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• Ajax Talk at .NET Developers Association

  - by Stephen Walther

  Thanks everyone who came to my Ajax talk tonight at the .NET Developers Association! The slides and demos from the talk can be downloaded by clicking the following link:   ASP.NET Ajax: What’s New?    You need Visual Studio  2010 to view the code samples. The first project, named Demos, contains the following samples: ASPAjax4 1_CompositeScripts.aspx – Demonstrates how to use the ScriptManger to combine, compress, and cache JavaScript files automatically. 2_EnableCdn.aspx – Demonstrates how to retrieve ASP.NET Ajax framework scripts from the Microsoft Ajax CDN automatically. jQuery 1_Selectors.aspx – Demonstrates how to use jQuery selectors 2_WebForms.aspx – Demonstrates how to use the client tablesorter plugin with ASP.NET Web Forms. 3_MVC.aspx – Demonstrates how to use jQuery animation and the templating plugin with ASP.NET MVC. 4_OData.aspx – Demonstrates how to use jQuery with the Netflix API by using JSONP and odata. 5_Templating.aspx – Demonstrates how to use jQuery client templating. 6_TemplateConditionals.aspx – Demonstrates how to use logic within a jQuery template. 7_DataLinking.aspx – Demonstrates how to perform data-binding in jQuery. 8_Converters.aspx – Demonstrates how to defines converters that work with data-binding. The second project, named ACT_Tools, illustrates how to use the Microsoft Ajax Minifier and the JSBuild JavaScript preprocessor. When you perform a build in Visual Studio, all JavaScript and CSS files are minified automatically. Furthermore, any *.pre.js file is processed using the JSBuild preprocessor and the output is saved to the ScriptOutput folder. Select Show All Files in Visual Studio to see the generated results of the minifier and the preprocessor.

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• Cannot apply unity --reset after modifying files

  - by Alex Cline

  So I have an idea of what I did wrong, I am just not sure how to fix it. I used the Unity Glass mod: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/07/unity-glass-offers-refined-new-look-for-the-unity-launcher After removing it, I cannot reset unity and it does not work. Even after purging Unity and reinstalling it, I cannot seem to replace the missing files. $unity --reset WARNING: Unity currently default profile, so switching to metacity while resetting the values unity-panel-service: no process found Checking if settings need to be migrated ...no Checking if internal files need to be migrated ...no Backend : gconf Integration : true Profile : unity Adding plugins Initializing core options...done compiz (core) - Warn: failed to receive ConfigureNotify event on 0x1c00027 Initializing composite options...done Initializing opengl options...done Initializing decor options...done Initializing vpswitch options...done Initializing snap options...done Initializing mousepoll options...done Initializing resize options...done Initializing place options...done Initializing move options...done Initializing wall options...done Initializing grid options...done I/O warning : failed to load external entity "/home/arcline/.compiz/session/10b624e5c8f98c5325134625607758338300000051770001" Initializing session options...done Initializing gnomecompat options...done Initializing animation options...done Initializing fade options...done Initializing unitymtgrabhandles options...done Initializing workarounds options...done Initializing scale options...done compiz (expo) - Warn: failed to bind image to texture Initializing expo options...done Initializing ezoom options...done (compiz:7038): Gtk-WARNING **: Theme parsing error: gnome-panel.css:28:11: Not using units is deprecated. Assuming 'px'. (compiz:7038): GConf-CRITICAL **: gconf_client_add_dir: assertion `gconf_valid_key (dirname, NULL)' failed Segmentation fault (core dumped)

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• Good Book for Learning Meteor: Discover Meteor

  - by Stephen.Walther

  A week or so ago, Sacha Greif asked me whether I would be willing to write a review of his new book on Meteor (published today) entitled Discover Meteor. Sacha wrote the book with Tom Coleman. Both Sacha and Tom are very active in the Meteor community – they are responsible for several well-known Meteor packages and projects including Atmosphere, Meteorite, meteor-router and Telescope — so I suspected that their book would be good. If you have not heard of Meteor, Meteor is a new framework for building web applications which is built on top of Node.js. Meteor excels at building a new category of constantly-connected, real-time web applications. It has some jaw-dropping features which I described in a previous blog entry: http://stephenwalther.com/archive/2013/03/18/an-introduction-to-meteor.aspx So, I am super excited about Meteor. Unfortunately, because it is evolving so quickly, learning how to write Meteor applications can be challenging. The official documentation at Meteor.com is good, but it is too basic. I’m happy to report that Discovering Meteor is a really good book: · The book is a fun read. The writing is smooth and I read through the book from cover to cover in a single Saturday afternoon with pleasure. · The book is well organized. It contains a walk-through of building a social media app (Microscope). Interleaved through the app building chapters, it contains tutorial chapters on Meteor features such as deployment and reactivity. · The book covers several advanced topics which I have not seen covered anywhere else. The chapters on publications and subscriptions, routing, and animation are especially good. I came away from the book with a deeper understanding of all of these topics. I wish that I had read Discover Meteor a couple of months ago and it would have saved me several weeks of reading Stack Overflow posts and struggling with the Meteor documentation If you want to buy Discover Meteor, the authors gave me the following link which provides you with a 20% discount: http://discovermeteor.com/orionids

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• Routing to a Controller with no View in Angular

