Idea Community Christmas Tree Widget
Any volunteers
Saturday, December 15, 2007 by SirSmiley | Discussion: Community
I'm willing to script something. So, looking for your ideas, graphics, etc. I'm sure we can put something together quickly.
Some of my ideas:
Graphics (animated and/or non-animated):
- ornaments
- presents (both for under & on tree)
- Trees, fake, real, "Charlie Brown"
- lights
- tinsle
- garlands
- popcorn strings
- bows
- candles
- obviously drap'n'drop decorating
- countdown on hover tree?
- controlling lights/candle speed
- real vs fake - daily watering, if missed your tree could burst into flames! Just a thought
- timer for turning your tree on automatically
Reply #2 Saturday, December 15, 2007 4:17 PM
Great ideas!
OK . .to make this a community project we need to get a few things done quickly.
Can the tree be resized? How about five sizes? Give each size a name so it can be scripted. Set the sizes now.
Set sizes of ornaments and decorations. So if a user uses the "Extar_Large" tree they get the "Extra_Large" Decorations.
Set the overall size of the decorations . . so that other artists can upload ornaments that won't be too big or small.
Start there I think and it can be expanded upon.
Try to keep the tree code framework as open as possible for the future.
I'd say keep it simple for the first pass. Tree, lights, ornaments, garland, star (angel). Animate the lights. Add a countdown to Christmas underneath or when you click on top.
Now GO GO GO!!!
Reply #3 Saturday, December 15, 2007 4:59 PM
Reply #4 Saturday, December 15, 2007 6:56 PM
Had planned on making it sizeable. Now that could be dynamic but, I'm thinking that might be too confusing for many people
Define open? How about the ability to just put your image in a folder?
Here's a very basic layout of things. Note the funky Zuba-esque Xmas tree!

The left panel beside the Xmas Tree holds the basic decorations, this could be set up to generate from the contents of a folder including animated png's?
The bottom panel is for configuring your decorations. Eg. Size, colour, transparency, animation, etc.
Need to add a tree selection/config panel.
Also, will add the ability to save your created Trees to config files.
Obviously these panels will all be hidden when not in use.
Reply #6 Saturday, December 15, 2007 10:06 PM
Reply #7 Sunday, December 16, 2007 11:14 AM
Sounds Great.
Here's where it is atm. Loads decorations from a decorations folder and the trees from a trees folder. Clicking on a decoration adds it to the tree. I'm going to do away with a separate decoration config panel.
FYI those decorations are not mine & won't be included. Happy to provide links though.

To Do:
* Tree Stand Panel
* Animated Ornaments Panel
* Tree/Decoration Sizing
* Loading/Saving Tree Configs
* ????
Wanted/Looking for:
* Graphics, Graphics and more graphics
* Some base decorations
* Trees
* Tree Stands
* GUI: Panels, Buttons, Scrollbars
Reply #9 Sunday, December 16, 2007 1:58 PM
Reply #10 Sunday, December 16, 2007 2:24 PM
sViz, I don't think it matters since I plan to make them sizable.
Whatever anyone can provide is fine with me.
Guess people could post what they're working on in order to eliminate duplication?
Quick Status Update:
I should be able to have this coded by later tonight thanks to the crappy weather.
Reply #11 Sunday, December 16, 2007 2:32 PM
What about lights? Garland?
Po' I really like your tree. Is Winky and Ornament or part of a tree-type?
If there is a treetype, how will it be sized and how will ornaments be sized on it?
I really like the way you are loading the ornaments from PNG's in a folder. I am assuming the same for the treetype? Good execution!
Reply #13 Sunday, December 16, 2007 3:06 PM
1) The Basic External Folder Structure will be like this:
* Community Xmas Tree - this is main Folder and will hold the config files at it's root
* Four subfolders will hold the different items decorations,animated_decorations,stands,
trees. The config panels are generated from these folders.
2) On first load you will see a blank/plain Christmas tree and the main toolbar.
* Main Toolbar consists of three buttons: Open, Edit, New, Save
- Open will load saved trees in normal mode
- Edit Switches into edit mode (obviously)
- toolbar expands to include panel toggle buttons: Decorations, Animated
decorations, Trees, Stands
- New will ask for Name of your Tree and automatically switch to edit mode.
3) The Tree
* The tree is a child object of a transparent base object.
* It will be sized relative to the dimensions of the base object. Some padding is needed for tree top, decorations, & stand.
4) The Decorations
* Selecting a decoration in the decoration panel places it in the upper left corner of the tree as a child object.
* decorations will be saved to the config file based on x,y positions from the internal border of the tree base object
* when sizing the tree you will have the option (right click menu?) to size decorations relative to the tree size or not to size decorations
* [Planned] In edit mode Selecting a decoration will show a resize control in the bottom right corner for that decoration. Eg. You can size each decoration to different sizes.
Not all of this is implemented but, definitely in the works.
Reply #14 Sunday, December 16, 2007 5:46 PM
Posting code somewhere so folks can see it, comment on it, improve on it (perhaps?)? Or is this your baby? (Was that too obvious a hint?)
Reply #15 Sunday, December 16, 2007 7:12 PM
Thanks. he's part of it, but can easily be removed.
Koasati's tree is nice. probably better suited for this than mine.
Reply #16 Sunday, December 16, 2007 7:23 PM
I din't see his. You are right . . yours really sucks in comparison.
Now . . if it were a troll hiding behind the tree . . totally different story.
Reply #17 Sunday, December 16, 2007 8:54 PM
Reply #18 Sunday, December 16, 2007 9:10 PM
My original intention was to keep this completely open but, I just had to steal some code that I put in over 30 hours on for another project. For the time being I'm going to think about it because it looks like I'll being doing the GUI also?
Since I needed to change things my bragging about tonight may have been premature.
Current Screenie:
As before notes below it.

Switched over to just one multi-button config panel with toolbar. Buttons go trees, stands, decorations, animated decorations.
Reply #20 Sunday, December 16, 2007 10:52 PM

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Reply #1 Saturday, December 15, 2007 3:51 PM