Additional Smilies

[fredsmith99]

Great job on the new site. Kudos to everyone involved.

To be among the first to ask for more, is it possible to add Smilies that would duplicate the buttons on the Clavinova, in particular the up triangle and the down triange in the number buttons? This would allow us to be clearer when giving people directions as to what buttons to push.

[spcover]

That's a very good idea.

However, I believe the icons you're talking about will have to be manually drawn using a graphics program. I get around my graphics program very well, but it takes me a long time to do the simplest tasks sometimes.

I will have to put the task on my to-do list, which unfortunately is pretty long these days. :rolleyes: But I'll try.

If there are any members out there with any graphic talent and some time who might want to donate some custom-developed icons/smilies to the cause, it would help out greatly. :)

Sean

[onnokok]

I would like to help if I can.

I would need to get technical information from Sean like pixel dimmensions, file format, etc.

But most importantly I do not have a CVP ... yet. soon though. If any one with a digital camera can take some photos of the buttons, I can work on them and send them to Sean.

Hope I can help,

Onno:cool:

[wally]

Even better than having digital photos, you can go to the Yamaha Manuals web site, download the user manual for the CVP, and get a good crisp illustration of all the buttons.

[lasershow2000]

I have made smilies of most of the CVP buttons. In doing so, I assumed smilies have a maximum 15 x 15 pixel size. So all the CVP buttons that I created will fit into this (very tiny!) size.

The complete set of about 50 different CVP buttons can be found at the following web page:

http://www.murphypatrick.com/clavinova/buttons.htm

-- Patrick Murphy

PS: If the forum allowed use of the IMG tag, I would have embedded some sample buttons into this message. But since IMG code is Off for the forum, you'll have to click on the link above, to see the buttons...

[wally]

Thanks, Patrick...that's a great start! I'd also like to see images of complete sections of the control panel to use when discussing sections of buttons. For example, an image of the Voice Effect section, the Registration Memory section, etc.

[lasershow2000]

Wally --

Wow, the button smilies are up. That 's great!

You wrote: "I'd also like to see images of complete sections of the control panel to use when discussing sections of buttons."

The problem with your good idea is that I believe Smilie Buttons are limited to 15 x 15 pixels. If so, that's just too small of an area for a section image to be comprehensible.

It would be possible to turn the IMG code On for this forum. Then images of any (practical) size could be added. But ... the problem becomes: How do people select and embed the section images?

Smilie Buttons are easy. With the smilies, there is a list to the left of the message box. If you want a Smilie Button, you just pick the one you want and it magically appears like this: :PIANO: or this :M: .

But if you want a whole control section, you'd have to already know its web address (URL), plus you have to know how to use the vB Code IMG tags, which work like this: http://www.murphypatrick.com/clavinova/images/section_ots-registration_128x37.gif (If IMG code was ON, you'd see a small image of the CVP OTS/Registration section.)

So I don't see how non-smilie images could be made to be easily added to the text of a message. There are only two ideas I have:

1) If smilies can be bigger. The IMG link above goes to a 128 x 37 pixel drawing of the OTS/Registration section which can be used to test whether larger smilies are possible.

2) This forum is built on open-source code. Maybe someone who uses similar forum software has added an "Insert An Image" function, which lets you select from pre-defined images.

Again, thanks for the quick work on turning my buttons into usable smilies.

-- Patrick Murphy

[lasershow2000]

Hmmmm.... I note that the buttons I created need transparent backgrounds. When a forum message like the one I just wrote is on a gray background, you can see white edges around my Smilie Buttons such as :PIANO: and :M:.

I can re-do all my buttons so they have transparent backgrounds, but it will take a day or so for me to get to this. In the meantime, here's one you can use for a test. This is a new version of the Piano button, with a transparent background: http://www.murphypatrick.com/clavinova/images/button_piano_trans.gif

If you test this, I think you'll see that it works better on a message with a gray background.

-- Patrick Murphy

PS: Is it possible to re-name the Smilies box to something like "Smilies/CVP Buttons"?

[spcover]

Couple of items:

a) I've uploaded all of Patrick's smilies to the system. If he provides ones with transparent backgrounds, I can replace the current ones with those.

b) Adding images: While the system prevents the use of straight HTML tags in messages (to prevent surreptitious people from trying to insert javascripts and other hacker-friendly source code into a message), the system does allow some safe" methods for inserting special items like images into messages using what it calls "vB Code".

Click on the Post Reply button and on the input screen, below "Message Icon" and above "Your Reply", you will see an "vBCode" box. Click on the "help" link for more information on how you can insert IMGs into your messages.

c) There is some limited ability to customize the system without touching the actual programming code itself. I try to avoid editing code because then it makes software upgrades difficult. That said, I'll hunt and peck around to see where I might be able to change the text description for smiles to "Smilies/CVP Buttons".

Patrick - great job on the smilies! Thanks so much.

Sean

[spcover]

I found an option to increase the number of smilies presented when posting a reply. I've increased the columns of smilies from 3 to 5 and the total displayed at any one time to 75.

Not sure how aesthetically pleasing it is, but it works!

Sean

[lasershow2000]

Sean --

Thank you for adding the smilies to the system. And thank you for making the Smilie box larger, so it is easier to choose the buttons. Hopefully people will find them useful. Here's an example (just 'cause I like seeing the buttons!):

"To enable SynchroStart for a song, press the Top and Song Start/Stop buttons ( :TOP: :ST: ) simultaneously. The song will start when you play a note on the keyboard."

