Designer

Version	Status	Date Updated	Updated By
710	Unknown	N/A	N/A
810	relevant	15th Feb 2011	Kezza
1004	Unknown	N/A	N/A
1204	Unknown	N/A	N/A
1404	Unknown	N/A	N/A
Usage Information

Designer

Description

Designer is the program that is used to create a User Interface for the Orbiter. Designer has not yet been re-written in LinuxMCE. While functional, it is not terribly user friendly. It requires the .NET framework or Mono. Eventually an entirely new cross-platform Designer ought to be written. However, since it is still usable, this has been considered to be a low priority for us.

Designer is very poorly written, and we do not recommend that any developer put much effort into writing new code for it. It needs be completely re-written from scratch.

To makes matters worse, it was originally written using our own .NET data access classes, similar to our sql2cpp. These classes only worked with the MS SQL Server back-end and were crudely hacked to work with MySql's ODBC connector. They are not easily maintained.

For Version 2, we plan to use the open source MySql database, but in the mean time Version 1 was crudely ported to use MySQL directly in order to run on Linux too, not just Windows.

Re-writing Designer is a pretty big task and the current version remains usable for the most part. The database scheme is hopefully not likely to change much in the new Designer version. Any User Interfaces developed with the current version, therefore, hopefully will be usable in the new Designer version.

The User's Manual explains how to use it. There is no Programmer's Guide for this version of Designer.

See this HA Designer Fundamentals screencast for an introduction to its use.

Download Designer

Windows binaries

• Designer in .zip file
• Alternate Download
• Designer Download using Mantis

Source code

• SVN: Original source, which uses ODBC
• SVN: Source which uses MySQL directly

User Manual

• Designer User's manual

Other issues

• Installing on a Windows Machine
  
• Running on a Windows Machine

Alternative

Alternatively the JAVA based QuickDesigner can be used.

Watch Screencasts

These screencasts are intended to help guide those that wish to create/edit orbiter UI screens.

• Basic HADesigner Fundamentals
• DesignObj Basics
• UI2 Pop-up - Part I
• UI2 Pop-up - Part II
• UI1 Orbiter
• UI1 Full Screen OSD - Part I
• UI1 Full Screen OSD - Part II
• UI1 PDA
• Mobile Remote
• Cisco 7970
• Monitor mode

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• Introduction and Aesthetic
• Main Menu - First Pass
• Main Menu - Notes and Corrections
• The Floorplan Buttons