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WD14-WD15 "Naavi HUD" project

Started by Patrice Terrier, April 13, 2010, 09:31:42 AM

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Patrice Terrier

"Naavi HUD" is a WD14 project based on WinLIFT and GDImage.
It has been written to run specifically on VISTA or SEVEN in AERO mode.


Preamble:

This is a very special project, because it doesn't use any of the built-in WinDev's facilities.

It is based on direct use of the core Windows API, using low level SDK procedural programming style (same as in C), because it is the only way to create a window that is fully compatible with the Desktop Window Manager of VISTA and SEVEN.

The use of the composited AERO mode allows you to create amazing eye candy, with ultimate speed display, because everything is handled by the GPU instead of using the conventional CPU.

However, to render everything on the DirectX surface of VISTA and SEVEN, we have to use graphic llibraries, like WinLIFT and GDImage, that are compatible with the latest technology.


How to use this project:

You need a computer with a graphic card, that is AERO compatible.

To show you the use of variable opacity, "Naavi HUD", is provided with several backgrounds that you can change on the fly. To do it, click with the left or right mouse button, on the icon located on the top left of the window, asside the caption title.

The circular gauges rotate the Naavi on herself, and the vertical slider zoom in/out. You can move the sprite around using the mouse drag and drop.

For the best visual result, you shoud use a dark Windows wallpaper background.


Source code:

It shows you what is really going on under the hood, without the obscurification of DotNET or C++ classes. Everything is written in pure SDK programming style, with a standard message pump, and a WndProc callback to perform the message cracking.

To ease the portability and compatibility with low level programming languages, the whole API is encapsulated into WinDev code to use exactly the same syntax than C.


Skin Engine:

Because the purpose of this project is to run in transparent HUD mode, Windev's skin can't be used.

Several WinLIFT's theme are stored in the EXE folder, to use/try a specific one, search the code for "// Change the WinLIFT skin theme here:", and REM or UNREM the name of a specific ".sks" file.

A "sks" file (Skin Style), works like a CSS file for an HTML page.


The HUD mode:

It allows you to play an animation in the background, without alteration of the speed of your application.

You can try for example to play a movie, or visual plugins like in BassBox (you can download it from my web site), run the plugin or the movie full screen, then run Naavi hover it also in full screen mode, and you will understand why we call it HUD mode.
Try with "Matrix" or the other plugins.


To download the WD14 project: click here


Screen shot:







...
Patrice Terrier
GDImage (advanced graphic addon)
http://www.zapsolution.com