Messages

176

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR and Indexing Option - Feedback Requested

« on: November 12, 2011, 07:19 PM »

In any case... Whatever the kind of indexing, I hope it can work with various languages/character sets (i.e. : Unicode) and not just English...  

177

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR and Indexing Option - Feedback Requested

« on: November 12, 2011, 07:16 PM »

However... Relying on a 3rd party could mean have an indexing option rapidly with minimal efforts on mouser's part. And if the 3rd party options doen't get updated/don't work after a while (a couple years?), mouser can then develop his own indexing mechanism...

178

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR and Indexing Option - Feedback Requested

« on: November 11, 2011, 09:32 PM »

Eheh. I see.

179

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR and Indexing Option - Feedback Requested

« on: November 11, 2011, 06:27 PM »

Well, I know nothing about Mouser's home appliance repair skills... which is too bad it seems, as it sounds like an entertaining subject. 

180

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR and Indexing Option - Feedback Requested

« on: November 11, 2011, 04:32 PM »

Anxiously waiting... 

181

T-Clock / Re: T-Clock 2010 (download)

« on: November 07, 2011, 11:18 PM »

Hehe... Nice. My grandparents were from France, Ireland and Quebec/Canada (what a mix)... All speaking in their native tongue though -- a good variety of accents, but... no great "foreign accent".

182

T-Clock / Re: T-Clock 2010 (download)

« on: November 07, 2011, 06:08 PM »

Thinkgs are working just great !  
[Edit... Sounded like a German here...]

183

General Software Discussion / Re: Love WorkFlowy, hate web apps.. What to do?

« on: November 06, 2011, 09:39 AM »

Hi Armando! I was using InfoQube0.9.25W1Portable. What happened was that I would click New -> New IQBase with sample data, and as soon as the file was loaded and I tried to resize the two panels, the application would freeze like this:

-tranglos (November 06, 2011, 06:54 AM)

Yes, exactly. I'm still on XP so I never experienced that. Good to know that was the problem.

Your list of how InfoQube handles pretty much all my requirements and nice-to-have's is amazing! I'll be giving it a try.

-tranglos (November 06, 2011, 06:54 AM)

Yes, I think it handles pretty much all your requirements and much more. However, you can really use it like a simple one pane outliner and don't bother with all the other features (equations, calendar, etc.). Many many things are configurable in the options and in other menus -- which is both good and bad, depending on your perspective and needs...

I've been using it for almost... 4 years ! and still am. Note that a few things are still unfinished (the calendar, mostly, and some features haven't been implemented yet. The UI is supposed to be rethought to ease filter use.)

A couple suggestions :
- start to build your DB with the Sample DB. NOT the blank one.  It's much easier to understand the basic principles if you start with the sample.
- you can probably figure the software by yourself, but I'd say that sections 2.05 and mostly 2.06 of the manual will help you understand IQ's basic principle (it covers what are grids, items and fields and how IQ basically works).


What are those basic principles ? Mainly that the grids just show items depending on chosen filters. Items don't belong to grids. Hence, you can have a DB full of items but don't see any in any grids because you haven't set the right filters in your grids (To see those filters in a grid, just press alt-s : here's the "source" bar.)

Here's an excerpt of section 2.05 :

1- All the information in IQ is stored in a database.

2- In the database, there are multiple items which can have different characteristics.

3- These items characteristics are recorded in fields

4- Items and fields are displayed/showed in grids (tables) : the items are displayed as rows, the fields are columns. (Note : we won't go into the details of a grid for now, but... let's just say that grid isn't like a traditional folder : an item doesn't "belong" to a grid as it can show any item that meets certain filter criteria. We'll learn about filters later.)

So, to summarize :  we usually talk about items (rows) and their fields (columns) inside a grid (table).

Don't hesitate to ask questions in the forum or here.

IMO, IQ's basic principles are simple, but there are so many ways to achieve stuff that it can get complex. Especially when you use functions and try to filter out/in items in a grid, etc., as you can either do that through the columns headers or through the source bar (alt-s)... or through both, etc.

184

General Software Discussion / Re: Love WorkFlowy, hate web apps.. What to do?

« on: November 05, 2011, 12:09 AM »

InfoQube: probably too big for what I need, and unfortunately doesn't seem usable just yet. (Open the sample file, then try resizing the panes: IQ starts to "reflow" the text and never seems to finish, have to kill the process every time.)

-tranglos (November 04, 2011, 05:09 PM)

Hi tranglos,

What IQ version are you using ? There was a compatibility problem with IE 9 and some of the components IQ uses. The last build solves that problem AFAIK.
Otherwise, I really don't see what could be the problem as I've never seen anyone complain about that in the forums -- apart from the IE9 compatibility problem.