  - by Rick Strahl

  I've finally had some time to put Angular to use this week in a small project I'm working on for fun. Angular's routing is great and makes it real easy to map URL routes to controllers and model data into views. But what if you don't actually need a view, if you effectively need a headless controller that just runs code, but doesn't render a view?Preserve the ViewWhen Angular navigates a route and and presents a new view, it loads the controller and then renders the view from scratch. Views are not cached or stored, but displayed and then removed. So if you have routes configured like this:'use strict'; // Declare app level module which depends on filters, and services window.myApp = angular.module('myApp', ['myApp.filters', 'myApp.services', 'myApp.directives', 'myApp.controllers']). config(['$routeProvider', function($routeProvider) { $routeProvider.when('/map', { template: "partials/map.html ", controller: 'mapController', reloadOnSearch: false, animation: 'slide' }); … $routeProvider.otherwise({redirectTo: '/map'}); }]); Angular routes to the mapController and then re-renders the map.html template with the new data from the $scope filled in.But, but… I don't want a new View!Now in most cases this works just fine. If I'm rendering plain DOM content, or textboxes in a form interface that is all fine and dandy - it's perfectly fine to completely re-render the UI.But in some cases, the UI that's being managed has state and shouldn't be redrawn. In this case the main page in question has a Google Map on it. The map is  going to be manipulated throughout the lifetime of the application and the rest of the pages. In my application I have a toolbar on the bottom and the rest of the content is replaced/switched out by the Angular Views:The problem is that the map shouldn't be redrawn each time the Location view is activated. It should maintain its state, such as the current position selected (which can move), and shouldn't redraw due to the overhead of re-rendering the initial map.Originally I set up the map, exactly like all my other views - as a partial, that is rendered with a separate file, but that didn't work.The Workaround - Controller Only RoutesThe workaround for this goes decidedly against Angular's way of doing things:Setting up a Template-less RouteIn-lining the map view directly into the main pageHiding and showing the map view manuallyLet's see how this works.Controller Only RouteThe template-less route is basically a route that doesn't have any template to render. This is not directly supported by Angular, but thankfully easy to fake. The end goal here is that I want to simply have the Controller fire and then have the controller manage the display of the already active view by hiding and showing the map and any other view content, in effect bypassing Angular's view display management.In short - I want a controller action, but no view rendering.The controller-only or template-less route looks like this: $routeProvider.when('/map', { template: " ", // just fire controller controller: 'mapController', animation: 'slide' });Notice I'm using the template property rather than templateUrl (used in the first example above), which allows specifying a string template, and leaving it blank. The template property basically allows you to provide a templated string using Angular's HandleBar like binding syntax which can be useful at times. You can use plain strings or strings with template code in the template, or as I'm doing here a blank string to essentially fake 'just clear the view'. In-lined ViewSo if there's no view where does the HTML go? Because I don't want Angular to manage the view the map markup is in-lined directly into the page. So instead of rendering the map into the Angular view container, the content is simply set up as inline HTML to display as a sibling to the view container.<div id="MapContent" data-icon="LocationIcon" ng-controller="mapController" style="display:none"> <div class="headerbar"> <div class="right-header" style="float:right"> <a id="btnShowSaveLocationDialog" class="iconbutton btn btn-sm" href="#/saveLocation" style="margin-right: 2px;"> <i class="icon-ok icon-2x" style="color: lightgreen; "></i> Save Location </a> </div> <div class="left-header">GeoCrumbs</div> </div> <div class="clearfix"></div> <div id="Message"> <i id="MessageIcon"></i> <span id="MessageText"></span> </div> <div id="Map" class="content-area"> </div> </div> <div id="ViewPlaceholder" ng-view></div>Note that there's the #MapContent element and the #ViewPlaceHolder. The #MapContent is my static map view that is always 'live' and is initially hidden. It is initially hidden and doesn't get made visible until the MapController controller activates it which does the initial rendering of the map. After that the element is persisted with the map data already loaded and any future access only updates the map with new locations/pins etc.Note that default route is assigned to the mapController, which means that the mapController is fired right as the page loads, which is actually a good thing in this case, as the map is the cornerstone of this app that is manipulated by some of the other controllers/views.The Controller handles some UISince there's effectively no view activation with the template-less route, the controller unfortunately has to take over some UI interaction directly. Specifically it has to swap the hidden state between the map and any of the other views.Here's what the controller looks like:myApp.controller('mapController', ["$scope", "$routeParams", "locationData", function($scope, $routeParams, locationData) { $scope.locationData = locationData.location; $scope.locationHistory = locationData.locationHistory; if ($routeParams.mode == "currentLocation") { bc.getCurrentLocation(false); } bc.showMap(false,"#LocationIcon"); }]);bc.showMap is responsible for a couple of display tasks that hide/show the views/map and for activating/deactivating icons. The code looks like this:this.showMap = function (hide,selActiveIcon) { if (!hide) $("#MapContent").show(); else { $("#MapContent").hide(); } self.fitContent(); if (selActiveIcon) { $(".iconbutton").removeClass("active"); $(selActiveIcon).addClass("active"); } };Each of the other controllers in the app also call this function when they are activated to basically hide the map and make the View Content area visible. The map controller makes the map.This is UI code and calling this sort of thing from controllers is generally not recommended, but I couldn't figure out a way using directives to make this work any more easily than this. It'd be easy to hide and show the map and view container using a flag an ng-show, but it gets tricky because of scoping of the $scope. I would have to resort to storing this setting on the $rootscope which I try to avoid. The same issues exists with the icons.It sure would be nice if Angular had a way to explicitly specify that a View shouldn't be destroyed when another view is activated, so currently this workaround is required. Searching around, I saw a number of whacky hacks to get around this, but this solution I'm using here seems much easier than any of that I could dig up even if it doesn't quite fit the 'Angular way'.Angular nice, until it's notOverall I really like Angular and the way it works although it took me a bit of time to get my head around how all the pieces fit together. Once I got the idea how the app/routes, the controllers and views snap together, putting together Angular pages becomes fairly straightforward. You can get quite a bit done never going beyond those basics. For most common things Angular's default routing and view presentation works very well.But, when you do something a bit more complex, where there are multiple dependencies or as in this case where Angular doesn't appear to support a feature that's absolutely necessary, you're on your own. Finding information on more advanced topics is not trivial especially since versions are changing so rapidly and the low level behaviors are changing frequently so finding something that works is often an exercise in trial and error. Not that this is surprising. Angular is a complex piece of kit as are all the frameworks that try to hack JavaScript into submission to do something that it was really never designed to. After all everything about a framework like Angular is an elaborate hack. A lot of shit has to happen to make this all work together and at that Angular (and Ember, Durandel etc.) are pretty amazing pieces of JavaScript code. So no harm, no foul, but I just can't help feeling like working in toy sandbox at times :-)© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2013Posted in Angular  JavaScript   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• AS3: StageWidth for BOX2D?

  - by Gabriel Meono

  I know BOX2D uses meters, and AS3 uses pixels. I'm trying to create objects which are limited to the stageWidth. If I do this variable: for (var i:int = 0; i<(stage.stageWidth); i++){...} The animation will freeze, and this output appears: TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference. at Box2D.Collision::b2BroadPhase/CreateProxy() at Box2D.Collision.Shapes::b2Shape/CreateProxy() at Box2D.Dynamics::b2Body/CreateShape() at com.actionsnippet.qbox.objects::CircleObject/build() at com.actionsnippet.qbox::QuickObject/init() at com.actionsnippet.qbox::QuickObject() at com.actionsnippet.qbox.objects::CircleObject() at com.actionsnippet.qbox::QuickBox2D/create() at com.actionsnippet.qbox::QuickBox2D/addCircle() at BOX2D_Test_Tutorial_fla::MainTimeline/frame1() Does anyone know how to fix this? Full Code: [SWF(width = 350, height = 600, frameRate = 60)] import com.actionsnippet.qbox.*; var sim:QuickBox2D = new QuickBox2D(this); sim.createStageWalls(); // make a heavy circle sim.addCircle({x:3, y:3, radius:0.4, density:1}); // create a few platforms // make pins for (var i:int = 0; i<(stage.stageWidth); i++){ //End sim.addCircle({x:1 + i * 1.5, y:18, radius:0.1, density:0}); sim.addCircle({x:2 + i * 1.5, y:17, radius:0.1, density:0}); sim.addCircle({x:1 + i * 1.5, y:16, radius:0.1, density:0}); sim.addCircle({x:2 + i * 1.5, y:15, radius:0.1, density:0}); //Mid end sim.addCircle({x:0 + i * 2, y:14, radius:0.1, density:0}); sim.addCircle({x:0 + i * 2, y:13, radius:0.1, density:0}); sim.addCircle({x:0 + i * 2, y:12, radius:0.1, density:0}); sim.addCircle({x:0 + i * 2, y:11, radius:0.1, density:0}); sim.addCircle({x:0 + i * 2, y:10, radius:0.1, density:0}); } sim.start(); sim.mouseDrag();

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• Does HTML 5 &ldquo;Rich vs. Reach&rdquo; a False Choice?

