Bitmaps and Toolbars

[phillpd]

NX5

What is it with bitmaps and their display in a toolbar.

I have the variable UGII_BITMAP_PATH defined. The actual names of the BMP files are all lower case.
However, depending on the case of the BMP name in the TBR file, and whether I include the full path or not in the TBR file, the bitmap displays differently.

And the background color should be 192, 192, 192 for a "transparent" look ?

Is there any hard logic ?

Specialty Engineered Automation (SEA)

http://www.sea4ug.com

a UGS Foundation Partner

 

[MSPBenson]

How do you mean differently?
Normally if the path is correct it displays the image, if not it shows a default image showing you the bmp is not present.
If in doubt fully qualify your path and keep the case the same. Ideally networked paths should be of the format "//server/directory/file.bmp"
That way varrying network drive letters won't screw things up.

Mark Benson
Aerodynamic Model Designer

 

[phillpd]

Hi Mark,

I've simply moved some toolbars from NX3 to NX5. All I had to do was change the UGII_BITMAP_PATH variable. So the toolbars and bitmaps haven't changed. The issue is that with NX3, the background color of the bitmaps matched NX, but with NX5 'some' of the bitmaps now don't.

Specialty Engineered Automation (SEA)

http://www.sea4ug.com

a UGS Foundation Partner

 

[JohnRBaker]

Those bitmaps were probably NOT created with a 'transparent' background and therefore since there was a change in the background color recently, old bitmaps created with non-transparent backgrounds but ones that were edited to match the old background, will no longer appear to match.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[MSPBenson]

John,

Is there a way of setting the transparency in a normal image editor like photoshop or do you have to use an icon editing program?



Mark Benson
Aerodynamic Model Designer

 

[JohnRBaker]

I've only found this capability in what are advertised as 'Icon Creator/Editor' tools. The one that I've used on occasion is the 'Icon Collector' by Great Owl Software.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[Xwheelguy]

I thought I'd read somewhere that if you make the background color magenta (brightest pink shown in Paint's default color toolbar), then that would indicate transparency.

I know for beta testing NX6, this method seemed to work out fine for me, as all of my icon background colors were correct and not magenta. They all appeared normal, even when changing Theme colors.

I'll try it in NX5 and see if it behaves the same. I'll report my results in a bit, if anyone is interested.

Tim Flater
Senior Designer
Enkei America, Inc.

http://www.enkei.com

Some people are like slinkies....they don't really have a purpose, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.

 

[Xwheelguy]

The magenta background color worked fine for me. Icon backgrounds matched the Windows color scheme.

Tim Flater
Senior Designer
Enkei America, Inc.

http://www.enkei.com

Some people are like slinkies....they don't really have a purpose, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.

 

[JohnRBaker]

I forgot about the Magenta background 'trick'. It works like the 'Green screen' that allows your TV weatherman to stand in front of his computer-generated map.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[Xwheelguy]

Paul (and John),

Prior to NX6 Beta, my icon backgrounds were all black and I could never see any backgrounds standing out against the Windows colors. When I installed NX6, you could easily see the icon background colors were NOT the same as Windows, so I did some research and found the magenta thing either on bbsnotes or in the documentation, tried it and it worked.

Maybe it's related to something Micro$oft has done with the introduction of Vista or something in newer development kits. I just thought it odd that there was a difference between the way the same icon backgrounds were displayed from NX5 to NX6. I would put my money that M$ changed something rather than Siemens.

Seeing as how it appears the magenta trick will work for NX5, I'd go that route since you'll more than likely have to do it for NX6 when it's available for download anyway.

Tim Flater
Senior Designer
Enkei America, Inc.

http://www.enkei.com

Some people are like slinkies....they don't really have a purpose, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Tim,

I just went back and experimented on a couple of customized icons that I'm using on both NX 5 and NX 6, and in both cases it worked fine.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[Xwheelguy]

I just remembered I switched O/S's during that timeframe as well. XP was probably the first time my icons encountered the blended colors of XP's windows.

Tim Flater
Senior Designer
Enkei America, Inc.

http://www.enkei.com

Some people are like slinkies....they don't really have a purpose, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.

 

[DavidTolsma]

I would not put a absolute path to any application or bitmap. Not even a variable for the absolute path. Instead put the bitmaps in the application folder (application folder). Or if you don't like that or there is a performance issue, append the bitmap variable to include the path to your application bitmaps.

I've always used the magenta background for the alpha masking (transparent) effect since NX3 when I first saw it. Works great and relatively easy to do. Photoshop or Gimp was my tool of choice. Create a layer that is magenta, then add a new layer for the icon overlay. Save as a flattened bmp file, keeping the master template for tweaking later. Also only created 48x48 bitmap image. NX does a great job scaling down automatically. 1 bitmap to maintain.



-Dave Tolsma
Tolsnet LLC

http://groups.google.com/group/NX_CAX/

http://groups.google.com/group/plm-exchange/

 

[phillpd]

Tim,

Thank you, the Magenta trick worked perfectly.

And thanks to everyone else for their assistance.

ps ... in saying that, check out the attached image. I had to make this change in the TBR file ...

Specialty Engineered Automation (SEA)

http://www.sea4ug.com

a UGS Foundation Partner