What the gaugedesigner is capable of

djandruczyk · Post by **djandruczyk** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 8:43 pm

Here's a treat, and it's 100% created with MegaTunix's Gaugedesigner tool. (the needle bits: adjustable tip length, width and tail width) will come out in 0.9.9.

Compare to this photo (courtesy of autometer.com)

RickRST · Post by **RickRST** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 7:32 am

we just need a night mode now

djandruczyk · Post by **djandruczyk** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 8:30 am

RickRST wrote:we just need a night mode now

Something like this?

RickRST · Post by **RickRST** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 6:20 pm

Yes - that looks really good.

To improve the backlighting effect, i think it would have to be antialiased somehow, but then you have the beginnings of Photoshop! Maybe green or blue backlight effect?

Rick.

djandruczyk · Post by **djandruczyk** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 7:04 pm

RickRST wrote:Yes - that looks really good.

To improve the backlighting effect, i think it would have to be antialiased somehow, but then you have the beginnings of Photoshop! Maybe green or blue backlight effect?

Rick.

Don't push your luck....

krwright · Post by **krwright** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 7:48 am

Just installed Megatunix on my PowerBook (w00t!), and am playing with the gauge designer. for snorts and giggles, I was trying to duplicate Stewart Warners' classic "green line" gauges.

I'm finding that I can't seem to get arbitrary text to float above a polygon. The best I've gotten so far attached.

Is there any way to move layers of polygons and text backwards and/or frontwards? It's not a big deal. I can live with what I have - I was just noodling around, anyway - but I thought that I might be missing something.

djandruczyk · Post by **djandruczyk** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 8:17 am

krwright wrote:Just installed Megatunix on my PowerBook (w00t!), and am playing with the gauge designer. for snorts and giggles, I was trying to duplicate Stewart Warners' classic "green line" gauges.

I'm finding that I can't seem to get arbitrary text to float above a polygon. The best I've gotten so far attached.

Is there any way to move layers of polygons and text backwards and/or frontwards? It's not a big deal. I can live with what I have - I was just noodling around, anyway - but I thought that I might be missing something.

Good point about the layering. It's very tricky. Right now text is "under" polygons. I'll see what I can do about making it a generic "under" or "over". In-between will be next to impossible without making things very confusing.

Here's my cheap immitation of that gauge.

krwright · Post by **krwright** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 8:36 am

Oh, fine, just blow mine out of the water why don't you!

I kind of stopped to ask the question when I realized the text was under the center circle. Yeah, that's my excuse!

How did you do the highlights on the brushed metal part. Are those just a pair of triangles layered on each side? I hadn't thought of that.

krwright · Post by **krwright** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 9:21 am

HAH! How about this one?
Think I'm getting the hang of this. You just have to think about what goes on each layer, since you can't move objects back to front after they're created.

While you're making the arbitrary text float over other objects, the ticks and tick text should probably do that, too. Maybe all text (and the ticks) should be on the same layer as the "value" text?

krwright · Post by **krwright** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 9:25 am

Oh, I hope I don't come off sounding demanding. This gauge design stuff is secondary to the actual purpose for MegaTunix, and what we have is certainly more than functional. If you never work on the gauge designer again, it's fine as-is. but if you want to make it perfect....

Besides, the gauge and dash designer are fun to play with when you're not tuning! (Man, I hope I have the MS *on* something soon...)

djandruczyk · Post by **djandruczyk** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 9:37 am

krwright wrote:HAH! How about this one?
Think I'm getting the hang of this. You just have to think about what goes on each layer, since you can't move objects back to front after they're created.

While you're making the arbitrary text float over other objects, the ticks and tick text should probably do that, too. Maybe all text (and the ticks) should be on the same layer as the "value" text?

Can't make them the same a value, as drawing is two stage to keep cpu use to an absolute minimum. All ticks, text (aside from value), polygons, etc are drawn only ONCE (or whenever the gauges are resized) Only the needle and value text are drawn during update. (well it's a little more complex than that, but you get the idea)

So the silver circle ON TOP of the needle isn't currently possible (though I am trying to think of ways to make the needles more complex without hurting performance ) having the ticks/text be on top or bottom is possible, intermediate is not, but adds a bit of complexity, though it is a good idea and allows more creative designs.

djandruczyk · Post by **djandruczyk** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 9:39 am

krwright wrote:Oh, I hope I don't come off sounding demanding. This gauge design stuff is secondary to the actual purpose for MegaTunix, and what we have is certainly more than functional. If you never work on the gauge designer again, it's fine as-is. but if you want to make it perfect.... Besides, the gauge and dash designer are fun to play with when you're not tuning! (Man, I hope I have the MS *on* something soon...)

Be as demanding as you'd like, but I still have the final say of doing whatever the hell I want.. ;) Demanding users are what drives innovation, it's all the quiet ones out there (bitching to themselves, instead of telling me what was implemented poorly) that I worry about...

djandruczyk · Post by **djandruczyk** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 9:41 am

krwright wrote:Oh, fine, just blow mine out of the water why don't you!
I kind of stopped to ask the question when I realized the text was under the center circle. Yeah, that's my excuse!

