This is probably a trivial question, but I feel like it would be useful toward web design. I really like the style of some of the Rainmeter widgets and I wanted to know if there was any way to maybe incorporate them into a website. To be honest, I don't really care for its practical purposes, otherwise I would have gone with the usual widgets you can find on the web which were developed for websites. I am more worried about its aesthetics, and frankly... The widgets I've seen for the web are not the easiest on the eyes (Maybe you know a place where there are some beautiful widgets). Perhaps this is no longer even a widget in a sense, but just an image. An animated image. Surely there is a way though to incorporate the resources you find for Rainmeter onto a website. I tried to answer it myself, and so far only came up with this: create the image on a photo editing program, and then animate it on the website (could be tricky). Perhaps there is a way to edit a widget's style? So my question is really, how would you create/incorporate the widgets you find in the Rainmeter libraries? For example, to recreate what you see on the link below. (With animation).
http://customize.org/rainmeter/skins/67189
Thanks!
You are probably searching for the wrong keywords. You should be looking for charts and/ or gauges and maybe graphs. The most examples/ libraries will be found including the keyword "javascript" or "css" and now "html5"
This will probably never have a concrete answer, as it seems new browsers introduce new inconsistencies in the way the process or integrate html standards. I've noticed this especially with JavaScript animation. The browsers that support them tend to be more consistent in the way they display CSS transformations. I, personally, haven't delved too much into HTML5 canvas, but that will most likely be the way to go in the near future.
Alternatively, search for dashboard themes.
Long time Stack Overflow creeper. This community has come up with some incredibly elegant solutions to rather perplexing questions.
I'm more of a CSS3 or PHP kinda guy when it comes to handling dynamically displayed content. Ideally someone with a solid knowledge base of jQuery and/or Javascript would be able to answer this one best. Here is the idea, along with the thought process behind it:
Create a Full Screen (width:100%; height:auto; background:cover;) Video background. But instead of going about using HTML5's video tag, a flash fallback, iFrame, or even .GIF, create a series of images, much like the animation render output of say Cinema4D, that if put together in sequential order create a seamless pseudo-video experience.
In Before "THAT's JUST A .GIF, YOU'RE AN IDIOT" Guy.
I believe jQuery/Javascript could solve this. Would it or would it not be possible to write a script that essentially recognizes (or even adds) the div class of an image, then sets that image to display for say .0334ms (29.7 frame rate) then sets this image back in z space while at the same time firing in the next image within the sequential class order to display for another .0336ms; and so on and so forth until all of the images (or "frames") play out seamlessly fluid, so the user would assume he/she is actually seeing a video. Not a knowing it's actually a .GIF on steroids.
Here's a more verbose way of explaining the intended result:
You have a 1 second super awesome 1080p video clip (video format doesn't matter for helping to answer this question, just assume its lossless and really pretty k?). It's recorded at 29.97 frames per second. Break each frame into it's own massive image file, leaving you with essentially 30 images. 24 frames a second would mean you'd have 24 images, 60 frames per second would mean you'd have 60 images, etc., etc., excedera.
If you have ever used Cinema4D, the output I am looking to recreate is reflexive to that of an animation render, where you are left with a .TIFF per frame, placed side by side so that when uploaded into Photoshop or viewed in Quicktime you get a "slideshow" of images displaying so fast it look likes a video.
HTML would look something like this:
<div id="incredible-video">
<div class="image-1">
<img source=url('../movie/scene-one.tiff');/>
</div>
<div class="image-2">
<img source=url('../movie/scene-two.tiff');/>
</div>
<div class="image-3">
<img source=url('../movie/scene-three.tiff');/>
</div>
<div class="image-4">
<img source=url('../movie/scene-four.tiff');/>
</div>
<div class="image-5">
<img source=url('../movie/scene-five.tiff');/>
</div>
....etc.....
....etc.....
....etc.....
