Hi everyone,
I have just completed implementation of a new and exciting feature in PixInsight 1.5.8: floating previews. These are translucent windows offering real-time previews of a variety of objects, such as images, icons and workspaces. Floating previews are a step forward to achieve a modern, rich and dynamic graphical interface in PixInsight.
Readout Previews
Readout previews are generated on-the-fly when you click and drag over an image in readout mode. Here are two examples:
[Click here to enlarge]
[Click here to enlarge]
The readout preview is a 15x15-pixel image enlarged 8:1, so its screen size is 120x120 pixels. It is generated directly from image data via fast multithreaded routines and preserves the current display mode, the STF (as in the example above), and color management transformations.
Image Icon Previews
Image icons show a preview when they are hovered by the mouse cursor for about 0.375 seconds. These previews are much more useful (and beautiful) than the old-fashioned tool tips in previous versions.
[Click here to enlarge]
[Click here to enlarge]
Instance Information Previews
Instance icons (process icons and ImageContainer icons) have two tiny buttons on their right sides. The topmost button is to change the icon's identifier. The bottom button allows you to view and edit the user-defined information associated with the instance transported by the icon. Instance information is very important to document the purposes and tasks performed by different processes in our workflow.
Instance information can now be browsed and edited via translucent, resizable and movable floating previews. The following screenshot is an example:
[Click here to enlarge]
Workspace Previews
Workspace previews are pop-up translucent windows that are shown when the mouse cursor is placed over a workspace selector for more than 0.35 seconds approximately. They show a reduced rendition of the workspace corresponding to the current cursor position:
[Click here to enlarge]
[Click here to enlarge]
Platform-Specific Notes
On Windows and Mac OS X, the new floating previews work without flaws. On Linux/X11, compositing extensions must be installed and running on the X11 server; otherwise the transparencies will not be rendered (instead, opaque windows will be used, which work but are ugly). Compositing extensions are enabled by default on all modern Linux distributions running on reasonable hardware, so this is not a practical problem.
I hope you'll like these new features. As you know, PixInsight's user interfaces are very important for me. These features are just starting points; expect much more improvements in subsequent versions.
I have just completed implementation of a new and exciting feature in PixInsight 1.5.8: floating previews. These are translucent windows offering real-time previews of a variety of objects, such as images, icons and workspaces. Floating previews are a step forward to achieve a modern, rich and dynamic graphical interface in PixInsight.
Readout Previews
Readout previews are generated on-the-fly when you click and drag over an image in readout mode. Here are two examples:
[Click here to enlarge]
[Click here to enlarge]
The readout preview is a 15x15-pixel image enlarged 8:1, so its screen size is 120x120 pixels. It is generated directly from image data via fast multithreaded routines and preserves the current display mode, the STF (as in the example above), and color management transformations.
Image Icon Previews
Image icons show a preview when they are hovered by the mouse cursor for about 0.375 seconds. These previews are much more useful (and beautiful) than the old-fashioned tool tips in previous versions.
[Click here to enlarge]
[Click here to enlarge]
Instance Information Previews
Instance icons (process icons and ImageContainer icons) have two tiny buttons on their right sides. The topmost button is to change the icon's identifier. The bottom button allows you to view and edit the user-defined information associated with the instance transported by the icon. Instance information is very important to document the purposes and tasks performed by different processes in our workflow.
Instance information can now be browsed and edited via translucent, resizable and movable floating previews. The following screenshot is an example:
[Click here to enlarge]
Workspace Previews
Workspace previews are pop-up translucent windows that are shown when the mouse cursor is placed over a workspace selector for more than 0.35 seconds approximately. They show a reduced rendition of the workspace corresponding to the current cursor position:
[Click here to enlarge]
[Click here to enlarge]
Platform-Specific Notes
On Windows and Mac OS X, the new floating previews work without flaws. On Linux/X11, compositing extensions must be installed and running on the X11 server; otherwise the transparencies will not be rendered (instead, opaque windows will be used, which work but are ugly). Compositing extensions are enabled by default on all modern Linux distributions running on reasonable hardware, so this is not a practical problem.
I hope you'll like these new features. As you know, PixInsight's user interfaces are very important for me. These features are just starting points; expect much more improvements in subsequent versions.