How did you do the highlights on the brushed metal part. Are those just a pair of triangles layered on each side? I hadn't thought of that.

the highlights are just two arcs one on top of the other, with slightly lighter colors. Had I used something like 6 arcs with gradually smaller spans and lighter color it would probably have looked better, but I figured that was overkill and would take too d*** long.

krwright · Post by **krwright** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 9:49 am

Well, cool!
I'll certainly let you know if I find any bgs in the works, or feature I think any of the apps needs, then.

I'm just thrilled I can use my PowerBook instead of the clunker Windows laptop I have specifically for MS use.

djandruczyk · Post by **djandruczyk** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 9:51 am

I just altered the code so that text renders last (on top of) everything else on the background layer. I couldn't think of any reason why you'd want it "under" anything, so it just seemed to work better on top and it doesn't break any of the existing XML.

krwright · Post by **krwright** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 10:25 am

Cool!
Oh, does this mean we have to download and compile a new version? <sigh>

djandruczyk · Post by **djandruczyk** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 11:16 am

krwright wrote:Cool!
Oh, does this mean we have to download and compile a new version? <sigh>

Yes. though if you use CVS, you can can just update your working copy and recompile..
the change was trivial, and involved only moving the text drawing code in the gauge code after the polygon drawing.

This minor change isn't enough to warrant a new release however. as the change is too trivial...

The docs for using checking out a CVS copy are:
http://msextra.com/viewtopic.php?t=23548 It's part of the ubuntu install. just skip down the the CVS section. NOTE you may need to install an additional tool or two with "port". your mileage may vary, but it should be relatively straightforward if you follow the docs.

krwright · Post by **krwright** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 1:13 pm

Right. I'll try that when I get home this evening. The firewall here at work apparently blocks the necessary ports, just like it blocked the update for Darwinports.

krwright · Post by **krwright** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 8:19 pm

Hmmm.
Got CVS running, grabbed the updates, but the ./autogen.sh command is bombing with:

Code: Select all

./configure: line 19448: syntax error near unexpected token `GTK,gtk+-2.0'
./configure: line 19448: `      PKG_CHECK_MODULES(GTK,gtk+-2.0 >= 2.8.0 gthread-2.0,'

Any clues? I'm way over my head here.

EDIT:
Found another error further up in the autogen run:

Code: Select all

Running autoconf ...
configure.ac:51: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_ARG_ENABLE
      If this token and others are legitimate, please use m4_pattern_allow.
      See the Autoconf documentation.
configure.ac:54: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_DEFINE
Running ./configure --enable-maintainer-mode ...

djandruczyk · Post by **djandruczyk** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 8:10 am

krwright wrote:Hmmm.
Got CVS running, grabbed the updates, but the ./autogen.sh command is bombing with:
Code: Select all
./configure: line 19448: syntax error near unexpected token `GTK,gtk+-2.0'
./configure: line 19448: `      PKG_CHECK_MODULES(GTK,gtk+-2.0 >= 2.8.0 gthread-2.0,'
Any clues? I'm way over my head here.

EDIT:
Found another error further up in the autogen run:
Code: Select all
Running autoconf ...
configure.ac:51: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_ARG_ENABLE
      If this token and others are legitimate, please use m4_pattern_allow.
      See the Autoconf documentation.
configure.ac:54: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_DEFINE
Running ./configure --enable-maintainer-mode ...

run "autoconf --version" "automake --version" and "libtool -V" and send me those versions. Typically that error means one of the tools might be out of date.
On my Mac mini I have these versions:
autoconf: 2.60
automake: 1.10
libtool: cctools-622.3

Here's a list of the versions of things installed on my mini:

Code: Select all

david-andruczyks-mac-mini:~/cvs/MegaTunix dave$ sudo port list installed
Xft2                           @2.1.7          x11/Xft2
atk                            @1.18.0         devel/atk
audiofile                      @0.2.6          audio/audiofile
autoconf                       @2.61           devel/autoconf
automake                       @1.10           devel/automake
cairo                          @1.2.6          graphics/cairo
esound                         @0.2.37         audio/esound
expat                          @2.0.0          textproc/expat
fontconfig                     @2.4.2          graphics/fontconfig
freetype                       @2.1.10         print/freetype
gconf                          @2.18.0.1       gnome/gconf
gettext                        @0.16.1         devel/gettext
glib2                          @2.12.11        devel/glib2
gtk2                           @2.10.11        x11/gtk2
gtkglext                       @1.2.0          devel/gtkglext
interceptty                    @0.6            sysutils/interceptty
intltool                       @0.35.5         textproc/intltool
jpeg                           @6b             graphics/jpeg
libbonobo                      @2.18.0         gnome/libbonobo
libglade2                      @2.6.0          gnome/libglade2
libiconv                       @1.11           textproc/libiconv
libidl                         @0.8.8          devel/libidl
libpng                         @1.2.16         graphics/libpng
libtool                        @1.5.22         devel/libtool
libxml2                        @2.6.27         textproc/libxml2
orbit2                         @2.14.7         devel/orbit2
p5-xml-parser                  @2.34           perl/p5-xml-parser
pango                          @1.16.1         x11/pango
perl5.8                        @5.8.8          lang/perl5.8
pkgconfig                      @0.21           devel/pkgconfig
popt                           @1.10.4         devel/popt
render                         @0.9            x11/render
tiff                           @3.8.2          graphics/tiff
xrender                        @0.9.0          x11/xrender
zlib                           @1.2.3          archivers/zlib