</div>
jQuery/Javascript could handle appending the sequential image classes instead of writting it all out by hand for each "frame".
CSS would look like:
#incredible-video img {
position:absolute;
width:100%;
height:auto;
background:cover;
}
But what would the jQuery/Javascript need to be to pull the off/can it be done? It would need to happen right after window load, and run on an infinite loop. Ofcourse audio is not happening in this example, but say we don't need it. Say we just want our End User to have a visually appealing page, with a minimal design implemented in the UI.
I love video animation, and really love sites built with Full Screen Backgrounds. But a site out with this visual setup and keeping it responsive is proving to strenuous a challenge. HTML5 will only get you so far, and makes mobile compatibility null and void (data usage protection). .GIF files are MASSIVE compared to calling in a .mp4, .Webm, or .OGG so that option is out.
I've actually recently played around with Adobe Edge Animate. Using the Edge Hero .js library I was able to reproduce a similar project to this: http://www.edgehero.com/tutorials/starwars-crawl-tutorial
I found it worked on ALL devices. Very cool. Made me think that maybe it's possibly to use this program or hit jQuery/Javascript directly to achieve the desired effect.
Thanks for taking a look at this one guys.
-Cheers,
Branden Dane
I found a viable solution to what I was looking to do. It's actually rather interesting. The answer it's introduces many interesting ideas on how we can display any kind of content dynamically on a site, in an app, or even a a full fledged software application.
The answer came about while diving hard into WebGl, canvas animation (both 2d and 3d), 2D video games techniques, and 3D video game techniques. Instead of looking for that "perfect" workflow, if you are someone interested in creating visually effective design and really seeing what the bleeding edge can do for your thoughts on development, skip the GUI's. Ignore the ads with software promising to make things doable in 5 min. It's not. However we are getting there. 3 major events we have to look forward too in just a few months are
1.) the universal agreement to implment WebGL natively in Opera, Chrome and Firefox (ofcourse), Safari will move to ship with webGL enabled, compered to the user having to enable it manually, and even IE is going to try and give her a go (in IE 12).
2.) Unity 3D, an industry standard in game development, has announced that next month it will release version 5, and with it a complete, intuitive workflow from start to exporting in Javascript (not JSON actual JavaScript). The Three.JS library more specifically as it is one of the most popular of the seemingly endless games engines out today.
How does this answer my initial question?:
Though WebGL has been around for about 3 years now, we are only now starting to see it shine. It's far more than a simple video game engine. With ThreeJS We have a full working JavaScript library, capable of rendering in WebGL, to the Canvas, or EVEN with a few CSS3 magic. Can't use your great movie as a mobile background? It ruining the overall UI? Cheer up. ThreeJS can working with both 2D and 3D javascript draw function, though not at the same time. Hover other libraries exist that allow you to bypass this rule.
AND DRUM ROLL. It is, or can be very easily made in a responsive or adaptive way.
The answer to my question came from looking at custom preloaders. Realizing I can create incredible looping animations in AE, and export them as GIFs offered the quality I wanted, but not control, no optimization, now sound. However, PNG Sequences CAN be exported. Then the epiphany hit. Before I just say what I am using to solve my problem, I'd like to leave a list of material anyone looking to move beyond easy development and challenge limits can use as a reference guide. This will be in order with what I began to where I am now. I hope it helps someone. The time to find it all out would be very much worth it.
1.) WebGL-Three.JS
WebGL opened my eyes to a new world. It's a technology quickly evolving and is here to stay. In a nutshell, all live applications you create now have access to more than just a CPU, but also the Graphics card as well. With GPU's getting more and more powerful, and not so unreasonably priced, the possibilities are endless. The idea we could be playing Crysis 3 "in-browser" without the need of a 3rd party client is no fiction. It's the future. Apply that to websites. Mind blown.
