MBE - MUI-Brush Expander, Developer Archive Version 1.0 Date: August 1994 Author: Johannes Beigel Copyright © 1994 by Johannes Beigel GIFTWARE Developer's Guide Introduction ************ IMPORTANT: If you didn't do so, you should get the user archive of MBE called 'MBE_xx' (where xx is the version). You should install it and read the doumenatation. You should have read the developer documentation of MUI, too. MBE is a nice thing. But it's also a kind of a hack! So you should use MBE only if you really need it. If you simply want to display a logo, you shouldn't use MBE but load an ILBM brush with Bodychunk class. The developer version of MBE is Giftware. That means that you should send me a gift if you use MBE in your application. I prefer money, CDs/LPs/MCs with (Hard-)Rock, Blues or Jazz music or FD software about MUI, MagicWB, C programming and MIDI :) You should send at least your program that uses MBE on disk(s). My address is: Johannes Beigel Fliederstr. 43a 65396 Walluf GERMANY I'm sorry, but I don't have a modem. NOTE: A nice gift would be translations the C include file into some other programming languages. I only "speak" C (and a little bit C++), but it would be nice to have Oberon, M2, Assembler... includes in this archive. Requirements: ************* You must own MBE ==> You must own at least MUI 2.1 ==> You must own at least OS 2.04. You have to be a registered user of MUI. Principle ********* This is the way MBE works: - You create an MBE-image with the developer prefs editor of MBE. Then you save (or 'use') the settings. - You create an object of MBE class in your application, where you pass the ID of your MBE-image. Since MBE class is a subclass of Image class (and Area class) you can create a button gadget or something else with your MBE-image. - MBE class loads the settings file at object-creation-time and searches for the given ID. If it finds an MBE-image with the ID, it loads the imagery and displays it. I think the principle is very simple and easy to understand. But the big advantage for the user is the ability to configure the MBE-images. The Developer Prefs-Editor ************************** The developer prefs editor is almost the same program as the user prefs editor of MBE. There are only three differences: 1. The developer prefs editor has a 'New' button to create a new MBE-image. 2. The developer prefs editor has a string gadget for the ID of the MBE-image and not just a text gadget. 3. The of the about requester is different ;-) Giving an ID ************ Every MBE-image ID is a longword. You have to take your MUI serial number as upper word but you mustn't set the highest bit. So you have 65536 different ID's. Of course the MBE-image ID must be unique. Example ------- Let's think of the serial number 12345. 1. : ( 12345 << 16 ) = 0x30390000 = 809041920 2. : ( 12345 << 16 ) | 1 = 0x30390001 = 809041921 3. : ( 12345 << 16 ) | 2 = 0x30390002 = 809041922 . . . 65536.: ( 12345 << 16 ) | 65535 = 0x3039FFFF = 809107455 Creating an MBE-object ********************** First you have to include the include file 'MBE_mcc.h'. Then you can create an MBE-object using macros. Examples -------- mbe_button = MBEObject, ButtonFrame, MUIA_Background, MUII_ButtonBack, MUIA_InputMode, MUIV_InputMode_RelVerify, MUIA_MBE_ID, MY_ID, End, mbe_button = MBEButton( MY_ID ) mbe_image = MBEImage( MY_ID ) Distributing an MBE Application ******************************* If you distribute an MBE-Application you either have to include the MBE archive into your archive (Its size is less than 40K.) or the user of your application has to get it her/himself. Of course you have to include an MBE prefs file describing the MBE-images that are needed for your application. If it is useful, you can include the MUI-brushes for these MBE-images, too. Don't forget to send me this application on disk :) Copyright ********* The MBE developer archive is Giftware and copyright © 1994 by Johannes Beigel. You are allowed to freely distribute this archive as long as you distribute the *whole* archive and as long as you don't take more than DM 5 (or an corresponding amount in another standard). This price includes teh costs for a disk but not the postage. You are allowed to distribute the MBE developer archive together with non-commercial software. If you want to distribute it together with commercial software, you have to write me. The MBE developer archive can be included on PD disks or CD-ROMs. Thanks ****** I want to thank Stefan Stuntz, all MUI-programmers, Martin Hutteloher and all people who draw these nice XEN-style icons, patterns... Thank you, Martin Schulze, for distributing all my stuff.