Hi all,

I tried myself today with this.

I don't think I would ever use it, but some of you that would like to be Mac fashioned may.

Just some basic tabs, bars and borders, though if really someone is interrested, I could go further more on this when I've got some time.

Metalizzatov2.fp5.zip

Not Bad Ugo I could have used it when I work at the Metal Plating Shop wrote all their files. Too bad their loss.

Nice and clean

alost a shame to muddy it up with some fields LOL

do you have any other elements like button checks and the like?

A great contribution there are not enough Graphical design resources around, as a prior thread will attest LOL

Charles

Ugo ...

Nice work! I like this so much more than the Aqua style. Simple, clean, uncluttered.

Very

nice Ugo

u can crop horizontal/vertical "frame-lines" even more and save on image size...and then u can re-use the same images for the web interface

take a look at the crops on http://mostarnet.com/template.asp and notice 2 tables on the left re-using the same image for diff. size

nice work!!!!

All the best!

Very nice. One suggestion to speed up layout performance: In the demo, many of the long horizontal bars are groupings of several narrow bars. Since the image is perfectly symmetrical, you can just grap one single bar and stretch it to be as wide as you need. Then, instead of having to download and render 10 different images, FileMaker only has to deal with one.

Even better if you crop the bar so that it is only 1 or 2 pixels wide. Then you'll have a very small image size, and you can stretch it as wide as necessary. This will help increase performance, particularly on list views that must repeat the body over and over on a single screen.

Hi Ugo

Nice try... but as you said it's Just a start....

I testing metal Interface for a year now

well except the aesthetic part there is a major subject about the speed of redraw your screen.

the redraw of layout/screen shot I sent you its speedy because is a gray scale pattern (even the shadows of the windows)

I like the gray metal interface because force the user eye to the target and he don't want to look anywhere else after hours of work...

About the Icons here in Greece we said " 1 Image = 1000 words"

if you have any (I work photoshop from version 1) questions about graphics or images optimize ask me ... as I said before a week, My job is Graphic designer... the developing is a hobby.

And as I said before a week experiment with GUI is a challenge.

I use the knowledge of experts (aplle GUI designers) ,customising it for my solutions give 'em a personal touch...

George

Hey...

So you liked it ?

It seemed so grey for me in this colorful world, but then it's the future trend.

Ok, so I'd extend it with buttons and more to have a new kind of usable interface for those who like metal..

Mariano, as opposed to the classic Aqua, this "MetalLike" is a little more tedious, as stretching a unique bar wouldn't give the same result.

For those using Appleworks, I'd attach to the next update all classified metal tools, so that you can reuse them at your own need.

At the moment, there are 3 differents images for horizontal, while 2 are used for vertical. Both of them use 3 separate widths, but true this could be solved easily.

You know, I just dropped this here as a way to say bye bye to this project.

But I believe there's some demand, so see you soon with a new Metalizzata Interface.

Thanks for the good words...

Nice job, ugo. Very clean and Panther-ready

I believe Apple calls this "brushed metal."

Try various types of pictures for speed. I guess it was PNG, which was fastest. Personally -- I do not like any graphic on FM layouts. Only the FM is producing itself. That is always the fastest and most crossplatform. No problems on 256 colors in Terminal Services.

My solution was running quite OK over 128kb line. Try that with pictures

Nice indeed George,

I didn't had in mind to use a whole metal screen, rather having it made "a la Panther" with some aqua icons and buttons to make it more happy, using the brushed metal for borders, tabs, some other graphics.

AppleWorks is limitative, but I had some bad issue with Photoshop and FileMaker redraw, so I've opted to develop all my graphics with AppleWorks.

Would definitely like to have a new go with Photoshop if it might help, with this or other designs.

BTW, are you sure you sent me anything. My mail is empty...

I liked the idea for this type interface and thought I'd offer this quick effort. I set up a simple FMP tips file using examples from this forum. The metal interface is pure apple (and ical in particular).

Hope it is of use to anyone.

FMForum_Tips.zip

Good start, I'm going to start using it soon. The only thing it missing in popups.

Erik,

You won't have to wait too long....