IQ might not be what you're looking for anyway, but I'm curious about what caused that problem.


For your information:

Required

- Ability to hold more than 1 line of text in an item : YES
- Fast instant search with filtering, just like WorkFlowy : KINDA. There are many ways of searching in IQ, filtering the grids, etc. But the prefered way is... Ctrl-F.
- Virtual views, where items are filtered based on user criteria (and shown as a flat list): YES. This is what IQ is based on.
- Keyboard shortcuts to edit/rearrange the outline structure: YES
- Some form of appending additional, unobtrusive notes to items : YES

Nice-to-have

- Desktop app : YES
- Ability to add some formatting to items (make bold, make larger, change color) : YES
- Same as above, but automated: YES, for the most part (you can automate all kinds of formatting), but there are still features to be implemented (outline styles)
- Checkboxes : YES
- Metadata: timestamps for items (date created, date modified), importance level, etc : YES
- Ideally, user-defined columns for items (but with the possibility of hiding the columns and only showing the outline) : YES
- Rich text inside items : YES
- Since tree hierarchy is very rigid, it'd be nice to be able to "associate" items with each other somehow: YES
- Easy switching between bulleted and numbered list, with various numbering styles (1, 2, 3; I, II, III, i, ii, iii, a, b, c etc.) : NO. Not at this point. Maybe later. There are numbers and bullets but it's rudimentary.

185

T-Clock / Re: T-Clock 2010 (download)

« on: November 03, 2011, 11:20 PM »

Hey, thanks for dropping by so quickly. Pure C eh? 

So far so good. I'm pretty sure everything is going to be okay now -- earlier I mistakenly ran an old version (from some other coder) in a folder close by...

But I'll keep you posted for sure.

186

T-Clock / Re: T-Clock 2010 (download)

« on: November 03, 2011, 09:43 PM »

Ok...  I think I was using an earlier version. Let me try the newest build !

187

T-Clock / Re: T-Clock 2010 (download)

« on: November 03, 2011, 09:37 PM »

[EDIT : see next post !]

Hi Stoic,

I tried your T-Clock 2010 and it's quite nice !

However, I'm having a problem with GDI objects : as soon as I starts T-Clock, explorer.exe GDI starts to leak. Closing T-Clock solves half of the problem : leak stops but... I still need to close explorer.exe and restart it.

Would you have an idea of what could cause that ? Obviously, nobody else seem to have had this problem before! I thought it could be related to some component T-Clock uses as I've read stories about certain broken .Net versions causing leaks of that kind... But T-Clock seems to be C++, right?

BTW, I'm on Windows XP SP3.

[EDIT : see next post !]

188

Developer's Corner / Re: Another giant leaves us : Father of Lisp and AI John McCarthy has died

« on: October 26, 2011, 02:04 PM »

Paul Graham is a notorious Lisp enthusiast. A few essays around LISP :
What Made Lisp Different
If Lisp is So Great
The Roots of Lisp (links to actual papers, etc.)

Another article about John McCarthy : John McCarthy — Father of AI and Lisp — Dies at 84

189

Developer's Corner / Another giant leaves us : Father of Lisp and AI John McCarthy has died

« on: October 25, 2011, 10:28 AM »

Father of Lisp and AI John McCarthy has died.

(Two great programmers in the same month...)

190

Developer's Corner / Re: Dennis Ritchie dead

« on: October 16, 2011, 11:21 AM »

Can't resist... One last link : Dennis Ritchie: the other man inside your iPhone

191

Developer's Corner / Re: Dennis Ritchie dead

« on: October 14, 2011, 08:38 AM »

His home page : http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/

192

Developer's Corner / Re: Dennis Ritchie dead

« on: October 14, 2011, 07:59 AM »

Thanks. Nice links.

193

Developer's Corner / Re: Dennis Ritchie dead

« on: October 13, 2011, 11:47 PM »

As opposed to the other thread about a certain Apple executive, I think that Ritchie represents the change that the hipsters strive so hard to re-create.  I'll leave my commentary at that.

R.I.P.

-wraith808 (October 13, 2011, 10:21 AM)

+1

Yes. While everybody cries the death of you know who, Dennis Ritchie dies much more plainly -- if not completely silently for the vast majority -- while he really and originally contributed to technological innovation and progress. What a world.  

R.I.P.

194

Developer's Corner / Re: Cross-platform mobile apps development: MonoTouch/MonoDroid, Marmalade, etc.

« on: October 08, 2011, 11:59 AM »

Thanks Renegade. I'll keep that in mind.

