ClassAct 2.0 Demo
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ClassAct is a set of over 30 BOOPSI classes co-authored by Christopher
Aldi, Timothy Aston, Osma Ahvenlampi, and Petter Nilsen. Its now being
published by Finale Development, Inc.
ClassAct provides object-oriented building blocks for your application in
the form of Intuition BOOPSI classes available as either shared run-time or
link-time libraries. As they are standard classes, they may be used with
any application environment supporting BOOPSI. ClassAct is a complete GUI
system in its own right, supporting everything from simple buttons to an
advanced list management class, and includes a complete window GUI layout
system classes that lets you create font-sensitive and resizable interfaces
quickly and easily, including any preferenced window backfill pattern
loadable via the system DataTypes.
Programs that use ClassAct can be made freely distributable, shareware,
commercial, etc. and there is NO FEE for users. When you purchase
ClassAct, users of your software get to use all the preferences functions
of our system. ClassAct a powerful and time-saving choice for software
developers, and an affordable and convenient one as well.
Since ClassAct classes are BOOPSI, they automatically support all kinds of
great features such as window relatively (resizability), 3.x help,
notification, and interconnections with other BOOPSI classes (which do not
necessarily have to be ClassAct classes). ClassAct classes are "standard"
AmigaOS BOOPSI class libraries, much like the colorwheel and gradient
sliders that come with release 3.x of the Amiga's operating system.
ClassAct classes are built for speed, power, efficiency and stability.
ClassAct is compatible with 2.04 (V37) thru 3.1 (V40) releases of the Amiga
operating system and take advantage of performance increases available in
release 3.x (V39+). ClassAct has been tested with ECS, AGA, CyberGraphics,
Retina, Picasso II and EGS Spectrum.
ClassAct is an expanding project, providing you with the graphical user
interface tools you need to write your application. ClassAct is currently
over 30 different classes, and the list is growing all the time!
Installation:
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You must first run the Install_Classes Installer script to install the
ClassAct classes and prefs tool on your Amiga. You will not be able to run
any of the examples without the classes installed. If you already have
some ClassAct classes on your system, the Installer will only copy NEWER
versions. Note that the Installer does not copy the examples or demo
documentation. You may run the demos right out of the extracted archive
one installing the classes. Class updates dated newer than this demo
archive may, or may not be available for FTP from ftp.warped.com or
ftp.finale-dev.com user support sites.
Support Classes:
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* ARexx class
- Powerful ARexx class which can be used to create and manage
arexxports. Supports many arexx abilities such as stems, etc.
* Window class
- creates intuition window objects. Windows maybe opened, closed
or iconified at will. Many window attributes may be set while
the window is open. Automatically handles keyboard control,
task defered display rendering, and many other issues to
simplify IDCMP processing and programming overhead. Preference
user backfill hooks are also supported.
Gadget Classes:
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* Button gadget class
- powerful button class with many of options including built-in
arrow glyphs, tab-cycle support, custom images and more.
* CheckBox gadget class
- for checkbox gadgets, very much like GadTools CHECKBOX_KIND.
* Chooser gadget class
- for pop-up and drop-down menus simular in purpose to CycleGadgets.
* Clicktab gadget class
- for file folder like click tab pages
* Fuel Gauge gadget class
- for progress indication, several features including optional
tick marks, and orientation settings.
* GetFile gadget class
- Allows the user the option of typing in a file name or popping up a
file requester to choose a file.
* GetFont gadget class
- Lets the user pop up a font requester to choose a font.
* GetScreenMode gadget class
- Lets the user pop up a screen mode requester to choose a screen mode.
* Integer gadget class
- an integer gadget with optional arrows.
* ListBrowser gadget class
- a listview supporting multiple columns, images, multi-select, etc.
* Layout gadget class -
- for laying out gadgets and images in a font-sensitive and resizable
hierarchical group fashion.
* Page gadget class -
- may be used in conjuntion with clicktab or other classes
to provided paged gui displays.
* RadioButton gadget class
- for radio button gadgets, like GadTools MX_KIND.
* Scroller gadget class
- a proportional scrollbar with arrows, and slider mode.
