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Messages - TPReal [ switch to compact view ]

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26
General Software Discussion / Re: What is your preferred font?
« on: September 07, 2009, 11:52 AM »
My favourite monospaced font is definitely Monaco. It's a TrueType font, works well both with and without ClearType, and is great for writing code because there's no way to mistake I,l and 1, as well as 0 and O.

As for the rest, I use the default fonts :)

27
I thought about both the things that you mention, and I decided to make it as it is :) But I think that during regular usage it really does not make any difference.

As for your general remark, well, that would have to be quite a complicated mechanism I think. But I guess this could be done. Not in CCCCtrlC, though :)

28
Thanks :)

The main purpose why I wrote this program was because I didn't like those where you have to click something on the GUI or press multiple keys or a complicated chords to access additional clipboards. So there are surely people who think just the opposite, and then this program is probably not the best choice for them. Also, the number of additional clipboards is not limited by the program but I guess using more than 5 would be a pain. So everything just depends on how you use your clipboard.

I myself use the default timing parameter and successfully hit first and second cccclipboard without looking at the tooltip (well, OK, from time to time I happen to miss, too :) but it's not as often as to be annoying). And as I only occasionally use more than those two (plus the regular one), it is just perfect for me.

29
Thanks. Probably I was just too shy :)

30
Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post
« on: August 04, 2009, 01:09 PM »
Haha, this is my hundredth post.

Probably not many people are reading this :) but let me make a little summary of TPReal at DC.

I came here about 3 years ago because of the C++Builder contest and I'm very glad I did. First, I won a C++Builder 6 copy which served me a long time (now I no longer programme in C++), and second, I joined a community. For me the average of 33 posts per year is joining a community :) I just don't like writing too much. But I read various parts of the Forum from time to time, and of course have the DC blog in my feed reader.

Apart from that, I consider DonationCoder my "software home", by which I mean that if I happen to write a piece of code that I'd like to make publicly available, DC is the first place I think about. The sad part is that I don't do this too often. Apart from my participation in a GOE and two NANYs, I published here CCCCtrlC - multiple clipboard utility and earlier TPGoogleReader - Google Reader extension for Chrome (which had appeared before on Chrome Plugins).

So, to sum up my summary, I'd like to say that I'm really glad I'm here :) even if "being here" is just 33 posts a year. Thanks!

Tomek.

31
8)
I think it was noticed because of this post on FreewareWire, and it didn't get there by itself too - I had spoken with Jon, the site's owner. Do you see? I had to find another blog for the program because you didn't put it on DC blog :)

32
I'm not planning to add a search option because this program is intended to be as easy to use as possible, and I'm not going to add any GUI to it, save for the tooltip :) So probably it's not the tool you're looking for.

33
As a part of not-working on my MSc I decided to finally learn AHK and programme myself a little multiple clipboard tool, using an idea which came to my head a long time ago. Now that it works like I want it to work, I thought why not share with you, maybe someone is waiting for this kind of software :)

Here comes some description of the program:

CCCCtrlC

Simple multiple clipboard utility. Creates any number of additional clipboards
(called cccclipboards) and allows accessing them using normal keyboard shortcuts.

To put it simply
  • Hold Ctrl+C to select a cccclipboard, and release to copy to it.
  • Hold Ctrl+V to select a cccclipboard, and release paste from it.

Some more description
If you press Ctrl+C or any other clipboard shortcut (see below) and release it normally (without delay), then the regular clipboard is used for the operation. But if you hold the shortcut for a moment, in the bottom right corner of the screen you will see a clipboard selection info scrolling over cccclipboards. Release the keys and the action will be executed on the currently selected cccclipboard.

Supported clipboard manipulation shortcuts
  • Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V
  • Shift+Del, Ctrl+Ins, Shift+Ins

Special functions
  • Ctrl+C+V - display this help
  • Ctrl+X+C - display cccclipboards list; symbols on the list:
    • C - data in cccclipboard
    • _ - cccclipboard empty
  • Ctrl+Ins+X - erase all cccclipboards (does not erase the primary clipboard)
  • Ctrl+Ins+V - show / hide tray icon (right-click the icon for options)

Cccclipboard selection speed can be customised using command line parameter:
CCCCtrlC.exe initial_interval
where initial_interval is the cccclipboard switch time (the lower the faster, default value is 10 which is pretty fast).

