I see. How did you make the buttons? Are the whole buttons images or did you load an image into the background and let Qt draw the text and border? If it is the latter I'd be interested in the code. The way Pytherworld does that is pretty slow.
It occurs to me that some button images might be helpful as well. Basically I have the border drawn into the button, like this:
![](http://i.imgur.com/600bwQ5.png)
I made that by drawing the frame and the text in Inkscape and then using the Gimp to bump map it to give it a slightly rounded look. I added the leather background in a separate layer using the Gimpressionist filter.
For the hover image, I made another leather texture in a brighter shade of red
![](http://i.imgur.com/aIcXJCU.png)
To get the disabled version I copied the frame and text layer, desaturated, and exported the result using the darker background
![](http://i.imgur.com/fMW3NfV.png)
Finally, for the active image, I duplicated the text and border and gave it a gaussian blur. By displaying the blur layer on top of the non-blurrred one, I get a shine effect for the active button. Add the brighter background and we have our mousedown image
![](http://i.imgur.com/eqsiXMG.png)
Of course, that's a lot of work if I'm going to do it for every button in the game, so I only bump-mapped the text on the opening screen buttons. For the rest I use the bump-mapped borders, but no text, and then use PyQt to add the caption. The code for that is in the previous post.
OK, that's about all I got. Hope I'm not teaching my granny how to suck eggs
[edit]
Since I'm talking about making images, here's the message area widget I was talking about:
![](http://i.imgur.com/YVrnu44.png)
I think I feel a new sig coming on...
[edit]
What the hell, here's the "printer" widget as part of the main screen.
![](http://i.imgur.com/Ueqbfvo.png)
The layout still needs a little love. It's a bit cramped and the style is uneven, but in some ways that suits the theme. Some things could be lined up a bit better, but I think I'm going to get a big empty spot in the middle of the screen which is going to stand out amidst all that clutter. I suppose I can always add a bit of decoration or some pointless blinking lights. I'm tending towards a brass nude statuette if I can find or make a suitable graphic.
It occurs to me that I'm in danger of taking this seriously.
Saving seems to be working, but I'll not know until loading is implemented. That's the next job.