topic Re: ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase in Libraries & objects

ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase

Nader Belal — Thu, 26 Sep 2019 21:50:32 GMT

Dear Graphisoft,

I would like to point at two thinks:
1. In ArchiCAD GDL manual, it does say anything about how it can become a problematic issue working with .PNG or .Tif files type directly on the user interface dialogue box (i.e.: transparency only works in any other case, & I don't know if that was also true for .SVG files)

2. I think you should work of this issue

Best regards,
Nader

Re: ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase

Nader Belal — Fri, 27 Sep 2019 21:01:45 GMT

False Alarm,

There is an error in my photo-editing program that is generating my errors.

Sorry, my bad

Re: ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase

Nader Belal — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 00:07:11 GMT

OK, issues:

1. In the manual you should mention that pics used in the dialogue box should be of 96 ppi, while those used in buttons is of 72 ppi.

2. I use Adobe products to generate the graphical contents (Photoshop, Illustrator, & Bridge), and it happens that if I generate pics with transparencies (either as .tif or .png) for the dialogue box, those images will not appear with the desired transparency, I believe that it have to do with the settings saving those pics from vector graphics.

Example of an ArchiCAD original pic with transparency in Adobe Bridge

Example of a pic with transparency in Adobe Bridge made by me

as you can observe ArchiCAD original graphics have a different way to represent transparencies.

Re: ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase

Piotr Dobrowolski — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 11:28:36 GMT

The tiff files are capable of having different pages, and that's why it's better to use them, because those pages are used by UI scaling mechanism.
When You analyze the original tiffs - they contain 100%, 150%, 200%, 300%.
The library tools can create such tiffs out of svg files, however... the manual is lacking the straightforward info how to do it...

If You are on the PC: make a bat file containng this:
"C:\Program Files\GRAPHISOFT\LibDev Toolkit 22 (3013)\Tool\WIN\LP_XMLConverter" convertlibrary -excludesvg %1 %1_tif

And than make it a right click option on the folder. You can use the Ultimate Windows Context Menu Customizer app, or modify registry manually
(sidnote correct the path of the lib devkit)

Having it done You can right click on the folder containing svg files, and after clicking on the above option, you will get another folder having the same name as the clicked one extended by "_tif".

Best Regards,
Piotr

Re: ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase

Nader Belal — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 19:33:13 GMT

The maximum reach that I had managed to reach related to those pics (don't take this as it is as I may had understood it badly😞

I have found out a thread in a graphical designers forum that commented my issues, and it happens that the transparencies in original ArchiCAD's tiff are defined as 0%, while Adobe Packages saves those transparent areas as NoData.

I will try your way.

Re: ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase

Piotr Dobrowolski — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 20:40:19 GMT

I never had issues with either tiff or png files created by Adobe software (although I used CS 6.0...now I switched to Affinity... as I do not like to be Adobe's CC = "cash cow" to milk)

The only problem with some transparency issues is when the file is scaled wrong - ie. until I have found an easy way to create those multipage tiffs I did overscaled pngs - but in some cases it caused a blurry lines unless the scaling was 100%

Piotr

BTW. Try avoiding use of svg's created out of bitmaps - the best results will be with pure vector content

Re: ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase

Nader Belal — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 11:51:49 GMT

I'm working with vectors (adjusted to their pixel module)

Can you give me an insight for the correct way to scale them ? Just in case that I'm doing it wrong?

Re: ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase

Piotr Dobrowolski — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 13:33:20 GMT

If You saved the vector file as svg with correct pixels dims(as100%)...and run the library tool... the tiff would be automatically created.

When I have to deal with the bitmap file created manually - I use export persona in Affinity Designer and create setup of exporting set of tiff files with transparency on 100%, 150%, 200% and 300%...

Then I use imagemagic to put them together...

Same MO:

I created a right click option to put together tiffs inside the folder - so I get the file with the name of this folder

the below line is put to bat file and this bat file is set as a right click command on folder.
"C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-7.0.8-Q16\magick.exe" convert %1\*.tiff %1.tiff

of course the image magic folder can change...

Piotr

Re: ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase

Nader Belal — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 23:13:01 GMT

Holy censored!

@Pitor Dobrowolski, you're right, about the multipage tiffs.