  - by andrewbrust

  The competition between the Web and proprietary rich platforms, including Windows, Mac OS, iPhone/iPad, Adobe’s Flash/AIR and Microsoft’s Silverlight, is not new. But with the emergence of HTML 5 and imminent support for it in the next release of the major Web browsers, the battle is heating up. And with the announcements made Wednesday at Google's I/O conference, it's getting kicked up yet another notch. The impact of this platform battle on companies in the media and advertising world, and the developers who serve them, is significant. The most prominent question is whether video and rich media online will shift towards pure HTML and away from plug-ins like Flash and Silverlight. In fact, certain features in HTML 5 make it suitable for development for line of business applications as well, further threatening those plug-in technologies. So what's the deal? Is this real or hype? To answer that question, I've done my own research into HTML 5's features and talked to several media-focused, New York area developers to get their opinions. I present my findings to you in this post. Before bearing down into HTML 5 specifics and practitioners’ quotes, let's set the context. To understand what HTML 5 can do, take a look at this video of Sports Illustrated’s HTML 5 prototype. This should start to get you bought into the idea that HTML 5 could be a game-changer. Next, if you happen to have installed the beta version of Google's Chrome 5 browser, take a look at the page linked to below, and in that page, click on any of the game thumbnails to see what's possible, without a plug-in, in this brave new world. (Note, although the instructions for each game tell you to press the A key to start, press the Z key instead.). Here's the link: http://www.kesiev.com/akihabara As an adjunct to what's enabled by HTML 5, consider the various transforms that are part of CSS 3. If you're running Safari as your browser, the following link will showcase this live; if not, you'll see a bitmap that will give you an idea of what's possible: http://webkit.org/blog/386/3d-transforms Are you starting to get the picture (literally)? What has up until now required browser plug-ins and other patches to HTML, most typically Flash, will soon be renderable, natively, in all major browsers. Moreover, it's looking likely that developers will be able to deliver such content and experiences in these browsers using one base of markup and script code (using straight JavaScript and/or jQuery), without resorting to browser-specific code and workarounds. If you're skeptical of this, I wouldn't blame you, especially with respect to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. However, i can tell you with confidence that even Microsoft is dedicated to full-on HTML 5 support in version 9 of that browser, which is currently under development. So what’s new in HTML 5, specifically, that makes sites like this possible?  The specification documents go into deep detail, and there’s no sense in rehashing them here, but a summary is probably in order.   Here is a non-authoritative, but useful, list of the major new feature areas in HTML 5: 2D drawing capabilities and 3D transforms. 2D drawing instructions can be embedded statically into a Web page; application interactivity and animation can be achieved through script.  As mentioned above, 3D transforms are technically part of version 3 of the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) spec, rather than HTML 5, but they can nonetheless be thought of as part of the bundle.  They allow for rendering of 3D images and animations that, together with 2D drawing, make HTML-based games much more feasible than they are presently, as the links above demonstrate. Embedded audio and video. A media player can appear directly in a rendered Web page, using HTML markup and no plug-ins. Alternately, player controls can be hidden and the content can play automatically. Major enhancements to form-based input. This includes such things as specification of required fields, embedding of text “hints” into a control, limiting valid input on a field to dates, email addresses or a list of values.  There’s more to this, but the gist is that line-of-business applications, with complicated input and data validation, are supported directly Offline caching, local storage and client-side SQL database. These facilities allow Web applications to function more like native apps, even if no internet connection is available. User-defined data. Data (or metadata – data about data) can easily be embedded statically and/or retrieved and updated with Javascript code. This avoids having to embed that data in a separate file, or within script code. Taken together, these features position HTML to compete with, and perhaps overtake, Adobe’s Flash/AIR (and Microsoft’s Silverlight) as a viable Web platform for media, RIAs (rich internet applications – apps that function more like desktop software than Web sites) and interactive Web content, including games. What do players in the media world think about this?  From the embedded video above, we know what Sports Illustrated (and, therefore, Time Warner) think.  Hulu, the major Internet site for broadcast TV content, is on record as saying HTML5 video does not pass muster with them, at least not yet.  YouTube, on the other hand, already has an experimental HTML 5-based version of their site.  TechCrunch has reported that NetFlix is flirting with HTML 5 too, especially as it pertains to embedded browsers in TV-based devices.  And the New York Times’ Web site now embeds some video clips without resorting to Flash.  They have to – otherwise iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users couldn’t see them in the Mobile Safari browser. What do media-focused developers think about all this?  I talked to several to get their opinions. Michael Pinto is CEO and Founder of Very Memorable Design whose primary focus has been to help marketing directors get traction online.  The firm’s client roster includes the likes Time, Inc., Scholastic and PBS.  Pinto predicts that “More and more microsites that were done entirely in Flash will be done more and more using jQuery. I can also see slideshows and video now being done without Flash. However if you needed to create a game or highly interactive activity Flash would still be the way to go for the web.” A dissenting view comes from Jesse Erlbaum, CEO of The Erlbaum Group, LLC, which serves numerous clients in the magazine publishing sector.  When I asked Erlbaum whether he thought HTML 5 and jQuery/JavaScript would steal significant market share from Flash, he responded “Not at all!  In particular, not for media and advertising customers!  These sectors are not generally in the business of making highly functional applications, which is the one place where HTML5/jQuery/etc really shines.” Ironically, Pinto’s firm is a heavy user of Flash for its projects and Erlbaum’s develops atop the “LAMP” (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP/Perl) stack.  For whatever reason, each firm seems to see the other’s toolset as a more viable choice.  But both agree that the developer tool story around HTML 5 is deficient.  Pinto explains “What’s lost with [HTML 5 and Javascript] techniques is that there isn’t a single widely favored easy-to-use tool of choice for authoring. So with Flash you can get up and running right away and not worry about what is different from one browser to the next.“  Erlbaum agrees, saying: “HTML5/Javascript lacks a sophisticated integrated development environment (IDE) which is an essential part of Flash.  If what someone is trying to make is primarily animation, it's a waste of time…to do this in Javascript.  It can be done much more easily in Flash, and with greater cross-browser compatibility and consistency due to the ubiquity of Flash.” Adobe (maker of Flash since its 2005 acquisition of Macromedia) likely agrees.  And for better or worse, they’ve decided to address this shortcoming of HTML 5, even at risk of diminishing their Flash platfrom. Yesterday Adobe announced that their hugely popular Deamweaver Web design authoring tool would directly support HTML 5 and CSS 3 development.  In fact, the Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 HTML5 Pack is downloadable now from Adobe Labs. Maybe Adobe is bowing to pressure from ardent Web professionals like Scott Kellum, Lead Designer at Channel V Media,  a digital and offline branding firm, serving the media and marketing sectors, among others.  Kellum told me that HTML 5 “…will definitely move people away from Flash. It has many of the same functionalities with faster load times and better accessibility. HTML5 will help Flash as well: with the new caching methods you can now even run Flash apps offline.” Although all three Web developers I interviewed would agree that Flash is still required for more sophisticated applications, Kellum seems to have put his finger on why HTML 5 may nonetheless dominate.  