altBrowser for Mac

[Scott Rossi]

Recently, "Richard Gaskin" wrote:

> With RevNet already in public use for more than a year and a half, the
> idea of net-delivered mini-apps is old hat to us Rev developers.  So the
> only remaining element is eye-candy:  how to use special effects to show
> and hide these mini-app windows.

Two answers below...

> Since Rev has a built-in "import snapshot" command to grab portions of
> the screen, the goal would be to find a way to grab an image of the
> region of the screen beneath the mini-app, bring it into a borderless
> stack which also has a capture of the mini-app itself, then use QT
> transition effects to dissolve/squash/zoom it away.
> 
> Since the "import snapshot" command grabs from the screen buffer, it
> doesn't have the smarts to be able to grab a composite without the
> topmost window layer.  One can get it by hiding the window for a brief
> moment to grab it, but the flash is disturbing and doesn't satisfy the
> goal of creating a seamlessly smooth transition effect.
> 
> In short, if someone cares to write an external that hooks into Quartz
> to grab a composite of all but the topmost window layer the rest should
> be a snap.  But I'm not sure of the compositing engines on other
> platforms are sophisticated enough to write such a thing for other OSes,
> so it would, like Dashboard itself, be limited to OS X only.

Short term answer: to display <alternate name for "widgets" here> nicely,
one can use a combination of Trevor Devore's Window external and a custom
window shape to show/hide stacks.  Looks very slick and completely
controllable.

Long term answer: what Rev is lacking at this point is 8 bit window masks.
This allows you to define round/angled window edges that blend seamlessly
with whatever is behind them (the desktop).

FWIW, I'll be showing a simple demo of the short term answer at the Masters
Summit...

Regards,

Scott Rossi
Creative Director
Tactile Media, Development & Design
-----
E: scott at tactilemedia.com
W: http://www.tactilemedia.com