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I am looking for information on how Picasa was built as I would like to create a similar interface for my application.

Information can include programming language,UI design, etc.

user74083
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  • i'm still hoping for the answer that gives the UI framework that was used. – Ian Boyd Jan 17 '10 at 05:52
  • Whatever it is, [f.lux](https://justgetflux.com/) uses the same UI framework: PSD and YTF files in the installation directory, and `ytWindow` class name. – Ben Hutchison Oct 02 '18 at 11:49
  • ... possibly because [the same people worked on both Picasa and f.lux](https://forum.justgetflux.com/topic/42/android-version/9). – Ben Hutchison Oct 02 '18 at 12:12

1 Answers1

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I found this The Beautiful Picasa UI is Made of Dynamic PSD Files:

I was snooping around in Picasa's "runtime" folder and found a bunch of Photoshop .PSD files. Sure enough, large parts of the UI are built in Photoshop. Layers are used to organize buttons, stand-ins, and cursors. Roll-overs are achieved with image replacement similar to JavaScript/DHTML. For example, the timeline view is just a 640x480 image with a tagged layer to hold the selected group's thumbnail and custom cursors defined in their own layer set.

Picasa's underlying graphics engine is most likely a simplified "Photoshop runtime" with a DOM to make it easy to target tagged elements imported from .PSD files. This is a smart architecture because it provides rapid UI prototyping and a consistent look-and-feel across different platforms. Designers can make changes in Photoshop then re-launch Picasa to see the results. Even better, end users can skin the application without having to learn any new tools.

The "runtime" folder also contains some simple scripts that bind UI elements to their .PSD counterparts, and define layout placement and visibility.

Josh
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Andrew Clark
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  • Wow, that is an odd design decision. I am going to have to disagree with the Blog author on this one. I don't think it's such a great idea. – Gili Mar 05 '09 at 05:28
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    Page not found. -1 for link-only answer. You could've summarized it. – Dan Abramov Oct 13 '11 at 22:13