In his view, much of the Web development out there has little need for high-end capabilities: “Most people want to add a little punch to a navigation bar or some video and now you can get the biggest bang for your buck with HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript.” I’ve already mentioned that Google’s ongoing I/O conference, at the Moscone West center in San Francisco, is driving the HTML 5 news cycle, big time.  And Google made many announcements of their own, including the open sourcing of their VP8 video codec, new enterprise-oriented capabilities for its App Engine cloud offering, and the creation of the Chrome Web Store, which the company says will make it easier to find and “install” Web applications, in a fashion similar to  the way users procure native apps on various mobile platforms. HTML 5 looks to be disruptive, especially to the media world.  And even if the technology ends up disappointing, the chatter around it alone is causing big changes in the technology world.  If the richness it promises delivers, then magazine publishers and non-text digital advertisers may indeed have a platform for creating compelling content that loads quickly, is standards-based and will render identically in (the newest versions of) all major Web browsers.  Can this development in the digital arena save the titans of the print world?  I can’t predict, but it’s going to be fun to watch, and the competitive innovation from all players in both industries will likely be immense.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, April 23, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, April 23, 2010New Projects3D TagCloud for SharePoint 2010: 3D Flash TagCloud WebPart for SharePoint 2010AnyCAD.Net: AnyCAD.NetCassandraemon: Cassandraemon is LINQ Provider for Apache Cassandra.CCLI SongSelect Importer for PowerPoint: CCLI SongSelect Importer for PowerPoint ® is an Add-in for Microsoft ® PowerPoint ® that allows CCLI SongSelect (USR) files to be turned into slide...Compactar Arquivo Txt, Flat File, em Pipeline Decoder Customizado: Objetivo do projeto: Desenvolver um componente do tipo Pipeline Receiver Decoder, onde compacta o conteúdo, cria uma mensagem em XML e transforma ...Console Calculator: Console calculator is a simple, yet useful, mathematical expression calculator, supporting functions and variables. It was created to demonstrate ...CRM Dynamics Excel Importer: CRM Dynamics Excel Importercubace: The standard audio composer software with just single difference: this is CLR compilation.deneb: deneb projectDrive Backup: Drive Backup is an easy to use, automatic backup program. Simply insert a USB drive, and the program will backup either files on the drive to your ...eWebMVCCMS: this is the start of eWeb MVC CMS.Fix.ly: Small app that allows for URL rewriting before passing to the browser. Accepts MEF plugins that make themselves available by informing the applicat...GArphics: GArphics uses a genetic algorithm to produce graphics and animation with the assitance of the user.JDS Toolkit: An experimental toolkit geared to make richer applications with less effort. It will include controls such as the cubeoid and the serializedmenu. ...KrashSRC - MapleStory v.75 Emulator: KrashSRC - MapleStory v.75 EmulatorLast.fm Api: Last.fm api writen in Visaul Basic 2010.MIX 10 DVR and Downloader: A Silverlight application that will manage downloading the sessions and slide decks from the MIX '10 Conference utilizing the MIX OData feed for in...NSIS Autorun: This is a graphical CD/DVD/USB autorun engine that launches installers made with NSIS. Non-rectangular windows and animation are supported. Can be ...Pillbox: Windows Phone 7 sample application for tracking medications.PowerSharp: Very simple application that executes a snippet of PowerShell against C#. This will eventually be used with Live@EDU.Project Halosis: mmorpgProyecto Cero: Proyecto CeroSharePoint XSL Templates: This project is a place to share useful XSL templates that can be reused in SharePoint CQWPs and DVWPs.Silverlight 4.0 Popup Menu: Silverlight 4.0 Popup Menu spsearch: This project provides useful enhancements to Search using the SharePoint platform.StereoVision: StereVision es un proyecto que estudia un algoritmo de visión estereocopicaThe Stoffenmanager: The Stoffenmanager is a tool for prioritizing worker health risks to dangerous substances. But also a quantitative inhalation exposure tool and a ...Transcriber: Transcribe text from one character set to another. Extensible, plug-in based architecture. Default plug-in uses XML rules files with regular expres...Wavelets experiments: эксперименты с вейвлетамиWindows Phone 7 World of Warcraft Armory Browser: A test project to learn a little about Windows Phone development and do a decent armory browserXAML Based Chat: Xaml based chat. A simple chat systemNew Releases#Nose: SharpNose v1.1: Configuration is now done by updating SharpNose.exe.config MEF support added - you can also add your favorite test framework discovery Two tes...Baml Localizer: Version 0.1 (alpha): This is the first release which should show the capabilities of Baml Localizer. The code might still change a lot, but the file formats should be q...BibWord : Microsoft Word Citation and Bibliography styles: APA with DOI - Proof of Concept: IntroductionThis release is a proof of concept (POC) demonstrating a possible way of adding a digital object identifier (DOI) field to the APA styl...Chargify.NET: Chargify.NET v0.685: Releasing Version 0.685 - Changed customer reference ID from Guid to String for systems that don't use Guid as the unique key. - Added method for g...Compactar Arquivo Txt, Flat File, em Pipeline Decoder Customizado: SampleZipDecodePipeline: Solution contem Projeto com o Decoder Pipeline. Projeto para usar o Componente. Classes SharpZipLib para compactar e descompactar arquivosConsole Calculator: Console Calculator: Initial source code release.CSharp Intellisense: V1.6: UPDATE: 2010/04/05: description was added 2010/04/07: single selection + reset filter 20010/04/15: source code available at http://csharpintellis...Drive Backup: Drive Backup: Drive Backup allows you to automatically backup a USB device to your computer, or backup files/directories on your computer to a USB. Once you have...Event Scavenger: Thread recycling changes - Version 3.1: Change the location of where the settings for thread recycling is stored - Moved from config file to database for easier management. Version of dat...Extend SmallBasic: Teaching Extensions v.013: Added Houses QuizExtend SmallBasic: Teaching Extensions v.014: fixed a bug in Tortoise.approve rearranged the Houses Quiz to be more funFix.ly: Fix.ly 0.1: Initial test releaseFix.ly: Fix.ly 0.11: Fixed a couple bugs, including missing files in the previous releaseGArphics: Beta: This is the beta-version of the program. Version 1.0 shall be relased soon and will include a lot of improvements.HouseFly: HouseFly alpha 0.2.0.5: HouseFly alpha release 0.2.0.5HouseFly controls: HouseFly controls alpha 0.9.4: Version 0.9.4 alpha release of HouseFly controlsHTML Ruby: 6.21.8: Change Math.floor to round for text spacingHTML Shot: 0.1: Solved problems with some URLsJDS Toolkit: JDS Toolkit 0.1: Beta 0.1 version. Almost nothing in these librariesManaged Extensibility Framework: WebForms and MEF Sample: This sample demonstrates the use of these two technologies together in a non-invasive way. 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It can be found at http://deepta...patterns & practices SharePoint Guidance: SPG2010 Drop9: SharePoint Guidance Drop Notes Microsoft patterns and practices ****************************************** ***************************************...Rich Ajax empowered Web/Cloud Applications: 6.3.15: New Visual WebGui rich applications platform versionSilverlight 4.0 Popup Menu: PopupMenu for Silverlight 4: This is the first release of the popup menu class for Silverlight 4.0Silverlight Flow Layouts library: SL and WPF Flow Layouts library April 2010: This release introduces WPF 4.0 RTM and Silverlight 4 RTM support, as well as an additional layout algorithm and some minor bug fixes. Some changes...Spackle.NET: 3.0.0.0 Release: In this release: Spackle.dll now targets the 4.0 version of the .NET Framework SecureRandom implements IDisposable ActionExtensions have been ...Splinger FrameXi: Splinger 1.1: Welcome to a whole new way of learning! 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Supports HTML & CSS validation using MSTest/Visual Studio testing.XAML Based Chat: Test release: A test releaseすとれおじさん(仮): すとれおじさん β 0.02: ・デザインを大幅に変更 ・まだかなり動作が重いです ・機能も少ないですMost Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerSilverlight ToolkitAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: Databasepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesPHPExcelMost Active Projectspatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryRawrParticle Plot PivotBlogEngine.NETNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationFarseer Physics EngineDotNetZip LibraryFluent Ribbon Control SuiteN2 CMS

