Guest drblow Posted May 26, 2003 Report Posted May 26, 2003 he, he ... me again! :wink: Trying to understand the shortcut plugins as described in the articles section. :oops: When I add the plugin described by Chris B. I get the MRU plugin coming up. What I actually want is just to create a shortcut plugin from the home screen to callface - but do it as a plugin, with background images for selected & unselected states. I saw this done with the sp3 skin from smartphony - but the plugin was only 1 pixel height at the top of the screen, and used an image with the carrier plugin somehow that I don't understand! I want to set a shortcut plugin near the bottom of my screen, preferably with a couple of icons - but I dunno if thats possible - 1 would do! Anybody help!?! Cheers.
Guest gradiation Posted May 26, 2003 Report Posted May 26, 2003 What the guy did on SP3 was to create a shortcut 1 pixel high to what you wanted to go to and placed it at the top, then underneath just used the carrier plugin to display an image. Because you can't select the carrier plugin when you scroll to that image, you are really selecting the one pixel shortcut.
Guest drblow Posted May 26, 2003 Report Posted May 26, 2003 mmm... ok, but how do I make a seperate shortcut plugin with its own background image when selected? Can I just replace a plugin in another skin - say allday event plugin (which I never use) - with a shortcut to a .lnk - keeping the same background images etc?
Guest gradiation Posted May 26, 2003 Report Posted May 26, 2003 Erm, sort of. The thin gyou'll notice is that on the SP3 theme, they create a image for the whole window. This is because you need to hide the old image and show a new one, and because you can't just replace a section of the theme, you have to add a totally new screen. So say you have a theme that has messages on one line, MSU on another line and the allday events screen on another line, to replace the allday events, you'd have to have a dummy image on the first screen, then create another screen with the shortcut at the top, and a new set of images, if you get what i mean. If you study the sp3 theme you'll understand what i mean. Also take a look inside my Longhorn screen aswell if you like, that uses it too for the applications menu.
Guest drblow Posted May 27, 2003 Report Posted May 27, 2003 Err... I'm working on it! Got the shortcut at the top of the plugin list - it works ok. But I can't get me head around the image thing. :oops: Can I juat attatch a full screen image to the shortcut at the top, so when it's selected it shows the same full screen background as the rest of the skin - so that it seems as if the screen stays the same?? Know what I mean? :roll:
Guest gradiation Posted May 27, 2003 Report Posted May 27, 2003 Know what you mean, but not sure if you can add a background image to a link, if you can then yea go ahead, but if not, u now see why the other is there
Guest drblow Posted May 27, 2003 Report Posted May 27, 2003 :cry: Na! Can't get an image into the shortcut at all. The best I can do is rearrange the plugins to put the carrier just below the shortcut & add an image to it (like in the sp3 skin). Just a case of rearranging everything to fit around that I think! Cheers for the help Grad! :wink: Let me know if you think of anything else.
Guest drblow Posted May 28, 2003 Report Posted May 28, 2003 Grad - After several hours of trying stuff - I have to reflect that you were right in the first place!! & probably the reason that the sp3 skin is made that way is coz its the only way! The only possible way of getting an image to appear as if in a shortcut I found, is to attatch it to the carrier plugin below it - and the only realistic way of doing this and being able to see a palusible effect on the screen when the shortcut is selected & available is to add a full screen image to the carrier & make it height 200. At least, thats the only way I could do it! At least it's working the way I wanted ... sort of! I've just copied the background image for the plugin, with slight changes, to reduce the impact of the screen changes. Works quite well I guess. So is this the best solution then d'ya think??
Guest gradiation Posted May 28, 2003 Report Posted May 28, 2003 At the moment yes, the only other thing you could do is develop a plugion, but then thats a whole new kettle of fish. Least now that you have done one it will make it much easier to create another one in the future. Hope my explinations were ok, it's quite easy when you know how, but it's a bloody nightmare trying to explain it to someone else. :lol:
Guest drblow Posted May 28, 2003 Report Posted May 28, 2003 At the moment yes, the only other thing you could do is develop a plugion, but then thats a whole new kettle of fish. Least now that you have done one it will make it much easier to create another one in the future. Hope my explinations were ok, it's quite easy when you know how, but it's a bloody nightmare trying to explain it to someone else. :D TOTTALY RIGHT! I'm finding my way through xml (with a little help from my friends of course!!) - and once you get your head round it it's not that bad, not that different from html. But you're so right that it is really hard to explain it to someone else!! Really appreaciate all the help you've given me Grad! It's all been 100% useful - half the learning is in figuring out what the advice you get means!! & I'm sure there will be many more daft questions along the way! :lol: Cheers!
Guest gradiation Posted May 28, 2003 Report Posted May 28, 2003 Hehe, well if you keep askin them, i'll keep answering them the best way i know how :lol:
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