How the hell did Graphisoft forgot to tell it's users about that!!!!! NO why many users were banging their heads

And thanks alot.

Re: ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase

Nader Belal — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 23:33:38 GMT

If anyone is interested, I have found a way to inspect multipage tiffs using Adobe Acrobat.

You can check it here: https://collab.its.virginia.edu/wiki/toolbox/Processing%20Multi-Image%20TIFFs.html

Re: ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase

Piotr Dobrowolski — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 18:20:54 GMT

Multipage tiffs are readable by ACDsee...(shareware, I have a licence for ancient version which still works) ...
Lately I have found a freeware viewer: "Focus on Image" (basing on imageMagic under the hood), that can read such tiff files...I did not test the write capabilty, but imageMagic does the job (either packing or unpacking the multipage tiffs)

Piotr

Re: ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase

Nader Belal — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 19:23:25 GMT

@Piotr

I´m trying to use imagemagik to combine tifs in one multipage tiff, but it happens that imagemagik repeats the inserting each tiff

Re: ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase

Nader Belal — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 20:54:03 GMT

@Piotr

I was just asking, what if, that after create the 100% scale vector image, you just save the 300% as png ?

Wouldn't it be more efficient ? besides scaling problem that we usually face is that of scaling up a small image, not down !!!

Re: ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase

Piotr Dobrowolski — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 21:31:48 GMT

I checked 300% PNGs only instead of multipage TIFFs... and it is looks good if the UI (at least on Windows) is not scaled... if it is scaled TIFFs always looks better.

The only good effect on scaled interface is when using graphisc that is a photo-like...and in such case jpg gives good results (if only the transparency is not needed)

UI of objects can use only bitmaps...as well all images in AC are bitmaps. There is no use of vector graphics in AC interface (at least on Windows)

Piotr

Re: ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase

Nader Belal — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 23:47:50 GMT

@Piotr Dobrowoski

1st of all, I want to thank you for your help.

2nd I have found an easier way to do it (partially in Adobe Illustrator, but you can choose the program that suits you best)

1. Create the vector image in Adobe Illustrator at 100%, then save it (that will be your template).

2. Then save it again with a different name.

3. In the new file, and text must be exploded and converted to a shape.

4. Create a new layer that will contain all the vector elements in it as sub-layers (let's call it 100).

5. Drag a copy of the artboard.

6. Select and cut all elements in the new artboard.

7. Create a new layer (let's call it 150).

8. Select the new layer, and "Paste in place" so the the copied elements be inserted in the new layer with the same layer structure.

9. Scale elements by 150%, then select the artboard and scale it 150% (make sure that you select the same origin)

10. Repeat steps from 4 -5 until you get the 200 & 300% scale.

11. Save file as SVG.

12. Go to ArchiCAD folder.

13. run windows command prompt

14. Type LP_XMLConverter convertlibrary -excludesvg [svg file location] [tiff destination]*

*If the source and destination locations are the same, LP_XMLConverter will simply not work

PS:
a. I have observed that svg files only accepts 1 artboard only (don't take my word for it), but it you have converted the svg to multipage tif, and the size in of that icon in the UI is messed up, then move the artboard behind the elements with 100% scale

b. Transparency in svg may cause troubles, best/easiest way to deal with it, is to make a rectangular shape with the same size of the artboard with 0 (zero) fill, and 0 (zero) stroke width.

Re: ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase

Nader Belal — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 13:11:22 GMT

@Piotr Dobrowoski

Just one more question ...

I was trying to create an multipage tif with transparency, but the background is painted black in the UI_page.

What should I do to conserve transparency ?

Re: ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase

Nader Belal — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 14:56:08 GMT

@Piotr Dobrowoski

Never mind, I got the trick.

And thank you very much

Re: ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase

Piotr Dobrowolski — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 19:59:27 GMT

I think You complicated the procedure too much

I use Affinity designer, but any vector program would do.
1. Create a file with size corresponding to the UI element in pixels
2.Make any vector elements
3.save/export to svg...
convert it with the library tool... the multipage tiff will be created automatically - no scaling / duplicating needed.

Piotr

Re: ISSUE: UI Dialogue User Interfase

Nader Belal — Sat, 05 Oct 2019 09:28:46 GMT

ohh, I see

I didn't expect that the LP_XMLconverter would create the other pages.

Thank you