2.) First Cinema4D, then start working around with Verold.com & PlayCanvas.com
C4D is just my personal favorite because if it's easy integration with AE. You will find that with exporting your 3D models, Textures, Mesh's, anything to Three.JS (or any game engine period) that it is Blender that is the most widely supported. As of writing this, their are 2 separate C4D workflows to ThreeJS. Both are tedious, not always going to work, and actually just unnecessary. PlayCanvas was also a bit of a let down. Verold, however is an EXCELLENT browser based 3D editor in which you can import a variety of files (even FBX with Baked animations!) and when you are satisfied you can export into a standalone client or an iframe. The standalone client is superb. It is a bit glitchy, so have patience. You shouldn't get comfortable with it any way. Go back to your roots.
3.) iPhone app development, Android app dev (to an impressive extent), Web Sites, Web Apps, and more all function in a way that an application need only be made using JavaScript, HTML/5 and CSS/3. Once this is understood, and the truth hits you as to how much control you may not have known you had, then the day becomes good indeed. Learn the code. With a million untested and horrible "GUI's" out there that claim to do what you want, avoid the useless search. Learn the code. You can never go wrong at that point.
4.)What code do I need to learn?
JavaScript is the most essential. More on that in a moment. Seriously dive into creating apps of any kind with ThreeJS. Mr. Doob (co-creator of the library) has an EXCELLENT, well-documented website with tons of examples, tuts, and source code for you to dive into. Chrome Experiments is your next awesome option to see how people are really taking this kind of development to a new level. In the process of learning ThreeJS, you'll become more proficient with JavaScript. You will also start to play with things you maybe never had to, like JSON, or XML files for packaging data. You'll also learn how simple it is to implement Three.JS as a WebGL render, or even fallbacks to Canvas and even CSS3D if and when possible.
Before going on, I will make a caveat. I believe that once Unity 3D drops ThreeJS fro pro and free users, we will see much much more 3D in the web. In that case, it can't hurt to Download the software and play around a bit. It also serves an an excellent visual editor. There are exporters from Unity 3D to ThreeJS, but again they are still pre alpha stage.
2D or not 2D. that is the question
After getting a little dirty with 3D I moved into drawing in the 2D realm using the canvas. Flash still seems like a viable tool, but again, it's all about the code. Learn how to do it and you may find Flash is actually costing you time. I found 2D more difficult than 3D because the nature of 2D has yet to radically change, at least in my lifetime. You'll need to start learning Spritesheet creation tutorials. Nothing incredible hard if you know where to look. Use A photoshop, or an equivalent application. Create as many "movement" frames that if were put together in a GIF would be enough to seamlessly loop the sprite. OR render a master image out and cut around the elements naturally distinct pats. Ex: You want to make the guy you have standing on a street corner you created, stays. Cut that character up in as many separate PNG files as you believe you need. The second method is all about using the same sprite sheet we brought in the first try. The first scenario meant writing CSS selector and have javascript written for the regular user would become increasingly difficult.
First solution: Using CSS and Javascript to plot "frames" meticulously put together in the sprite sheet. This really can become a pain if not done correctly all the way through.
Second solution: We lose the frame by frame effect if we need it, but our overall 2D animations will look incredible. Also, building in this way creates more efficient games when implementing physics engines and setting up collision detectors. We will still use the same sprite sheet, however we only need to choose the frames we really actually need. The idea is to use dynamic tweening between frames that are called together via Javascript. In the end you have a fully animated Sprite, but could have done so with just one frame. Ex: You have a Stickman you want to show walking in a straight line. Solution one would jump frame by frame, creating a mild chop, to illustrate an animated walk. In solution 2, we take the Stick man and chop his dynamic bits apart so we can call them through JavaScript, then build our sprite from JavaScript directly. To create the walking effect, we cut apart stickmans legs and have those separate in the sprite sheet from the rest of his body (unless you need to animate another body part as well). We map out where the coordinates are for each piece of stickman. Free software like DarkFunctionEditor is one of many programs that will instantly take care of generating for you a reliable sprite sheet, printing out the coordinates of your sprite sheet after you bake it. With this knowledge, head into JavaScript and call in your variables that you wish to associate to the pieces of Stick Man and their corresponding coordinates. Then use Javascript to "build" all the pieces together. The walking animation is accomplished by the Tween we talked about earlier. Each leg essentially runs on a beautifully fluid path you set in JavaScript. No chop. Very easy to customize and control. If you want to make it even easier for yourself, try using one of the many libraries for Sprite animation. My favorite at the moment being CreateJS.
