What's new in Autoplay Menu Designer 5.7
1. Support for SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics)
Use image files in the SVG format for images, buttons, panels and other interface elements as easily as standard graphics formats. Vector graphics helps turning your apps more responsible and adaptable to a range of screen resolutions.
2. Custom object states
The new version introduces several new preset object states. Now an object can have the following states:
- Default
- Over (activates when a mouse cursor above an object)
- Pressed (activates when the left mouse button is pressed on an object)
- Active (activates by the "change state" action or by the default setting)
- Active + Over (activates when a mouse cursor above an "active" object)
- Active + Pressed (activates when the left mouse button is pressed on an "active" object)
- Disabled (activates by the "change state" action or by the default setting and ignore any mouse events)
You can select the object state individually, in the Properties panel :
You can choose the default state of the object, and control and modify it in runtime using the new action called "Change object state", or by changing the internal variables of the object.
Conveniently, each object state can be assigned with its own different visual style. This greatly simplifies designing user interfaces. Previously, in order to display the active state of an object, you had to create a dummy object and show it in place of the real object when the object state changed. Now, you assign the desired visual style for the Active state, and then simply set the object state to Active whenever you want.
3. Designing with Components
The new version simplifies work with repeated similar interface elements, for example, the "Next" buttons on multiple Wizard tabs. The concept of components allow you to transform any graphical object into some kind of a stencil (Component) that transfers its properties to all copies of that object. In this case, whenever you modify the Component, all other instances of that object automatically receive the changes too.
To create a Component, select the "Make Component from Object" item in the context menu of the object.
The corresponding icon in the Project outline will indicate the object is in fact a Component.
Now, if you copy the Component with any method, all its copies will be highlighted with a red dotted line.
Then, whenever you change the Component, all linked instances will be changed too.
If you need the copies to retain some individual properties, you can configure them using the "Component settings..." item in the context menu.
Then select properties you want to apply to every instance. Other parameters of each object can be changed individually.
To turn a Component back to a normal object, select the "Make unique" item in the context menu to untie the object from its copies.
Note that you can also apply the "Component" function to a group of objects. This allows you to create even more complex templates for reuse.
The new GridView object is designed to represent various data as a structured view. Typical examples are part catalogs, product galleries, restaurant menus, document lists and so on. In all these examples the data can be represented visually in the same unified style.
In the new version, we've completely eliminated the need for monotonous duplication of similar data, such as product cards. Instead, you create a template for the item data, choose the variable fields in the template, and set the values for these fields as a table. The program automatically creates and arranges the data - product properties, restaurant dishes, tutorial covers, photo album envelopes etc. - in a grid and makes them available for viewing and interacting with them.
And when you decide to change the design of your catalog, simply edit the design of the template and enjoy your brand new catalog ! Moreover, you can load the data from an external CSV file, so to update your catalog you don't even need to rebuild the project !
Examples of projects with GridView features you can find here :
The live guide: How to create my first GridView
5. Publish your Web App to VisualDesigning or to external Web Server
As you know you can build a Web/HTML5 application from any project of Autoplay Menu Designer. The Web application allows you to distribute your application on any Mac/Windows/Linux computer that has a browser! You can burn it to CD/USB and run it as well as executable application(start the index.html file). Our Web app don't request an Internet connection and will be running on the Windows/Mac OS using the browser.
In 5.7 version we have made using of Web applications even easier ! Just upload your application to VisualDesigning Web-server(or to any external Web-server) and use the resulting link to distribute your project.
6. Smart arranging objects
Using smart guides easy to arrange objects on the pages.
7. KeyBoard events
Assign usual actions to keyboard events, for example, to make a transition between pages by pressing a key.
8. Many other improvements
Autosave projects, new grid settings, Media object events, the new gallery "Icons"(svg-based), etc...