Graphical Menu Editor...

[code-frog]

Is there a graphical menu editor for this program? If there isn't are there plans to write one? If there are not plans to write one can I? A GUI that handled the default menu could be written in a weekend. Then all the extra properties could be added over time...

- Just curious

[blaine]

If your lucky enough to be running Geeklog as your site CMS/Portal then you can use the glMenu plugin that I developed which integrates a menu builder with Geeklog's Core menu and security functions.

All the Milonic menu links are created dynamically based on user access rights and the glmenu definitions. Supports multiple menus (site header and block). No need to create menu defintions manually or edit html files.

For more information - have a look at my site:
http://www.portalparts.com or the datasheet.

---

[John]

There was one in the works last year, but it got pushed back with the advent of v5 and all the new features, etc.

You are, of course, certainly welcome to have a go at it.

[code-frog]

I make no promises for when it will be done but I'm going to write one. I've been hankering for a small project to relax and enjoy. One that a client isn't paying for and one that is just for fun.

I'm thinking that at first it will visually expose the colors, etc... Of each menu style in the file. If you decide to change any settings it will make a compressed backup of the current file and let you save your work. Then if you ever decide you want access to previous menu data then you can simply unpack it from the compressed file and place it where you wish.

A good backup strategy is probably the best place to start.

[code-frog]

John,

I was going to PM you but noticed I can't. I saw a color picker on your page that's a "work-in-progress". I wrote one a long time ago because I get so tired of the way other color pickers work.

Email r#e#x#@#c#o#d#e#-#f#r#o#g#.#c#o#m remove the #'s. I'll give you the link. It's an 11Kb zip file that contains a compressed VB6 exe. No installer at all. It just works assuming you have the vb-runtimes.

Anyway, this tool is handy. I wrote it with 4 columns and 10 rows that allow you to save (current session only) as many colors as you want. All you have to do is click the text box where you want the color and then drag the dropper to capture the color. It shows the color in long, hex and rgb.

It's easy to use. If you are interested in it I'll send you a downlaod link. Milonic is more than welcome to offer it to users. I certify it is spyware free, doesn't send in emails and contains no viruses. It's a very simple application but I'll provide any support (at no charge) to anyone having a problem.

I'm not offering this for any other reason than sharing. I'm not asking a thing in return.

Here's a screen capture of colors I just "picked" from this message board.



- Rex

[Ruth]

Not to sound dumb, but since I am uneducated in this, what exactly is a graphical menu editor?

Ruth

[John]

Not to sound dumb, but since I am uneducated in this, what exactly is a graphical menu editor?

Not at all, Ruth. My "ass-umption" was something along the lines of the menu builder we were working with early last year. Last topic on the main page.

[John]

Rex, that directory is kind of a catch-all for testing (including user menu problems), fool-arounds, get-me-away-from-this-job-for-awhile stuff, etc. That particular color-picker was just a fool-around.

Yours looks really good. You can use my email link below to send me the info, and thank you.

[code-frog]

Code: Select all

with(menuStyle=new mm_style()){ 
onbgcolor="#FFFFFF"; 
oncolor="#7F0400"; 
offbgcolor="#FFFFFF"; 
offcolor="#7F0400"; 
bordercolor="#FFFFFF"; 
borderstyle="solid"; 
borderwidth=1; 
separatorcolor="#FFFFFF"; 
separatorsize="1"; 
padding=5; 
fontsize="110%"; 
fontstyle="normal"; 
fontweight="bold"; 
fontfamily="Verdana, Tahoma, Arial"; 
pagecolor="black"; 
pagebgcolor="#FFFFFF"; 
headercolor="#000000"; 
headerbgcolor="#ffffff"; 
subimage="arrow.gif"; 
subimagepadding="2"; 
overfilter="Fade(duration=0.2);Alpha(opacity=90);Shadow(color='#FFFFFF', Direction=135, Strength=5)"; 
outfilter="randomdissolve(duration=0.3)"; 
} 

Mainly I was referring to the color selections. I don't know about most but when I look at the code above and see 7F0400 I don't have a clue what color that is. I know what 000000 and FFFFFF is but that's only because I can count in hex and binary and can just figure that one out.

