MacHouse

Last updated: June 29, 2014

1. Introduction: justRound is a desktop application that lets you create text images with rounded corners and a color border.  There are many ways by which you can make a text image appealing.  You can cast shadow around the background layer and the text layer seperately.  And choose seperate colors for text layer, background layer, border layer, underlines and strikethrough lines.

If a solid color is too simple to paint the background layer, then open gradation editor and create a color gradation map.  You can create and store as many color gradation presets as you need.  You can even import to justRound color gradation presets from other applications developed by us.

2. Quick workflow: justRound's workflow goes as follows.

3. Setting up a shared folder: When you launch justRound for the first time, its introductory screen will appear along with the main application window.  (See Screenshot 1-01.)  The former tells you that you need to set up a shared folder.  Notice that there are two push buttons over the introduction window.  You can shift pages by clicking on these buttons to go through a quick tour.  There are six pages in total.

In order to set up a shared folder, just click on the Select button on the main application window.  And you will be prompted to select a folder.  (See Screenshot 1-02.)  You can also choose Select Shared Folder under File for the same purpose.  This shared folder is backed by a security-scoped bookmark, a sandbox feature.  Once you set up one, the application remembers that path even after you restart it.

After you set up a shared folder, a red, invalid indicator next to the Select button will disappear.  If justRound does not find the current shared folder at startup, you will see this invalid indicator again.

4. Designing text images: There are a lot of control settings over the sidebar to the right.  The sidebar is divided into four sections.  The top one is labeled Background.  It's where you define the background layer.

To begin with, enter background width and height in W and H fields.  (See Screenshot 1-03.)  These values determine the whole text image size.  Notice that there's a push button to the right of the H field.  Clicking on this + button, you can add the current background size to the dimensions list.  There's a drop-down menu over the toolbar section right next to the blue D label.  When you click on the + button next to the H field, justRound will add the current background size to this drop-down menu.  (See Screenshot 1-04.)  If you then select a size from this drop-down menu, justRound will insert corresponding numbers to the W and H fields.  In order to remove a dimensions set from this drop-down menu, simply click on the - button next to it.

For now, the display area is empty.  In order to see a text image, you need a string of text and a font selection on top of a background size.  So enter a string of text in the Text field.  And select a font from a drop-down menu.  Then you should see a text image.  (See Screenshot 1-05.)  If you want to enter multiple lines of text, press RETURN with the control key down.  And locate a combo box right next to the font drop-down menu to change the text size.  You can enter a text size manually there.  A text size doesn't have to be an integer (integer meaning no decimal).  So you can enter a float value like 24.5 and 32.8 in this combo box.

You may occasionally see a warning label in red at the bottom-right corner of the main application window.  (See Screenshot 1-06.)  This warning label indicates that you are not seeing the entire text image because it's larger than the display area.  You can ignore it unless you really need to see the entire text image.  Of course, it's just the matter of exlarging the main application window to see the entire image.  You can also change the view rate as you see in Screenshot 1-06.  Press Command plus + or - to increate or decreate the view rate gradually.  When the view rate is appropriate enough for the entire text image to fit the display area, the warning label will disappear.

If you have a few hundred fonts, you may find it difficult just to find ones that you frequently use.  If that's the case, you can add those fonts to the favorite font list.  Notice that there's a small push button right under the font drop-down menu.  When you click on this + button with a font name selected, justRound will add that font to the drop-down menu next to the F label.  (See Screenshot 1-07.)  You can then choose a favorite font from this drop-down menu.  And justRound will select the match on the drop-down menu below.

Notice that there is a pair of two settings that are seemingly similar.  One is Alignment.  There is also a set of radiobuttons under the H. Position label with H as in horizontal.  (See Screenshot 1-08.)  The former refers to horizontal alignment within the text string while the other setting has something to do with the position of the entire text string relative to the size of the background layer.  The Alignment segment control will take effect only if you have multiple lines of text.  If you have multiple lines of text, the longest line will become the base of the text layer.  If you select the center alignment, then other lines will be centered relative to the longest one.  Speaking of the horizontal position with three radiobuttons, you can control the position of the entire text image over the background layer.  So the background layer is the base.  If you click on the right radiobutton, for example, the longest line will adhere to the right edge of the background layer.

There is one more pair of settings that are seemingly similar.  One is V. position (V as in vertical) and the other is Paragraph.  (See Screenshot 1-09.)  The former refers to the position of the text layer relative to that of the background layer.  Every font is unique.  The text layer may appear aligned vertically with one font.  When you change fonts, the same text layer can lie a little bit above or below the center of the background layer vertically.  That's when the v. position setting comes in.  In order to visually tell the center position of the text layer relative to the background layer, try choosing Show Center Lines under Line, first.  (See Screenshot 1-10.)  Then you will see horizontal and vertical lines that meet each other at the center of the text layer.  With these lines, you can visually adjust the vertical position of the text layer with the V. position slider.  How about the Paragraph setting?  This setting refers to the height between text lines.  If your text string contains just one line, this setting has no effect.  If it has multiple lines, as you increase the Paragraph value, the gap between text lines will become larger.