If you are looking to include collision detection or create particle systems then you will need a physics engine. For 2D I am torn between 2 at the moment. Right now I would put PhysicsJS over KineticJS. Both are fantastic. I believe PhysicsJS integrates with CaccoonJS and other mobile scripts easier.
My last words of advice are=, after reading this, understand you will be working will JavaScript. You will have a bit of jQuery to make it easy, but you will encounter things that are difficult on the way. My HUGE recommendation is to move into learning how to build using NodeJS. It's an Asynchronous Javascript Server-side and client-side development space. The documentation is wonderful. Your first stop should be learing about npm, and bower. Then understand how to effectively implement Grunt into the workflow. Try out NodeJS assets like Yeoman to give you "boilerplate" Node setups from which to start with. After you start understanding NodeJS mechanics and feel comfortable with setting up your initial package.json, you'll find that all this JavaScript will almost feel like it's writing itself after a certain point.
And that's all you need to know to get into 2D and 3D design and development. My initial question could have been answered using say a 3D rendered fullscreen. However my final conclusion came in a different method entirely.
After learning about 2D sprites and framing, then noticing the encoding process of gifs. I had the idea to try and create PNG Sprite Animations. Not PNG Gifs, per say. But rather creating a 2D scene and using a PNG sequence that I would then animate via JavaScript. I found a few great libraries on Github, both for my idea and cool ideas for GIF manipulation.
My final choices was with the Github Repo "jquery.animateSprite" Instead of mulling through sprite sheets, you take your individual PNG's and this library gives you an incredible amount of control in how you can store variables for later use, but also the animations you can pull off in general. For a full screen, responsive background that works on any device (and can even be animated to sound....) I'd recommend this technique. It works much like a flip book animation works, except much much more effectively.
I hope this helps someone along the way. If you have a question on anything I have mentioned here, or know of an area that needs further detail, then by all means please let me know.
-Cheers
I'm looking for a simple Flex or JavaScript based image editing component which can be embedded in a web application. It shouldn't be a web service but rather a component that I can download and customize (i18n etc.).
I only need some basic features: most important is cropping, optional features would be rotating and adjusting brightness/contrast.
Basically something like splashup.com, but as an open source application rather than a web-service.
Thanks a lot in advance for any hints!
-- Andreas
There is pixastic.
Pixastic is a JavaScript library which allows you to perform a variety of operations, filters and fancy effects on images using just a bit of JavaScript.
Be sure to read the documentation to make sure the operations you are looking to perform are supported by all browsers. There are some issues with IE.
They have a editor you can try. It shows off some of the features.
Your question suggests you want an out of the box solution, or at least a base to stand on.
Quick Google search reveals editImage. This doesn't look polished or bug free, however building on this or rolling your own should not be difficult.
Here is a good article on Image Manipulation in Flex. Towards the end of it read "Cropping, Panning and Zooming", your basically looking at 5 lines of code. I think you might even be happier building this yourself.
Thanks for your answers!
I ended up customizing and extending this component:
http://blog.mediablur.com/2008/02/20/flex-image-cropping-component/
I want to build a tool (with HTML5, JS and CSS3), which helps customers to arrange elements on a website mockup (e.g. text blocks and pictures). I want to save the position of these
elements in order to reconstruct the whole mockup website later.
