Scrollbars in Rev

[Ken Norris]

Hi Mark,

> Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2005 07:55:04 -0700
> From: Mark Swindell <mdswindell at charter.net>
> Subject: Re: Scrollbars in Rev
>
>
Leading thread =================

> On Jul 13, 2005, at 2:15 AM, Klaus Major wrote:
>
>> Hi Mark,
>>
>>
>>> What exactly are the built-in Rev scroll bars, sliders?  Can one
>>> get into the images they use and modify them, or create others and
>>> have them available,
>>>
>>
>> i don't think so, since they are provided by the underlying OS, as
>> far as i know...
>>
>>
Break ========================
>
> That was what I was wondering... whether the OS provided the slider
> graphics, and how that works internally since so many of the
> characteristics are rev properties.   As for rolling one's own, I
> guess that's the option to use for X-platform, as the sliders in
> Windows look terrible to my MacCentric eye.  But as scrollbars and
> sliders are very important tools I would think that there could be
> several built-in style options that would appear identically 
> X-platform.
=========================

Well, the caveat is that the OS' don't really offer much 'style' 
options other than those already usable by Rev. Are you concerned with 
appearance or mechanics?

Mechanical operations are a function of the engine's hooks into the 
appropriate control API's for the platform in question, which Rev 
refers to as properties. These are reliable, because Rev is only 
assigning these properties, and after that has nothing to do with it 
other than I/O values from events. In most if not all cases, the OS 
takes over and actually draws and operates the control from events.

IOW, if you make a totally custom scrollbar cobbled together from other 
Rev/MC objects, i.e., which operates from API's outside the standard 
ones for a particular control type, performance will surely suffer to 
some degree or other.

OTOH, you _can_ change _appearance themes_ from Aqua to something else 
(but not the operational properties), meaning it will be system-wide, 
not just your Rev application:

<http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/shapeshifter>

All the best,
Ken N.