Ouch. I've been doing research into the whole Linux clipart manager and wxPython and I've run headlong into a brick wall. What is it? The X clipboard system was designed by paranoid, short-sighted morons. If you're not copying text, you're pretty much shut out, so it seems, because most applications that work with other kinds of data use private clipboards. Then again, the way the X clipboard is designed, clipboard storage is decentralized and if an app puts something on the clipboard and then quits, the data goes poof with it. Interoperability at it's best. Yay! The nice part? Unless we have some benevolent dictator say this has to be fixed, it'll never be fixed, either.
This discovery more or less puts the clipart manager dead in the water, unfortunately. The upshot to all of this is that I've been slowly getting the hang of working in Python, which is both fun and powerful.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Hacking Python
16 days of school left before the end of the year. Good. I've spent almost all of my waking hours the last week and a half somewhere besides at home. For me, this is definitely not a good thing. I've been learning a bit of Visual Basic in VB.NET 2008. It's OK, but it seems like a weak cross between C++ and Python. The last day or two, I've felt more like it's a waste of time to learn VB when I can learn something like wxPython, which should be just as productive and cross-platform to boot.
I've liked Python for quite some time, but I never really had any need to use it. Until now. I haven't used BeOS lately because I've been trying to iron out some production limitations for office-related work done at my school and my church. What are they? I need a flashcard program that can handle pictures or text card and can be used in a way as to be done with an LCD projector with a class. Nothing out there does that. There is also a complete lack of a clipart manager for Linux, which for a teacher or church secretary is an automatic no vote.
The state of consumer-level desktop publishing under Linux is abysmal. Yeah, yeah, I know about Scribus. It could be workable if there were WMF support. KWord and OOo Writer can do frames, but neither is very easy to do even somewhat complicated layout work. I'm thinking of something along the lines of Broderbund's The Print Shop or even (blech) Microsoft Publisher.
The major problem with Linux DTP is that unless you're someone who does it professionally and knows the intricacies of things like working with a printer and such, it's not very easy to use. I hate to say it, but Scribus could be a really killer program if it were able to utilize WMF and EMF files. The pro doesn't need them, but a large number of other people depend on them. The part that bugs me most is that the website offers a crappy workaround which, while providing results with varying levels of quality, is too technical for Joe User to really get a handle on and, frankly, too much effort to want to manually bother with.
Barring the Scribus development team to implementing this (fat chance), the solution would be to build a manager which can import and manage collections of clipart from different sources and then export them to the clipboard or to a file in a variety of formats. That is the goal, but first, I must learn to walk before I can run. Alas. The fruits of my first efforts? A script to extract clipart from MPF files served up by the clipart obtainable from the Office website. I'll post it a little later when I have more opportunity. For now, I've got some serious reading and hacking to do.
I've liked Python for quite some time, but I never really had any need to use it. Until now. I haven't used BeOS lately because I've been trying to iron out some production limitations for office-related work done at my school and my church. What are they? I need a flashcard program that can handle pictures or text card and can be used in a way as to be done with an LCD projector with a class. Nothing out there does that. There is also a complete lack of a clipart manager for Linux, which for a teacher or church secretary is an automatic no vote.
The state of consumer-level desktop publishing under Linux is abysmal. Yeah, yeah, I know about Scribus. It could be workable if there were WMF support. KWord and OOo Writer can do frames, but neither is very easy to do even somewhat complicated layout work. I'm thinking of something along the lines of Broderbund's The Print Shop or even (blech) Microsoft Publisher.
The major problem with Linux DTP is that unless you're someone who does it professionally and knows the intricacies of things like working with a printer and such, it's not very easy to use. I hate to say it, but Scribus could be a really killer program if it were able to utilize WMF and EMF files. The pro doesn't need them, but a large number of other people depend on them. The part that bugs me most is that the website offers a crappy workaround which, while providing results with varying levels of quality, is too technical for Joe User to really get a handle on and, frankly, too much effort to want to manually bother with.
Barring the Scribus development team to implementing this (fat chance), the solution would be to build a manager which can import and manage collections of clipart from different sources and then export them to the clipboard or to a file in a variety of formats. That is the goal, but first, I must learn to walk before I can run. Alas. The fruits of my first efforts? A script to extract clipart from MPF files served up by the clipart obtainable from the Office website. I'll post it a little later when I have more opportunity. For now, I've got some serious reading and hacking to do.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Ups and Downs
That would definitely summarize my life for the last couple of weeks. Not so much a roller coaster, but it has had some smaller ups and downs. I started working on integrating my old website and this blog and renovating my old site for the integration. It's a ways off and I'm having to relearn Javascript and learn some DHTML magic to make it work well, but it's started. Teaching computers at school has also spawned a couple of smaller projects and revived work on another -- if you're a coder and none of the tools available fit your needs, what do you do? Make your own, of course!
This would probably be the first time where I've been juggling more than a couple projects at once: a simple whiteboard application (almost done), fixes for BeMines, a few more tweaks remaining before Paladin's 1.0 final release, a small app for reviewing flashcards -- mostly pictures -- in class with my students, and reviving my first project by rewriting it: BePhotoMagic. It's a lot, but I'm not planning for the tools to be used before the end of this year, and it's all been fun stuff, so a timeframe for release isn't really an issue.