I'm working on it everyday a little, and will soon update with a complete set with buttons, menus, scrowl bars, dialogs, pop-ups, borders....

Here's one I posted a few days ago, inspired by this start...

TextParser

Do not pay attention to the demo itself. It was solved lately thanks to Queue, who certainly forgot to post back the corrected file.

Now, even if Apple received a lot of complaints about this Brushed Metal fashion, there are obviously some good points of using it, as explained by George.

The more I'm working on it, the more I feel of using it, which is contradictory with my first post.

For those interrested in the theories, here's a link that studies the difference from BMI (Brushed Metal Interface) and RAI (Regular Aqua Interface) in browsers.

BrushedMetalBrowser

You might look at all the related articles, as they all are very interresting.

For those OSX users looking for inspiration, you might download some examples at

MaxThemes

I haven't OSX my self for the moment, but IF SOMEONE DOWNLOAD THIS LATER, please contact me as I'd be interrested to get some screenshots, as I'm mainly building this Interface using screenshots.

Thanks and enjoy the links...

Gosh darn it! I never saw that last post in the thread. So when you said to post it back, I didn't know what you meant. Sorry. I'll post it later tonight when I get home.

MARZ!!!!

Hey, that's a cool name - John Cowboy

kenneth2k1 said:

It's best to avoid standing directly between a competitive jerk and his goals.

You can say that 3 times, I found out the hard way!

I can't remember exactly where it came from, but you know those successories things? Those inspiration posters? They have other ones that have anti-inspirational phrases.

That is off one of those, and it has two kids playing soccer and one is clotheslining the other one right in the face. It just looks funny.

They have another one that says:

If you need insiprational phrases to motivate you, then you probably have an easy job; one that robots will be doing soon.

Heh...Actually, "vaquero" is cowoby. "Caballero" means gentleman...we Caballeros have corporate offices all over the Spanish speaking world...if you've ever gone to the restroom in an authenitic Mexican restaraunt, perhaps you've seen my name on the door.

Hey what's up John! I just saw your post.

Yeah....did you cracked the codes of this funky Virtual on Marz game

Attached are some screenshots of the new "Metalizzato.fp5" file, updated with graphics, buttons and more to fit OSX Panther look.

Too big to be posted, just send me a mail if interrested.

Forget about the previous screenshots.

I finally compressed the file to be posted. The only missing part is the "Bronze" Interface and the Portal part, which I'll post later when I'll have understood how this blue aqua scrowlbar works....

After all, these weren't Brushed Metal

Metalizzatov2.fp5.zip

Way Cool, waiting for your next update.

Wow, very nice. Good work!

Thanks,

I slightly revisited the file and here's a screenshot of an adaptation "template" I'm planning to use.

Any comment greatly appreciated...

SalesPreview.jpg.zip

Looks great, I like the inverted tab look.

When is the next release?

Hi Robert,

I wasn't that satisfied with the first Tab headers. I got inspired by the new version of NetBarrier at http://www.Intego.com

I have to see how it runs on a real situation, but it seems to be redrawing quicker than the first version at the moment.

Let me have these scrowlbars fixed and I'll add it to the previously posted version. Would be a fixed portal though, but an usable scrowlbar...

Thanks

Employee File with Metal

EmployeeFile.zip

Nice one Robert,

Now I know who really you are...

Here's attached an adaptation of the Metal Interface tools posted earlier, with these aqua scrowlbars.

As it is originated from a real file I'm planning to use mostly as a demo of what can be done with FM, it surely won't be the easiest file posted on this Forum.

In order to use these hacked scrowlbars, one would need to implement fixed portal. The problem with these portals is that they won't scrowl as dynamically as a classic portal.

This one uses a 10 sections scrowl, but still allows to move up or down from a selected number of rows.

Let say you have 500 records and a portal displaying 20 rows.

The first move (10%) would display records from n

Multi-usePortal.fp5.zip

Thanks Ugo,

I don't know how you do it. How many hours are in a day in Paris?

I do like the look, and have 4 files of my employee package / Timeclock

mostly done , but boy it is a lot of work.