Maybe a grid system would be the best?
alt text http://img.skitch.com/20090817-t4p54kbxw3rj58mkmqxspj4qch.png
I would be happy to get some ideas on approaches for this challenge. Are there any similar projects, I should take a look at?
Regards,
Stefan
YUI has lots of widgets for this sorta thing with lots of examples.
Drag & Drop: Examples
Especially this example
Drag & Drop: Using Interaction Groups
All you would have to do register a listener on the drop event to send an ajax request to the server and save the xy co-ordinates.
ALSO, if you want to do resizing as well
Resize Utility: Examples
They have a few really neat examples, including this image cropper
ImageCropper Control: Real Time Crop Feedback
The jQuery framework would help you in synchronizing the JS and DHTML events. As far as other projects that use this, I'm not aware of any, but a grid model seems like a good way to go. Just make sure it's more precise than the 125px you currently have :)
EDIT: The website that was mentioned in the DHTML book I mentioned in my comment was http://www.panic.com . You can take a look at their JavaScript code for some inspiration, as they implement a drag and drop system for downloading their products.
Not sure if it'll help, but my "PanelManager" might make things a little easier (if you're not already using a larger framework with similar functionality):
DP_PanelManager
"Panels" are just normal DOM elements with extensions for common actions/modifications (moving, resizing, etc). Panels can exist within one or more "PanelManagers" which allow you to treat them as a single unit (sorting, looping, etc).
Look at the example "Drag-and-Drop with Ordering" for a simplified example of (what I think) you're looking for. You would then need to do the same kind of looping to save whatever information you want (probably just name and position).
In any case there might be some code there you can rip out - feel free to fold, spindle and/or mutilate.
Is it possible for someone to give me a few pointers on how to display a multidimensional array in the form of a bar graph?
The array is multidimensional, with three elements in each part - and the elements are determined by a HTML form.
So if it is possible to display this kind of array in the form of a bar graph in Javascript on a standard HTML site, i'd appreciate some help!
Thanks
Check out Flot and MilkChart. The former extends jQuery, the latter MooTools. Both use the canvas element, which is now supported by all the major browsers (even IE with the inclusion of an extra script). Take a look at the reputation tab in your stackoverflow profile to see it in use. I've used Flot (haven't tried MilkChart) in a project before and while the manner you pass data into it can seem a bit unintuitive at first, you'll find that it is actually pretty powerful for a non-flash charting solution. Flot also defines custom events that you can use to define chart interactions. Flot supports stacked bar charts with a plugin, and I believe you can do clustered bar charts with it as well.
You could always go with some sort of declarative graphics solution using div elements as bars in a graph, but that's not as easy or consistent across browsers as drawing charts with the canvas.
If you are leery of either of those solutions you could send the data to a service to return a static image. The Google Charting API supports grouped bar charts, or you could use some service you host yourself.
My recommendation is the first solution using the HTML canvas, specifically leveraging Flot since that is the library I have the most experience with and can vouch for. Maybe someone else has some comments about MilkChart.
EDIT:
Another library I forgot to mention is PlotKit which extends MochiKit. I haven't used it but apparently it supports not only the charting using the canvas element but also supports charting using SVG. Scalable Vector Graphics offer you another declarative graphics option beyond hacking a solution using HTML, however I'm not sure how crossbrowser an SVG based solution would be (particularly in IE).
EDIT:
Here is a jQuery plugin which charts using div elements. I personally don't like this option because I think it is more complex and less easily configurable than some of the other options. I feel like using HTML elements to create complex declarative graphics (while impressive) is sort of a hacked solution and will, in my experience, cause problems at some point.
According to the documentation, both Flot and MilkChart only work in IE if the excanvas extension is installed.
For greater portability, I suggest checking out the Google Visualization API which is incredibly simple to use and has many different display possibilities. Visualizations are rendered as either flash elements (interactive) or as plain images (static).