Screenshot
Here I'm holding Ctrl+V. There is some data in cccclipboards number 1, 2, 4 and 6, and the selection is currently at cccclipboard 4. If I release Ctrl+V at this very moment, I'll paste from cccclipboard 4.
cccctrlc.png



Edit on 2018-11-20

The old download link was broken, but I'm just attaching the exe and the source code. I'm not sure what version of AHK it was compiled on, but hopefully it can still compile!

The old exe still works on Windows 10. (Unfortunately I didn't find anything similar, or an easy way to create a similar program, for linux, and now I need to work mostly on linux.)

34
Thanks :)

I'm wondering what to do when I make a new version of the extension. For now I just change the .crx file (which is hosted on dcmembers.com) so that the download link points always to the latest version, and I also write in the original thread on Chrome Plugins forum. If anybody here is interested in receiving updates, I can also write a short post here after each update.

I just updated to 0.3.7 where a bug making feeds appear multiple times on the feeds list is corrected. Available under the download link in the original post.

35
I'm not sure if any of you guys use Google Chrome and would like to experiment with its Dev version, that's why I haven't posted about my extension for Google Reader here, but on another forum, dedicated to Chrome extensions: Chrome Plugins. But now I thought that maybe some of you would like to check it out, so let me write a mini-review.

Basic Info

App NameTPGoogleReader
App URLTPGoogleReader on Google Code
App Version Reviewed0.3.6
Test System SpecsWindows XP SP3
Google Chrome 3.0.190.4 (Dev channel)
Supported OSesThe same as Google Chrome
Author Donation LinkDonate to TPReal, the application author
Relationship btwn. Reviewer and Product The review writer is the extension author (that's why this post is in this forum section)


Intro:

TPGoogleReader is an extension for Google Chrome that makes working with feeds, and particularily with Google Reader, much easier. There is already a lot of Google Reader extensions for Chrome but this one has more features than most of them. Probably the most important feature (and difference) is the ability to automatically open new items from feeds in the browser, in background tabs. Just check the checkbox on the toolstrip:

toolstrip.png

It also displays feed pages (XML) formatted:

feedview.png

And adds a page action for subscribing to a page feed:

multifeeds.png


Who is this app designed for:

To use this extension, you must be a Chrome user. I don't think anyone would switch to another browser just to use an extension. Also, you'd have to use Google Reader as your feed reader. Switching to it is not very painful as you can import your feeds from another reader easily. The extension also assumes that you prefer opening a link specified in a feed item and reading it in its original form to reading the content directly in the reader, but I think this is a pretty reasonable assumption.


The Good

Let me just describe the extension features:
  • The extension shows the number of new (unread) items (as all GR extensions do), or you can check a checkbox on the toolstrip and then the extension automatically opens all new items in new background tabs, and marks them as read in GR. It's really great - new things to read just appear at the end of your tabs bar, without even clicking anything. Also, at least for me, reading items in their full version by navigating to the item's link is much more enjoyable than reading the abbreviated, usually style-less version directly in GR.
    The checkbox can be checked on only one of your Chrome windows, so if you check it on one of them, it gets automatically unchecked on all the others.
  • When working in the normal mode (not auto opening new items), clicking on the items counter opens the first unread item and marks it as read in GR.
  • In the auto-opening mode, number of automatically opened tabs appears on the toolstrip. When you switch to one of the opened tabs, the number is automatically decreased by one, so you always know how much of your tabs are items you have not seen yet. You can also reset the counter manually by clicking on it.
  • When a website has a feed, an icon appears on the right of the omnibox (page action). Click on it to open the feed in GR (does not subscribe, just opens and lets you view it and subscribe). If there are multiple feeds on the webpage, you will see a list of all feeds, with the ability to subscribe to the one of your choice.
  • When you navigate directly to an RSS or Atom page (like this one: http://www.ruby-lang...rg/en/feeds/news.rss) normally Chrome displays a mess. With TPGoogleReader you will get the page displayed in a monospace font and with preserved formatting. This can be important if you want to see what is exactly the content of an RSS (especially useful for feed testing purposes).
    Clicking on the feed name will open it in GR.


