[fpc-pascal] MSEgui themes

[Martin Schreiber]

On Saturday 14 July 2007 19.01, Johannes Nohl wrote:
> Dear developers of MSEgui,
>
> I downloaded your IDE and liked it. Also I saw some screenshots.
> Things looked different running win or linux. There was a example
> project called faces.
>
There is a newsgroup (NNTP) dedicated to questions and bugreports for 
MSEide+MSEgui:
news://news.grid-sky.com/public.mseide-msegui.talk

MSEgui applications have exactly the same look and feel on Linux and Windows.

> Are faces a kind of theming? Buttons and all look "narrow", so how can
> I change it? 

Every MSEgui twidget has a property frame and face. If they are deactivated 
(<disabled> in object inspector) they are only an nil pointer and need no 
more resources. Activate them by clicking on the ellipse button in the right 
object inspector column in the row face respective frame.
The face property defines the background of the client area of the widget.
It is a combination of a fade and a bitmap. Both of them can be 
semitransparent. The bitmap can be stretched and/or tiled.
Example: you want to create a button with a fade as face.
- place a 'tbutton' on the form.
- in object inspector activate property face.
- set 'face.fade.color.count' to 2.
- click on the + at 'color.count.
- in item 0 select cl_gray.
- in item 1 select cl_ltgray, now you have a left to write fade from gray to
  light gray.
- change 'face.fade.direction' to gd_up or gd_down, you get a convex resp.
  concave fade.
If you want, you can blend an additional structure over the fade:
- select the wanted pattern image in 'face.image'.
- activate 'face.image.alignment' al_tiled.
- adjust 'face.image.transparency' to your needs, $000000 = opaque, $ffffff =
 fully transparent. The number defines the transparency of the three color
 channels ($RRGGBB).

To centralise the face look use an 'tfacecomp' (tab 'Gui') and select the 
facecomp in 'template' of the 'face' properties.

The 'frame' property defines the look of an additional frame around the 
component and shows a possible caption at the widget.
Example: you want an lowered frame around and a caption right of the button.
- activate property 'frame'.
- set 'frame.levelo' to -1.
- set 'frame.leveli' to 1.
- enter the caption text in 'frame.caption'.
- set 'frame.captionpos' to cp_right.

To centralise the frame look use an 'tframecomp' (tab 'Gui') and select the 
framecomp in 'template' of the 'frame' properties.

> Is there documentation? There's a doc folder but 
> documentation has to be compiled under linux I guess (extension is
> .sh).
>
There is a small and outdated Wiki:
http://wiki.freepascal.org/MSEide_&_MSEgui
Please ask on the mentioned news group what you need to know.

Martin