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MB

Delphi Developer
Fri, 02 Jun 2000 03:00:00 GMT

HELP: Can Delphi Animate Down When Minimizing?

Greetings, Delphi gurus...

The challenge: Emulating the animation when you minimize a Delphi app

I've read several articles talking about how Delphi apps don't animate
down to the task bar when you minimize it, like Micro$oft apps do.  I've
seen some code trying to do this, but most of them have bugs or are just
hacks.  Can anyone supply example code, hints, insight, etc, to do
this?  I would much appreciate it and I'm sure many others would to!
Thanks.

PS - Please post to newsgroups AND reply to my email.  Thanks!

 
t..

Delphi Developer
Sun, 04 Jun 2000 03:00:00 GMT

Re:HELP: Can Delphi Animate Down When Minimizing?


On Mon, 15 Dec 1997 09:09:38 -0600, MB <mba...@altechcontrols.com>
wrote:

Quote
>Greetings, Delphi gurus...

>The challenge: Emulating the animation when you minimize a Delphi app

>I've read several articles talking about how Delphi apps don't animate
>down to the task bar when you minimize it, like Micro$oft apps do.  I've
>seen some code trying to do this, but most of them have bugs or are just
>hacks.  Can anyone supply example code, hints, insight, etc, to do
>this?  I would much appreciate it and I'm sure many others would to!
>Thanks.

I'm looking for this as well. I remember reading about it, I think
it was on the DDJ website, but it's been over a year and I can
no longer locate it. If I find it, I'll post it here.

JE McTaggart

Sundial Servic

Delphi Developer
Sun, 04 Jun 2000 03:00:00 GMT

Re:HELP: Can Delphi Animate Down When Minimizing?


Quote
In article <34973732.416...@news.ruralnet.net> t...@ria.net writes:
>>The challenge: Emulating the animation when you minimize a Delphi app

>>I've read several articles talking about how Delphi apps don't animate
>>down to the task bar when you minimize it, like Micro$oft apps do.  I've
>>seen some code trying to do this, but most of them have bugs or are just
>>hacks.  Can anyone supply example code, hints, insight, etc, to do
>>this?  I would much appreciate it and I'm sure many others would to!
>>Thanks.
>I'm looking for this as well. I remember reading about it, I think
>it was on the DDJ website, but it's been over a year and I can
>no longer locate it. If I find it, I'll post it here.

Well, the strategy that Apple used (which MS has now shamelessly copied,
having won the lawsuit), was simply to XOR-draw a series of rectangles
directly on the screen-canvas bitmap, converging on the size and location
where the minimized window was going to be.  Then redraw the window in
minimized state and you're done.

But I warn you -- it flickers.  And if the CPU is slow the effect is jerky
which is really worse than before.  Some Mac add-ons took this to an illogical
extreme, with all kinds of sound-effects and visual effects to accompany the
various desktop events.  To me they had the net-effect of an ill-chosen
Christmas present:  looks great in the store, but by December 27th you want to
take it back.

Lotsa times I look at commercial-stuff and say, "well the special effects are
great" (e.g. "Welcome to QUICK-en!") "but I wish they'd spent the same amount
of time beefing up the content, instead."

Fred Hove

Delphi Developer
Sun, 04 Jun 2000 03:00:00 GMT

Re:HELP: Can Delphi Animate Down When Minimizing?


Quote
t...@ria.net wrote in message <34973732.416...@news.ruralnet.net>...
>On Mon, 15 Dec 1997 09:09:38 -0600, MB <mba...@altechcontrols.com>
>wrote:

>>Greetings, Delphi gurus...

>>The challenge: Emulating the animation when you minimize a Delphi app

>>I've read several articles talking about how Delphi apps don't animate
>>down to the task bar when you minimize it, like Micro$oft apps do.  I've
>>seen some code trying to do this, but most of them have bugs or are just
>>hacks.  Can anyone supply example code, hints, insight, etc, to do
>>this?  I would much appreciate it and I'm sure many others would to!
>>Thanks.

>I'm looking for this as well. I remember reading about it, I think
>it was on the DDJ website, but it's been over a year and I can
>no longer locate it. If I find it, I'll post it here.

>JE McTaggart

The article you seek is entitled "Zooming main forms under Windows 95" in
the October 1996 issue of Delphi Developer's journal.  The direct link is
http://www.cobb.com/ddj/9610/ddj96a2.htm.

The article explains why Delphi doesn't support form animation and how you
can "fix-it" so that it will.

Cheers,
Fred Hovey

t..

Delphi Developer
Sun, 04 Jun 2000 03:00:00 GMT

Re:HELP: Can Delphi Animate Down When Minimizing?


On 17 Dec 1997 09:32:01 -0700, news-re...@sundialservices.com (Sundial

Quote
Services) wrote:
>>I'm looking for this as well. I remember reading about it, I think
>>it was on the DDJ website, but it's been over a year and I can
>>no longer locate it. If I find it, I'll post it here.
>Well, the strategy that Apple used (which MS has now shamelessly copied,
>having won the lawsuit), was simply to XOR-draw a series of rectangles
>directly on the screen-canvas bitmap, converging on the size and location
>where the minimized window was going to be.  Then redraw the window in
>minimized state and you're done.

Yes, I actually have some code to do the animation from scratch, but
it's almost impossible to get consistent on different machines. Mainly
because you have to slow it down to see it. Seems kinda weird that
you actually have to slow something down on a pentium in order for
it to work the way that it should...

Quote
>But I warn you -- it flickers.  And if the CPU is slow the effect is jerky
>which is really worse than before.  Some Mac add-ons took this to an illogical
>extreme, with all kinds of sound-effects and visual effects to accompany the
>various desktop events.  To me they had the net-effect of an ill-chosen
>Christmas present:  looks great in the store, but by December 27th you want to
>take it back.

Ah yes, brings back memories of my MAC and Amiga days...we used
PageMaker on a MAC Plus (2MB ram), and you could type so far out ahead
of it that you could literally go get a cup of coffee while it caught
up with all the keystrokes! Of course, the zooming, whirring and
clanging that went along with it was annoying as well. :-)

One positive point of my pentium. No paper clips!

Quote
>Lotsa times I look at commercial-stuff and say, "well the special effects are
>great" (e.g. "Welcome to QUICK-en!") "but I wish they'd spent the same amount
>of time beefing up the content, instead."

I agree.

JE McTaggart

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