Recent Posts

176

General Software Discussion / Re: A call to all game design afficionados. Framework for making simple games?

« Last post by urlwolf on January 25, 2012, 03:46 AM »

Ok, up to now I'm empty-handed.
I'm sure there are simple game-authoring tools out there.
If anyone here knows one, please shout.

177

Living Room / Re: Apple & Textbooks

« Last post by urlwolf on January 23, 2012, 02:58 PM »

I have a problem with licensing.

Ed Bott says:

Over the years, I have read hundreds of license agreements, looking for little gotchas and clear descriptions of rights. But I have never, ever seen a legal document like the one Apple has attached to its new iBooks Author program.

Dan Wineman:
Apple, in this EULA, is claiming a right not just to its software, but to its software’s output. It’s akin to Microsoft trying to restrict what people can do with Word documents, or Adobe declaring that if you use Photoshop to export a JPEG, you can’t freely sell it to Getty. As far as I know, in the consumer software industry, this practice is unprecedented.

Exactly: Imagine if Microsoft said you had to pay them 30% of your speaking fees if you used a PowerPoint deck in a speech.

178

General Software Discussion / A call to all game design afficionados. Framework for making simple games?

« Last post by urlwolf on January 22, 2012, 05:08 AM »

I need to mockup some very simple games.
Most of them involving three actions: typing on a textbox, dragging (reordering) boxes, and a countdown timer that you can punch. They are two-person games, where any player can punch the clock if they finish typing faster than the other, and 'win'.

I'm considering using powerpoint and vba to implement a mockup of this. I have zero vba experience but it cannot be that difficult, right?

Ideally, I'd like to find the simplest framework for this kind of games. Maybe a toolbox for children making games for themselves.

Anyone knows anything remotely like this? How would you do it? Flash is sort of an option, but it feels too complicated. I want bigger building blocks, like 5yo lego blocks...

(tinjaw, if you are with us, raise from the dead... I invoke you )

179

General Software Discussion / Re: word 2010 opening always in draft mode. Possible?

« Last post by urlwolf on January 11, 2012, 10:20 AM »

The new context is not a keyboard shortcut, is it?
And, even if I used the right mouse button, it does .docx. I need .doc (for gdocs to sync correctly).

180

General Software Discussion / Re: word 2010 opening always in draft mode. Possible?

« Last post by urlwolf on January 06, 2012, 03:35 AM »

Thanks Perry, this works.
Does anybody know the solution to the second problem?
Maybe the ahk forums have solved this...

181

General Software Discussion / word 2010 opening always in draft mode. Possible?

« Last post by urlwolf on January 05, 2012, 02:47 PM »

I want word 2010 opening always in draft mode. Is this possible?
I'd also love a keyboard shortcut to create a new word doc (.doc) in explorer. If anyone has solved this problem, please let me know.
I'm leaving notetaking apps behind and working straight at the filesystem. I'm also abandoning fancy file managers; explorer's built-in search is very powerful.

Thanks!

182

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Ultimate Windows Customiser (Windows Club) - quick review

« Last post by urlwolf on November 26, 2011, 12:05 PM »

The explorer hacks to hide network, homegroup etc do not work. At all. You have to go into the registry and give the adminitrator group permission to touch those entries. If anyone knows how to remove all noise on the right side in explorer, but the bookmarks, let me know.

I'd also like to get 'backspace' going up instead of back in history.

183

General Software Discussion / Re: Mint 12 introducing DuckDuckGo ...

« Last post by urlwolf on November 25, 2011, 05:25 AM »

I use DDG and love it.

184

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Scrivener for Windows Discounts for November 2011

« Last post by urlwolf on November 24, 2011, 01:49 AM »

I really like many of their UX ideas, and the fact that they use rtf and files instead of a proprietary binary blob.

The big problem I have with scrivener is that it seems custom-built to prevent sharing. Just read the horror stories on using dropbox... you need to close it on one computer to start working on another. And getting comments from another person not using scrivener means a roundtrip to word format or similar.

Writing outliner, their main competitor, has the 'proprietary binary blob' problem (an sqlite db, but still, not files that you can share without exporting first). However the author is going through a full rewrite that will make it use 'normal' files, which would make it preferable for me.

185

General Software Discussion / Re: Wave? Good-bye!

« Last post by urlwolf on November 24, 2011, 01:45 AM »

Google docs has inherited the real time collaboration from wave. For me, gdocs is wave working well. They just removed the cacophony of the 'community aspects'. In gdocs you collaborate with 1-2 others, and all is well. The community aspect was farmed out to G+.

