Animated Titlebar buttons

Friday, March 19, 2004 by Erik Holmer | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk

I'm trying to make an animated titlebar button in skinstudio.
The aniamation is in three states. I've tried to do as I do when I make other elements animated, by putting the three frames in a row and then save it as usual. But I have never done it with titlebar buttons before...
Anyone knows how to do this?
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SelfExiled
Reply #1 Friday, March 19, 2004 4:04 PM
I wouldn't actually call three frame states animation.
30 frame states, yes, that's animation!

All kidding aside now. You need to start the animations, on the fourth frame. You would also need to add animation attributes to the buttons. And watch your last frame setting in the animation or it might not turn on when expected. I did some pop ups and state changes in the "Batman" WB that I did, but I wouldn't call that animation.
Good Luck.

Erik Holmer
Reply #2 Friday, March 19, 2004 5:50 PM
Thanks! I'll try that.. When you say fouth frame, do you mean that I should just paint blanks, and then, at the fourth frame start painting tha actual animation?

MarkMcQ
Reply #3 Friday, March 19, 2004 6:18 PM
The first 3 (or 6 if you have the inactive window buttons enabled too) frames are as they normally are. (Normal, pressed, mouse)
The animation ones come straight after them.

SelfExiled
Reply #4 Friday, March 19, 2004 7:17 PM
I believe there is a strange glitch in the six state button. I would use three, and start the animation on the fourth as Hippy stated. If you need a inactive button, just create a new 3 state inactive button and set the proper visibility setting for it.

Sput
Reply #5 Friday, March 19, 2004 8:14 PM
I believe there is a strange glitch in the six state button


...is this just when using animation, or all the time?? I've just switched to using 6 state buttons so I hope I don't have to switch back now!

Erik Holmer
Reply #6 Friday, March 19, 2004 8:19 PM
Too bad I already use 6 state buttons. Anyway, when I add three animation frames at the end of the bitmap, nothing happens. I tell skinstudio that the animation has 9 frames, else it will get very wird. Windowblinds will show one and a half button etc.

BoXXi
Reply #7 Friday, March 19, 2004 10:28 PM
Are you setting the animation RATE too? If you can't see animation rate, click on "add attribute" and check the box to show animation rate. Set it at about 200 to start with and see what it's like, you can change it to suit you then. I can't think of any other reason why it doesn't work, I just made an animated title button about 20 minutes ago, and it works fine.

BoXXi
Reply #8 Friday, March 19, 2004 10:32 PM
Also, are you certain that each of your animation frames is the same size as the original buttons? If the sizes are slightly out you will get that half frame effect. If you are only adding 3 frames, and the animation rate isn't set, it's probably happening so fast that you cant see it. And also remember that titlebar button animations made this way ONLY animate on mouseover.

Erik Holmer
Reply #9 Saturday, March 20, 2004 6:33 AM
Damn! Im going nuts... It wont work. Let me tell you exactly what I did.. I was trying to make an equalizer that has those lines in it, the lines was going to move when I hovered the closebutton. So I did the "Link-to-button" thing which always works. But when I hovered the close button, it just showed the first frame in the animation, nothing more. So I made the equlizer to a close button, just to check. And when I hovered it, it started animating, but in a extremely fast rate. So I put down the animation rate to 1, but it was the same.
Can somone help me? Im kinda stuck here...

Erik Holmer
Reply #10 Saturday, March 20, 2004 6:35 AM
One thing more! That really fast animation, I can see it includes the inactive states too..

Sput
Reply #11 Saturday, March 20, 2004 6:44 AM
The animation rate is how long each frame is displayed, so higher = slower. 1 is just about as fast as it can go

It sounds like you need to set the 1st frame/last frame in the animation somwehere too to avoid seeing the inactive states - unless that's the glitch in 6 state buttons mentioned earlier??

Sounds like a cool idea you're working on so I hope you crack it

MarkMcQ
Reply #12 Saturday, March 20, 2004 7:23 AM
You need to go into the personality section and set it so the skin knows you're using the 6-state titlebuttons.
Right now it's set to 3, so that's why it's showing the inactive buttons too.

Erik Holmer
Reply #13 Saturday, March 20, 2004 7:54 AM
#12 by Wizop Hippy - 3/20/2004 7:23:20 AM
You need to go into the personality section and set it so the skin knows you're using the 6-state titlebuttons.
Right now it's set to 3, so that's why it's showing the inactive buttons too.


There you're wrong. Of course I've already set it to 6 state.


Erik Holmer
Reply #14 Saturday, March 20, 2004 8:28 AM
Ok... Now I've got it to animate itself when I hover over it. But really want is to get the button to animate when I hover the closebutton. So I want to tell windowblinds to start animating my equalizer when its "Linked-to-button" is hovered.

Sput
Reply #15 Saturday, March 20, 2004 10:14 AM
Id be surprised if this is possible as it seems buttons only animate when mouse-over (from comment #8 above from Boxxi)

How about making it all one button but with a large area of transparent pink between the close and the animated bit? As long as they're not too far apart that is?

Erik Holmer
Reply #16 Saturday, March 20, 2004 10:32 AM
That's acutally a really good idea!

If thats the only soution...

Sput
Reply #17 Saturday, March 20, 2004 10:36 AM
no probs. I look forward to seeing the results if it does work

SelfExiled
Reply #18 Monday, March 22, 2004 12:30 AM
The solution would be to find a skin that has animated title bar buttons. Does anyone know one?

davad70
Reply #19 Monday, March 22, 2004 12:50 AM
It's something Erik and I have been working on together. Animated titlebar buttons are not a problem, we can do that. We're trying to have a seperate button that animates next to the titlebar buttons that only animates when the titelbar buttons are moused over. Sput's idea of having the large transparent area idea was good, but it made the titlebar buttons non-functional. We've tried every possible way to do it, but haven't come up with anything, so we're scrapping the animation for now.

SelfExiled
Reply #20 Monday, March 22, 2004 4:28 AM
Hmm, this seems to be geting more and more complicated. It started out with just animating title buttons. Now, its animating a secondary button when the original is moused over. I actually did a similar idea on the Batman WB that I made. But, the mouse over secondary button was static.

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