FmPro Solution is a file not an application

[George TOUBALIS]

Hi from Greece...

Sorry for bad English

Some thoughts to share

I hear and read about a questioning in screen redraw / screen flash from many Fm Pro users and developers.

Questions like:

-What can I do with my graphics to be lighter?

-How can I make my database immovable if I have 3 portal /20 buttons and series of loops in my scripts?

-My screen is always flashes... what can I do.?

-The screen flash in Fm pro turn my solution in a nonprofessional look.

and so on.

The Graphical user interface in all applications belongs in one of 3 categories.

1) The Tools Palette Style

Where we have a menu bar and the tools in palettes. The Document / Project / File / Action or what ever we work on comes in its own window. (Photoshop, Quark Xpress, Flash, Freehand, FileMaker pro).

2) The all in one Window.

Where we have a big Window with tools and the---Document / project / file / action--- included. (Almost all 3D applications like Max, Cinema 4D, e.t.c)

3) The empty screen who wait to write some code for execution.

If you work in Quark Xpress or Photoshop like me you see that (in every action we do) the menu bar or tool palettes of the applications don't flash.

The Quark Xpress is 200 time faster from the second fastest Page layout program. (finds a "the" and replace it with "there" in a 200.000 words text in 2 sec. <<results 5.236>>)

But when you go from one document to other flashes.

If we perform an action or a filter the content of the window with a file change... is that a flash? Lets say its a flash.

So these applications flash only the project window and not the application tools or menu.

If you work in Max or Cinema4D (all in one Window) you see that if we click on a tab menu (one of the 50) the interface change in a specific area and the other interface area stays cool.

The concept in FMPro is

[Tripod]

Your english is not bad, George, but I don' t understand what you are doing to eliminate the flash. Are you not using FMP buttons, but simulating them?

I guess I don't know enough about the flashing problem.

[BruceJ]

Your English is much gooder than many native English speakers!

Hey, I'd hope that FM would just go ahead and give us aqua looking buttons for the radio and check boxes. We could do away with all the containers to display pretty buttons and such.

I've found that so much of development time is spent fartig around with graphics and "pretty stuff" when that time would be better spent crunching on the actually functionality part.

[George TOUBALIS]

The good looking buttons isn't the only matter.

Good button (in my opinion) are the buttons with behavior (active-inactive)

Aqua looking buttons also required 2-3 pixels semitransparent stroke to take a place correctly on the background. (Apple Quartz technology)

Thats why FM pro Co do nothing about it. how can satisfy windows users.

The problem is very deep and also very simple...

In Mac OS (panther) we see the window look of the solution is panther. of course it looks Panther It takes the interface elements from the system itself.

the window is an interface element of an application (Fm Pro)

The contents of the window not.

[smorr]

Flashing problem:

Database pros has a sample file that explains this and deals with it.

http://www.databasepros.com/FMPro?-db=resources.fp5&-format=list.html&-lay=cgi&-sortfield=new&-sortfield=rating&-sortfield=creation%5fdate&-sortorder=descend&released=1&search=flash%20arrest&Version=All&-find=&-Max=1

It is called Flash Arrest.

link to file: http://www.filemakerpros.com/FlashArrest.zip

Basically, put. I found that if items overlap, flashing will occur. The file has more details.

Also, One great thing in FMP 7 is the ability to use PNGs with alpha transparency -- it allows for a much much nicer interfaces. basically it allows for creating nicer widgets without having to think about what the background is.

Also I have found that the ability to specify the start and end repetitions of a repeating field is a godsend for interface...

Now I have all my widgets in global container with many repetitions. I just show the repetition I want in the place I want.

[Ugo DI LUCA]

Hi,

I'd agree lots of flashing effects would come from overlaping stuff, as well as the colors you've chosen as your background.

I use lots of graphics containers in my layouts too. I had one with about 10 of these checkboxes/menus and images, and while they were flashing a lot in the first time with this classic OSX Stipes grey look (all were flashing when toggling one at a time), placing a big white box underneath solved this issue.

Also, even if it can become painful, using scripted graphics with SetField( ) rather than a calculation helps reduce flashing effects.