Originally the question was "How do WinForms capture and process user input", but since I want to use that for my XNA game, well, you can see the title.
I'd like to never miss a key stroke in my game, but XNA's default way of updating user input is dependent on framerate, and Nuclex.Input doesn't care which Shift or Ctrl I press, doesn't detect some keys (including F10, left Alt, PrintScreen and Pause), so they won't work for me.
Is it possible to implement the same way of capturing user input in an XNA game, as the one used in WinForms applications, and how?
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I have a video playing of lines being drawn on the screen. Is it possible to create a pixel shader (for WPF) that turns newly colored pixels a certain color for N milliseconds?
That way, there can be some indication to the user to movement on the screen when the lines don't move often and the user isn't always looking at the screen.
You can use DirectShow. Its written in unmanaged code, so you need to use this wrapper DirectShow.NET in order to use it in your C# application which is running in managed environment (samples are included, even with EVR which stands for Enhanced video Renderer which means MUCH better video quality). And when you will be passing a control handle to wrapper method for setting the video output, you need a WinForms control, because only from them you can get your desired control handle. That WinForms control you can then host in your WPF application using the WindowsFormsHost control provided for such situations when you need to use some WinForms control(s) in a WPF application. Its just theory, so i dont know if its an ultimate solution for you.
BTW: The whole idea is based on fact, that DirectShow is just some query constructed from separated filters. Renderer is a filter (EVR, VMR-7, VMR-9). Sound player is a filter. And they are connected through their pins. Its like a diagram. Electronic schema or something like that. And you can put for example Grey scale filter in there. And voila, video output will be greyscale. There is a bunch of tutorials for that. And completed simple filters as well. Unfortunately, filters must be written in C++:(
PS: I never said its gonna be easy:D
I am trying to implement a text box where a user can type, use arrow keys, backspace, delete, etc. I would like to be able to know what is in this text box without the user needing to submit anything. I suppose I could catch keypress events, find a way to display a cursor, and basically build a min-text-editor by hand--but maybe that would be reinventing the wheel?
What I am after is rather scrabble-like. You have several letters in the top part of a window and a text box in the bottom. Each time you type a letter it disappears from the top pane so that you know when you've used them all up. I want to be able to edit that text with the arrow keys, 'cause rather than the 7 letters scrabble would give me I hope to be doing this with paragraphs.
I have the window displaying, and the source file processed and displayed as a list of allowable letters... I just want to update the list of allowable letters while the user types in their sentence. Can Xlib do this? Is there something else that might be more suitable? Thanks!
Can Xlib do this?Why yes, Xlib can do a lot of things. What you describe seems simple enough by using X's event processing and drawing functions.
Xlib is pretty crufty, though, and IMO you should only use it if you need closeness to the X protocol. (Even then there are newer replacements like XCB. But I digress.)
You might find it easier to work with a modern toolkit, like GTK+ or Qt.
For example, this might be expressed as a GtkEntry with a "key-press-event" handler.
Im developing an app for Microsoft Surface and Im trying to make the most of the libraries that are out there, the functionality Im after if to be able to flick a UI element.
The ScatterView control makes this easy, but I would like to restrict the UI element to only be able to be flicked along a set path. This is where Im having trouble.
So my questions are:
1) Can you restrict a ScatterViewItem to only be flicked along a path?
2) If not, how would you implement a flick gesture to flick a UI element along a set path?
Thanks!
Mark
1) Not that I know of, and this probably isn't the best way to approach it.
2) Assuming you have the object you want flicked and the path at design-time, I've previously implemented dragging and flicking along a path by creating a timeline animation that represents the movement across the entire path. At runtime, I capture contacts on that object, feed them to a Affine2DManipulationProcessor, and seek the animation based on the manipulation events.
So in my case I was creating a drawer. When the user touched the drawer, I start the animation and pause it immediately. If the user drags it open, I seek the animation the appropriate amount forward based on how far the manipulation processor tells me they've moved.
To get the flick behavior, you just hand off the manipulation to the Affine2DInertiaProcessor and continue handling the delta events.
This all works surprisingly well.
The app I'm developing requires that it be deployed in China, which means that it needs to have Pinyin and Chinese character handling. I'm told that the way that our customers handle character entry is like so:
Enter in the pinyin character, like 'zhang'
As they enter the characters, a list of possible Chinese (Mandarin?) characters are presented to the user, like:
The user will then select '1' to enter the family name that is roughly translated to 'zhang'
How can I hook such programs (I believe one is called 'mspy.exe', from Microsoft, which I'm lead to believe comes with Microsoft versions of XP) into a WPF text box? Right now, the user can enter text either by using their keyboard or by using an on-screen keyboard, so I will probably need to capture the event of a keypress from either source and feed it to some OS event or to MSPY.exe or some similar program.
Or is there some other way to enter pinyin and have it converted to Mandarin? Is there a program other than MSPY I should look at?