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• UEFI/GPT Win 7 Load Failure in Dual Boot and no GRUB2 [Ubuntu 12.04]

  - by cristian_jordache

  Configuration: MBB: ASRock X79 Extreme6 Win 7 installed on a INTEL 40GB SSD (GPT partitioned) Ubuntu 14.04 on a CORSAIR 30GB SSD (Ext4 and SWAP) I had Windows 7 installed previously in UEFI mode, using 3 partitions (GPT) and works fine if left alone. In UEFI BIOS settings I can see sometimes a "Windows Boot Manager" and other times (?) a "UEFI Intel" entry for INTEL HDD and Windows will boot properly selecting the one available at that time. I installed Ubuntu 14.04 after Win 7 w/o changing any UEFI BIOS settings and it works fine only if the BIOS is set w/ the Ubuntu partition as the first drive to boot, in AHCI mode. If both SSD drives are connected, the Win7 Intel boot drive can be chosen as first boot device but only as an "AHCI Intel drive" (No "Windows Boot Manager" nor "UEFI Intel device" options available in BIOS Boot menu) and Win7 will not load properly as long as the Ubuntu Crucial SSD is NOT PHYSICALLY DISCONNECTED. Windows will try, start booting for few seconds but will fail replacing Win7 logo and that startup animation with w/ the "old" white progress bar and then and will notify that there is a issue and prompt the user to try to Load Win 7 in Normal Mode again or try a Recovery Mode to fix it. If I let Windows INTEL HDD boot via BIOS/UEFI - Windows Boot manager selection, I may see the purple screen of Grub2 loaded for a while, but there's no selection for Ubuntu or Windows and/or then machine is not booting, showing a black screen and a small command prompt cursor blinking on top. So far the only option I see to have Ubuntu boot side by side w/ Win 7 is to reformat the Win7 SDD and set it boot in legacy BIOS mode with a MBR instead of GPT. Per my understanding this is a quite complex issue to fix (Rod Smith's answer was pretty helpful: UEFI boot on my Asus k52f) but any other suggestions are welcome. I find a bit odd that I can boot properly Windows7 SSD or an Ubuntu DVD using a DVD drive set in UEFI-BIOS in "AHCI mode" and w/ using "UEFI/Windows Boot Manager" booting option but I cannot boot a secondary SSD-HDD w/ Ubuntu having the same BIOS/UEFI Boot configuration. Looks like plugging the second SSD [the Ubuntu partition] is interfering with boot options in UEFI-BIOS.

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• How to create art assets for a 3d avatar editor

  - by Andrew Garrison

  I am currently prototyping an idea for an iPhone game. I'd like to create an avatar editor inside the game so that the player can create a 3d avatar face and modify certain features (using slider controls), such as nose shape, eye color, mouth size, etc. This has been done in several games, but what I'm looking to do would be fairly cartoon-ish/caricature-ish, similar to the Mii editor on the Nintendo Wii (http://www.myavatareditor.com/). I'd also like the final result to have the ability to use some canned animations, such as simple speech animations, smiling, frowning, etc. I am not an artist, so I would be unable to create these assets, but what kind of effort is required for an artist to create the 3d models necessary for this type of game? Also what mechanism would be required to tweak the face's characteristics? Would you use bones or morph targets? How would the final result be animated? Would facial animation use bones or morph targets? I've seen several tools that do this sort of thing too, such as FacialStudio. Are there any facial generation tools out there you'd recommend for generating some base content for this game, or should I just hire an artist to do this type of work. Thanks!

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• Help implementing virtual d-pad

  - by Moshe

  Short Version: I am trying to move a player around on a tilemap, keeping it centered on its tile, while smoothly controlling it with SneakyInput virtual Joystick. My movement is jumpy and hard to control. What's a good way to implement this? Long Version: I'm trying to get a tilemap based RPG "layer" working on top of cocos2d-iphone. I'm using SneakyInput as the input right now, but I've run into a bit of a snag. Initially, I followed Steffen Itterheim's book and Ray Wenderlich's tutorial, and I got jumpy movement working. My player now moves from tile to tile, without any animation whatsoever. So, I took it a step further. I changed my player.position to a CCMoveTo action. Combined with CCfollow, my player moves pretty smoothly. Here's the problem, though: Between each CCMoveTo, the movement stops, so there's a bit of a jumpiness introduced between movements. To deal with that, I changed my CCmoveTo into a CCMoveBy, and instead of running it once, I decided to have it CCRepeatForever. My plan was to stop the repeating action whenever the player changed directions or released the d-pad. However, when the movement stops, the player is not necessarily centered along the tiles, as it should be. To correctly position the player, I use a CCMoveTo and get the closest position that would put the player back into the proper position. This reintroduces an earlier problem of jumpiness between actions. What is the correct way to implement a smooth joystick while smoothly animating the player and keeping it on the "grid" of tiles? Edit: It turns out that this was caused by a "Bug Fix" in the cocos2d engine.

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• Last Night's Phoenix Silverlight UserGroup Meeting -- thanks!

  - by Dave Campbell

  14 of us gathered last night for a great presentation. As advertised, Les Brown of Sogeti came out to talk to us about the 4.0 enhancements, and brought along a new graduate and fellow-worker Chris Ross (Congratulations on your degree, again). Good discussion about MEF and Les' approach to using it, all of which is available on CodePlex along with other fun things Les has done, for example: FileUpload Control, FlipPanel, Animation Extensions, etc., and also his CodeCamp material. As it turned out I only had one give-away with me, but that was worth probably close to everything I've given away so far: a Telerik Ultimate License graciously provided by Telerik: I also have a Sitefinity license to use on our site from Telerik, but I've been jammed up and haven't had the time to devote to getting it cooking. I included Les and Chris in my spreadsheet for randomly selecting swag awardees, and Chris ended up the winner... Being a presenter, a new graduate, and new job, I thought it was appropriate. Let's not forget our host, Interface Technical Training for taking the burden of providing a facility for us off my agenda. I've been to User Group meetings in many places, but the ITT facilities are the best, so thanks! Also thanks to everyone that came out... we had some new people and some regulars. I have a speaker for August but not July, so if you have something to present, send me an email. Thanks!

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• Game physics presentation by Richard Lord, some questions

  - by Steve

  I been implementing (in XNA) the examples in this physics presentation by Richard Lord where he discusses various integration techniques. Bearing in mind that I am a newcomer to game physics (and physics in general) I have some questions. 15 slides in he shows ActionScript code for a gravity example and an animation showing a bouncing ball. The ball bounces higher and higher until it is out of control. I implemented the same in C# XNA but my ball appeared to be bouncing at a constant height. The same applies to the next example where the ball bounces lower and lower. After some experimentation I found that if I switched to a fixed timestep and then on the first iteration of Update() I set the time variable to be equal to elapsed milliseconds (16.6667) I would see the same behaviour. Doing this essentially set the framerate, velocity and acceleration to zero for the first update and introduced errors(?) into the algorithm causing the ball's velocity to increase (or decrease) over time. I think! My question is, does this make the integration method used poor? Or is it demonstrating that it is poor when used with variable timestep because you can't pass in a valid value for the first lot of calculations? (because you cannot know the framerate in advance). I will continue my research into physics but can anyone suggest a good method to get my feet wet? I would like to experiment with variable timestep, acceleration that changes over time and probably friction. Would the Time Corrected Verlet be OK for this?

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• 3DS Max 2012 OBJ file import missing polygons

  - by Vit

  I started learning OpenGL. I got to a point I want to import some "real" objects. After "Googling" I decided I will go with OBJ file for start, since it is simple to understand, and there are plenty of tutorials on how to read them properly. I have from university access to 3DS Max 2012. So I tried to create very simple model (just deformated cube) and exporting it using OBJ file, just to vertices and triangles for the moment, without textures, so I can examine its structure by myself. But if I imported it right back to 3DS from OBJ file, now it renders somewhat strange, like its smoothen, and with lightsource, even I have none in scene. But the geometry, its wireframe is intact. So I thought maybe it is problem of exporting only vertices and triangles so I downloaded Enterprise-D model from internet, exported with everything on (normals, textures everything), and again imported it. Now, some polygons are missing. So, I want to ask, am I doing something terribly wrong, or is there some incompatibility issue between .max and .obj file ? Even it is only simple textured model without any lightsources, animation etc.? Thanks. Edit: I tried objects with MeshLab, the first, deformated cube was absolutelly OK. But still bothers me that 3DS Max doesen´t render it properly. In Enterprise-D model, there are polygons missing even in MeshLab. I uploaded rar archive with .max model of Enterprise, same .obj model exported from 3DS, and obj model of deformated cube. Download here (2.5 MB, filesonic).

