Re: setup.exe opening page graphic

[Warren Young <warren at etr-usa dot com>]

On 8/19/2011 9:39 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> > On Aug 18 15:07, Warren Young wrote:
> Cool!  Here's how it looks like in the setup dialog:
>
>    http://cygwin.de/cygwin-splash.png

The faux motion blur should taper to match the logo's expansion.  Going 
straight down as it does now is optically incorrect.  I will fix this on 
future treated stills.

> > I can do the same for the animation, too.
>
> I have not the faintest idea how to include an animation in a standard
> MFC dialog.  Does MFC grok animated gif's in icon files?

setup.exe doesn't use MFC.  It's a straight-to-the-API program.  MFC is 
a Visual C++ Professional feature.

You don't want to use GIF.  It would more than double the current size 
of setup.exe, and it looks horrid besides:

	http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/from-box/animation.gif

Knocking out the background will lower the size and remove some of the 
color artifacts, but it'll still be too big and too ugly.

PNG frames animated using a 66 ms SetTimer() won't work, either.  It 
adds 340 KB to setup.exe, and then only if Windows' built-in PNG decoder 
can handle transparency.  Given that IE6 doesn't do PNG transparency 
correctly and it's contemporaneous with XP, I think you'd end up 
statically linking setup.exe to libpng to fix this, again roughly 
doubling setup.exe's size.

Shipping BMPs is a complete no-go.  15 RGBA frames cost 2.3 MB.

IMHO, the right way is to use DirectShow along with a proper video 
codec.  XP shipped with WMV7 and MPEG-2 decoders, which get the 
animation down to about 60 KB:

	http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/from-box/animation.asf
	http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/from-box/animation.m2v

It looks like w32api might have the definitions needed for this.  I see 
w32api/dvdmedia.h, for setting up an MPEG-2 decode, for instance.

These links may be of some help:

	http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd375468%28VS.85%29.aspx
	http://stackoverflow.com/questions/530998/

I realize that DirectShow is a bit of a bear to set up, but keep in mind 
the space savings.  Ignoring the SHTDI problem, the only way DirectShow 
isn't a net win is if it costs hundreds of KB of compiled code to set 
up.  There's no way that's true.

> Apart from that, I really like the still and I would be content with
> it... except... the C jumping out of the box doesn't have this beveled
> look, like all other icons have now :}

I can bevel it, but I hope you aren't expecting the exact same look. 
The 3D render is made in a photo-realistic studio environment, which is 
going to give a much different result than Photoshop's highly idealized 
2D bevel filter.

Do you want me to try to match the look, or were you just hoping to see 
highlights and bent studio light reflections so that the animation 
suggests the logo has the same shape as in the 2D art?