186

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by urlwolf on November 22, 2011, 10:02 AM »

After spending a long time, and trying most of the tool in this thread, I now use gDocs for notes, together with syncdocs. The interface is better (smooth scroll, highlights all search matches, default shortcuts are good), the features are better (change tracking, autosaving, trully excellent collaboration), and it opens faster than most tools here, simply by using the 'save as shortcut' feature in chrome.

Syncdocs is great too. If someone edits a doc online, and you open the .doc in your hard drive, even offline, with word, you see the 'track changes.' Genious.

The only thing I don't like is the lack of drag and drop for pictures, and the delays going from files to the 'file manager' view. First time a web app beats a desktop app, in a category that is incredibly competitive.

I would not use gdocs instead of word for long docs, though. For notes, it's perfect.

My 2 c.

187

General Software Discussion / We are heading towards a sandboxed future, with apps coming from apps stores.

« Last post by urlwolf on November 03, 2011, 09:07 AM »

http://news.ycombina....com/item?id=3191021

This describes OSX appstore.

Actually, Windows 8 apps are sandboxed too. Take a look at the Microsoft requirements to distribute a new Metro-Style app through their own app store. Same sandboxed requirements.

The future that Stallman used to write about, to scare children, is actually here.

188

General Software Discussion / Re: Does your workplace group collaboration tool "suck"?

« Last post by urlwolf on October 31, 2011, 08:32 AM »

Google apps is a fantastic solution, IMHO.
I wouldn't use anything else.

189

General Software Discussion / Re: notetaker that uses the filesystem and has powerful search?

« Last post by urlwolf on October 30, 2011, 05:39 AM »

I'm still looking for a good search tool that would let me search the text inside the .doc files that syncdoc produces. I now prefer doc to rtf. Even though both are binary abominations, proprietary, etc, they are so widespread that I doubt I'll have problems opening them in the future.

Now my main notetaker is gdocs. Smooth scroll, great search (all matches), great collaboration, no install, superb track changes. Using syncdoc to save the docs locally is great. When someone edits the gdoc online, and I open it locally, I see the changes as 'track changes'. One reason to move from rtf to doc.

190

Coding Snacks / Re: structured plaintextfile based note taker

« Last post by urlwolf on September 27, 2011, 04:35 PM »

What i'm looking for could already exist, but i'm not sure how to find it.

a notetaker app that opens and structures a series of textfiles in a folder structure. At the moment most people either use software like onenote or evernote to keep all notes together, or plain text files scattered over their system. What I am looking for is to keep the flexibility of plain text (being able to edit/copy/rename/sync the node anywhere), but with some organising features - just some kind of tree structure where every node is an actual plain text file. Not the proprietary or database format used by all notetakers.

Quicknote comes close (http://www.quicknote.de/qscreensen.php), but i just want to use my own textfiles in it, not use quicknote to create them then save them to text files.

I hope I make sense, please tell me if I don't

-justice (December 04, 2007, 06:02 AM)

Sorry about the thread resurrection, but I was looking for the exact same thing.
I found a good one: minipad2. It's really plain text, but you can reorder the nodes in the tree freely. (I wish more file managers could do this).

The default is to store notes in a db. but one can have virtual nodes that are real files. Also dragging and dropping a folder will create virtual nodes for all files inside it.

191

General Software Discussion / Re: notetaker that uses the filesystem and has powerful search?

« Last post by urlwolf on September 25, 2011, 02:29 PM »

Thanks johnk, I like resophnotes. For this I think I'd prefer rich text, and the search is not that great.

My solution for now is to use gdocs, sync them locally with syncdocs, and edit the files locally with a light rtf editor such as atlantis/softmaker. That way, when we want collaboration, we have it in gdocs. And the changes someone makes say in gdocs are highlighted as 'track changes' locally on my HD. Pretty spectacular.

Now I only need a good local indexer. and a quick way to create files in that shared folder location with a global shortcut, and I'm set.

Btw, if anyone wants to sign up for syncdocs, give me a shout. We both get extra upload capability.

192

Living Room / syncdocs: combining the convenience of google docs with offline access

« Last post by urlwolf on September 25, 2011, 05:39 AM »

http://www.syncdocs.com/

This is very appealing to many people: combining the convenience of google docs with offline access.
I guess it's just patchwork till gdrive shows up:

http://techcrunch.co...gle-drive-is-coming/

If the docs are encrypted, I would consider it over dropbox/wuala because it offers easy real-time collaboration.

193

General Software Discussion / Re: notetaker that uses the filesystem and has powerful search?

« Last post by urlwolf on September 24, 2011, 02:02 PM »

Well, I spoke too soon.
Scrivener for windows is a great piece of software, but not suited for collaborative notetaking. Basically, the rtf files it saves do not have descriptive file names, just numbers. It makes no sense to look at the filesystem to see what has changes. In the forums, people make it clear that collaboration is out of the picture.