Will show more screen shots later.

Hi Ugo,

[color:"blue"]Nice one Robert,

Now I know who really you are...

Now if you will take off your bicycle helmet we can see what you look like too.

Hey Lee,

198 pounds, 6 1/2 feets, long brown buckled hair...

The kind of guy you won't ever see running on a "bicycle" without its helmet

And even motor-racing would be more comfortable and safe laying on the sofa....

Robert,

You see, my FM day starts at 8:00 pm...and sometimes at 01:00 am.

That's what it is for an european to keep in touch our US friends...

Ugo DI LUCA said:

Now I know who really you are...

Well it's that time of year, Ol' Chopper took a flea bath, Here's what I really look like.

Ok, Ok,

So now you'd wait until the 26th of december, when I will have this yearly shot with my Christmas Dad suit. Is it OK for you all ?

Why not ask Bob to quit his sarcophagus and take some fresh air....

Very nice--I really like the Metalizzatov graphics. May I use your blue aqua buttons in a solution I'm developing? Have you made those aqua buttons in any other colors too? (I'd really like an orange button too, if you have one made already!)

Thank you

Go to the Right Brain Forum on this site and look for a thread called

Hi Ugo,

It's about time you got out of your rubber room and did something good! Regardless of the terrible, terrible things people say about you, oops maybe that's me? Anyway, your Metal solution is really great. It even makes a Pc look good and I never thought that possible.

Good work Ugo, you did yourself proud...

Harry

Hi all,

I'm running OS 9.2 on the mac; when I try to download Udo's popular file to take a peek, it comes in as "download.php." I'd love to check it out. Can anyone help?

Thanks much...

John

Opens with unstuffit

Thanks Chopper. I only just yesterday migrated to my new computer running the latest Mac OS; it worked fine after that, but Stuffit Deluxe for Mac OS 9.2.2 wouldn't work.

As long as you're here, I hope that you won't mind lending me your expertise on something...

I'm trying to build a simple little DB that will allow me to archive information about video clips. I'd like to be able to enter the segment in time and the segment out time and have a calculation show the segment length based on the difference. hours, minutes, seconds and frames. the frames calc varies depending on the broadcast format. Pal and Secam are 25 frames per second; ntsc is 30 (really 29.97).

It would be acceptable to break the fields out if that's the most practical way to do it, but I can't get me head around the thing. Is this a simple calc?

Kind Regards and Thanks,

John

John,

I'm not at home so I can't exactly test, but ...

You should be able to put the in/out times into two fields as the full h:m:s and use the difference for the calculation of that part. The frames would probably be best left seperately and then you could have a field for the format.

Then, to calculate the difference, you subtract the frame values using the correct value based on the format and, if the difference is < 0, you would borrow 1 second (or x frames) from the time.

The calc may look pretty busy in the calculation field with different if clauses and such, but it should be very easy to do.

Thanks for the file Ugo! I have been playing around with it to try and develop a new database....I have attached a sample.

Is it ok to use these images for my file if I distribute them?

Thanks!

Picture 1.pdf

No problem.

Glad you found the file useful.

I've just added another file, specifically focussed on these OSX Scrowlbars for Portals if it help.

OSX Customized Portal ScrowlBars

Hi Ugo!

Nice work!

little tip that you might find "elevating" your layout look.

Here is a sample & concept attached...keep it up!

p.s. your portal scroll bar is gerat example on how to design interface for the website as well! The concept of "repeated segment of an image" vs. entire image was always my favorite approach to compressing and reusing images

resize this opage: http://mostarnet.com/template.asp

take care!

ugo.zip

Wow! This interface is great. I've just spent an hour playing with my time/billing database and it looks much more professional now. Anyone have an element for the search bar in Safari or Mail. I've tried my hand at Photoshop with it and it looks awful. I just can't get it so its transparent.

Cheers.

Would this fit your needs about safari ?

Thanks for the tip Leb i Sol !

safari.fp5.zip

Thank you so much. The search window looks much better than my botched photoshop work. I've cut it up into three sections so I can fit it to my template. Thanks again!

Michael