For now, your background layer must remain rectangular.  In order to trim corners, enter a value in the corners field.  (See Screenshot 1-11.)  Notice that the unit is percent just as other settings.  This value is relative to the background width or heigh, whichever is smaller.

There's one more spice to add to the entire text image.  The last section is labeled Border.  Increasing the value of the size field, you can add a border around the background layer.  (See Screenshot 1-12.)  This value is also relative to the background width or height, whichever is smaller.  Click on the color button to the left to select a border color.

5. Exporting text images: By this time, the Save image button at the bottom-right corner must be active.  (See Screenshot 1-13.)  So it's one click away from saving the current text image as a file.  If the Save button is not active, then make sure that you don't have an invalid indicator next to the file name field.  This field must not have a text string that starts with a period (.) or contain a colon (:).  The text string you enter here will literally name your image files.  By default, it's set to Text image.  You can define your default file name is Preferences.  If it finds a file with the same name, justRound will append a number to the name, unless the Overwrite files checkbox is on, so that it won't overwrite existing files.  Finally, explore the drop-down menu right above the Save image button to select an export format.  Supported formats are BMP, GIF, JPEG, JPEG 2000, PNG and TIFF.  If no format is selected, justRound will automatically select PNG to create an image file.  Screenshot 1-14 is a resulting image.  So what you see is exactly what you get.

6. Color gradation: So far, we've used a single color to paint the background layer.  You can actually apply a color gradation map to it.  So let's open the gradation editor window by choosing Open Gradation Editor under Gradation.  To start with, click on the New button inside the Color gradation group box.  Then you will have a color marker at the left end.  (See Screenshot 1-15.)  That color is used to paint the entire gradation map right above it.

Notice that there is one more group of controls over the toolbar section that we haven't discussed.  This group has label G as in gradation.  The color button next to this label determines the initial color of a color marker.  For example, if you set a red color with this color button, a new color marker will aways start with that red color.  Now, click on the + button to add a new color stop to the current gradation map.  You can have as many as 50 color stops.  When you select a color marker with your mouse, it will be highlighted with a white stroke color around it.  You can move the selected color marker horizontally.  The color button below will assume the color of the selected marker.  Click on this color button to set a new color.  You can also click anywhere over the color gradation strip to set up a new color marker with the color of the pixel you've clicked on.

Going back to the set of controls with the G label over the toolbar section, there's a circular slider.  The angle set by this slider will determine the degree by which a color gradation will run.  For example, if you set the angle to 270°, a color gradation will run from top to bottom.  In Objective-C (a computer language for developing Mac OS X and iOS applications), the starting degree is our 90 degree.  Finally, click on the gradation button over the toolbar section to apply the current color gradation map to the background layer.  (See Screenshot 1-17.)  Now, you may wonder how you can apply a solid color back to the background layer?  You can answer that question by clicking on the small button right under the color button for the background layer.  (See Screenshot 1-18.)

If you want to reuse the current gradation map again even once you quit the application, first, name a color gradation map by entering a name in the bottom field.  (See Screenshot 1-19.)  Then click on the Save button.  justRound can tell one color gradation map from another that share the same name.  So you don't have to worry about duplicating names.  Anyway, when you click on the Save button, the current gradation map will appear inside the preset group box.  (See Screenshot 1-20.)

The same color gradation preset format is shared with other applications that are developed by us.  One example is Gekko.  In order to export color gradation maps, first, choose which preset to export to a disk.  If necessary, click on one, first, and then press Command + A to select them all.  Then choose Export Presets under Gradation.  (See Screenshot 1-21.)  And you will be prompted to select a disk.  So choose a folder or a volume where to save color gradation maps as preset files.  (See Screenshot 1-22.)  Moreover, if you want to import gradation presets to justRound, choose Import Presets under Gradation.  And you will be prompted to select one or more preset files.  Preset files that you can import must have the file extension of gtkpreset.

7. Saving progress: Using justRound involves a lot of settings.  Once you quit the application, it will be very difficult for us to reproduce the same text image by manually manipulating those settings again.  Fortunately, justRound lets you save current progress as a project file.  Once you save progress as a project file, you can just double-click on that file to reproduce progress.  In order to save current progress as a project file, simply click on the toolbar button looking like a floppy disk or choose Save As Project under File.  Then you will be prompted to name a file.  (See Screenshot 1-23.)  When you name a file and then click on the Save button, justRound will create a file bundle (package).  The file extension used by this application is jrd.  Furthermore, in order to reproduce progress, simply double-click on a file bundle or choose Open Project under File.

8. Other features: One thing that we have left out is application's ability to let the user change the background pattern.  The default background pattern behind the display area is checkerboard with white and gray colors.  You have 9 options under the Background menu.  (See Screenshot 1-24.)

justRound lets you send the current text image to a printer.  Choose Print under File for that.  You must be careful when you choose Print.  (See Screenshot 1-24b.)  Whatever the current view rate is, when you send the current text image to the printing screen, the image will appear at 100% view rate.  If you want to rescale the image to fit the current paper size, you need to choose Page Setup under File.