Three new 4D components from mitchenall.com

mitchenall.com have released three new 4D components to further extend the developer's interface toolbox. Two of the component are available for immediate download. The third should be available in the coming weeks after further beta testing and documentation has been completed.

Progress Bar Component

This component allows developers to display progress bars which are very similar to those in Microsoft Outlook Express/Entourage, for the Macintosh, i.e. with all the bars displayed in the same window. This means that only one process is required to display all progress bars which also helps memory consumption and performance.

As well as displaying a standard thermometer, it is also to have the progress bar display a barberpole, when the number of iterations or time of the operation is unknown.

The component has a simple API making it easy for developers to include in their applications. The component consists of mainly a few methods, although one form and a few pictures have also been included. Those developers who are not happy about installing these items this way will be pleased to know that the complete source of the component is also provided so you can move these items in by hand if you so wish.

This component is available for immediate download from the 4D Freeware section of our website.

Rollover Component

We've always liked the rollover buttons which we see in applications such as Microsoft Outlook Express and others, but creating them in 4D can be a real pain. Although 4D now provides the ability to display rollovers through picture buttons, it is still necessary to create a picture for each of the buttons you require, and this can be a painstaking exercise, especially with 4 frames needed for each button.

If you require text labels in your rollover buttons, it can get even more complicated, as creating localised versions then requires creating even more pictures of different sizes as the size of the text changes from language to language.

This component solves all these problems by giving you a simple way to create consistent rollover buttons dynamically in your applications. By just providing an icon and the text you want displayed, the component will build the complete rollover picture ready for use. The component also includes a RAM cache to save time creating pictures which have already been created.

The component contains just 4D code and utilises one 3rd party plug-in (TextProperties from Zanzarita). A couple of other piece of 3rd party code were also utilised, include Jean-Pierre Ribreau's Text2Pict routine and the PICT manipulation routines written by Tony Pollard of Another Dimension.

This component is available for immediate download from the 4D Freeware section of our website.

Toolbar Component

The Toolbar Component uses the Rollover Component to create toolbars of rollover buttons in your forms and dialogs. Using a master form containing all the buttons needed, the component allows developers to easily include dynamic toolbars in their forms by adding just a couple of lines of code to their form methods. Developers will now have the ability to create toolbars similar to those in other leading software in their applications with great ease.

The component currently supports buttons, popup and semi-popups to be defined for a toolbar at runtime, allowing you to modify toolbars depending the current state of a form. Each toolbar button can have a tooltip, and buttons are resizable so that if they don't all fit in the window, they can be shown with only their icon.

This component is currently not available for download as it is undergoing final testing and having a couple of useful features added. It is hoped that it will be ready very soon, but if you're interested in being a beta tester, please contact Mark Mitchenall directly.