My NR designer questions

[Jlee]

Since I'm starting use the designer I can feel a load of dumb questions coming on so rather than hijack the designer thread with a million daft questions I'll post them here.

Let's start with: Is there any way to copy button image and colors like you could in Tonto and paste them onto another button?

I found that to replicate the image of one button on another I had to actually pick the image from the image picker for the new button. The problem with this is that I have lots of images that are very similar (maybe just a pixel or 2 different) so it's very difficult to see if I picked the right one. I'd rather just copy it from another button so I'm sure they are the same. I don't want to copy the whole button because the actions are totally different.

[Jlee]

As mentioned in the bug thread I'm trying to change the text color on a button. I thought I'd worked it out but now no matter what I try I can't change the color without changing the color on loads of other buttons.

[Rob H]

You need to create a new scheme - open the scheme picker and right click over on the left to add a scheme

[Jlee]

Thanks Rob. I hope this gets changed. I can't use the scheme picker 'cos there are too many close (but not quite close enough) variations of the same colors so I can't be sure I've picked the right one unless I can choose myself or copy from another button.

[Ben S]

Once everyone is moved to the new designer, you'll be able to name schemes (this is currently disabled) which should help.

May I ask why they're close (but not close enough)? Variations of gray's or something?

[Jlee]

May I ask why they're close (but not close enough)? Variations of gray's or something?
Yes, there's a lot that are quite similar and I've no way of knowing if I've selected the right one. I know which one to use in the color palette so I tend to just use that. If we can copy actions why can't we copy colors and icons?

[Ben S]

Yes, I'll be adding this.

[Jlee]

This is driving me ******* mad at the moment. The mjb list panel, library and search has mysteriously changed to a black background and I can't change it without ******* up the rest of my CCF. I've tried selecting 'add scheme' and then changing it but after doing so half of my CCF changes. It's driving me crazy. I can't go back to Tonto without losing all my button aliases. I can't stand the fact that you can't change one element without ******* up everything else. This is madness!

I don't want stupid schemes. I want to be able to change the bloody color!

Please help me before I go mad.

[Edit: sorry for the rant but I think it's best that you see how annoying it was because it's better happening to me than a potential new customer. These schemes are just not working for me. I would go back to Tonto straight away if I didn't have to set actions on 9 buttons on about 50 different frames. 450 pasting of actions is too much for me. IMO these schemes should only be used if I explicitly select an option to use a certain scheme. It should not default to using a scheme for everything.]

[Ben S]

I think you may have the process backwards, JLee. If you want to change -one things- colors, first create a scheme, then change it's color, not the other way around.

My guess is that you are changing color first, which is messing everything up.

Here's the reason for schemes: Ideally you'd have a handful (or two handfuls) of schemes, and you would want to change all of their colors at once.

[Jlee]

I can see the reason for it but it's just not intuitive to me.

I tried everything. I created the scheme first via 'Add scheme' then changed the color but it still didn't work. Then I created a new scheme and scrolled down to the bottom and selected it - then changed the colors. Same result.

My point is that it just shouldn't be this hard. I should be able to tick a box or something to say 'leave the fu**in schemes out of it and just let me change the ******* color'. It really is driving me mad. I do consider myself computer savvy and I wouldn't post if I hadn't really tried everything in sight. If it's pissing me off what's it gonna do to others?

One wrong move and I've screwed up my whole ccf. Never before did I feel the need to create so many back ups of my ccf! I've had to go back 3 versions 'cos I screwed up so many back ups. So all my work with the gac lua object has been lost :cry:

[Ben S]

All because of the color schemes?

To be honest this is the first I've heard from anyone having a trouble with this. I'm sorry you're so frustrated, but there must be some bug we're hitting with your interface, as I've developed several interfaces in the designer with color schemes and haven't had the problem you're mentioning.

The only thing I can do is have a new scheme created every time you go to choose a color, I can't have some using schemes and some not.

Has anyone else had this problem?

[Jlee]

Sorry, that was not very constructive. I should not have attempted to edit my CCF after so many beers and should certainly not have posted my criticisms until I'd sobered up :oops: Very sorry about that.

I found a recent ccf in the recyle bin and that one's not suffering the same problem. I do think it could be more intuitive though. I think a clear option indicating that it's using a scheme would be good. If you turn that option off it should stop using the scheme and let you change the color independantly.

[Rob H]

Has anyone else had this problem?
Not really, but that's probably because most of my buttons are pre-rendered and any that aren't use just the one scheme

[Jlee]

Perhaps the mechanism doesn't need changing at all but the means by which you divorce a button from an existing scheme and give it a new one could be more obvious.

If no one else is having this problem it's not worth getting excited about. When I get home I will try and find the CCF that wouldn't play nicely and if it looks like I've got a bug I'll email it to you.

[Jlee]

Well I just spent several hours updating my ccf using designer and I'm really getting to like it now.

I think the colour scheme thing will be easier to manage when we can name schemes and list schemes by scheme name. Will the scheme name be shown next to or underneath each scheme? I think it would also be useful if the scheme picker could automatically jump to the scheme currently in use.

[Ben S]

Well I just spent several hours updating my ccf using designer and I'm really getting to like it now.
Yeah! That's good to hear, most definitely. I also spent quite a few hours today working on trying to wrap up the new pro interface (I have a looming deadline on that one) and found a few little gotchas, but overall I'd say I can make a decent interface in less than half the time as Tonto.



I think the colour scheme thing will be easier to manage when we can name schemes and list schemes by scheme name. Will the scheme name be shown next to or underneath each scheme? I think it would also be useful if the scheme picker could automatically jump to the scheme currently in use.
My plan was for both underneath as well as to the right when selected. Does it not jump to the current scheme in use? Argh! I'll fix that right away.