LexGui | LexEyes | Aggression

Skinnable GUI Routines for the allegro game library

Version 0.9.1
Written by Lennart Steinke (http://www.steinke.net)
Latest version can be found here: http://www.steinke.net/allegro/

If you use any of these gui routines, please mention me in your credits

Table of contents


Disclaimer

   "I do not accept responsibility for any effects, adverse or otherwise, 
    that this code may have on you, your computer, your sanity, your dog, 
    and anything else that you can think of. Use it at your own risk."


About

The Allegro GUI is a very flexible and easy to use user interface. But, as we all know it doesn't look very pleasing. For your normal set of tools this doesn't really matter. But if you want to use the GUI inside your game, it's a different story. The GUI has to look modern and fit the theme of the game. Most of the time, this means that we re-implement many widgets already existing in the Allegro GUI.

On the other hand, it's very easy to change the look of the widgets. You just need to write your own dialog_proc function, and handle only the MSG_DRAW event, and route all other messages to the default dialog proc.

int my_button_proc(int msg, DIALOG *d, int c) {
    int ret = D_O_K;
    if (msg == MSG_DRAW) {
        /* All drawing code here */
    } else {
        ret =  d_button_proc(msg,d,c);
    }
    return ret;
}

While this is not that hard, it's still a repeating task. So, why not write a set of dialog functions which let's us change the look of the GUI in a very easy way? Easy as in exchanging some bitmaps and maybe adjusting some INI file settings? Yeah why not? So I decided to do exactly this: Writing a set of truly skinnable dialog functions, so I can change the look of the GUI by just replacing some image files.


Screenshot


    A shot showing the 3 currently available themes.


What's new

Version 0.9.1

  • Fixed a bug in the slider skin loading code
  • Added 2 new themes (bill32 and yellow)
  • Added better doublebuffering support
  • Allowed for dynamic skin switching
  • Added global background color attribute to the dialog skin
  • Added title text alignment attribute
  • Added title text color attribute

Version 0.9.0
First release of the routines


Planned Features

I'm working on some new widgets and a new filechooser right now.
Planned Widgets:

  • Combobox: Allows you to select an entry from a pull down list
  • Listbox: An extended version of the list. Allows you to diplay anything you want, supports multi column display
  • Scrollbars: An actual scrollbar widget, so you don't have to do all the work inside the scrollable widgets yourself
  • Skinnable menus: Add some bells and whistles to your menus

Filechooser:
  • Similar functionality as the windows file chooser
  • Support for file filters
  • Allows to delete / create new folders
  • Looks better

Here's a screenshot of the filechooser. In the center is a lex_listbox in multi column mode, rendering both text and an icon.
On top is a in-progress version of the combobox - the final version will look better.

As you can see, the list has no scrollbar yet, but you can navigate using the cursor keys already. Mouse wheel works nice, also.


How to compile it

Using these functions in your own programs is very simple. Just add the lexgui.c and lexgui.h to your project. Include the lexgui.h in the source file using the dialog functions. That's it. Now you can start using the functions.
It should compile and work on all allegro platforms. If you encounter problems, please contact me at lex AT steinke DOT net
If you're still not sure how to do use the functions, have a look at the test.c source file.


Overloaded Dialog Functions

I've prefixed all of my functions with "lex_" to avoid namespace clutter (LEX is a 3 letter pseudo I normally use for Hiscores). The following functions have been overloaded:
  • lex_button_proc
  • lex_slider_proc
  • lex_check_proc
  • lex_radio_proc
  • lex_edit_proc
  • lex_list_proc

Differences between lexgui and Allegro's gui?

I added a few extra extra features to the button and listbox.

lex_button_proc

You can specify a callback function for the button as dp2 which will be called once you click the button. You can use this callback to check the dialog content before it is closed. You can also make change the return type of the button, say from D_CLOSE (close dialog) to D_O_K (do nothing) to ensure that the dialog is not closed.
The prototype for the button callback function is:

int button_callback(int id)
The submitted id is the d1 member of the dialog struct. Set it to NULL if you don't want to use a callback function.

I also created one new function

lex_dialog_proc

which can be used to create a movable dialog. If you want to create a moveable dialog box just place this function as the first dialog proc in your DIALOG structure like this:


The dp member is used for the dialog title.
The remainder works as you would expect it from the normal Allegro functions. To use it, simply use the lex_ prefixed dialog functions.

I've also added a slightly enhanced version of do_dialog() called (be prepared for a surprise...) lex_do_dialog() which allows you to doubleBuffer your UI. Check the test.c sample to see how it works. If you want to create new skins, have a look at the provided aqua.skin file... it's heavily commented, so you should be able to create your own skins. If you have done skins on your own, please drop me a mail.


Downloads

Download link: lexgui.zip 190kb, zipped

In order to run the precompiled example program, you'll need the alleg40.dll file: Installer for allegro dll file



Similar projects

The look of the Allegro GUI has inspired several people to code extensions *grin*... in case lexgui is not what you were looking for, check out the the other extensions:
  • AGUP: Allegro GUI Un-uglification Project Three looks:GTK, Win95 and QNX Photon MicroGUI
  • BGui2 - Gives you a GUI look similar to the lexGUI bill32 skin
  • Dime - Dime is not really a widget set, but has some new 3d looking widgets, and allows you to create you dialogs in a printf like style. Neat.

Other Allegro sites