I am going to show you a very basic way to do one button that opens a fly-out bar, as you put it.
1) On any bbi element, Ctrl+Right Click. A menu pops up. Go Interface Operations/Create New Control/SwithButton. A new element, a switchbutton, is created. This one will click a drawer, or a fly-out bar, on and off.
Adjust the size to whatever by grabbing the edge of the switch button, pressing Alt and dragging. Move the switch button to wherever by Ctrl+Left Clickin on it and dragging.
Let's say that you want a drawer with Internet programs. So, let's name this switch button Web. Ctrl+Right Click on it and go Control Options/Control Name. Change switchbutton to Web. Ctrl+Right Click and go Configuration/Save Configuration. It's something you must do after every step, so you won't lose what you have done so far.
Here, you can a) add an icon to the Web sb, (b add a caption to the sw or c) do both. You can also choose which style you prefer for that button from the ones inherent to the specific style you are using.
a) Adding an icon: Ctrl+Right click on the Web sb and go Control Options/Image. Choose between Bitmap (jpg, png, bmp) or Icon (ico). Go where the image is and open it. If you want to change the image's size or position, use Control Options/Image/Options/Scale and Control Options/Image/Options/Image Alignment.
(b Adding a caption: Ctrl+Right click on the Web sb and go Control Options/Caption/Static Text. Type Web (or whatever). You can change the position of the text (Control Options/Text Settings), the font (Window Options/Use Custom Font) or the size (Window Options/Font Size). You can also use a bold font (Window Options/Font Bold)
c) Do both the above.
Choosing a style: Ctrl+right click and go Window Options/Style. Choose a style.
Now you have the mother ship, all you need is a child element it can control - namely, the Web Drawer.
2) Ctri+Right click on the Web sb and go Interface Operations/Create New Control/Frame. Again, a new element is created. Repeat some of the above steps to resize (it will depend on the number of buttons you want to place in there) and move it (preferably next to the Web switch button), add an image (although it may be covered by the buttons we are going to add), name it WebDrawer, and choose a style.
Now we have to fill the drawer with buttons controlling applications. For this example I chose just three apps to work as an example -Firefox, Outlook Express and Utorrent.
Let's start with adding a Firefox button. Ctrl+Right click on the frame and go Interface Options/Create New Child Control/Button. Make sure you click on Create New CHILD Control and then Button. A new button appears within the WebDrawer frame. Again, add icon, text (let's say, Firefox), resize etc. Now, Ctrl+Right click on the Firefox button and go Control Options/Mouse Down/Run Open. Go to Firefox.exe and open it. That's it.
You could create the other two buttons the same way, but there is an easier way to do it. Ctrl+Right click on the Firefox button and go Interface Operations/Clone This Control. A Firefox twin button appears. Repeat. Two Firefox twins. Now you can change icons, text, path etc. by using some of the steps above. The nice thing about Cloning is that each new element has the same size as the original one and some other common characteristics. No need to resize again or repeat some of the tiresome procedures.
OK, so we now have a Web switch button and a WebDrawer frame. The last step is to make the switch button control the frame, by switching it on and off.
3) Ctri+Right click on the Web sb. Go Control Options/Pressed/Blackbox Bro@m. Type this:
@BBInterface Control SetAgent Web Pressed Bro@m "@BBInterface Control SetWindowProperty WebDrawer IsVisible true" This will make the WebDrawer appear.
Then go Control Options/Unpressed/Blackbox Bro@m. Type this:
@BBInterface Control SetAgent Web Unpressed Bro@m "@BBInterface Control SetWindowProperty WebDrawer IsVisible false" This will make the WebDrawer disappear.
That's it! Repeat the procedure to create switchbuttons that control frames for System, Utilities, Music or whatever. You can use Clone to clone switch buttons and frames and then change buttons, icons, paths etc. And SAVE regularly.
Of course, these are BASIC instructions. The things you can do with bbi are almost endless. For instance, it's a good idea when creating wharfs to place ALL elements in one frame, so when you want to move the wharf all elements will follow. But you can add them later to a new frame, or do other tricks like using invisible frames - but more of this in my next tutorial, if you are still interested 
bbInterface1.png 57.16KB
2 downloads