EDIT: For those of you who think that this should 'just work', it does not. Chinese character entry will work just fine if entering text into notepad or the start->run menu or whatever, but it will not work in WPF. That's the key to this question: how do I enable WPF entry? There's the Google Pinyin and Sogou pinyin, but the websites are in Mandarin or Chinese or something similar and I don't read the language.
In all likelihood the system will handle this automagically if a Chinese input method is selected by the user. Trying to implement your own system for dealing with Chinese text is probably a bad idea.
Be sure to test it on a Chinese version of XP before deploying, of course, but with any amount of decent design in WPF, and XP as a whole, at all; it should Just Work.
Not really an answer to your question, but as far as I know, this is handled by the operating system, and I'm not sure that application really have that much control over it.
Here's a guide on how you enable pin yin Chinese character entry in Windows XP:
http://www.biblioscape.com/tips/tip_020318.htm
My application works with chinese input, and it is using WPF, i don't get what you want to ask.
You can input chinese text in a WPF textbox using sogou pinyin, or microsoft pinyin. Tested in xp and win7
It is just because your ime is setted to input in english.
Press shift once briefly if using sogou pinyin and you will see the hanzi of "yi" become "zhong"
At that point you will be able to type in chinese ;-)
Also, there are IME property on textboxes, select to have it On, otherwise the IME will be in "english mode"
I'm designing some dialog boxes, and I'm having a hard time to fit everything. (and it has to fit on a single dialog box by design, so please don't tell me I should make two dialogs instead of one:))
I'm wondering what's the max size a dialog can have before being annoying for the end user. Of course it should't be bigger than his resolution, but are there any other boundaries to consider?
I'm trying to limit at 800x580 (so that it can display fine on a 800x600 screen without hiding the taskbar), but I expect my users to be on 1024x768 or better screen resolutions.
Is a 800x580 dialog box ok, or is it too big?
Have you considered using a tabbed layout?
Also, I believe the smallest main-stream screen resolution is 1024x600.
I'd say anything over that is too big. I try to stick below 1000x500.
I'm writing this on a netbook (ASUS) with resolution 1024 x 600. I've also noticed this is a defacto standard for most other netbooks too.
Another option: you could create a dialog that resizes itself automatically to fill the current desktop (except for the task bar).
It could also enforce a "flow" style layout for it's child controls. This would ensure the best use of the available space is made.
To get "flowing" in Windows forms you can use either the flow layout control or (for a richer interface) the WebBrowser control.
By the way, modal dialogs seem to be less popular as a way of user interaction these days. Especially large dialogs containing a lot of information/controls. This article has some good alternatives.
I think that if the user NEEDS to see all data on screen at the same time... and you can fit everything in 800x580... I think that it's a fine size.
If you know all users have bigger resolutions so don't struggle... that size is OK.
However... a way of showing lots of information and being able to edit it... could be a PropertyGrid control (an example here)... may be that could shrink a bit the form if you don't feel confortable with it being so big. Don't know if it a possibility given the needs of your client/user.
Just hope that no-one ever tries using your app on a media center running through a standard definition display. That's 640x480 for NTSC. I've suffered this problem with quite a few apps.
Whatever your pixel by pixel size, if it takes more than a few seconds for skilled users to complete the use of your window, then it shouldn’t be a dialog. Anything longer is annoying. You’d be asking your users to do too much work that is too easy to lose (e.g., by hitting Cancel accidentally) and too hard to re-entered (e.g., between sessions). If you have so many controls that the dialog needs to be 800 by anything, then it’s too many controls. 200,000 square pixels and 40 controls is the very most you should consider for a dialog. And tabs are nature’s way of saying your dialog is too complex.
Dialogs are for entering parameters to execute a single command on one or more data objects visible in the primary window for the dialog, which is why dialogs need to be small and simple. I suspect that’s not what you’re doing. Instead, you’re using a “dialog” to represent the main data objects and carry out a major task, not a single command.
What you want is a primary window, not a dialog, with all the support necessary for the complicated task you’ve set up for the user. That includes providing a means for users to save, retrieve, and copy their work. That means a menu bar and toolbar with all the standard commands, including help. The window should absolutely be modeless, and be resizable, maximizable, and minimizable.
Primary windows should be designed to work best at the size of most (over half) of your users’ screens. 1024x768 is generally fine for today’s laptop/desktop screens, not that you should use that much space if you don’t have to. If the user’s screen is smaller, or the user for any reason resizes your window below the design size, then scrollbars should appear to allow full access to all controls and content in the form –just like any primary window. The experience on the web indicates that scrolling is not a showstopper for forms.
Beyond that, tabs may be used in a primary window to increase the number of controls on it. You said you don’t want to hear about multiple windows, but multiple windows should be used instead of tabs if the user will be comparing data across tabs/windows. You can also fit more in a given primary window size by using a compact presentation (I describe this at http://www.zuschlogin.com/?p=42), but test such an approach on your users before committing to it.