Re: [MiNT] gradients,FreeMiNT 1.18

[Paul Wratt <paul.wratt@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 6:27 PM, Jo Even Skarstein <joska@online.no> wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Jul 2011 23:54:58 +0200, Helmut Karlowski
> <helmut.karlowski@ish.de> wrote:
>
>>> My thought too. It sounds rather confusing. I would expect gradients to
>>> be quite simple, after all it's basically nothing more than a list of
>>> colours. Perhaps Helmut can explain in more details exactly how this
>>> works and how it's implemented.
>>
>> I can't ;-)
>
> Maybe Paul can?
>
> Jo Even
>
:)

ok, I still have not had a look at how much has bee done, but I can
guess it is similar to what I did in 1.16.3, except that the gradient
is produced as a separate binary that XaAES loads at run time.

so simply speaking, you change gradients= to match the .GRD file
(compiled binary)

now what people seem to have forgotten is that XaAES uses the MiNT
config loader, which can handle config includes. so the simplest way
to change these (gradient/texture) setting is to include a
gradients.cnf in the main xaaes.cnf, and if you are tricky (like me)
you soft link that to the actual settings file you want to use..

I suggest that the easiest way to handle these changes is to forget
that they are gradient/texture specific and think of them as ANY
config changes. So XaAES needs to be able accept a signal/protocol to
load a config, not nesescarily the main one, in which case (using
gradients as an example) only a limited set of changes will be applied

this has the advantage of changing other XaAES + system variable "on
the fly" (without actually restarting XaAES)

I believe that a preview may not be useful on some systems (resource
related), but if it is implimented, then there is no reason why
certain apps could not use specific settings (which they already do)
that include gradients/textures. that is a coding issue tho.. and a
"nice feature"..

before we get that far tho, both XA_XTOBJ.RSC and IMG also need to be
configurable in .CNF, just as WIDGETS is

I found widget previews not an issue using RSCVIEW (although it has
issues with some Interface RSC files - this does not affect XaAES
resources tho)

Thanks for the screen shots of the gradients Helmut (it may have
helped others if you had made a post, even tho you are not finished
with the gradient stuff yet)

If a preview is possible from XaAES, the a preview app would be simple.

If it is not possible, it is not really an issue, as the gradient
algorithms are available, and would only be complicated if the preview
app was NOT written in C.. same goes for textures, although specific
object rendering is not as clear as with gradients..

My original idea was, at runtime, to be able to load and parse the
actual c files as used by XaAES at compile time (to build the default
gradient), but I believe it is probably outside the scope of XaAES,
unless someone has a simple solution.

That idea also required all gradients to be defined in 1 file, even
though 2 separate parts must be included by to separate c files at
compile time.. (for those that did not know)

I think Helmut has a good/working alternate solution, if XaAES is
fleshed out with at least the ability to load any new config after
boot time (irrelevant preview ability, but with the 2 above mentioned
IMG/RSC setting)

Also remember that XaAES has the ability to know about screen capture
app, why not preview app as well..

Hope that answer most of your questions

Paul