FiveTech Support Forums

Antonio:

Hope you're ok. Can we use vector based icons & backgrounds in our FW apps ? If so, how can we load them from a DLL ? Thank you very much !

Please let us know which vector based image formats do you want to use?

Rao:

EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) format.

I think your best bet is to generate a PDF from the EPS and then manipulate the PDF. Then back to EPS. PDF is much more "manipulable" than is EPS.

Antonio:

Thank you for the link. My plan was to use a EPS based background for my FW app; this way, if the user resizes the main window, the background will grow or shrink with no loss. Is there a way to achieve this ? I don't think the epstool will do the job.

Gustavo,

If you could find an ActiveX that displays EPS files, that could be a solution

Antonio:

Can you post an example on how to implement this as a background ? Will FW support them in a future version ? Thank you.

Antonio Linares wrote:Gustavo,

If you could find an ActiveX that displays EPS files, that could be a solution

FWH does not support EPS format (it is a composite format of vector + raster), even with the help of FreeImage.dll. I do not expect it in the immediate future.

FWH supports only 2 vector formats, EMF and WMF.

FWH supports realizable brushes of images.

Syntax:
DEFINE BRUSH oBrush FILE <imagefile> RESIZE
DEFINE WINDOW oWnd [MDI] BRUSH oBrush

The image will automatically re-sized when the window is re-sized.
However brushes support only raster images.

If we select a good quality image (jpg or other) of sufficiently large size (eg. 1000 x 700 ) and use re-sizable brush we can have very high quality background for window of any size upto 1980x1020. I am using it and can assure you will not be disappointed.