The needs improvement section

Sometimes something does not work as it should. Especially the page actions. The icon sometimes does not appear, or it does but does not react to clicks. For me it looks like most of the problems result from Chrome being in its Dev version, and the extensions system still being developed. And still the problems do not come into view to frequently.

There also seems to be a bug somewhere that makes the extension consume unreasonable amounts of memory, especially after Chrome being running for quite a long time. I'm still unable to say if this is a bug in the extensions system in Chrome, or in the extension itself. If you do not have several hundreds of feeds, and restart the browser at least once a day, this should not be a problem. However, if I find the problem is in the extension's logic, I will surely correct it.


Why I think you should use this product

If you use Chrome and feeds, I think this is the best extensions that lets you merge the two. With TPGoogleReader you find your new items just get opened as they arrive, and you can even forget that there is a feed reader under the skin.


How does it compare to similar apps

All the other GR extensions I have seen simply show the unread items count, and navigate to Google Reader upon clicking, so TPGR has much more functionality.


Conclusions

Currently this seems to be the most complete Google Reader extension for Chrome. It includes the ability to easily subscribe to feeds (or see them in the bare XML) as well as an innovative idea of automatically opening new items in the browser just as they arrive.


Links to other reviews of this application

The extension was reviewed (in a copy-paste'ish way) in this blog entry. Note that the review is somewhat old now. You can also find there short instructions on how to switch Chrome to the Dev channel, which is needed for the extension to work.

36
I've been using it for a while and I must say that although it lacks some functionality (more symbols would be nice, for instance), it is much user friendlier than Dia, and also the diagrams look nicer.

If you export the diagram and see that the rounded corners look ugly, then export again in larger size than the default (like 5 times larger) and then the corners will look OK. Then you can scale it down using some graphics program.

37
Mouser, in my opinion the name FARR is both nice and descriptive (if you know the full name) so I wouldn't give you any prize for it :)


The worst choice of name I know about is an old game called Clone.

It's a long story, it all started some 10 years ago when I found a demo of it on a CD added to some computer magazine that my father had bought (he used to buy lots of them). It was a very interesting logic game where you control a (smiling) blue ball in a top-down view, and it was most interesting when in some levels there was more than one blue ball (hence "Clone") and each key press made them all move in this direction. So sometimes a move made one of them to do what you intended, but was fatal for another. This usually made it impossible to pass the level because they were all needed for cooperation.

So, what's wrong with the name Clone? Well, I completed the demo (1 episode out of 6 in the full version) and forgot about the game for a few years. During this time I lost the CD in a small personal tragedy, so when one day I woke up with Clone on my mind, it turned out that I don't even have the demo version any more. So I started looking for it over the internet and... try yourself, typing "old game clone" returns lots of results but no trace of this game :( Only clones of old games of all kind!

I spent several hours looking for it before I gave up. From then on, once each few months I recalled about the game and spent again a few hours looking for it, and finding nothing. I couldn't recall the name of the company nor any other info that could be used to find the game, I had just the name.

So I can say honestly that I was looking for any trace of this game since 2003, if not longer. And it's all because of this stupid name!


But the story has a happy end: last month in one of those maybe-it-was-just-a-dream-and-the-game-never-existed sessions I finally found it! On this site: DOSGames (I'm definitely gonna donate to that site). And I tell you - it is exactly as good as I remembered it! My full recommendation. Runs without big issues in DOSBox.

It even turned out that it's been abandonware since 1999...

38
General Software Discussion / Re: What's your mouse of choice?
« on: February 23, 2009, 09:54 AM »
I have recently bought a VX Nano, which has already be mentioned in this thread, and I agree with what has already been said - it is comfortable and nice to use (some people might say it is too small but for me it's not a drawback), and the main problem is it does not have the middle button. But for me setting the side button (the one with the down arrow) as a middle button is OK, just a matter of reprogramming your brain1 to have middle on the left :)

The flywheel :) is the main reason why I have chosen Logitech. It's great and I guess I'll never have a mouse without it again. There's really no easier way to scroll down a long document if you just remember an image you're looking for, or a particular "shape" of text in this place. It takes a bit of practice to make it spin up fast - spinning down is natural, while spinning up seems harder at first.

