Why is Konfabulator "Pretty?"

Scott Rossi scott at tactilemedia.com
Sun Dec 4 16:51:20 EST 2005


Recently, Bill Marriott wrote:

> I believe my original point was that Rev would be more popular if it were
> easier to create "sexy" user interfaces like the ones in K. I've spent six
> to eight hours trying to get Rev to emulate the pretty little clock included
> with K, something that should be pretty easy. But it's not easy, and I think
> this reinforces what I said.

Hi Bill:

I was going to respond to your previous post, and I still might, but in
short: 1) you are right, rotating an image does not produce good results in
Rev no matter how it is done, and 2) it is sometimes more work to create
"sexy" interfaces in Rev, but it is still doable.

IMO, getting images from Photoshop into Rev (or Konfabulator) is not what
makes for a visually appealing UI -- it's what is done with Photoshop (or
other image editor) that counts.  There are a few of us here who do some
cool things with bitmaps, but the majority of folks are developer types who
I would guess find it too demanding to learn the ins and outs of Photoshop,
on top of already dealing with their own projects.  (On my end, I'm working
on some modest solutions for this, but that's a story for another post.)

Chip Walters has a tool for Rev called Interface Builder that allows you to
construct images with reflections/material finishes/etc from within Rev.  If
one already has some understanding of how to create rendered looking objects
in Photoshop, Interface Builder is a useful option for creating similar
effects within Rev.

As far as your clock app goes, I would look at creating the various
positions of the hands as antialiased bitmaps outside of Rev since, as you
discovered, image rotation is not as good as it should be.  The import the
images, and use a button to serve as a "display" for the images, but setting
the icon of the button to appropriate image at the right time:

  set the icon of btn "minutehand" to (id of img hand7.png)

Again, I realize this is more work, but it is a way to achieve what you're
looking for.

For more inspiration, I believe Rev has a sample app gallery somewhere on
their site.  At the risk of tooting my own horn, you're welcome to see here
for additional examples of more "dimensional" things built in Rev:
<http://www.tactilemedia.com/samples/applications/>.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

Best Regards,

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




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