195

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR Release v2.107.04 beta - Sep 23, 2012

« on: October 07, 2011, 01:32 PM »

i'm so sorry i hope i didn't end up erasing anyone's aliases 

-mouser (October 03, 2011, 09:48 PM)

Well, everything's fine here !

196

Developer's Corner / Re: Cross-platform mobile apps development: MonoTouch/MonoDroid, Marmalade, etc.

« on: October 05, 2011, 08:33 AM »

Thanks 40hz ! I'm going to have a look at that tonight.

197

Developer's Corner / Re: Cross-platform mobile apps development: MonoTouch/MonoDroid, Marmalade, etc.

« on: October 03, 2011, 08:55 AM »

@Renegade: Thanks for your thoughts, I appreciate. The C~ish route does seem pretty sensible (in terms of employment, language versatility, robustness, performance and "expendability"), and since my own reflections and curiosity (not to mention experience) tend to go/be into that direction too, it seems like a good "match". But I'll see.

As f0dder says, Rhodes and maybe other alternative -- even if they seem nice at the first glance -- aren't as sensible choices. At least in my case:  the story might be different if I was a Ruby programmer, but I am not...

I haven't been doing much work on the whole mobile app development subject in the last few days. But when I will, I'll update this thread with other thoughts/opinions.

198

Developer's Corner / Re: MonoTouch / MonoDroid (Mono for Android) VS Marmalade, etc.

« on: September 30, 2011, 09:43 AM »

Thanks for your opinions! Some quick answers/thoughts :

@mahesh2k: Thanks. Looks nice and powerful too. I bookmarked it and will study it some more later.

@Eóin: I knew you were using marmalade from another thread here. Thanks for sharing your thoughts about UI aspects. Marmalade seems like it's putting a lot of effort into its UI framework and so maybe it'll soon be able to lenify your (legitimate) "criticisms".

The type of app you want to develop is important, how much OS integration will you want?"

-Eóin

It's of course an important point, and I know my intro was a bit vague (on purpose)... Unfortunately, I'm not entirely "there" yet, in terms of details etc.. It will most probably be database oriented, with information exchange (xml, json), grids to display data, etc. For that type of stuff, I have the feeling (from what I've read) that MonoTouch would be a good candidate. But it's mostly an (educated) feeling at this point as other packages would be able to handle that easily as well I believe.

@Renegade:Yes, I saw you're using MonoTouch. MonoTouch looks great. And the posts on stackoverflow and other articles all around are pretty positive and inspiring. Not to mention the "most important" MonoDroid side of the coin which makes the whole package even more attractive.

Whichever toolkit you choose, just make sure that you're comfortable with it.

To be honest, I think I'd go with a C~ish language if I were to choose again. (I use the Mono toolkits.) A lot of mobile kits are basically just high-level scripting languages with little possibility to do much other than line of business applications (which they are designed for). Marmalade looks very nice there as it would also let you easily move to other C-based SDKs like bada.

-Renegade

This is just the beginning of the trip for me, and I don't know how much time and energy I want to invest in that "project" yet. I'm also a beginner and I need to make choices without loosing touch with the "big picture" (i.e.: other contracts and future jobs which might not be linked to mobile development).

In "C~ish type of language", I guess you don't include C#, or... do you ?

My "background" (ahem -- more of a foreground...) is Java and VB (with all the other usual stuff like XML, JSON, etc.), so in any case I'm ready to learn a new language if necessary -- C#, .Net, C++, Objective C, JavaScript, Ruby, Python, whatever.  Of course -- as I just suggested -- it'd ideally be a language which I could also relatively easily use for other contracts (i.e.: a language well adapted to the current market). I know C# and Objective C are still growing in popularity and C++ is pretty stable. The little I've read on C#, I like... But so did the stuff I read about C++ and Objective C. However, I'm wondering how much use Objective-C has outside Apple and iOS, so it doesn't look like the best choice at this point -- especially that I'm not targeting iOS per se, but also Android and Windows (mobile).  I might be wrong though.

Anyway... I don't want to get into a dull/superficial language debate as I'm pretty sure you guys will understand my points.

looking forward to even more points of view !

199

Developer's Corner / Re: How To Write Unmaintainable Code

« on: September 29, 2011, 09:45 AM »

^^^Would make a great "signature".

200

Developer's Corner / Re: MonoTouch / MonoDroid (Mono for Android) VS Marmalade, etc.

« on: September 28, 2011, 09:19 PM »

Nice (older) post on MonoTouch and Objective C on stackoverflow. Is MonoTouch worth the cost or should I just learn Objective-C?