* SpeedBar gadget class
- for button tool bars (horizontal or vertical orientations) with
optional window title bar help messages.
* String gadget class
- a simple string gadget with bevel frame.
Image Classes:
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* Bevel image class
- for drawing bevel grouping boxes
- supports all kinds of standard bevels, including titled grouping.
bevels, drop-box bevels, optional inner fill color and text, etc.
* Bitmap image class
- A contributed class, by Yvon Rozijn (Author of A-Web Amiga WWW
Browser)
- easily create images for Bitmap structures.
- loads images seamlessly through datatypes.library.
- resultant bitmap image can be embedded within a GUI Layout, Button,
Speedbar, etc.
* Draw List image class
- for designing custom colorized and scaled vector/areafill images.
* Glyph image class
- for standard scalable system images
- includes many images: arrows, get file, get font, etc.
* Label image class
- makes multi-line labels mixing text, colors, images, styles, etc.
* Penmap image class
- for pen-remapped images.
Future classes in development include requester class, balance groups,
virtual groups, application class, external tracker, printer class,
and more!
Should You Use ClassAct?:
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Have you written or are you currently in the process of developing Amiga
applications? If so, the answer is a very definite YES, you should be
using ClassAct.
The graphic user interfaces of many Amiga applications fit atleast one or
more of the following descriptions:
- Non-existant (i.e. command line only)
- Not font sensitive
- Not Locale sensitive
- Slow
- Memory Intensive
- Unattractive
- Lacking in intuitiveness and originality
- Non-standard
- Poor or limited keyboard control
The reasons for this are simple. Many of the existing systems for creating
a GUI are either limited in features, slow, hard to use, and/or violate
system standards. ClassAct makes every attempt to combine compability,
flexiblity, usablility and some originality while following Amiga style
guide.
This is why you should use ClassAct. The Amiga is a graphic system and
applications should have a attractive and responsive graphic user
interface. The ClassAct toolkit allows you to easily create an attractive
GUI that doesn't suffer from the deficiencies listed above.
If you want your application to be easy to use, fast and professional
looking then you should consider ClassAct.
Purchasing ClassAct:
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ClassAct is availble NOW only from for just $39.95 USD for public domain
and sharware authors, and $69.95 USD for commercial developers. It can be
ordered directly from Finale Development, Inc:
Finale Development, Inc.
P.O. Box 6905
West Palm Beach, FL. 33405
USA
Phone: 1 (203) 235-7518
Fax: 1 (203) 237-8459
E-Mail: caldi ct1.nai.net
E-Mail: caldifinale-dev.com
If you are an author of an exising application using a competitive GUI
product such as MUI, BGUI, StormWizard, GadLayout, GTLayout, Triton,
GadOutline, or GUIEnv, you may take an advantage of a $10 USD discount
off the purchase price.
The ClassAct web site url is:
WWW: http://www.warped.com/~timmer/classact/
Here is some of what is included with ClassAct:
- The complete set of ClassAct BOOPSI classes.
- Documentation how to use each class in C= AutoDoc format.
- Examples programs in C and AmigaE for using each of the classes.
- C, AmigaE, Cyclone Module II, includes that you will need for writing
programs that use ClassAct. Assember support available, ask for details.
We offer FREE copies of ClassAct to anyone who wishes to create the
support modules and includes for other compilers. Please email us for
more details.
- classact.lib which includes SAS/C or DICE auto-open support for
ClassAct classes easing use. Source included.
- SBGen which allows you to quickly generate SpeedBar gadget source
code and image data from a collection of 100+ pre-designed images.
- Free bug fixes via ftp/email.
- Free minor updates via ftp/email.
- Technical support directly from the ClassAct Development Team
and via the ClassAct Mailing list. (See our FAQ for more info).
We hope you enjoy the ClassAct demo. Be sure you experiment with the
included preferences program to configure various GUI styles. If you
have any questions or comments, suggestions or problems, please do not
hesitate to contact us.
We want your comments and suggestions so we can improve ClassAct. If you
should find a bug, or shortcoming in the system, we encorage you to contact
us immediatly with as much related information as possible - an unreported
bug may never get fixed if it is not discovered and reported.
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