Cross Platform Build - my first

[Thomas J McGrath III]

On Wednesday, October 29, 2003, at 06:15 PM, Ken Ray wrote:
>> 	c. OS Classic does not load mpegs or audio or png
>> images as referenced
>> - links are NOT ok
>> Classic seems to have lost the reference path yet I built them all at
>> once so nothing changed on my end. Any ideas???
>
> This may have to do with the path differences between OS X and Classic.
> You may need to check under Classic to see what paths it thinks it's
> supposed to use.

How does one find the Classic path it thinks it is using. I'm rather 
new to REV.

>> 2. Both Macintosh builds looks great as expected. Both Windows builds
>> look terrible.
>> 	a. light blue card background shows up in some fields
>> and not others -
>> did not show up in original rev app
>> 	b. parts of actual light blue background show up as white.
>> 	c. parts of white area(should not even be there)
>> actually cover up
>> background text fields in background.
> Can't help you here... that sounds really strange unless you have set
> those colors somehow.

I have been going back and checking each object on the background and 
find that I know nothing about REV....
It appears I thought that a group would override an object and as such 
have dozens of groups to 'simplify' my updating of object colors and 
sizes and text. I guess I screwed it all up. BUT it did look ok on OSX.

>> 	d. buttons look awful. The three dimensional effect in
>> Mac OSX in REV
>> are lost and buttons lose borders so they appear to bleed into
>> background.
>> 	e. fields look awful. The edges have lost their borders
> First of all, you need to know that the buttons and fields should look
> exactly as other buttons/fields in other Windows apps which may look
> awful to you coming from development on the Mac, but are perfectly
> normal in Windows (that is, if you're using standard settings and
> haven't gone and set a bunch of border, etc. properties).

I had to laugh when I read this. But, No they didn't look like regular 
XP window buttons at all. I set all kinds of stupid border, color, text 
settings and then put them all in groups because I thought that would 
help separate sections of the app. Boy, did I screw up.

One question: If I had left them alone would the standard 'unabused' 
buttons change their look when in 2000 and then change their look in XP 
and still again look normal in OSX/Classic??????

>> 	d. text with effects have lost their styles completely
>> - size, font
> If you used a Mac-specific font in development (like Lucida Grande) it
> won't exist in Windows and it will default to a default font like MS
> Sans Serif or Helvetica.

I used my favorite font - Arial - Is that not good for Windows???
What fonts are good?? also I have group settings for fonts and then 
item settings for fonts etc. I screwed this up but good.

>> What settings in Build should I use for best cross platform
>> support? What font should I use? - Can a font be included
>> with build? (like
>> director)
> You can't embed a font (like in Director or Flash), but you can install
> one with your app if you need to. Better yet would be to pick a good
> Windows font and use it for Windows and your Mac font for Mac.

Your suggestion for a good font??

>> How can I make "NICE" looking buttons and fields that will
>> look good on
>> all platforms?(with out recreating from scratch)
> Well, "Nice" is relative... :-) Look at other apps in Windows and see 
> if
> your app's buttons and fields look different... if so, let us know and
> someone on the list should be able to help out. Some screenshots of 
> what
> your app looks like in Mac and in Windows would help a lot.

How can I get you guys the screen shots - the list refuses them???

>> Did I do right by combining the Data folder and moving to
>> root of CD? How can I get media folder to be at root and
>> still be shared by all
>> three apps?
> What you did *should* work, although I haven't done that myself.

Has anyone built multiple same apps on one CD that share the same 
media???

Thanks Ken, I do appreciate your input...

> Ken Ray
> Sons of Thunder Software
> Email: kray at sonsothunder.com
> Web Site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/



Thomas J McGrath III
Advanced Media Group

220 Drake Rd.
Bethel Park, PA 15102
3mcgrath at adelphia.net