My goal was to create a graphical menu-style editor that would give you the option to see what the current colors are (with a color-swatch) their hex values etc...

Ultimately, I'd like to write a little jscript interpreter that would dynamically show the user the menu with each change they make. Maybe I'm wrong but I think it would be cool to have a little program that had a built in browser window. This browser window would show you your entire menu as it was being defined and let you mouse-over it and test it and touch and feel. All in one place. So I can change borderstyle, bordercolor and seperator color and my menu is changed right next to my selection. Then when I'm all done, I click "Save" and it writes out menu_data.js and it's ready to go.

Now take it a step further, what if it exposed every single property in expandable rows logically grouped where users could set each one and mess with it real time to see what it does or doesn't. Imagine how much less of a support burden milonic might have.

Imagine the "curb-appeal" that milonic would have if people could visually build there menu real time.

That's what I was thinking. Now the question needs to be asked. Am I the only person that thinks that would be cool?

- Rex

[Ruth]

Am I the only person that thinks that would be cool?

I would say, "probably not". I do that now, using a wysiwyg editor, but it means: loading the page and the menu_data.js file in the editor, putting a change in the menu file, saving it, and then clicking on the page tab and view to see what the change looks like, if I don't like it, I go back to the data file, click undo in the editor, save again so it's back at the original, then do another change, save, check and so on. Or alternatively, I load a page in my browser on the desktop, open the data file in the editor, make a change save it and then click the reload button on the browser. Again, if I don't like it, I use the undo and save to have the original back.

I think what you are talking about is what the menu builder was supposed to be, but as John noted so much was ongoing at the beta and first testing of the menu itself and so many other things users wanted came up to be done and that kind of got left in the background.

Ruth

[John]

Rex, I get in to work at 0600. I'll be looking for the first draft at that time Monday (tomorrow).

[Andy]

Hi Rex,

I'm all for a menu builder - We are working on an online one and a Windows one was started by someone else but never got completed.

Anway, we can do this as an Open Source product if you like, one that we can all contribute to.

If you want to get a brief spec done we'll definately go through it.

What language are you looking at writting this in?

I look forward to working with you

Cheers
Andy

[willemk]

If the webbased version is going to be written in PHP and MYSQL I might be able to help. My menu is already database driven!
http://www.slotracinglemans.com

If not needed then it's also fine with me

[code-frog]

Well I don't have tons of PHP experience. MySQL is like any database just use SQL and it's happy.

I don't know that I was thinking a collaborative effort per say. I'm not opposed to that either. I just have noticed that collaborative projects can start top-heavy and never recover. Which is to say they die before they are born.

I had not decided (well yes I had) but I'll leave it open. I was going to use C# and Visual Studio .Net. For a couple of reasons. With Mono getting a Linux port shouldn't be to hard and C# is standardized so that means it's going to be what it is and can be relied on.

Other choices from my skillset are C++ and VB 6.0. I never really liked VB 6.0 (but I learned how to please managers with it) for that reason I never even sniffed at VB .Net.

So I'm thinking C# is a good choice because we can have a cross-platform if we desire though I think prudence would make that a second or third release goal.

In terms of a frame-work or design goals.

1. Be able to open existing menu_data.js files in ASCII.
2. Have file support for *Nix and Windows platforms. So we don't change the properties of the menu_data.js file. If it's a unix character set keep it that way.
3. Expose menu styles and menu implementations in an explorer type interface. Menu_data.js regions on the left, and their text on the right. So someon can click the menustyle name or the menu name and then view the definition code/properties on the right.
4. The plain text would be present with button selectors that showed the current color/style selection with a clickable function that allowed a color picker to be used to pick a new color from a pallet (pallet not part of application yet).
5. To begin with I just wanted to handle a small set of properties and grow from there.
6. Having a java-script enabled preview would be (I think) the creamiest touch to the whole design. You can open, edit and preview all in one window.

Design considerations:

Allowing FTP connection and editing in place on the destination web server.


