Hi all,
This is a tip on how to easily create a nice, professional header for your Aware IM application (banner). The tips is to check out Xheader. It is a small software for header design and it is actually really good and perfect for Aware IM banner development (parts of banner). The software free version comes with 500 free header templates in various categories and the pro edition has 5000. The header templates are goodloking, modern and professional and it is real easy to add text and other details.
NB: The finished product (header) is an image which can be easily placed in a html file for import as a banner in Aware IM. If you want additional custom features in the Aware IM banner you would have to add these in some way ("on top of") the image in your html editor.
You can find the free version here: http://www.xheader.com/ , and i recommend you download and try the software yourself. The samples and information on the site does not make the software justice.
Create professional headers/banner for Aware IM application
Create professional headers/banner for Aware IM application
Henrik (V8 Developer Ed. - Windows)
Workaround header size (xheader)
I have played around using different headers from Xheader in an Aware IM application and there is a problem when it comes to the size of the header. The size of all Xheader templates is 950x175 and when using that size directly in an html file and after that in the banner of Aware IM, the banner is not covering the entire screen when using the application on e.g. a widescreen screen. To work around this here is a solution that seems to work with different resolutions.
Resize the header in Xheader to 1500x276 (use "Constrain" option) and after that save the header. Now you have to open the header up in e.g. mspaint and crop the header so you get a part of the header (crop so your header is with a smaller height. If you use the full header it is unfortunately not displayed very well, only a part of the header is displayed). When it comes to additional details like text, logo etc. you would have to either add these after you have resized and cropped your header or before, taking in account where these details would have to be on the header so the header and details are displayed correctly in your application.
This is unfortunately a small limitation of using the header templates in Xheader but the finished result after this workaround is still nice and good enough.
Resize the header in Xheader to 1500x276 (use "Constrain" option) and after that save the header. Now you have to open the header up in e.g. mspaint and crop the header so you get a part of the header (crop so your header is with a smaller height. If you use the full header it is unfortunately not displayed very well, only a part of the header is displayed). When it comes to additional details like text, logo etc. you would have to either add these after you have resized and cropped your header or before, taking in account where these details would have to be on the header so the header and details are displayed correctly in your application.
This is unfortunately a small limitation of using the header templates in Xheader but the finished result after this workaround is still nice and good enough.
Henrik (V8 Developer Ed. - Windows)
Soso
After more testing with different resolutions i see that there is some manual work to get a solution like this with a image as a banner to work and the above recommended is soso. Its hard to get it to work fully but it might still go with some headers and work ok after some work.
Henrik (V8 Developer Ed. - Windows)