The only problem with the wheel I've encountered so far: when I scroll a long file in Eclipse it sometimes behaves strangely, like it changes the direction and for a moment goes the wrong way, or it does not stop immediately after I stop the flywheel. But the problem is definitely in Eclipse - I have tried a lot of other applications and encountered no problems of this kind. Anybody knows anything about this?


My previous mouse was X7 from A4Tech (I don't remember the exact series) which I can also recommend. It was comfortable to use, and I liked the fact that the cord was very thin and didn't cause this unpleasant feeling of resistance when there was not too much place on the desktop for it.

I had to buy a new mouse because after 2 years or so of using it frequently the wheel ceased to work properly.


1) Reprogramming one's brain is funny. If you don't like other people doing things on your computer when you're away for a moment, change directions of the mouse (left with right and up with down). You'll get used to it after something like two days and most people will feel completely lost and give up messing with your machine :) I used for this a small timer-based program I wrote once for fun.

39
N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 Teaser: Mouser's Magic Keyboard
« on: December 07, 2008, 04:06 AM »
;D ;D ;D
I'm sorry for a moment, I've just laughed my head off and must collect it from the floor now.

40
N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 Release: Fractal Explorers
« on: December 05, 2008, 05:08 AM »
Glad to hear it works :) And I learned something about the shaders. The first time I saw the Julia fractal with the extra dimension was when I wrote this program, too :)

But it does mean that ideally your tool would be something that at least one other person in the known universe might be interested in downloading and using.
Have you seen, mouser? My program meets the NANY requirements :D

41
N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 Release: Fractal Explorers
« on: December 04, 2008, 04:20 PM »
I see there are currently some problems with file hosting on dcmembers so I attached the file to the original post, apart from giving the link.

42
N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 Release: Fractal Explorers
« on: December 04, 2008, 01:53 PM »
Hello Richard.

Thanks for reporting this. The error you got is an error that occurred when your graphic card tried to link the shader program. The error message is loaded from the graphic card and wrapped into a Ruby exception (ShaderException).

The error is probably because your graphic card is different than any of those that I have tested my program on. I'm not a shader expert, and well, I didn't know that some GP do not support conditional returns. What is the graphics you have?

Based on the error message, I guess I corrected it. On my machine it still works, so probably I didn't break anything :) Please download the program again (in the original post) and try to run the program. Let me know if any other errors occur :)

Thanks,
TPR.

43
N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 Release: Visual Basic 6.0 Bible Quiz
« on: December 01, 2008, 02:30 PM »
Hello Larry, let me express some my impressions about the program :)

  • I like the idea of showing the corresponding verse for each question if you get it wrong.
  • The controls are rather clean. One bug there is that the field with the current question number is editable.
  • The order of possible answers could be randomized each time.
  • It happened several times that I got the same question more than once in the same session, regardless of if I got it right or wrong first. This could be blocked.
  • If you click Exit, I don't see what's the difference between clicking then Return, and clicking New Quiz.
  • The moving parts of the GUI might be somewhat... disturbing :)
  • The main form is resizeable, and should not be, I guess.
  • I got fifty-something per-cent correct on a set of about 40 easy NT questions, and then sixty-something per-cent correct on hard. Hmm.

OK, that's it :) In general I quite liked the program, I'm going to try the OT later, too. It's a bit hard for me because names and some other words have their English forms different from what I'm used to, so I have to think for a moment to translate (or transliterate) them. There were also questions (or answer variants) that I could not understand at all.

Thanks for sharing.

TPReal.

44
N.A.N.Y. 2009 / NANY 2009 Release: Fractal Explorers
« on: November 30, 2008, 09:38 AM »
NANY 2009 Entry Information

This is in fact two tiny programs, but they are both about exploring a fractal, and they share common libraries, so I put them here together.

Application NameMandelbrotExplorer and JuliaExplorer
VersionRolling Release :) it's not any big program, I'm not versioning it
Short DescriptionViewing Mandelbrot set and Julia sets
Supported OSesAny
Download Linkhttp://tpreal.dcmembers.com/Fractals.zip
System Requirements
  • Ruby
  • ruby-opengl gem
Version History
  • 2008-11-30 16:00 - First release
  • 2008-12-04 21:00 - Compatibility with some graphic cards added (thanks, deviantopian)
AuthorTPReal


Description
The applications are written just for fun, as an étude of Ruby and OpenGL Shading Language.

