Drop shadow effect

[Guest Taoski]

Hey chappies,

Is there a way to get a drop shadow effect on any of the plugins?

Eg.. in the clock plugin for example.

It would be nice to show the clock twice, with the 2nd (behind) offset slightly in a darker colour. it would make the homescreen look cool i think.

I have had a quick fiddle and cannot get it working...not that i'm an expert by any means..... so can i assume you can't do it?

[Guest scott2eyes]

I haven't figured out how to do it with the Clock, but that might be because it works differently to the others, in that it doesn't use the tags.

I did get it to work with the Profile though, and it looks pretty cool!

<plugin clsid="{95976968-45D5-40c9-9779-2B859B1C2FEC}" name="profile" height="50">


  <background b-border-width="0">


 	 <format state="selected" bgcolor="transparent"/>


  </background>


  <label x="12" y="12" fgcolor="#000000">


 	 <text>Profile: <profile/></text>


  </label>


  <label x="10" y="10" fgcolor="#0000FF">


 	 <text>Profile: <profile/></text>


  </label>


	</plugin>

EDIT- I think the reason it doesn't work with the clock must be to do with the plugin rather than the tags, because I can't get it to work with the part of the plugin, and that uses the same sort of tags as the Profile one.

[Guest zeta101]

it will only work if the plugin supports it, the plugin needs to understand the commands you give in the xml so the person who made the plugin must have explicity programmed it in. If they had done so then we would know cos the developer would have said so (or if its one of the pre installed plugins it would be on the MSDN article that tells you about how to make homescreens)...but ive never seen any mention of drop shadows unfortunatly...

[Guest scott2eyes]

The way I did it above was simply to write the text twice in two different colours, offset slightly.

This picture below shows what happens when the homescreen is made up of just these two plugins- the effect works with the Profile plugin (although the effect would work better if I'd swapped the black and blue colour codes, so the black shadow was behind!), but the Carrier plugin only prints the first line of text and not the second- for the "clock" part as well as the "carrier" element (which uses the same label/text tagging as the Profile plugin.)

Here's the code for the plugins used;

<plugin clsid="{E09043DF-510E-4841-B652-388316977A7A}" name="carrier" height="90">


<label>


<text fgcolor="#000000" x="22" y="0"><carrier/></text>


<text fgcolor="#0000FF" x="20" y="0"><carrier/></text>


</label>


<clock>


<time fgcolor="#000000" x="20" y="17"/>


<time fgcolor="#505050" x="18" y="14"/>


</clock>


</plugin>




<plugin clsid="{95976968-45D5-40c9-9779-2B859B1C2FEC}" name="profile" height="50">


<background b-border-width="0">


<format state="selected" bgcolor="transparent"/>


</background>


<label x="12" y="12" fgcolor="#0000FF">


<text>Profile: <profile/></text>


</label>


<label x="10" y="10" fgcolor="#000000">


<text>Profile: <profile/></text>


</label>


</plugin>

shadow.jpg

[Guest Taoski]

Yep - thats what i was talking about.

Shame about the clock though - and i am glad i was'nt going mad!

I think i will have to attempt to create a homescreen with a graphical drop shadow behind the text parts.

If the shadows are "loose" enough to disguise the fact that they are not proper - it should look ok.

I will post an attempt later tonight.

[Guest scott2eyes]

It's just occurred to me that I didn't actually do them both the same way- I've got it to work for the "carrier" part of the plugin by using seperate labels for the shadow and the "real" text, but still can't figure a way to make it work for the clock- it only prints the first one and ignores the second still.

:)

Here's my revised code;

<plugin clsid="{E09043DF-510E-4841-B652-388316977A7A}" name="carrier" height="90"> 


<label> 


<text fgcolor="#000000" x="22" y="2"><carrier/></text> 


</label> 


<label>


<text fgcolor="#0000FF" x="20" y="0"><carrier/></text>


</label>


<clock> 


<time fgcolor="#000000" x="20" y="17"/> 


</clock> 


<clock>


<time fgcolor="#505050" x="18" y="14"/> 


</clock>


</plugin> 




<plugin clsid="{95976968-45D5-40c9-9779-2B859B1C2FEC}" name="profile" height="50"> 


<background b-border-width="0"> 


<format state="selected" bgcolor="transparent"/> 


</background> 


<label x="12" y="12" fgcolor="#000000"> 


<text>Profile: <profile/></text> 


</label> 


<label x="10" y="10" fgcolor="#0000FF"> 


<text>Profile: <profile/></text> 


</label> 


</plugin>

[Guest Taoski]

Cool !

This effect is definitely something i want to put in my homescreen designs.

Thanks matey!

[Guest Taoski]

Heres the best i could manage in 1 hour using a drop shadow effect.

My first ever homescreen! (Jeez... its so slow copying the file over to test it every 2 mins!).

I just went for a graphical version in the end in photoshop.

XML and JPG file is in the ZIP file just in case someone likes it!

Cheers

ps. how do you get a better screenshot than using PrintScreen and pasting it into photoshop or something?

taoski.zip

preview.jpg

[Guest zeta101]

get smartSS:

http://www.monolithix.org/SPV_software.html