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• HTML5 point and click adventure game code structure with CreateJS

  - by user1612686

  I'm a programming beginner. I made a tiny one scene point and click adventure game to try to understand simple game logic and came up with this: CreateJS features prototypes for creating bitmap images, sprites and sounds objects. I create them and define their properties in a corresponding function (for example images(); spritesheets(), sounds()...). I then create functions for each animation sequence and "game level" functions, which handle user interactions and play the according animations and sounds for a certain event (when the level is complete, the current level function calls the next level function). And I end up with quite the mess. What would be the "standard (if something like that exists)" OOP approach to structure simple game data and interactions like that? I thought about making game.images, game.sprites, game.sounds objects, which contain all the game data with its properties using CreateJS constructors. game.spriteAnimations and game.tweenAnimations objects for sprite animations and tweens and a game.levelN object, which communicates with a game.interaction object, processing user interaction. Does this make any sense? How do you structure your simple game code? Thanks in advance!

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• How to set TextureFilter to Point to make example Bloom filter work?

  - by Mr Bell

  I have simple app that renders some particles and now I am trying to apply the bloom shader from the xna samplers ( http://create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/sample/bloom ) to it, but I am running into this exception: "XNA Framework HiDef profile requires TextureFilter to be Point when using texture format Vector4." When the BloomComponent tries to end the sprite batch in the DrawFullscreenQuad method: spriteBatch.Begin(0, BlendState.Opaque, SamplerState.PointWrap, null, null, effect); spriteBatch.Draw(texture, new Rectangle(0, 0, width, height), Color.White); spriteBatch.End(); //<------- Exception thrown here It seems to be related to the pixel shaders that I am using to animate the particle. In a nutshell, I have a texture2d in vector4 format that holds particle positions, and another one for velocities. Here is a snippet from that area: GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(tempRenderTarget); animationEffect.CurrentTechnique = animationEffect.Techniques[technique]; spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Immediate, BlendState.Opaque, SamplerState.PointWrap, DepthStencilState.DepthRead, RasterizerState.CullNone, animationEffect); spriteBatch.Draw(randomValues, new Rectangle(0, 0, width, height), Color.White); spriteBatch.End(); What I comment out the code that calls the particle animation pixel shaders the bloom component runs fine. Is there some state that I need to reset to make the bloom work?

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• BizTalk 2009 - Pipeline Component Wizard

  - by Stuart Brierley

  Recently I decided to try out the BizTalk Server Pipeline Component Wizard when creating a new pipeline component for BizTalk 2009. There are different versions of the wizard available, so be sure to download the appropriate version for the BizTalk environment that you are working with. Following the download and expansion of the zip file, you should be left with a Visual Studio solution.  Open this solution and build the project. Following this installation is straight foward - locate and run the built setup.exe file in the PipelineComponentWizard Setup project and click through the small number of installation screens. Once you have completed installation you will be ready to use the wizard in Visual Studio to create your BizTalk Pipeline Component. Start by creating a new project, selecting BizTalk Projects then BizTalk Server Pipeline Component.  You will then be presented with the splash screen. The next step is General Setup, where you will detail the classname, namespace, pipeline and component types, and the implementation language for your Pipeline Component. The options for pipeline type are Receive, Send or Any. Depending on the pipeline type chosen there are different options presented for the component type, matching those available within the BizTalk Pipelines themselves: Receive - Decoder, Disassembling Parser, Validate, Party Resolver, Any. Send -  Encoder, Assembling Serializer, Any. Any - Any. The options for implementation language are C# or VB.Net Next you must set up the UI settings - these are the settings that affect the appearance of the pipeline component within Visual Studio. You must detail the component name, version, description and icon.  Next is the definition of the variables that the pipeline component will use.  The values for these variables will be defined in Visual Studio when creating a pipeline. The options for each variable you require are: Designer Property - The name of the variable. Data Type - String, Boolean, Integer, Long, Short, Schema List, Schema With None Clicking finish now will complete the wizard stage of the creation of your pipeline component. Once the wizard has completed you will be left with a BizTalk Server Pipeline Component project containing a skeleton code file for you to complete.   Within this code file you will mainly be interested in the execute method, which is left mostly empty ready for you to implement your custom pipeline code:          #region IComponent members         /// <summary>         /// Implements IComponent.Execute method.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="pc">Pipeline context</param>         /// <param name="inmsg">Input message</param>         /// <returns>Original input message</returns>         /// <remarks>         /// IComponent.Execute method is used to initiate         /// the processing of the message in this pipeline component.         /// </remarks>         public Microsoft.BizTalk.Message.Interop.IBaseMessage Execute(Microsoft.BizTalk.Component.Interop.IPipelineContext pc, Microsoft.BizTalk.Message.Interop.IBaseMessage inmsg)         {             //             // TODO: implement component logic             //             // this way, it's a passthrough pipeline component             return inmsg;         }         #endregion Once you have implemented your custom code, build and compile your Custom Pipeline Component then add the compiled .dll to C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009\Pipeline Components . When creating a new pipeline, in Visual Studio reset the toolbox and the custom pipeline component should appear ready for you to use in your Biztalk Pipeline. Drop the pipeline component into the relevant pipeline stage and configure the component properties (the variables defined in the wizard). You can now deploy and use the pipeline as you would any other custom pipeline.

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• Win a Free Copy of Windows Presentation Foundation 4.5 Cookbook

  - by Ricardo Peres

  Win A free copy of the 'Windows Presentation Foundation 4.5 Cookbook', just by commenting! For the contest, Packt Publishing has two eBook copies of Windows Presentation Foundation 4.5 Cookbookto be given away to two lucky winners. How you can win: To win your copy of this book, all you need to do is come up with a comment below highlighting the reason "why you would like to win this book”. Duration of the contest & selection of winners: The contest is valid for 7 days (until November 26), and is open to everyone. Winners will be selected on the basis of their comment posted. Windows Presentation Foundation 4.5 Cookbookis written by Pavel Yosifovich, the CTO of CodeValue (http://www.codevalue.net), a software development, consulting, and training company, based in Israel. This book is written in an easy-to-read style, with a strong emphasis on real-world, practical examples. Step-by-step explanations are provided for performing important tasks. This book is the best guide for C# developer who is looking forward to increase understanding and knowledge of WPF. Using this book, readers will learn to build complex and flexible user interfaces using XAML, perform lengthy operations asynchronously while keeping the UI responsive, get well-versed with WPF features such as data binding, layout, resources, templates, and styles and also customize a control’s template to alter appearance but preserve behavior. In the next days I will post my review on this book. In the meantime, here’s the table of contents: Preface Chapter 1: Foundations Chapter 2: Resources Chapter 3: Layout and Panels Chapter 4: Using Standard Controls Chapter 5: Application and Windows Chapter 6: Data Binding Chapter 7: Commands and MVVM Chapter 8: Styles, Triggers, and Control Templates Chapter 9: Graphics and Animation Chapter 10: Custom Elements Chapter 11: Threading Index I’m waiting for your comments!