JuliaExplorer - Fractal Evolution
JuliaExplorer allows you to explore Julia sets of quadratic polynomials of the form z^2+c. It allows you to zoom into any part of the generated set, but the even more exciting feature is the ability to change smoothly the value of the complex parameter c, and see the fractal evolve slowly from one form to another.

MandelbrotExplorer - Into The Fractal
MandelbrotExplorer allows you to explore the Mandelbrot set. It allows you to zoom into any part of the set.

Possible enhancements
There's a lot of things that could be done to make these programs better, like:
  • Ability to save a specific image, or coordinates
  • Option of antialiasing to make the images look smoother
  • Maybe some colours or something
  • Displaying FPS
  • Automatic image changing (as if it was a screensaver)
But they are not planned - maybe I'll do some of those one day, and maybe I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader :)

Screenshots
MandelbrotExplorer
[attachthumb=#1][/attachthumb]
[attachthumb=#2][/attachthumb]
[attachthumb=#3][/attachthumb]
[attachthumb=#4][/attachthumb]

JuliaExplorer
[attachthumb=#5][/attachthumb]
[attachthumb=#6][/attachthumb]
[attachthumb=#7][/attachthumb]
[attachthumb=#8][/attachthumb]
[attachthumb=#9][/attachthumb]

Usage

Installation
First, you have to have Ruby installed, along with ruby-opengl gem. Ruby is available here: http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/downloads/ , if you are using Windows, I recommend the One-Click Installer from here: http://rubyforge.org...jects/rubyinstaller/ . Some additional info cn be found in the zip archive, in help/Ruby Installation.txt.

Just unpack the zip archive and run MandelbrotExplorer.rb or JuliaExplorer/rb.

Using the Application
MandelbrotExplorer
Just play around with Arrow keys and the zoom: A and Z keys. That's all :)

JuliaExplorer
When you run the program, a short tutorial is displayed. The basics are: use Arrows and A, Z to see the fractal evolve, and use U, J, H and K, and zoom: S, X, to zoom into any part of the fractal. But it might be a bit tricky at first, so read the tutorial.

Some description can also be found in the help directory in the archive.

Known Issues
There are some issues with installing ruby-opengl on some older versions of One-Click Installer for Windows. See the help file for details.

45
Very nice program! Sometimes I need to parse automatically some web page, and it's a bit frustrating when you compose a huge regexp, test it, and it simply does not work at all. Probably because of a tiny mistake somewhere in the middle.

I've just tested RegEx Designer: I pasted the whole page source into the text field, and built the expression step by step, checking what parts of the source were matched after each step. It was much less pain than without the program!

Also, a rather nice and intuitive GUI, in my opinion. I will definitely use it from time to time. Thanks!

46
I remember the first thing that threw me off when I started working with Eclipse was its huuuge right-click menu, with lots of mysterious words in it, and half of positions with firther submenus... Sometimes I prefer to spend a second or two longer on something than to have a right-click menu clutter half of the screen :) So I guess I'm not going to use any of those, even though they do look useful for someone who likes such stuff. Bookmarked - in case I changed my mind.

By the way, does anybody know a way to remove positions from Eclipse right-click menu? I don't remember ever using about half of them, and most of them are also accessible from the main menu.

47
N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 Intro
« on: November 14, 2008, 09:10 AM »
Additionally, it wouldn't count if it was in Ruby.  ;) Python progams get extra credit!
I disagree! My program will definitely be in Ruby :)

48
N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 Intro
« on: November 13, 2008, 12:55 PM »
I don't have a clear idea for a program yet, but for now, definitely count me in :)

49
Living Room / Re: The 150 Best Online Flash Games
« on: October 09, 2008, 04:13 AM »
I can't stop playing the Winter Bells: http://www.ferryhali...risinal/g3/bells.htm It's... uhm... sweet :)

The xkcd comic strip's a perfect match for the topic :D

50
OK, I'll answer this lonely post to say that the game is quite interesting. It's not very long, but you have to finish it three times (using different items) to finish it for good.

The animation is probably the strongest part of the game, but for me the atmosphere of constant mystery and uncertainty of what's going to happen next is also what makes this game rather special.

TPR.

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