nifty-gui

Current Demo for Nifty 0.0.3 Release (Java Webstart)

Removing XmlBeans and Commons-Logging reduced the nifty with all dependencies jar from 4,4 MB to 1,6 MB

Check it out here

Nifty Project Page at Sourceforge

or get the release here

Nifty Release Download

Have fun =)

At the moment there are not many actual controls in Nifty. Besides from clicking on elements, f.i. an Image, there was so far not a lot of interaction possible.

Well, it’s about time to change this with Nifty Controls

To allow as much freedom as possible I’ve decided against predefining new control types that let you only change color or customize some images. Instead the idea is, that you use the already existing elements (Text, Image, Panel) and combine them to create the control you like.

You can create your own control with the <controlDefinition> Tag:

  <controldefinition name="coolControl" controller="my.package.SimpleSlider">
<panel layout="absolute" backgroundcolor="#f0ff">
      <img id="scrollposition" filename="ball.tga" />
    </panel>
  </controldefinition>

With this xml tag you can define a control like it is illustrated in figure 1.

A controldefinition actually defines a couple of things:

1. The name of the new control with the name attribute.
2. The control logic class with the controller attribute.
3. The actual look of the control with a combination of panel, image and text elements. You can even add effects. So if you want a hover effect you can simply add it to the control definition

With the mandatory attribute “name” you give your new control a name so that you can refer to it later. There’s another new tag to use your newly created control, the control tag:

  <control name="coolControl"></control>

So you define the look and feel as well as the control logic once and then use it everywhere you need it like figure 2 shows.

That’s all for now. This just covers the basic idea. More on controls later.

Have Fun!

Well, this took quite some time, but now it is finished and boah, I tell you IT ROCKS! An Introduction to Nifty written in Nifty!

It explains Layout, Effects and Interaction with Nifty and how it all links together. So don’t wait any longer and check out the Nifty introduction webstart.

And because you probably can’t wait any longer after you’ve seen all this, you can download the first alpha version of Nifty to try it all out by yourself! This is the “complete” Package with all dependent Jar-Files packages in a single Jar. So you don’t need any additional files (Note: A different Nifty-only Version will be available soon too). Required is a Java 1.5.

And in case you are curious how the introduction works you can take a look at the complete xml-file of the introduction.

nifty-0.2-complete.jar

Not yet a tutorial (coming soon…) but here is a simple demo (Java 1.5 webstart) of nifty gui. It demonstrates a lot of nifty blend in, blend out, move in, move out stuff and some advanced hover effects. It demonstrates how you could use nifty for a simple game gui. Simple but with lots of style =)

Please keep in mind that this is just a demo for nifty and no game

Start the demo (Java 1.5 webstart)

And just in case you are curious:

Here ist the XML that drives all the stuff in the demo