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Skinning resources for SARAH

This folder contains some resources in support of a simplistic approach to "skinning" the SARAH plugin.

As of 29 September, 2017, SARAH uses a single-view GUI instead of the original multi-tabbed GUI approach inherited from VanillaJuce. The tabbed approach is useful in development of plugins, while you are still figuring out what parameters you need. Once the parameter set is stable, however, the single-view approach is arguably better. (See http://getdunne.net/wiki/doku.php?id=sarah_skinning for some discussion.)

The present version of SARAH uses a PNG image as the background for the single GUI page. The default background image (aka "skin") is the file Resources/background.png, which gets compiled into the plugin using the JUCE BinaryData mechanism. Each time the plugin is instantiated, it loads this default skin image first, then looks in the user's Desktop folder for a file sarah.png. If it finds one, it loads that image instead.

Update Oct 1, 2017 Although the code still contains support for a default background image, it will only be used if you change the default value of useBackgroundImage to true in PluginEditor.cpp. By default, the program creates a pure vector-graphics GUI, which should work on any computer (and based on what I have read, I think it should scale automatically on Retina-screen Macs, but I don't have one to verify this).

This folder contains some resources for creating SARAH skin images using Paint.NET, a free image-editing program which supports multiple layers.

SarahSkin.pdn is the basic Paint.NET file. To create the default skin:

  1. Open SarahSkin.pdn in Paint.NET
  2. Choose Save As from the File menu, specify file type "png", navigate to the Resources folder and specify the name "background.png".
    • Confirm that it's OK to overwrite the existing file
  3. Accept the defaults in the "Save Configuration" dialog which appears
  4. Click on "Flatten" in the "Save" dialog, telling the program to merge the layers
    • It's OK to overwrite the existing file
    • You want to "flatten" the image first, by merging the layers
  5. Close Paint.NET
    • After the "Save As" operation, Paint.NET will have Resources/background.png open, not the original SarahSkin.pdn file.

The SarahSkin.pdn document contains three layers:

  1. The Background layer is just a solid RGB colour (red 50, green 62, blue 68, which is the default background colour used in the original GUI code generated by the JUCE Projucer).
  2. The GroupsAndLabels layer is a transparent overlay containing SARAH's group boxes and the labels for all the knobs.
  3. The Sarah layer is another transparent overlay containing just the SARAH logo.

By "transparent overlay", I mean an RGBA (RGB plus alpha) image where the Alpha component is zero for all transparent pixels, 255 for all fully-opaque pixels, and something in between for "anti-aliased" pixels at the edges of the drawn structures. Such overlay images, or masks as they are sometimes called, can be a bit difficult to create without professional software such as Adobe Photoshop. I created them out of ordinary "opaque" image files, using a couple of simple Python programs which are also included here:

  • MakeGroupsAndLabelsMask.py processes the opaque image file GroupsAndLabels.png to create GroupsAndLabelsMask.py
  • MakeSarahMask.py processes Sarah.png to create SarahMask.png

To run these programs, you'll need Python plus the PyPNG library (The command pip install pypng will install this automatically on most Python setups.)

After you create the RGBA mask files, you can drag them into the Paint.NET window, and Paint.NET will offer you the option of adding the mask image as a new layer to the presently-open file.

The SARAH source-code file PluginEditor.cpp includes code to create and position the group boxes and label text as well as all the other controls, and I have included a few #defines at the top, to allow you to determine which of these actually appear. To create the GroupsAndLabels.png image, I set these to show the group boxes and labels, but suppress display of the actual controls, then compiled and ran the plugin and took a screen shot. Then I went back in and set the #defines the other way, to show only the controls. This approach gives you options to include or not include labels and group outlines in your skin files.

I'm well aware of the limitations of this approach to skinning. See http://getdunne.net/wiki/doku.php?id=sarah_skinning for some further discussion.