The images table

This is a 'database table' parameter. Please refer to passing database tables for a detailed explanation of the database table format. In all the following examples we assume that the recordseparator is ^ and the fieldseparator is | .

Field nr. 6 and 7 in the entries paramter are external keys referring to records in this table.

Record definition
fields Name Type default Range
0 Key string No default, obligatory field  
1 The image’s location URL No default, obligatory field Fully qualified URL’s as well as relative URL’s are supported
2 X coordinate Integer 0  
3 Y coordinate Integer 0  
4 Width Integer Width of the image  
5 Height Integer height of the image  

background

A special key is "background", it allows you to use an image as your background. If the image is smaller than the surface of the applet, then the background image will be tiled.

example

<PARAM name=images value="
^background|clouds.jpg
">
 the background image

Notice that folders are not ‘transparent’. The java language doesn’t allow creating transparent off-screen images. In the next paragraph will we demonstrate how you can use external icons with transparent backgrounds.

custom images for icons

You can use 1 file per icon or pack different icons in one file. Packing multiple icons in 1 file results in shorter download times because your browser doesn’t need to make multiple internet connections.

We will pack 4 icons with a transparent background in 1 gif image file. Please refer to the manual of your paint program on how to do this.

If we blow this up we get

Now we can define crop regions for the icons that are contained in this image.

We shall only change the default openedfolder and closedfolder icons with their transparent counterparts.

closedfolder starts at the point (0,0), this is the upper left corner, and is 16 pixels wide and 13 pixels high.

openedfolder starts at point (20,0) and is also 16 pixels wide and 13 pixels high

example

<PARAM name=images value="
^background|clouds.jpg
^closedfolder|treetrans.gif|0|0|16|13
^openedfolder|treetrans.gif|20|0|16|13
">

more pecial image keys

We already saw "background" as a special image key, but most of the built in images can be replaced.

 

key description
closedfolder the icon of the container when it is in the closed state
openedfolder the icon of the container when it is in the opened state
closeddocument the icon of the non-container
contractedexpander the icon of the expander when its container is in the closed state
expandedexpander the icon of the expander when its container is in the opened state
closedfolder the icon of the container when it is in the closed state
openedfolder the icon of the container when it is in the opened state
closeddocument the icon of the non-container
contractedexpander the icon of the expander when its container is in the closed state
expandedexpander the icon of the expander when its container is in the opened state