1 Correct answer
> To get that to work, you need to stack three objects like I've done here:
or add three lines, like I've done here ...
function customDraw()
{ with( this ) {
graphics.drawOSControl();
graphics.rectPath(0,0,size[0],size[1]);
graphics.fillPath(fillBrush);
if( text ) graphics.drawString(text,textPen,(size[0]-graphics.measureString (text,graphics.font,size[0])[0])/2,3,graphics.font);
}}
var dlg = new Window('dialog', 'Test');
var pnl = dlg.add('panel', undefined, 'My Panel');
var btn = pnl.add('button', undef
...
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Replies
Hi guys,
As far as I am concerned, this problematic even has decided me to turn from scriptUI to ( what was then PatchPanel ) extensions. I still do ScriptUI once in a while but and it's really my humble opinion, I always found cumbersome to have so many lines of code for the simpliest UI behaviour. However I deeply admire how far Peter and Marc ( and a few others guy btw ) have pushed ScriptUI to the limits.
But I realise how troll-ish this post could be and I apologize for that. I just wanted to share my experience and how this colored button consideration affected my poit of view 
Best to all,
Loic
Hi Marc, Peter,
Yes I agree. My intention never was to pretend some technology is better than the other. My switch was a personal statement based on the efforts to get nice and advanced UI.
I think Marc described well the advantages and disadvantages of both solutions. but I don't think you need so many dependancies.
- CSAW libs intend to allow developers to call the host dom directly in AS3. But can keep on scripting jsx files and call them from Flex thus splitting what deals with UI and what deals with application scripting. Besides, sometimes I did used wrappers but then later realized it might not be so useful and turned back to calling external jsx files ( mostly cause to doScript ).
- CSXS Library allows you to get access to extension properties such as skin, size…You can never have to play with that library.
- Host Adapter are really great as they extend access to some core events you don't have in the DOM. I am doing some Illustrator development and the list of events is amazing.
Unless I am wrong, you cannot monitor a document_changed with the InDesign DOM. The only workaround I found in ScriptUI was to use teh flashplayer and loads a SWF file that internally looks regularly for document states. Besides, is having timers in ExtendScript possible ? Don't know.
- ExternalInterface is only really useful when you combine ScriptUI and Flash. I don't remember to have used it in a extension context.
So you may not want to use any of them if you don't want to
But yes, the biggest bone is that this all relies on Adobe support for such "plug-ins". But it seems that C++ developers are also invited to use Flex for UIs instead of C++ UIs ( not a C++ developer myself so sorry for unreliable info on that field ). So I guess AS3 UIs are going to take more and more importance. Anyway, as we can call jsx files, it doesn't change a lot of things.
@Peter, what I can do in Extensions that I wn't be able to do in ScriptUI ? I don't knwo exaclty because I did'nt explore all the ExtendScript depths. So I won't tell i can't do it. I just say I can't imagine right now how I could do it. But here are a few topics I can think of :
- Webservices : I am implementing SOAP webservices for an extension project. In Flex, calling webservices is really easy. I have no clue how to deal with this in pure ExtendScript
- Integration
- UI IDE : I can build Uis almost exactly as I want without many lines of code so I can concentrate on the code for application functions
- States : I like this one in Flex, you can switch from one view to another just by calling the state to display. But I think it's nothingunfeasible in ScriptUI.
- Controls & dataprovider : It's really easy to feed items such as datagrids. As a comparison, I amm trying to develop a ScriptUI product these days with a list that should display the content of a CSV file. The logic with subItems.add…Ok but you have to feed every line, one by one. Or I miss something ? in Flex, I just declare a dataprovider and sets it and voilà…
I have no need to precise how admirative I am of Marc's work with ScriptUI and I am not pretending ScriptUI is bad in any way. I just say that I felt more cumfortable to get nice UIs with Flex while keeping ExtendScript for driving apps. It's a personal statement, nothing less nothing more 
And in the end, t's probably what matters, that every one finds its pace
Best,
Loic
I totally agree.
Thanks for your input about CSAW, CSXS libs, HostAdapter, ExternalInterface and so on. For sure I've mentioned things that are not actually relevant in developing an extension (in fact, I'm lost in this complexity). What I can say is just that at a given time I was faced with either of these bricks, especially when the problem was to deal with multiple versions of InDesign. The time I spent trying to understand how (or whether) they fit together leads me to give up.
To go back to the topic (customizing a button), I think an important property is not seen, or overlooked: since CS4, most of ScriptUI widgets and containers fully support regular mouse events (click, mousedown, mouseup, mouseover, mousemove, mouseout). And you can attach listeners to a Group or a Panel as well. This means you really can—with some effort—emulate button-like components, based on nested groups, images and/or statictexts. This is not easy, but a number of approaches are available, and work fine. For example, every button you see in the below ScriptUI dialog are built from scratch using such techniques:
Playing with background colors during mouse events allows to mimick interactive colored buttons with various effects. The user really feels like s/he is interacting with regular buttons, while there is not a single actual ScriptUI button in that interface.
Peter's Dummies guide and Dirk's snippets show many other tricks to manage colors and widgets dynamically. Also, we have the “sprite” trick — http://www.indiscripts.com/post/2011/04/sprite-buttons-in-scriptui —, we can play with onDraw, we can shift the content of a group, etc.
So many ways to customize buttons in ScriptUI!
@+
Marc
Of course pre-CS5 compatibility is another issue with Flex.
For the In-Tools Dashboard, I have two versions, one for CS3 and CS4 and a second for CS5 and later. They look more-or-less the same, but the CSXS version requires much less jumping through hoops and there's focus improvements:
@Peter,
Yep, I think everything has been said. I thought about itemRenderers/itemEditors also but Harbs was quicker
As for extending components, you can easily override native components if necessary and the spark paradigm let you envision to make anything being anything. I mean a component becomes more generic, it just sets a certain number of "parts" that can be anything. I don't do spark components myself and stick for mx.
Besides, it's a pity that Flash Catalyst was drop down so quickly because it was the perfect bridge between UI conception in creation programs such as Illustrator and code generation for using it within Flash Builder. My former company was able to generate AIR apps in a couple of days with that workflow.
Loic
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