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• BlitzMax - generating 2D neon glowing line effect to png file

  - by zanlok

  Originally asked on StackOverflow, but it became tumbleweed. I'm looking to create a glowing line effect in BlitzMax, something like a Star Wars lightsaber or laserbeam. Doesn't have to be realtime, but just to TImage objects and then maybe saved to PNG for later use in animation. I'm happy to use 3D features, but it will be for use in a 2D game. Since it will be on black/space background, my strategy is to draw a series of white blurred lines with color and high transparency, then eventually central lines less blurred and more white. What I want to draw is actually bezier curved lines. Drawing curved lines is easy enough, but I can't use the technique above to create a good laser/neon effect because it comes out looking very segmented. So, I think it may be better to use a blur effect/shader on what does render well, which is a 1-pixel bezier curve. The problems I've been having are: Applying a shader to just a certain area of the screen where lines are drawn. If there's a way to do draw lines to a texture and then blur that texture and save the png, that would be great to hear about. There's got to be a way to do this, but I just haven't gotten the right elements working together yet. Any help from someone familiar with this stuff would be greatly appreciated. Using just 2D calls could be advantageous, simpler to understand and re-use. It would be very nice to know how to save a PNG that preserves the transparency/alpha stuff. p.s. I've reviewed this post (and many many others on the Blitz site), have samples working, and even developed my own 5x5 frag shaders. But, it's 3D and a scene-wide thing that doesn't seem to convert to 2D or just a certain area very well. I'd rather understand how to apply shading to a 2D scene, especially using the specifics of BlitzMax.

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• Day 6 - Game Menuing Woes and Future Screen Sneak Peeks

  - by dapostolov

  So, after my last post on Day 5 I dabbled with my game class design. I took the approach where each game objects is tightly coupled with a graphic. The good news is I got the menu working but not without some hard knocks and game growing pains. I'll explain later, but for now...here is a class diagram of my first stab at my class structure and some code...   Ok, there are few mistakes, however, I'm going to leave it as is for now... As you can see I created an inital abstract base class called GameSprite. This class when inherited will provide a simple virtual default draw method:        public virtual void DrawSprite(SpriteBatch spriteBatch)         {             spriteBatch.Draw(Sprite, Position, Color.White);         } The benefits of coding it this way allows me to inherit the class and utilise the method in the screen draw method...So regardless of what the graphic object type is it will now have the ability to render a static image on the screen. Example: public class MyStaticTreasureChest : GameSprite {} If you remember the window draw method from Day 3's post, we could use the above code as follows...         protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime)         {             GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue);             spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteBlendMode.AlphaBlend);             foreach(var gameSprite in ListOfGameObjects)            {                 gameSprite.DrawSprite(spriteBatch);            }             spriteBatch.End();             base.Draw(gameTime);         } I have to admit the GameSprite object is pretty plain as with its DrawSprite method... But ... we now have the ability to render 3 static menu items on the screen ... BORING! I want those menu items to do something exciting, which of course involves animation... So, let's have a peek at AnimatedGameSprite in the above game diagram. The idea with the AnimatedGameSprite is that it has an image to animate...such as ... characters, fireballs, and... menus! So after inheriting from GameSprite class, I added a few more options such as UpdateSprite...         public virtual void UpdateSprite(float elapsed)         {             _totalElapsed += elapsed;             if (_totalElapsed > _timePerFrame)             {                 _frame++;                 _frame = _frame % _framecount;                 _totalElapsed -= _timePerFrame;             }         }  And an overidden DrawSprite...         public override void DrawSprite(SpriteBatch spriteBatch)         {             int FrameWidth = Sprite.Width / _framecount;             Rectangle sourcerect = new Rectangle(FrameWidth * _frame, 0, FrameWidth, Sprite.Height);             spriteBatch.Draw(Sprite, Position, sourcerect, Color.White, _rotation, _origin, _scale, SpriteEffects.None, _depth);         } With these two methods...I can animate and image, all I had to do was add a few more lines to the screens Update Method (From Day 3), like such:             float elapsed = (float) gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds;             foreach (var item in ListOfAnimatedGameObjects)             {                 item.UpdateSprite(elapsed);             } And voila! My images begin to animate in one spot, on the screen... Hmm, but how do I interact with the menu items using a mouse...well the mouse cursor was easy enough... this.IsMouseVisible = true; But, to have it "interact" with an image was a bit more tricky...I had to perform collision detection!             mouseStateCurrent = Mouse.GetState();             var uiEnabledSprites = (from s in menuItems                                    where s.IsEnabled                                    select s).ToList();             foreach (var item in uiEnabledSprites)             {                 var r = new Rectangle((int)item.Position.X, (int)item.Position.Y, item.Sprite.Width, item.Sprite.Height);                 item.MenuState = MenuState.Normal;                 if (r.Intersects(new Rectangle(mouseStateCurrent.X, mouseStateCurrent.Y, 0, 0)))                 {                     item.MenuState = MenuState.Hover;                     if (mouseStatePrevious.LeftButton == ButtonState.Pressed                         && mouseStateCurrent.LeftButton == ButtonState.Released)                     {                         item.MenuState = MenuState.Pressed;                     }                 }             }             mouseStatePrevious = mouseStateCurrent; So, basically, what it is doing above is iterating through all my interactive objects and detecting a rectangle collision and the object , plays the state animation (or static image).  Lessons Learned, Time Burned... So, I think I did well to start, but after I hammered out my prototype...well...things got sloppy and I began to realise some design flaws... At the time: I couldn't seem to figure out how to open another window, such as the character creation screen Input was not event based and it was bugging me My menu design relied heavily on mouse input and I couldn't use keyboard. Mouse input, is tightly bound with graphic rendering / positioning, so its logic will have to be in each scene. Menu animations would stop mid frame, then continue when the action occured again. This is bad, because...what if I had a sword sliding onthe screen? Then it would slide a quarter of the way, then stop due to another action, then render again mid-slide... it just looked sloppy. Menu, Solved!? To solve the above problems I did a little research and I found some great code in the XNA forums. The one worth mentioning was the GameStateManagementSample. With this sample, you can create a basic "text based" menu system which allows you to swap screens, popup screens, play the game, and quit....basic game state management... In my next post I'm going to dwelve a bit more into this code and adapt it with my code from this prototype. Text based menus just won't cut it for me, for now...however, I'm still going to stick with my animated menu item idea. A sneak peek using the Game State Management Sample...with no changes made... Cool Things to Mention: At work ... I tend to break out in random conversations every-so-often and I get talking about some of my challenges with this game (or some stupid observation about something... stupid) During one conversation I was discussing how I should animate my images; I explained that I knew I had to use the Update method provided, but I didn't know how (at the time) to render an image at an appropriate "pace" and how many frames to use, etc.. I also got thinking that if a machine rendered my images faster / slower, that was surely going to f-up my animations. To which a friend, Sheldon,  answered, surely the Draw method is like a camera taking a snapshot of a scene in time. Then it clicked...I understood the big picture of the game engine... After some research I discovered that the Draw method attempts to keep a framerate of 60 fps. From what I understand, the game engine will even leave out a few calls to the draw method if it begins to slow down. This is why we want to put our sprite updates in the update method. Then using a game timer (provided by the engine), we want to render the scene based on real time passed, not framerate. So even the engine renders at 20 fps, the animations will still animate at the same real time speed! Which brings up another point. Why 60 fps? I'm speculating that Microsoft capped it because LCD's dont' refresh faster than 60 fps? On another note, If the game engine knows its falling behind in rendering...then surely we can harness this to speed up our games. Maybe I can find some flag which tell me if the game is lagging, and what the current framerate is, etc...(instead of coding it like I did last time) Sheldon, suggested maybe I can render like WoW does, in prioritised layers...I think he's onto something, however I don't think I'll have that many graphics to worry about such a problem of graphic latency. We'll see. People to Mention: Well,as you are aware I hadn't posted in a couple days and I was surprised to see a few emails and messenger queries about my game progress (and some concern as to why I stopped). I want to thank everyone for their kind words of support and put everyone at ease by stating that I do intend on completing this project. Granted I only have a few hours each night, but, I'll do it. Thank you to Garth for mailing in my next screen! That was a nice surprise! The Sneek Peek you've been waiting for... Garth has also volunteered to render me some wizard images. He was a bit shocked when I asked for them in 2D animated strips. He said I was going backward (and that I have really bad Game Development Lingo). But, I advised Garth that I will use 3D images later...for now...2D images. Garth also had some great game design ideas to add on. I advised him that I will save his ideas and include them in the future design document (for the 3d version?). Lastly, my best friend Alek, is going to join me in developing this game. This was a project we started eons ago but never completed because of our careers. Now, priorities change and we have some spare time on our hands. Let's see what trouble Alek and I can get into! Tonight I'll be uploading my prototypes and base game to a source control for both of us to work off of. D.

