My brain makes things explode.
Projects
Blog entries related to my various development and programming projects.
Qt4
Mar 29th
As of last night, I started looking into using Qt4 for future Application development projects of mine – and damned if it doesn’t look like the best option available to me (the best alternative being writing the UI on each different platform individually). For those who don’t know, Qt4 is an immensely popular and very powerful cross-platform application library that works with C++, and is supported on a large number of machines – from 64-bit Windows desktops to 32-bit embedded Linux solutions to the wonder that is Mac OS X. All without having to change the code – all that is required is a recompile (assuming you’ve set things up properly, of course). It even supports cross-platform project (.pro) files, and has a cross-platform toolset that accompanies its SDK – including a GUI designer, a set of debugging tools, and even an IDE that ties with a MinGW compiler.
I’ve started working again on an IRC client – now under the name alienIRC (formerly SevenIRC, which was being planned solely for Windows). I’ve also decided to make it completely open-source, and intend to license it under LGPLv3, something it shares with the Qt framework that is going to power it. I’m going to be setting up a Git repository on Gitorious for the project, and will be setting up some development pages on this blog – including issue tracking, a wiki, and some other tools. Right now, my plan is to closely emulate the mIRC interface – mostly because mIRC is my favorite IRC client – and will be working to make sure it feels native on all supported platforms. I will personally be maintaining builds on Windows (32- and 64-bit), OpenSUSE 11, and Mac OS X Snow Leopard. I will primarily be using the IDE that comes with Qt, though I will work to ensure that it compiles in X-Code 3 and Visual Studio 2008/2010.
As far as alienIRC itself goes, I’m looking at the possibility of using WebKit for the chat windows’ messages. This would make it incredibly easy to add formatting, because I could easily change messages from the mIRC color character into HTML tags before adding the text to the message box. It all depends on how it runs compared to a custom text box. I also plan to implement a number of features that are popular with mIRC, such as scripting (Lua, specifically), “address books,” nick highlighting, file sharing, et cetera. I’m currently working on some UI concept work – since it will have to be different from SevenIRC’s WPF plans and the previous OS X-only alienIRC UI concept that relied on some UI elements only found on Mac (such as Drawers).
If anybody is interested in contributing to this project, send me some messages – I’d be happy to hear your input, especially on features that you feel would be good to implement. Make sure you sign up for an account on Gitorious – and that you upload your SSH keys and such. If you’ve never used Git, and you’re a Windows developer, this is a very useful link for seting it up on Windows: Git for Windows Developers: Part 1
I’m not dead. I promise. So can I please eat your brains?
Mar 16th
Well, I haven’t exactly blogged much of anything in the past couple weeks, mostly because I’ve been side-tracked with a couple projects, such as the new website for the Keyboard-Failure IRC network (http://www.kbfail.net- or point your IRC client of choice to irc://irc.kbfail.net). You can see the new theme (which I think is a major improvement over the pink-background, black-text spawned by the lack of any desire to work to give KBFail a real theme/system. What can I say? We’re all lazy.) by going to the development page: http://minalien.dynalias.net/kbfail/. Guess when I get around to working on it, I’m going to install the newest Release Candidate of SMF for development/testing of the new site, and I’ll probably get around to rebuilding my old mod to integrate Alex Gorbatchev’s SyntaxHighlighter (which I use on this blog) sometime soon, too. Gods, I wish SMF were object-oriented. :P
It seems that I do actually have somebody paying attention to the Direct3D Pong tutorial series I’ve been writing. I kind of shrugged off doing much more work on the project because I didn’t think anybody was bothering to read it, but a recent tweet shows me that there is at least one person reading it. That, for me, is plenty – so @Ogreman, you can look forward to the next tutorial in the series to come along (hopefully) by the end of this weekend.
I’ve been going through some.. personal issues. Anybody familiar with my past will probably know what I’m talking about, so I’ll just kinda leave the details at that. Suffice to say that life is a pain in the ass, but I’m (uncharacteristically) looking toward the brighter side of things and moving forward with life. On the lighter side of things, my plans to visit Erin in Phoenix are going through, so I’ll be blissfully free of work and hanging out with a friend. I’ve been acting very out-of-character for me, recently. I mean, social activity? Something seriously has to be wrong with me. I think I broke my head. D:
Recently renewed my subscription to Safari Books Online – I pay for the $40-ish unlimited subscription, but they’ve got a $20-ish (monthly) ten-books-per-month plan. Very useful, and I highly recommend it for anybody who deals with technology on a hobby basis. Large collection of full books on there, ready for you to read on your computer at home, or even in mobile-optimized forms on your iPhone or (if you’re one of the cool kids, like me) Android or other smartphone. Anyway, I’ve been reading up and studying for the CCNA certifications, which I’m hoping I will be able to take on-base without first going through the “NCO” courses. In the worst case scenario, I’ll just find somewhere closeby off-base, probably in Los Angeles, to take it on my own. They’ve got a full collection of Cisco networking books, programming (including game programming) books for a large selection of languages (Obj-C, C, C++, C#, Ruby, Java, HTML/XHTML, PHP, ASP.NET.. you name it, it’s there). For those who can afford it and will use it, it’s much cheaper than buying each of the books separately, and much more legal (and less of a pain in the ass for searching) than downloading the books on your favorite torrent client.
An Update
Jan 23rd
So, I know nobody reads my blog, but whatever. Yeah, I’m posting in defiance. Take that, everybody who doesn’t read this! That will show you. Yeah.
Anyway, a lot of drama going on with the management of Simple Machines Forums, which is a shame because it’s such a great piece of software. You can read about it here. I won’t be surprised when things just go to hell and the people who want to stick with SMF’s original values end up creating a new branch of SMF that does follow their visions. But I guess this is a good enough reason to start looking at other bulletin board systems. Seems to be a lot of this type of drama going on in the internet world these days – once-strong communities that lose favor of their long-standing members and being taken over by a single entity that was once thought to be a valuable member of the community. Here’s looking at you, ZFGC – you know who I’m talking about.
Still have a lot to do recently, between picking up the work on SevenIRC (which hasn’t progressed at all since the last post, to be honest), upping the work on PkGame (I’ve been doing a lot of design work here), and now the port for Waxy’s Sushi Party. Anybody who wants to see the game can go here and check it out. I’m currently building the Mac OS X port for the game, and doing some prototyping and working with HiVE to come up with design considerations for the XBOX 360 port (planned to be published through XBOX Live! Indie Games, so keep your eyes peeled if you’re interested). Unfortunately, I only have a Windows computer, so anybody with a Mac computer that is willing to do some beta testing at a later date, don’t hesitate to get hold of me. The engine I’m using (Torque Game Builder) for the Mac prot is cross-platform, so there may (pending discussions with HiVE) possibly be a new Windows build, as well.
Still doing some planning for several game development tutorials, hopefully I’ll get around to starting them soon. Played the demo for Brutal Legend, and I’m sold. I’m buying it next weekend, after I get paid, along with Mass Effect 2 PC.
