what i would like is to be able to use the standard windows controls and interface to keep it simple. being albe to disign fancy buttons and bitmaps is sure an interesting feature but in the end what i want is to cut some chips whatever the color or form of the buttons. is there a place where i could get the information about the format of these screens so i could make my own designer?
Mach3 is not designed to USE standard Windows controls and interface, so you're stuck with Scream4. It is highly idiosynchratic, but it does get the job done. There is a period of several hours (or days), when you first start using it, that you'll be convinced it's impossible to get any useful work done with it, but then you'll get the hang of how to work around its many quirks, and it's really not THAT bad. The most important thing is to make frequent backups, as it will, occassionally, hose the screenset file beyond repair. All the functionality is there to make some very nice screensets, it just takes patience and perseverence. For me, the hard part is having to generate all the custom bitmaps, because I have no artistic skill whatsoever.
I've only seen buttons become "unselectable" under two circumstances. First is if the button is behind something else - in which case you must move that something else out of the way first. Second is when bitten by a bug in Scream4 that causes it to display ALL objects in the wrong position, so what you see is NOT what you get. That can be resolved by working on a larger monitor. Buttons configured to change screen pages seem particularly troublesome. Sometimes you can solve sticky selection problems by doing a drag select around an object, rather than by clicking on it. And just in case you're not aware, all objects are edited by right-clicking on them, *except* non-image buttons, which must be double-clicked (Why? I have no idea....). Buttons are basically inactive in Scream4, *except* for those configured to change screen pages, which means when you click on them to try to edit them, they change screens and disappear. Shift-clicking overcomes this.
Regards,
Ray L.