation of the terms of use and opening myself to a lawsuit.
Does anyone know of a good source of freely distributable clip art?