That's a pencil-sketch of what I had in mind. A formal design process would expose anything I might have missed. So would the opinions of others. If we were really serious about a collaborative effort and making it open source we'd need a small handful of people to code and one designer. We could acquire testers later but I believe testers should *not* be interface designers or developers. Testers should be users only.

Just a few ideas. I've got a 120 gig server we could host the project on or we could do it here. If possible I'd like to avoid excessive design discussion and then lock down features up front to prevent scope creep. Obviously a lot of people are going to have a lot of ideas and this thing can snow-ball in short order.

Feedback? Comments? Criticism?

I'd also like someone to try very hard to put together an answer to this question. I'd like to see a solid, well thought out answer.

Why shouldn't a graphical design tool that wraps menu_data.js be built? What specific reasons make this project a poor idea that should be shelved?

[Andy]

C# is a exactly what I was thinking of.

The only trouble is that I have very little experience of it so it's going to be a learning curve for me which is great. Bout time I learn't something new..... Proper programming

I'd like to keep this project flexible and easy going. No point doing something unless we are enjoying it. If it starts to get out of hand we'll address that as and when it happens.

When do you think you may have something we can work on?

I'd make a start but I think it would be good if you can do the foundations and the rest of us can build on from there and as I'm no C# expert may make many mistakes.

Anybody got any ideas and an answer to code-frogs question?

Why shouldn't a graphical design tool that wraps menu_data.js be built? What specific reasons make this project a poor idea that should be shelved?

My response is "There's no reason why a graphical design should not be built" and "I can't come up with any reason why its a bad idea"

I know it's not what you were looking for but I feel quite strongly about the above. Now where's that Kevin got to


Cheers
Andy

[Ruth]

Dittos for me as to the answer to the question. Kevin deserted us for awhile, out there someplace speaking Spanish, I think.

Do you think a separate forum should be set up for this? Maybe a group or something?

Ruth

[John]

Do you think a separate forum should be set up for this? Maybe a group or something?

Why not the one we already have...?

[code-frog]

This might shape up to be fun. C# it is.

My question about, "Why a thing should not be done..." is to get people to approach a problem solution from all the angles. Usually when you have a problem you are attempting to solve the first solution that comes to mind is what most people go for. If you can stop yourself and ask, "Why should I not solve this problem?" Invariably what happens is that you wind up proving why your first solution is good or you lead yourself to another better solution.

Someone might have replied and said, "We don't need a graphical editor at all. I've been working a long time on one that runs using PHP and MySQL it's almost done. Have a look." In this case, we just saved ourselves some work. Another example might be, "I've tried this in the past with other things and it wound up not working. Here's why..."

As you all know developing software is expensive. I have people that pay me $100 an hour to write systems for them. So I think it's good for us to go slow as suggested. I also think it's always a good thing to stop peridically and take an assessment of what has been accomplished. Have we met our goals? Are we doing what we set out to do? I always try to attack and rip apart my own design's and solutions to make sure I'm really developing a refined product or solution.

As to needing a special place to work on this I'd have to say that depends on how this thing evolves. The prudent part of me says that nobody should do much of anything until we have a little more than something. So in time we may need a better infrastructure to support the work on this. For now let's keep foot-loose and fancy-free here in this thread. I'll start working on a design. The design is going to take some time as I need to look over the entire milonic property list and get familiar with it. Let's say by Sunday (02-20-05) that will be done. Once that is done I will start to put together a design. That should not take more than about 7 days. So by 02-27-05 we should have something to discuss in greater detail.

Now some other questions.

I have Visual Studio .Net but I'm guessing that not everyone does. If everyone does have VS .Net then no problem. If they don't I suggest that the project be done entirely in Mono that way anybody can participate who wants to. Which leads to the next question. At this point who is planning on joining in the fray and what tools do you have?

{Edit} I just realized this thread got moved to a fine home. Seems like it will work just fine for the moment. {/Edit}

- Rex

[Ruth]

Nice name!

Ruth

[code-frog]

Okay, I've reviewed all the properties. Now I'll start an informal design process.