STIXE Elements

From TrillWiki

In alphabetical order:

Brand-Basic.png and Brand-Pro.png: Optional. It is for the brand name of Trillian to be displayed and aligned with the Window Title in the Window Frame.

Button.png: 9 Piece Sliced. Used in most static buttons or buttons that float in the middle of space. It is easy for users to know that the toolbar buttons are buttons because they are aligned in a row, but buttons that pop up in one place but not another is harder to detect. And that is why Button has a more defined border than Toolbar Button.

Default Bevel.png and Default Pressed.png: 9 Piece Sliced. They are the most basic elements of all. First, they can be used by Interface Builders to build interfaces with some very special arrangements, if they cannot find any other elements that would fit the purpose. Second, to ensure compatibility, when Trillian is upgraded and new elements are needed, we may source these two elements from older skins to build the missing elements. With that said, even though you cannot see where these two elements are used now, in the next versions you might. So, skin for the future.

DisplayBox.png: 9 Piece Sliced. The background for conversations, or anything that has a mass of text in front of it.

Frame.png: 9 Piece Sliced. Many of the Stixe elements go by the Windows ones. Frame is one of them and is a fairly standard element for categorizing items in dialogs. It is used in the Status Window in Tabbed Interface, for example, to categorize the Status and Activity items.

ItemList.png: 9 Piece Sliced. New in 3. An Item List is designed to visually hold a bunch of icons in any views in a vertically aligned manner. It is usually placed inside a Panel.

List.png: Mixed. Defunct in 3. It was used to be the element for constructing the 'sections' in Trillian 2.x. As a result, Stixe will take List.png for drawing Panels in 3.0, if Panel.png, PanelHeader.png is missing. However, Interface Builders can still use them for interfaces that do not rely on panels.

ListHeader.png: Abandoned. Made for creating columns in item lists. However, there are no features in Trillian 3 supporting it yet thus it was not coded. (i.e. Forgot to delete from Whistler before final release. LOL)

MDIArea.png: 9 Piece Sliced. The background for the area that holds windows in a container. MDI stands for Multiple Document Interface.

MediumProgressBar: Internally Coded. A progress bar with 10 blocks. Not used in anything particular yet.

Menu.png: Mixed. The background used in all menus in Stixe. Due to a bug in the menu code, extra code is required however not recommended in order to have a complex appearance for the Menu, as in Whistler.

MenuBar.png: 3 Piece Sliced. It includes the background for Menu Bar and the 'catch' for the menu on the right. An Interface Builder can use the 'catch' to imply to users that the bar is either movable or collapsible.

MenuExtra.png: 2 x 2 Grided. Includes the Check box on the left on the menu and the Arrow on the right on the menu, in two states, Normal and Hover.

MinMaxClose.png: 4 x 4 Grided. In the order of from left to right: Close, Hide, Minimize, Maximize; and from top to bottom: Normal, Over, Push, Disabled.

Panel.png: 9 Piece Sliced. The Godmother of all panels introduced in Trillian 3.

Window.png and WindowInterior.png: They coupled together to form a complete window. Window.png means Window Exterior, but for compatibility purposes it is named Window.png.

The below diagram explains Window.png and WindowInterior.png. To me it was a very simple idea. Window Interior is simply... the interior of a window. It visually defines where the guts of a window will lay, so user knows what's the guts of a window and what's not.

This was implemented not so much for skinners but for interface builders. Interface builders can use different combinations of Window (exterior) and Window Interior to form things such as, a thicker title bar, a thicker side border, or a rolled-up window, etc (Use your imagination). For skinners, it means that you have to put more effort, which you should.

http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=622388&junkparameter=.png