What is a generic term for the button/icon from which programs are launched or indicated by?
In Windows, we have the taskbar, on which each top level window (XP/Vista) or application (7+) has a taskbar button.
In Mac OS X, we have the dock, on which each application has a dock icon.
In recent versions of Ubuntu, we have the launcher(?), on which each application has a launcher icon(?).
I don't know what other Linux desktops call things and how much Gnome and KDE can each differ.
Anyways, what is the generic term to refer to a taskbar button/dock icon/launcher icon? I am designing an API to abstract jump lists and dock menus / dock tile plugins and I was wondering how I can generically refer to each of the platform-specific application launching mechanisms with a general term.
I don't think setPlatformSpecificApplicationLaunchingMechanismMenu or setJumpListOrDockMenuOrDockTilePluginOrUbuntuThingMenu would be very good names. :)
Realistically, setApplicationMenu? setDesktopMenu?
EDIT: Apparently Taskbar is a generic term.
Anyways, what is the generic term to refer to a taskbar button/dock icon/launcher icon?
Sounds like an application icon to me. Application icons may appear in a number of places, but at no matter where they are, these are icons that represent their respective applications.
I don't think there's anything more specific... or more generic (icon?)... than that.
Related
The context is that in a Xamarin.Forms project, I want to right-click and add an item from VS in the usual project content menu as maybe an entry called "Add Image Asset", let's say a raster or SVG image, and have it programmatically add those to the resources folder in Android and the Assets.xcassets in the IOS and Mac projects. Maybe it could even size or resize the input image or vector assets to fit into different dpi sizes, which would cut down on a lot of front-end redundancy.
So, an extension would have to be created I would think.
On VS for Windows this isn't such a problem, but be it that the Mac version is Monodevelop-based, is what I want to do even possible, and how?
Firstly this is something that is built-in into MFractor so you might want to take a look (you can request a free trial to see how it works). If you are not willing to spend money on such a tool then I believe you can try writing your own extension. This article should be a good starting point.
If I were you I would try using MFractor with a trial license so you can decide whether it's worth the money or not. In my opinion, it's a must in XF development (it has so many nice features), but I can understand that there are companies that are not willing to spend money on it. If you are interested you can contact Matthew for more details.
I remember I've seen something like "when the mouse hovers on some texts, it shows a fancy list of texts with fancy effects, and when the mouse hovers away, the fancy list disappears."
What exactly is this function called?
which library does this function come from?
How can I add this function into my website?
thx!
Microsoft Office's documentation refers to it as the "Mini toolbar": https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Add-formatting-to-your-document-by-using-the-Mini-toolbar-47012F83-B553-40A9-B7DE-F038876F4DB3
It has no direct relation to web-editing, and I'm not aware of any web development or web publishing tools that include this UI feature out-of-the-box (though there's probably a VS Extension for it by now).
Note that such a feature only works in WYSIWYG mode, and the past 25 years of web-development history shows that the WYSIWYG paradigm does not generally work for HTML, which probably why such a feature is not widespread.
After a thorough search through the Microsoft Documentation i wasn't able to find a conclusive answer to the Question, wether or not an App published to the Windows Store has to look like a Metro/Windows Phone App or if it is allowed (but obviously discouraged) to have apps look like Ports from other Operating Systems. This Question obviously becomes very important when writing Cross Plattform HTML 5 Apps.
Have i overlooked something in the Documentation? Do you have any experience in this area?
My understanding for the phone is that in theory you can do what you want but within certain parameters. So if you want your app to look like an Android or iOS app with the back button at the top, that's fine. You don't have to use panoramas or pivots if you don't want to. You don't even have to use the set fonts if you don't want to.
But you cant start recreating desktop style windows drop downs, and other things that really wont work on a phone.
You also have to ensure your app still functions as a windows phone app. So the back button must work even if you have an on-screen back button.
For Windows 8 apps, I believe there much more strict. Pre 8.1 all apps had to use the search button on the charms rather than implementing there own. Since 8.1 the search button requirements have changed. Don't know about any other restrictions.
There's certainly no requirement to use flat colours rather than gradients like you would get on other platforms.
I have been tasked with developing an innovative tool this year. My idea is an auto-hide window that, regardless of what application is being used, sits permanently snapped to the Windows desktop (to the taskbar or any of the other 3 edges) and displays content from an Oracle d/b and gives access to (and will open if not already open) web pages, PDFs, docs, etc. It will be used by scientists doing research. It will be a tool that will have potential general utility but will be used specifically to get immediate access to information e.g. copy a word/phrase from a Word/Excel/PDF document, open the auto-hide window and paste it into a search box there, and then click to search for it on Google, OR see something of interest in a printed magazine, open the auto-hide window, click on a preselected favorite database (being the content from the Oracle d/b mentioned above), and then go and search in that database for it. The trouble is, I'm not a programmer and don't know where to start. I would need to contract a programmer to do this but don't know what skills would be needed (C#, java, etc?).
My idea came to me after seeing the Snagit OneClick auto-hide window. If anyone knows that, they should pretty well understand my idea and requirements.
Any help with identifying the type of programming required, background stuff to read, other examples of this type of auto-hide window, etc. would be most welcome!
I want to develop a desktop application/widget, and would love to use a web technology stack. so I can...
Reuse existing skills
Run on multiple platforms (OsX, Windows)
Update application code without having the user upgrade (part/all of the code gets downloaded from the web)
Running in a browser is probably the best option, but one thing that is getting in the way is the browser's chrome (frame, tabs menus etc.) and background, as I want to create a transparent application (e.g. a semi-transparent, round clock that would display on top of other apps).
I'm thinking that a custom version of a browser (chrome or firefox) is probably the answer. All I would need to do is have a shortcut like:
...\chrome.exe -transparent -no_chrome ...\mywidget.html
Seems to me like a fairly obvious need, so before I consider forking chromium, I'm thinking there must be something like this already.
I know there's http://awesomium.com/ ($2,900 license cost), but it is an overkill as I don't need to embed a browser into a desktop app, API and all, and the cost is prohibitively high for a low-cost, limited distribution app.
There is also http://mozillalabs.com/chromeless/ but it doesn't seem actively maintained.
In addition, for both options, the installation overhead is huge (installing a full-fledged browser for the sake of running a widget).
Any suggestions? (please not Adobe Air - I want to use a standard web tech stack)
Take a look at this discussion for several options
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2829126
-FT