Dynamic labels for buttons with (oddshaped) icon images?

[Klaus Major]

Hi Wilhelm,

> Both Chipp's "ButtonGadget" and Richmond's "Button Basher" automate  
> the process of glueing together images with text - and other  
> properties - and finally produce buttons with 2 or 4 icon states.
>
> Chipp's application possesses a number of nice and useful features,  
> which otherwise you may find only in other commercial or open-source  
> Photo tools. Richmond will probably develop his stack in a similar  
> direction. It is good to know that there are quite a number of  
> possibilities inside Revolution.
>
> Of course one could also use low-priced or free photo tools for such  
> tasks, like "RealDraw Pro" (which I use a lot), "PaintShopPro", or  
> "Gimp".
>
> The result of all these approaches are buttons or images with  
> "static" text, i.e. text that needs not and cannot be changed - with  
> the exception that you could produce different texts, colors etc.  
> for the different icon states.
>
> This is probably sufficient for the majority of applications in  
> which buttons are being used.
>
> However, in some cases, especially for certain types of educational  
> software, you need the feature to be able to *dynamically* change  
> the text/label of buttons at runtime.
> As an example, imagine a Matching Exercise for second-language  
> learning where you have got two columns of 10 buttons each - one  
> columns of buttons with words of the first language, the other  
> column for the second language - in which you have to drag the  
> matching button near to the foreign language equivalent.
> Then after all pairs have been correctly matched, a new set of 10x2  
> words or expressions are being displayed in the labels of the 20  
> buttons etc. etc.
>
> We use quite a variety of such exercises for the students studying  
> in our Language Department that rely on assigning new labels  
> dynamically from an attached database or a hidden vocabulary field  
> inside the stack itself.
>
> If you just use normal buttons - without icon images - there is of  
> course no problem to achieve such dynamic setting of labels, but if  
> you choose to be creative with presumeably more appealing buttons  
> with icon images and transparent shapes then you run into  
> difficulties:
>
> - The name or label of a button can be displayed on the right or the  
> left side of an icon or *beneath* the icon, but not directly *on  
> top* of an icon. If the latter would be the case, this would be very  
> convenient for dynamic label setting.
> About 10 years ago - or maybe even earlier - I had asked Scott Raney  
> to introduce such a feature for Metacard, but apparently it was of  
> limited priority on his agenda.
>
> - The other possibility to place text directly over icon images is  
> to set an icon as a backpattern of the button. This works fine as  
> long as the icons are rectangular, when they are oddshaped, however,  
> the transparent parts of the image show as black.
> I assume that this basically could be changed in a future version of  
> Revolution so that the transparent parts of backpattern really would  
> remain as transparent.
>
> Lacking such features at present, one workaround would be to take a  
> labelles/nameless button with several icon states and to combine the  
> button with a graphic/field, grouped together with the button or  
> just as an overlay to the button. This is one way to achieve dynamic  
> setting of labels at runtime.-
>
> I have put together a very small stack that just shows four  
> different icon images and four dynamic button entities which  
> replaceable text; this is not an educational exercise, just  
> demonstrating in which ways buttons and graphics could be combined.
>
> <http://www.sanke.org/Software/DynamicImageButtons.zip>
>
> (I will be out of home and office for the next three days.)
>
> Regards,
>
> Wilhelm Sanke

See also my "enhancement request" from about two years ago:
http://quality.runrev.com/qacenter/show_bug.cgi?id=3265

I do not think this is too difficult for a man like Mark W., but... ;-)


Best

Klaus

-- 
Klaus Major
klaus at major-k.de
http://www.major-k.de