Unless you've been under a rock or don't follow Linux at all, the latest release of Ubuntu, Jaunty Jackalope, was released last Thursday. I absolutely *love* it because of the much-improved boot times -- the only real complaint that I've had about Linux up to now. My development box is a Pentium 4 3Ghz with Hyperthreading and 1GB of RAM and it boots in 30 seconds. That's half as long as XP Pro on the same machine!
Also in Jaunty is the dovecot-postfix package, a complete mail server installed in one package, courtesy of the Ubuntu team. If you've never attempted to set up a mail server under Linux, it's not for the faint of heart. In fact, I'd say it's harder than compiling and installing your own Linux kernel, so this is also big news for any would-be beginner sysadmins out there.
It's also easier to work with more than one monitor under Linux using the new release, as well. It's still a little strange and takes some playing around, but it's nowhere near the headache that it used to be. Gone is the need for futzing with xorg.conf files to configure Xinerama. This is also a major improvement in a smaller area.
In other news, Microsoft has conceded defeat on the OOXML vs ODF wars and apparently has included full ODF support in the just-released Service Pack 2 for Office 2007. All I can say is it's about time that Redmond got some sense in this area. Unfortunately, it won't be rolled out via Microsoft Update until August. At least now my coworkers can finally use my OpenOffice.org files without much hassle.
There isn't much else to tell, but when I have something to show, you'll know. TTFN. :-)
This would probably be the first time where I've been juggling more than a couple projects at once: a simple whiteboard application (almost done), fixes for BeMines, a few more tweaks remaining before Paladin's 1.0 final release, a small app for reviewing flashcards -- mostly pictures -- in class with my students, and reviving my first project by rewriting it: BePhotoMagic. It's a lot, but I'm not planning for the tools to be used before the end of this year, and it's all been fun stuff, so a timeframe for release isn't really an issue.
Unless you've been under a rock or don't follow Linux at all, the latest release of Ubuntu, Jaunty Jackalope, was released last Thursday. I absolutely *love* it because of the much-improved boot times -- the only real complaint that I've had about Linux up to now. My development box is a Pentium 4 3Ghz with Hyperthreading and 1GB of RAM and it boots in 30 seconds. That's half as long as XP Pro on the same machine!
Also in Jaunty is the dovecot-postfix package, a complete mail server installed in one package, courtesy of the Ubuntu team. If you've never attempted to set up a mail server under Linux, it's not for the faint of heart. In fact, I'd say it's harder than compiling and installing your own Linux kernel, so this is also big news for any would-be beginner sysadmins out there.
It's also easier to work with more than one monitor under Linux using the new release, as well. It's still a little strange and takes some playing around, but it's nowhere near the headache that it used to be. Gone is the need for futzing with xorg.conf files to configure Xinerama. This is also a major improvement in a smaller area.
In other news, Microsoft has conceded defeat on the OOXML vs ODF wars and apparently has included full ODF support in the just-released Service Pack 2 for Office 2007. All I can say is it's about time that Redmond got some sense in this area. Unfortunately, it won't be rolled out via Microsoft Update until August. At least now my coworkers can finally use my OpenOffice.org files without much hassle.
There isn't much else to tell, but when I have something to show, you'll know. TTFN. :-)
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Paladin: BeBits App of the Month
I just saw this a little bit ago -- apparently Paladin is the BeBits App of the Month for the Haiku Podcast. Pretty kewl! Not something I saw coming, but certainly nice. :-)
Minesweeper for Haiku
Well, this morning I uploaded my Minesweeper clone to BeBits, BeMines. Already a bug report, too. All of the code-related development was done with Paladin, and I was able to discover and fix several bugs in doing so. It was a lot of fun doing both, too. :-)
You might be wondering, "why Minesweeper, though?" -- well, actually, you're probably not, but let's pretend anyway. ;-) Like Tetravex, Minesweeper is another one of those little addictive time-waster games that I've had an attachment to at times. Unfortunately, there are only two available for BeOS: the demo shipped with R5 (which is not redistributable) and a browser-based one available on BeBits. Neither seem to really hit the mark. Frankly, the R5 version and its Windows counterparts are kinda hard on the eyes, especially at higher resolutions. The solution? Write my own. It's a relatively simple game conceptually, so why not expose some Paladin bugs writing another fun little game? Thus, BeMines.
The part that I like best is the different themes and how easy it is to make them. The one that probably took the longest was the GNOME one, and even it didn't take long. The middle-click sonar ping is a nice help if you hate to guess and don't want to bomb out on a game you've put some time into (like at the Expert level). I'm pleased with it, so here's to another fun little project born.
You might be wondering, "why Minesweeper, though?" -- well, actually, you're probably not, but let's pretend anyway. ;-) Like Tetravex, Minesweeper is another one of those little addictive time-waster games that I've had an attachment to at times. Unfortunately, there are only two available for BeOS: the demo shipped with R5 (which is not redistributable) and a browser-based one available on BeBits. Neither seem to really hit the mark. Frankly, the R5 version and its Windows counterparts are kinda hard on the eyes, especially at higher resolutions. The solution? Write my own. It's a relatively simple game conceptually, so why not expose some Paladin bugs writing another fun little game? Thus, BeMines.
The part that I like best is the different themes and how easy it is to make them. The one that probably took the longest was the GNOME one, and even it didn't take long. The middle-click sonar ping is a nice help if you hate to guess and don't want to bomb out on a game you've put some time into (like at the Expert level). I'm pleased with it, so here's to another fun little project born.
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