Regarding IMGs, they are currently turned off in the system. (See the box below, "Forum Rules". ) I used IMGs in a couple of my previous messages, but they just appeared as links. I think you as webmaster have to explicitly turn them on.

On other points, I agree with you about not editing the forum source too much because it has to be done again when there are new updates. Also, I'll provide transparent Smilie Buttons in a day or two. I realize there's no rush...

Two questions:

-- 1) Any word on whether smillies larger than 15 x 15 are possible?

-- 2) What's up with the forum's editing system? When I click on a smilie, or vBCode such as an IMG link, the new material is only inserted at the end of my message. This happens even the cursor is in the middle of the message (e.g., I'm editing or adding more material). Is it just my settings, or does this happen to everyone?

-- Patrick

[spcover]

IMG tags are on!

http://www.scarsdaletech.com/images/stech-logo.jpg

I didn't realize they had to be set on an individual forum-by-forum basis.

As for the size of smilies, I don't see anything restricting their size to 15x15. But keep in mind they have to fit in the darn small Smilies box in columns and rows on the Post Thread/Post Reply screens. I can't see that we can allow them to get much bigger in size before we run into issues.

Lastly, as to inserting Smilies. they will always insert at the end of whatever text you've already input, not where the cursor is (as in the middle of a paragraph). I have no solution to that, as that is as I've seen in it in all the bulletin board scripts I've seen.

Sean

[lasershow2000]

Sean --

It is good that bigger smilies can be added. However, I am not sure if this will be useful in practice. The smilie box seems to be maxed out.

Can you put a big image such as this http://www.murphypatrick.com/clavinova/images/section_ots-registration_128x37.gif in the Smilie box temporarily and see what happens? (It can be found at http://www.murphypatrick.com/clavinova/images/section_ots-registration_128x37.gif )

Thanks very much for turning IMG images on. It is a help in the ultimate goal of having CVP Control Panel sections and other tutorial-type artwork be embedded within a message. Unfortunately, as I wrote before it is probably impractical to expect ordinary users to routinely embed IMGs.

Smilies are nice because you just pick from a list and (if the cursor is at the end!) they appear where you want them. IMGs are a lot more hassle.

Hopefully there is another solution...

-- Patrick

[wally]

With IMG turned on, we may not have to have the section images available as icons. We may be able to create a dedicated section in the downloads area organized for images that can be used in discussion threads. Then we can just implant images from the downloads section in our text. This would also solve the "end of text" placement of the image.

[lasershow2000]

Sean & Wally --

OK, the transparent background smilies are finished. You can view them at

http://www.murphypatrick.com/clavinova/newbuttons.htm

On that page is a link to the new ZIP file which contains all the new buttons.

In addition to making the background transparent, I also changed from white buttons to dark buttons. This is because the real-life Clavinova buttons are also dark. Here's an old button and the new version, side-by-side:

http://www.murphypatrick.com/clavinova/images/button_style3-A.gif http://www.murphypatrick.com/clavinova/images/newbuttons/button_style3-A.gif

There are no old buttons which remain -- all buttons are re-drawn. In addition, I added three new buttons. These two are for under the LCD screen, when you need to specify pressing only the down button, or only the up button.

http://www.murphypatrick.com/clavinova/images/newbuttons/button_down-only.gif http://www.murphypatrick.com/clavinova/images/newbuttons/button_up-only.gif

This one is a glowing light, like the ones that come on when Layer or Left is active.

http://www.murphypatrick.com/clavinova/images/newbuttons/button_round_glowing.gif

Sean, sorry to make you go through this twice... but the new buttons should be pretty final!

-- Patrick

[lasershow2000]

Sean & Wally --

I have once again improved a few of the Smilie Buttons. Three buttons with black dots (representing LEDs) http://www.murphypatrick.com/clavinova/images/button_registraton-memory.gif now have red dots (representing LEDS turned on) http://www.murphypatrick.com/clavinova/images/newbuttons/button_registraton-memory.gif . In addition, I added an "Exit" button and smaller round & glowing buttons . The latter are more correctly proportioned to the rest of the buttons, than the larger round & glowing buttons that I previously used.

The buttons and ZIP file are quote-unquote-final as of 1:30 AM EST Thursday April 3 2003.

But enough of that. The cool thing is that I've done the CVP-209/207 control panel using the Smilie Buttons. Thus, if someone wants to post a CVPUG message showing the control panel (or part of it), and then in the message wants to use Smilie Buttons when talking about specific functions, all the artwork will match.

Here's the art (hope it fits!) for the entire control panel:

http://www.murphypatrick.com/clavinova/images/newbuttons/buttons_207-all.gif

These are the three main sections; left, center and right:

http://www.murphypatrick.com/clavinova/images/newbuttons/buttons_207-left.gif

http://www.murphypatrick.com/clavinova/images/newbuttons/buttons_207-mid.gif

http://www.murphypatrick.com/clavinova/images/newbuttons/buttons_207-right.gif

Now the trick will be to somehow make it easy for non-computer-savvy people to add the control panel images to their CVPUG forum messages.

-- Patrick

[wally]

These are fantastic, Patrick! Thanks!!