GUI from a module - how easy to integrate?

maxifox

I am facing a problem of dealing with demo GUIs that come with modules (such as Kaleidescape, Intercom etc.) into projects. Obviously, demo GUI is quite different in design and channels/address assignments from your project GUI.

What would be a correct way to integrate demo GUI into the project GUI, if at all? Why I want to use a demo GUI - I am in temper to use this because is something that already exists and is completed in terms of functionality (more or less) and design (saving time on developing navigation logic and page structure).

From what I understand there is no merge feature in TPDesign4, that complicates the transfer as images and channel/address assignments are lost when copying the pages.

Did you find the most effective way to deal with UI for modules? Do you always write your own UI module with your own graphics?

DHawthorne

Cut-and-paste page-by-page, then change the ports on the pages as required by your system. Channels and addresses are in fact preserved; I'm not sure where you got that idea. Just the opposite is the real problem: it's all to easy to step on an existing assignment this way. Even page flips are preserved, they simply won't work until the referenced page is added. I really hate doing this, by the way; most published modules have at least a dozen pages, and it is extraordinarily tedious, especially if you have to tweak it for screen size, or add some elements of your own.

ericmedley

There has been much disussion abou this on the forum.

The general understanding is that the demo gui is just that, a quick mock-up that is meant to show you that the software is working correctly. It is up to the programmer to then migrate that interface into their existing GUI.

It is easy enough to open both TP files and copy/paste the buttons from the demo to the real GUI. TPD4 could really use some upgrades in this regard, but I digress... It can be done with the current software.


I personally find that I have the most problems with modules that have done too much design work on their GUIs. I'm still in hot water with our Kaleidescape rep because, in their mind, I cranked their whole GUI. My problem is that I don't like it when a device control requires sever pages and even more popups to control.

What I ended up doing was condensing their GUI down to one popup that fits on my Home Theater control layout.

However, to get this done, I had to really wrench their UI file and turn off all the page flips and page tracking they were doing. I pretty much had to do the same thing with the ReQuest GUI as well.

So, yes it's not perfect. I'd recommend that you will find more sanity in just grabbing what you need from their GUI as apposed to trying to salvage what they already did.

maxifox

silly me

Well, found settings for preserving or discarding button properties (actually after reading Help a bit). It is F9 (Button/Paste Control)... After installing new TPDesign on a new host those setting went to blank.