Marquee_W3C UDF + User Friendly, Code Creating, Example Program

[TechCoder]

Below you will find both a new Marquee UDF (many W3C/HTML5 features and more) as well as a user-friendly program that both serves as an example script, as well as it will create the code for any particular marquee for you!  Enjoy!

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  BACKGROUND on <marquee> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

<marquee> has been classed as "non-standard" and "non-conforming" as an HTML element

  (http://www.w3.org/wiki/HTML/Elements/marquee)  There is no promise that it will continue to be supported in the future, though it is obvious that many people have a need for this feature and it has remained in the major browsers for years.....

 

<marquee> was originally built into Internet Explorer only, now supported in other browsers, though some original features do not work in IE either - it is clearly trying to be phased out, though a 'replacement' of sorts is coming around, using HTML5 components, so I think it will never totally go away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

For a project I'm working on, I need a way to create a LOT of different marquees.  I thought it simpler to have a program create the code needed, and built the attached 'user interface' program using various references to the feature.

 

THE USER PROGRAM IS BACKWARD COMPATIBLE WITH THE EXISTING UDF FROM Melba23

 

I also needed some features that are not part of the UDF from Melba23 that are direct references to current (HTML5) recommendations from http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/, so I modified the current UDF to create the additional functions, which make the UDF more HTML5 compliant (some of the features I built in have no HTML5 component, existing functions were updated only where needed for the first release - perhaps someday the rest can be done, though no immediate plans)

 

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 KNOWN ISSUES and/or LIMITATIONS within the user program

 

- Tip text NOT IMPLEMENTED (from _GUICtrlMarquee_SetDisplay $sTipTxt) - I had no use for it in my project, though it is not difficult to add if you need to

 

- border styles do not correspond to w3.org settings (not the program's fault...)

This article (http://webdesign.about.com/od/beginningcss/a/aa091207.htm) states that IE does not support 'groove', 'ridge', 'inset' or 'outset' styles, yet does support 'dotted', 'dashed' and 'double'.

  Testing has proven this is true for IE (11), however, in testing AutoIt (with the Marquee UDF), which I thought uses IE (?), it appears that just the OPPOSITE of this is true.  Another item for further testing/study.........

 

- 'Align' feature not working 100% on all fonts (not the program's fault!

the initial version of <marquee> (designed for IE and copied to other browsers later) contained an element called 'align', which has long been obsolete in favor of css 'vertical-align', however, it is not a direct replacement  and does not work inside <marquee>.  

 

Several alternatives were tried (including 'line-height' and even 'vspace', which may also soon be phased out) and nothing works 'perfectly' (search the web on font sizing and spacing - you will see this is extremely difficult).

       This program works around these challenges in a 'best effort' way, using calculations and 'top-margin' (or vspace) spacing.

       'Recommended' fonts (http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/appendix/fonts.htm) will be set to 'center' or 'bottom' (within a pixel or 2), while other fonts may be off by several pixels (something in the font is different..).

       If you need the other fonts, a bit of testing would give some offset numbers that could result in better display. (this is NOT on my list to do, though maybe someone would want to take that on???)

 

- You can create 'unreadable', 'unusable' and even 'UGLY' marquees (not the program's fault, either!)

While a bit of effort was put into limiting things, there is no cross-checking to make sure your marquee will look 'nice'.  All parameters within the marquee feature have been tested to their max/min limits (and pushed well past the documented limits for speed and delay - you can make a  F A S T  or  S L O W  marquee well outside the published specs!) and set accordingly.

 

Any/all color scheme, font size, etc. can be used (no matter how horrible the outcome...) so have fun and create what you like!

 

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Additional recommendations from w3.org built into Marquee_W3C.au3 UDF

 

1. Border thickness (width) refered as "thin", "medium" and "thick" or <length> (any number - to infinity) 

    (http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/box.html#border-properties)

    (http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/prop_style_borderwidth.asp)

Marquee_W3C UDF allows any number as an entry, as well as the more 'friendly' named terms

 

2. Border Style is included in Marquee_W3C UDF (not in the current UDF, therefore, none of the settings in the user program do anything if you use the old UDF, so it is set to $GUI_DISABLE.)

 

3. use of PIXELS and EM for formatting text instead of POINTS

     http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/fonts.html#font-size-props use <length> paramaters

     http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/syndata.html#value-def-length with named length units (em, ex, cm, in, px, etc.)

  POINTS are used in typsetting, while PIXELS, and EM are more correct methods of sizing fonts on modern monitors (one good article on this topic can be found at http://webdesign.about.com/cs/typemeasurements/a/aa042803a.htm )

 

NOTE: The user program is backward compatible with the UDF from Melba23 that uses POINTS

and auto-sets the parameter with the chosen UDF.

 

 

Marquee_W3C.au3

MarqueeMaker.au3

[KLM]

Thanks. 

I'll try this.

[mLipok]

nice UDF

but

I notice that Frame border style for example "Dotted" do not work.

mLipok

[TechCoder]

 

- border styles do not correspond to w3.org settings (not the program's fault...)

This article (http://webdesign.about.com/od/beginningcss/a/aa091207.htm) states that IE does not support 'groove', 'ridge', 'inset' or 'outset' styles, yet does support 'dotted', 'dashed' and 'double'.

  Testing has proven this is true for IE (11), however, in testing AutoIt (with the Marquee UDF), which I thought uses IE (?), it appears that just the OPPOSITE of this is true.  Another item for further testing/study.........

That's why I put that statement in the top post - seems very odd behaviour and I wasn't sure how it would react.  

I left in all the W3C settings in case someone has an answer - felt it better to have them available than to make a 'perfect' user interface with only working items (then, someone would ask "why did you leave these out?"!)

Would like other feedback on just how AutoIt works internally on the embedded IE - does it really use the IE from the user's computer (which I thought, but testing seems it doesn't) or a broken-down version (for speed, etc.) or what?   Haven't researched it, but certainly the behaviour here is not consistent on the borders.

[Sven]

This is great. Thanks a lot!

Is there a way to update message text and color without having to delete the current marquee control and initializing a new one?

The code creator seems to be missing a couple of quotation marks, e.g.

_GUICtrlMarquee_SetScroll($aMarquee, Number(), scroll, left, Number(6), Number(85), middle)

_GUICtrlMarquee_SetDisplay($aMarquee, thin, 0, 16777215,  Number(30), Times New Roman,  StringLower(Solid), black)

_GUICtrlMarquee_Create($aMarquee, Your TEXT Goes Here, $iLeft, $iTop, 1920, 200)

 

should be more like

 

_GUICtrlMarquee_SetScroll($aMarquee, Number(), 'scroll', 'left', Number(6), Number(85), 'middle')

_GUICtrlMarquee_SetDisplay($aMarquee, 'thin', 0, 16777215,  Number(30), 'Times New Roman',  StringLower('Solid'), 'black')

_GUICtrlMarquee_Create($aMarquee, 'Your TEXT Goes Here', $iLeft, $iTop, 1920, 200)

 

And there probably should be a number in "Number()", too.

Edited September 10, 2014 by Sven