In fact, I don't know of a single notetaker that can do this, other than onenote + sharepoint (out of the question, people using macs are potential collaborators).

Does anyone know of a good solution for collaborative notetaking?
I'd be happy with:

• An indexer that can produce live searches, highlighting the matches inside the text in rtf files.
• An small rtf editor
• the filesystem itself as a db

But I don't know of any good solutions for te first two items, on windows.

194

General Software Discussion / Re: notetaker that uses the filesystem and has powerful search?

« Last post by urlwolf on September 23, 2011, 05:25 AM »

Sorry have to ask...what do you mean by 'uses the filesystem'?

-rgdot (September 22, 2011, 07:41 PM)

This means that instead of a proprietary db, the tool uses individual files per notes, and you can see them in your file explorer. You can of course open them in other tools. This is not the result of an 'export' operation, but native. This warrants you can use other tools in the future, and prevents vendor lockin. It also help use filesystem features.

195

General Software Discussion / Re: notetaker that uses the filesystem and has powerful search?

« Last post by urlwolf on September 22, 2011, 05:53 PM »

I think I've found a good solution, scrivener for windows

196

General Software Discussion / notetaker that uses the filesystem and has powerful search?

« Last post by urlwolf on September 22, 2011, 07:43 AM »

The one notetaker that I know where each note is a file is aignes' AM-notebook (http://aignes.com/notebook.htm). However the search function is poor.

Does anyone know any notetaker/PIM that uses the filesystem and has powerful search?
It must show a list of hits as I type, with the matches in the text highlighted (like evernote does).
File format doesn't matter, rtf, html is fine.

I want to use the filesystem because, together with wuala, this should be useful for collaboration. A shared wuala folder, with notifications when someone adds or edits a file, is a very nice way to work together.

NOTE: I asked also in the outliners forum.

197

General Software Discussion / On app stores, general suckage of 'cloud' apps, and the desktop dying

« Last post by urlwolf on September 22, 2011, 04:07 AM »

Key post

Let's face facts: the Web will never be the dominant platform. There will forever be other important platforms competing for users' time. To thrive, HTML and company need what those other platforms have: a single source repository and a good owner to drive it. A standards body is not suited to perform this role. Browser vendors are innovating in some areas, but they are stalled by the standards process in so many areas that is impossible to create a platform with a coherent, unified vision the way Apple has with Cocoa or the way Python has with Guido.

This is a very lucid analysis on app stores, general suckage of 'cloud' apps, and the desktop dying. And it agrees with the overall sentiment of many DC'ers: webapps do not match desktop apps or native phone apps, no matter how hard they try. But people writing desktop apps are being asphyxiated, they are hard to monetize, and they are perceived as dinosaurs.

198

General Software Discussion / Re: Why 2012 may finally be The Year of the Linux Desktop (courtesy of Microsoft)

« Last post by urlwolf on September 22, 2011, 03:51 AM »

Ah, but linux is not the solution for the 'normals'.
They are way behind on things like touch interfaces, battery life, etc.
I love linux and used it as my main desktop for the last 2-3 years. But recently I switched back to win. It was too much work to get a stable, polished experience.

And the trend towards app stores is in linux too, at least in ubuntu and sabayon.

199

General Software Discussion / Re: Why 2012 may finally be The Year of the Linux Desktop (courtesy of Microsoft)

« Last post by urlwolf on September 21, 2011, 02:25 PM »

I can only hope there's a massive revolt on the part of PC users worldwide.

Well, now is the time to start organizing one. DC contains people able to understand this threat. But the rest of the world, the 'normals' will not see it coming. What can we do from here? Funny that DC could turn into an activist site...

200

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR v2 - Official Bug Tracking and Feature Request Thread

« Last post by urlwolf on September 19, 2011, 03:38 PM »

I'm new to FARR so this may be easily done (or not!):
1- I want to use it to 'cat' to a text file, for example a todo. That way I can add items to a plain txt file without opeining it. I know about farrmilk, but this has some other disadvantages (I cannot find a way to look at the entire todo list with it). Say I open farr and do 'ta add such and such'{enter}. 'such and such' gets appended to todo.txt. This is the workflow I want. Is this possible?

2- I happen to use bug.n. The FARR window gets resized to a full tile, which is not what I want (I want it floating on top). I tried adding a rule to the config.ahk excluding FARR. This works for most windows, but not for farr. This is what I have right now:

[Select]

Config_rules_#35 := "*;*Find and Run Robot 2*;;1;0;0;1;1;0" ; FARR

I tried excluding the window ahk_class, but it doesn't seem to work. Is FARR doing something special? Any workaround to get it to work?

Thanks!