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• Missing Print Option in Google Maps? Here Is How You Find it.

  - by Gopinath

  Summary: Wondering how to print driving directions on new version of Google Directions as there is no print icon on maps home page? Its buried under layers and you can access it by  searching for required directions first and then click on List all steps to see Print icon on top right section. The classic version of Google Maps had  Print option in a prominent location on home page and it was easy to access it to print driving directions. But in the new version of Google Maps, for good or bad Google decided to remove Print option from the home screen.This left many Google Maps users wondering how to print driving directions. In the new version of Google Maps, the Print option is displayed only when you view the full list of driving directions. Here are the simple steps to be followed for printing driving directions on new Google Maps Open Google Maps. Search for directions and click List all steps in the directions card. Click printer icon in the top right corner. Tada!! You found a way to print your directions. Here is an nice animation of instructions to print directions provided by Google    

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• Load different levels in XML

  - by Anearion

  my question is more about a theoretical gener than a pratical way to make things happen. I'm about start developing a game for android, text based so i won't need sprites or animation, nor a game engine. Let's say is similar to a sudoku game, where each level is an harder version of sudoku and each level has some question to be asnwered over the sudoku itself. I was wondering if the better way is to have only one XML and then inside all the different levels, each one with his meta-tags, or if the different approach of making n xml files where each one is a level is preferred. At the moment a level should have those tags: <level> <question>Question_1</question> <hint1>what does it do?</hint1> <hint2>where...</hint2> .... <hintN>how...</hintN> </level> So each level could have some items to read and that's what made me think that maybe different files are better cuz if i have to load lvl 10 i can read only the 10.xml file. I hope my question isn't too stupind. Thanks in advance

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• A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune) [Super Retro Classic Sci-Fi Video]

  - by Asian Angel

  If you are into retro sci-fi movies, then you will definitely want to have a look at this French classic from 1902. This silent movie is only 10.5 minutes long, but is well worth watching and makes for a fun romp through the early days of sci-fi. From YouTube: A Trip to the Moon (French: Le Voyage dans la lune) is a 1902 French black and white silent science fiction film. It is loosely based on two popular novels of the time: From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells. The film was written and directed by Georges Melies, assisted by his brother Gaston. The film runs 14 minutes if projected at 16 frames per second, which was the standard frame rate at the time the film was produced. It was extremely popular at the time of its release and is the best-known of the hundreds of fantasy films made by Melies. A Trip to the Moon is the first science fiction film, and utilizes innovative animation and special effects, including the iconic shot of the rocketship landing in the Moon’s eye. A Trip to the Moon / Le Voyage dans la lune – 1902 [via 20 best designs in sci-fi movies - Page 3 (Creative Bloq)] How to Use an Xbox 360 Controller On Your Windows PC Download the Official How-To Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 How to Banish Duplicate Photos with VisiPic

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• How to slow down a sprite that updates every frame?

  - by xiaohouzi79

  I am going through a Allegro 5 tutorial which has a game loop. There is also a variable "active" which determines if a key is being held down. Thus if the left key is being held down active is on and it begins looping through the row on the sprite sheet that corresponds to moving left. The problem is that this logic is checked everytime the loop is performed thus at approximately 60 fps the three images that are used to do the left walking animation cycle round super fast which means my character looks like it is in a rush. Total beginner question: so what is the correct way to slow down the transition between sprites so that the walking looks like it is done at a moderate pace. Here is the code used to transition across the sprite between the three different phases of the person walking: if (active) { sourceX += al_get_bitmap_width(player) / 3; } else { sourceX = 32; } if (sourceX >= al_get_bitmap_width(player)) { sourceX = 0; } I can kind of guess what it should be in plain English: update sourceX only every certain part of a second but I can't think of how to put this into code.

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• XNA and C# vs the 360's in order processor

  - by Richard Fabian

  Having read this rant, I feel that they're probably right (seeing as the Xenon and the CELL BE are both highly sensitive to branchy and cache ignorant code), but I've heard that people are making games fine with C# too. So, is it true that it's impossible to do anything professional with XNA, or was the poster just missing what makes XNA the killer API for game development? By professional, I don't mean in the sense that you can make money from it, but more in the sense that the more professional games have phsyics models and animation systems that seem outside the reach of a language with such definite barriers to the intrinsics. If I wanted to write a collision system or fluid dynamics engine for my game, I don't feel like C# offers me the chance to do that as the runtime code generator and the lack of intrinsics gets in the way of performance. However, many people seem to be fine working within these constraints, making their successful games but seemingly avoiding any of the problems by omission. I've not noticed any XNA games do anything complex other than what's already provided by the libraries, or handled by shaders. Is this avoidance of the more complex game dynamics because of teh limitations of C#, or just people concentrating on getting it done? In all honesty, I can't believe that AI war can maintain that many units of AI without some data oriented approach, or some dirty C# hacks to make it run better than the standard approach, and I guess that's partly my question too, how have people hacked C# so it's able to do what games coders do naturally with C++?

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• How to optimise Andengine's PathModifer (with singleton or pool)?

  - by Casla

  I am trying to build a game where the character find and follows a new path when a new destination is issued by the player, kinda like how units in RTS games work. This is done on a TMX map and I am using the A Star path finder utilities in Andengine to do this.David helped me on that: How can I change the path a sprite is following in real time? At the moment, every-time a new path is issued, I have to abandon the existing PathModifer and Path instances, and create new ones, and from what I read so far, creating new objects when you could re-use existing ones are a big waste for mobile applications. This is how I coded it at the moment: private void loadPathFound() { if (mAStarPath != null) { modifierPath = new org.andengine.entity.modifier.PathModifier.Path(mAStarPath.getLength()); /* replace the first node in the path as the player's current position */ modifierPath.to(player.convertLocalToSceneCoordinates(12, 31)[Constants.VERTEX_INDEX_X]-12, player.convertLocalToSceneCoordinates(12, 31)[Constants.VERTEX_INDEX_Y]-31); for (int i=1; i<mAStarPath.getLength(); i++) { modifierPath.to(mAStarPath.getX(i)*TILE_WIDTH, mAStarPath.getY(i)*TILE_HEIGHT); /* passing in the duration depended on the length of the path, so that the animation has a constant duration for every step */ player.registerEntityModifier(new PathModifier(modifierPath.getLength()/100, modifierPath, null, mIPathModifierListener)); } } The ideal implementation will be to always have just one object of PathModifer and just reset the destination of the path. But I don't know how you can apply the singleton patther on Andengine's PathModifer, there is no method to reset attribute of the path nor the pathModifer. So without re-write the PathModifer and the Path class, or use reflection, is there any other way to implement singleton PathModifer? Thanks for your help.

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