Xion 1.0 build 117 Beta Release

[xonenine]

Cliff's comments make sense. I think most of my 'problem' is that I'm ... over 40. I grew up with LP records, and still tend to listen to music an album at a time (including the songs I don't like!), even though it's all digital now. So I want Xion to behave like a single disc CD player, which is probably somewhat different than what most people want.

I have one more issue to bring up:

I have a drawing problem with my skin. A portion of a layer is not drawn when the layer becomes visible. I'm sure it's because of the bizarre way I put the skin together. I've already decided to change how I'm doing things, but if this is exercising a bug I figure it should get fixed.

It's probably easiest to explain if you load the skin. You can download it from here.

Keep clicking on the Xion logo 'button' on left. It cycles to the Windows logo, then to nothing, then back to the Xion logo, etc. About 90% of the time, after cycling through them, the top and bottom of the Xion logo 'button' is cut off. Moving the mouse over anything that gets redrawn (e.g. the playlist button) will instantly fix the Xion logo button. The clipped region is outside the snaprectangle; I don't know if that's related.

Let me know if any of that wasn't clear.

Thanks.

What I did was put your modify(1,2,3) button below the logos. It works fine now.

btw: it's great looking.

Edit: Oh yeah, I also turned off 2 and 3's visibility and lowered the modify button to 4%. You will decide those tho'...

[Rutabaga]

What I did was put your modify(1,2,3) button below the logos. It works fine now.

btw: it's great looking.

Edit: Oh yeah, I also turned off 2 and 3's visibility and lowered the modify button to 4%. You will decide those tho'...

Unless Gimp is lying to me, I thought the modify(1,2,3) was already below the logos. The other changes you mentioned don't seem to have any effect on the problem (although it may happen less frequently). Hmm. I did just notice though that if I click very quickly through the logos, the problem disappears. If I wait a few seconds between clicks, I get the drawing problem.

I see this problem on three different machines, so I hope this isn't somehow "just me".

[xonenine]

What I'm seeing also is that as the button state fades, then you can see the whole logo.The fade between for button states and visualization changes seems to be a little slow...

[Lance]

This is not your skin, it's a bug which I'm now officially reprting

This bug involves 3 key pionts: transparency, layer switching and snaprectangles. When all 3 are combined, this bug occurs. Let me try and explain what I've found...

If you simply delete your snaprectangle layer, this bug disappears. However, if a snaprectangle exists, (can be any size too, even a completely empty layer) then any layers that are involved in layer switch commands and are partially or completely above transparent pixels (like the PSD in question), they become cropped to the size of the smallest layer in the switch cycle. This is based off of various test PSDs I've just created to recreate the bug, not just the one.

I would suggest to cliff to look into how the snaprectangle layer affects layer switching as a starting point.

As of now for a quick fix though, just delete your snaprectangle layer, it's a blank layer anyway, not sure why?

P.S. Xonenine, the modify layer is already under the stack, so not sure what you meant there!

Peace, Lance

[Cliff Cawley]

Thanks guys I'll look into why the rectangle is getting drawn incorrectly and see what I can do about fixing it for the next build.

I've got a reproducible case here now, just requires a couple of hours of debugging to figure out what's going on.

Cliff

[xonenine]

hey, it was late, I was just sleepy, hehe, sorry!

[Rutabaga]

Hey guys, thanks so much for helping out with this problem. I don't have nearly enough free time these days for troubleshooting.

As of now for a quick fix though, just delete your snaprectangle layer, it's a blank layer anyway, not sure why?

I want the snaprectangle so that you can position the skin against the top or bottom of the screen the same way the normal taskbar sits, i.e. with part of the logo button cut off. Otherwise the bulk of the skin sits 5 pixels away from the edge of the screen.

I was going to just make the background layer serve double duty as the snaprectangle (since they're the same size/position), but when I do that Xion no longer draws the background layer. I assumed that this was an intentional feature of snaprectangles, and thus made mine an empty layer. If that's not the case, then there's possibly another bug.

Thanks.

[Lance]

You're supposed to fill the snaprectangle layer with actual pixels. Draw the rectangle the size you want it and fill it with any colour. The layer doesn't render so no need to hide it, it just uses the rectangle you draw to determine where to snap. But you have to put something on the layer for it to work, not just empty!

Peace, Lance

[Jikaru]

Rutabaga, the snaprectangle is intentionally auto-hidden on draw while Xion is running. You fill what space you want the snaprectangle to be in photoshop and keep it not-hidden. This way xion knows where to have it snap...yes this is intentional and not a bug. Just some confusion on your end.

[SLoB]

Hmm we know the snap rectangle needs filling, however, the actual reference text could be left ambiguous, it should be updated to reflect that a filled rectangle should be used so there is no ambuiguity.

Code: Select All Code

Custom Snapping rectangle     1.0.82
Allows you to specify a snapping rectangle for snapping the edges of the interface window to the screen. This can be useful if you've used a shadow and would prefer Xion to snap on another part, other than an overhanging shadow.

Keyword: snaprectangle


[Cliff Cawley]

As I said above, there is a bug here. Whether the snaprectangle is defined or not, there is a reproducible bug due to the way that the skin is setup.

Cliff

[Lance]

As I said above, there is a bug here. Whether the snaprectangle is defined or not, there is a reproducible bug due to the way that the skin is setup.

Cliff

We've gone beyond that now though, we're just talking about the fact he has an empty snap layer and seems unsure on how they actually work. This isn't about the bug now Cliff, that was sooo 8 posts ago, Godddd....

But aye, I agree with SLoB that the description could be a little more explanitory to how to use it.

Peace, Lance

[Rutabaga]

Ack. Im sowing confusion.

I realize now that I misunderstood Lance way back when. I thought he was questioning why my empty snap layer was a separate layer, instead of why it was empty. Sorry about that.

The empty snap layer works just fine, BTW. I think Xion just uses the size and position to determine the snapping. The contents (or complete lack thereof) are not important. It does need to be marked visible to work though.

Obviously, I add my vote for an enhanced description.

And with that I'm going to stop posting for a while, to everyone's benefit.

[Cliff Cawley]

But aye, I agree with SLoB that the description could be a little more explanitory to how to use it.

Oh my gawwwd you guys are so yesterday. I updated that last night!

Cliff

[Lance]

The empty snap layer works just fine, BTW. I think Xion just uses the size and position to determine the snapping. The contents (or complete lack thereof) are not important. It does need to be marked visible to work though.

Still not quite there man Your empty snap layer isn't doing anything at all. Xion already has a default snap which is the very first pixel on all 4 sides that isn't 100% transparent. So the canvas size could be 800x800px and the interface itself could be a just 150x150px, Xion would auto crop the empty space until it hits an actual pixel. So if you want to snap to an area smaller than the default, you have to create a snaprectangle layer and draw it yourself.

You don't have the empty layer for the default snap to work, it does it on it's own.

Here, I drew something for you dude:


This example shows where Xion would snap to automatically. As you can see, there is a drop shadow which would cause a 'gap' to appear if it was snapped to the edge of a screen...


...so if you want to ignore the shadow, create a 'snaprectangle' layer and draw your own rectangle to the size you want, defining the snap edge.

NOTE: My example shows a single red line so you could easily see where the rectangle is. You would have to create a solid block in your own PSD.

Sooo, having a completely empty layer means that Xion will just ignore it and use the detault anyway. The layer is pointless unless you've actually drawn a rectangle in it

Peace, Lance