Multi-toggle state with categories

[Marbles_00]

I know that this will most likely never happen, but what the hell...

I've been creating my next version of Zoneskin, and most of my menus are created via databases/categories. Now I was wondering if it is possible to add the ability to do toggle states withing the category.

Thanks.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

I think that could be possible with specialized plugin.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Ive been wondering this for a day now... mostly ive been asking two questions, how well would it fit to xPerTs portfolio and would it be general purpose enough to be also useful for others.

And came to conclusion that it can really open some interesting possibilities together with mapcat forinstance... where cat items would be lamps presented on house blueprints. Those toggled cat icons could show current state of light and could be turned on and off.

So ive decided to implement togglecats to xPerT. So if u have time to wait a week or so, we can hopefully have this feature.

[Marbles_00]

P3rv, that would be really cool. I'll be waiting for it.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Just made first tests with toggle cats and they seem to be working ok... still little bit more polishing and plenty more testing.

I designed them to be part of much bigger concept called "cat-in-cat" something ive been planning as long as mapcats and collagecats, but never had plan to implement until later. Cat-in-cat is collective name for many planned ways to present categories within categories:

for example im planning to display mapcats inside regular cats to represent five day weather forecasts of geograohical area.

And regular cats inside regular cats for example to present faces of actors/actresses belonging to cast of particular movie within movie cat.

togglecats is bit different form of cat-in-cat since items of internal cat (now on referred as kitten) wont be displayed same time, but key idea is the same: cat within cat.

To make it more congrete lets take example... u have cat called "buttons" which contains items "play/pause", "next track", "stop", "mute/unmute". U want to make this category kittycat (cat which has one or more kittens), cause u like to present items "play/pause" and "mute/unmute" as having several (two) toggling states (and these states are modelled as items of kittens). So what u need to do is define two new cats (or actually kittens, since they belong to a cat), these two new kittens contain two new items both, the states for play/pause and mute/unmute buttons. And then all u need is just little bit of xPert magic to tie whole thing up.

Ill continue to work on it and give u more details later, if this kind of organization would be suitable for your purpose, what do u think?

[Marbles_00]

It will take some getting used to, but I think that's what I'm after.

I would never had requesed it except that in my Control Screen I tried to place both shuffle and repeat into the database that makes up the control menu, and that's when I first asked myself...how to toggle those buttons. Currently they are left out of the database and are just simple buttons sized appropriately on the screen. The other buttons that don't fall into categories are the sync buttons and the play function buttons (though that group may change).

The other problem will be how to indicate zone particular toggles...like shuffle, repeat, and mute. If I toggle one of those in one zone...how not for it to display when I go to control a different zone? That will suck if I have to create different categories just for different zones.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Ok its coming along nicely... with all likelyhood i wrap the thing up tomorrow. Allthough i believe first version will be suitable mainly to simple things like that repeat/shuffle, zone thing is more complicated and well have to evaluate suitability for that by testing.

But i have question... do u use just icons (coverart) in those cats, judging by the pic it defenetely looks so, and that is also how rika does these menus. Currently my implementation covers just icons (coverart). But if u use text too, i would like to know, its not really a problem if u do, then ill just have to implement that too and i prolly will eventually in anycase... but if u dont use text i wont hurry with support for it.

[Marbles_00]

Nope, I'm not using the coverart parameter. I'm using the Category/Display tab to setup the images. Backlayer image is the plain button. Selected image is the button with red. Unselected image is the button with blue. The plain button is also my general button that is used for all the other images and has the -enter, -down png's as well.

Font's are done on the category using the standard Display tab in the skin editor. I think this is one reason that I didn't put the play functions into a database/category as if I change the font to Wingding or Xlobbydings...or whatever the dings I used for those buttons, it effects all the categories...but I have to double check on that.

I haven't mucked too much with the skin as I've been trying vigorously to get PervTalk working for me. It's going to play a large part in the overall skin, so I need to understand that and get it working 100%. Skinning is the easy part.

[cmhardwick]

Skinning is the easy part he says ... HAH!

Just kidding. Great work on the zone skin.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Oh that is the pretty nice way to do those buttons, i didnt realize... Its very cool, in rikas setup it is pain in the ass to change language of those cat based buttons... So ill just implement text support too but there is a small catch, ull need to change the field, i wont use display, cause display is one of key fields, which xPerT uses to identify cat items, and since this function is based on changing of those affected fields, i cant quarantee that there wouldnt be problems with using display field. There prolly wouldnt, but we can rather use any other field just in case.

Now this is one of those moments Xlobby surprises me... it still keeps surprising me from time to time, usually positively, but this time surprise was negative. I was hoping that cats could hold different selection, but it seems they dont. To put it in programming terms of OOP, i thought cats were instances of databases and if u would have like two cats A and B derived from Movie database, different movie could be selected on both cats. But no it seems that selections are on database level!

So question raises can somebody really tell me what is the difference between cat and db, cause it is starting to seem like theres none???

I was really hoping, actually assuming that selection would be done on cat level, that would have allowed cat-reuse. to make it more congreate, if selections would base on cat level it would suffice for Marbles to create cat and dummy kitten per zone to make things work zone by zone basis. But since selection is on database level... he'll need to make new databases for each zone!!!

Now ofcourse that would be unfeasable... and im already thinking a possibility to make cat specific virtual selection managed by xPerT. But this will make things much more bug-prone again and place some restrictions on skinner, but i guess its only way... Mainly im writing this post cause im not believing my eyes... and hoping somebody to wake me up, and saying... "no no no bear, this is how it works..."

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Well togglecats are ready now. It should cover simple applications like that shuffle/repeat button within a cat. More complex uses require more development and evolution. Ill collect little energy for documenting and do that and release on xpert thread.