CFInjector - Tool for Plugin Developers

[Zorro]

Hi Guys,

as you may have seen in the Phidgets plugin, I've realized to "inject" stuff on the Main screen of CF.
I thought this could be a nice tool to have, so I made an Assembly out of it and I'm sharing this with you.



How to use it:
1. Download CFInjector and unzip the files.
2. Add a reference to the assembly in your VS2003 project file.
3. Add these lines of code:

Somewhere in your class add these members:

 
private XmlDocument skinXml = new XmlDocument();
private InjectorTools injector = new InjectorTools();

Somewhere in CF_localskinsetup add this code:

 
//---------------------------------------------------------------------
// load the main skin
//---------------------------------------------------------------------
try
{
  skinXml.Load(MainPathSkins + currentSkin +@"\skin.xml");
 injector.ClearCachedControls();
  injector.SkinXml = skinXml;
  injector.MainForm = this.MainForm as Form;
 injector.SkinRatio = new PointF((float)SkinReader.widthratio, (float)SkinReader.heightratio);
}
catch ( Exception ex )
{
  Debug.WriteLine("Main skin not loaded. " + ex.ToString());
}

Whereas MainPathSkins is a constant pointing to the "Skins" folder.
Red marked lines apply to version 2.2.0.0, which allows resizing the injected controls as skins get streched because of an higher or lower resolution.

Somewhere in your plugin code add:

 
injector.InjectText("LABEL1", "Some text");

to inject text only or

 
Image image = Image.FromFile( "path and filename of the image to inject" );
if(image != null)
    injector.InjectImage("LABEL1", image);

to inject an image from a file.

To have the injections updated, you may have to set up a timer which will refresh the injected controls frequently. So your timer event will need this line to refresh the injections:

 
   injector.DrawInjectedControls();

That's all that has to be done in your code.

Beside, you have to modify the Skin.xml from the according Skin folder where you want to inject something in this way:
1. Add a section to

 
   <SKIN>
      <SCREENS>
         <MAIN>

and name it <INJECT></INJECT>.

2. Add one or more standard CF Label controls to it, such as in:

<INJECT>
<LABEL1>
<WORDWRAP>False</WORDWRAP>
<FONTCOLOR>#696969</FONTCOLOR>
<FONTNAME>You Rook Marbelous</FONTNAME>
<FONTSIZE>14</FONTSIZE>
<FONTSTYLE>Bold</FONTSTYLE>
<Y>48</Y>
<X>518</X>
<WIDTH>70</WIDTH>
<HEIGHT>30</HEIGHT>
<ALIGN>Left</ALIGN>
</LABEL>
</INJECT>

In the sample above we now have a Label with the ID LABEL1.

3. Save the skin file and run your plugin. The rest will CFInjector do for you.

If you're using VD2, you can speed things up by adding label controls to the main skin panel and adding a prefix called INJECT:: to the Id property, such as:
INJECT::LABEL1
When exporting the skin, VD2 will create the section for you and put all labels into it (see also the Id property of the MAINPAGEBUTTONS if this is unclear).

[VorTechS]

What is the best way to determine the following:

MainPathSkins + currentSkin +@"\skin.xml"

Can you tell me where the variable in bold comes from?

[VorTechS]

Ah, in a skin exported to VB.NET from Visual Designer 2, it's a variable called 'path' which can be found in 'CF_localskinsetup'

[Reagan]

I've been thinking of something similar to this for some time. This is great work Zoran! Brilliant!

[VorTechS]

I tried this with no luck. As soon as I add the INJECT section under:

<SKIN>
<SCREENS>
<MAIN>

the Aura skin breaks and you can't use the software.

I'm not having a good Centrafuse day today!

[Zorro]

Originally Posted by VorTechS

I tried this with no luck. As soon as I add the INJECT section under:



the Aura skin breaks and you can't use the software.

I'm not having a good Centrafuse day today!

You don't have to mess with the stock skins, you can place the xml into another file which is being loaded instead of the main skin file. This will also ensure that your plugin will work with every skin.

If you download and install the latest Phidgets plugin, you'll find a Inject.xml file in the plugins folder. You may copy this file and load it as proposed above. It contains 3 labels and 5 indicator images, which should be good for almost anything.

[slagteren]

is it posible to make it show current speed, direction (N,S,E,W), time of arrivel and so on?

[Zorro]

Originally Posted by slagteren

is it posible to make it show current speed, direction (N,S,E,W), time of arrivel and so on?

You can display whatever you want as long as you program it.
Please don't see this as a tool for end users - it's as the caption says only for developers.

[Zorro]

Originally Posted by Reagan

I've been thinking of something similar to this for some time. This is great work Zoran! Brilliant!

Thx Reagan.

[tired]

Hello Zorro, I have 2 questions about CFInjector. First of all, is there any way to catch events from injected labels. I need to catch clicks on that labels somehow. If CFInjector don't have such api, maybe you can point me to some winapi way ? And the second question, how can I change already injected label text in runtime ? call InjectText again for exsting label id and then call DrawInjectedControls ? Or am I missing something ?