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  • Thursday September 17, 2026, 12:30 am
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Recent Posts

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1
Official Announcements / Re: Winding down DonationCoder after 20 years
« Last post by mouser on September 10, 2026, 11:31 AM »
A little update: with the AI coding ability gotten so good, I feel confident that we will have a full (read-only) archive of donationcoder.com and dcmembers.com up before end of year, with all public software and forum posts, profiles, attachments, images, etc. all preserved, and that it can be done in a secure and affordable way so that it can live forever as a historical artifact.
thanks to stephen for starting me on this path.

it will still be at donationcoder.com and dcmembers.com urls, but hosted on a simple server and not using any server software like php, etc.  There will be no database, no ogins, no passwords, no personal messages accessible (or even on the server in any form).    So it will be secure indefinitely.

HOWEVER,

What you still need to do:
Any forum personal messages will be gone from this archive, so if you want a copy you need to download your personal messages now if you want a record of them.
Any content on any of the non-public forums will be gone (Basement, old coding school, administrative chat forum section).  So grab anything you need there.

Also: Your donationcredits info will be gone, so request paypal payment of any donationcredits remaining in your account asap.
2
Official Announcements / Re: Winding down DonationCoder after 20 years
« Last post by mouser on April 16, 2026, 08:11 PM »
Thank you all for your generous and kind words.. It's so wonderful to see some of the regulars posting.
I have updated the first post with a little bit more information regarding how to download all of your personal messages to archive them, and with a note that you should feel free to request a cash out of your donationcredits, etc.
3
Official Announcements / Winding down DonationCoder after 20 years
« Last post by mouser on April 13, 2026, 04:54 PM »
It's painfully hard to write this, but I think it's important that I get the ball rolling and give everyone as much advance notice as I can.
I have decided that we will close up operations here on Donationcoder at the end of the 2026.

It's been clear to us all for a while that the site is not very active and is painful to use. So it's time to say goodbye.  Both because the server costs are unsustainable, but also because maintenance of the site is just not feasible going forward and it's better to close things up gracefully rather than wait for a catastrophic problem or hack.

What I will try to do is find a way to archive all the forum and web page content and keep it available in read-only form online.  No reason that can't still be at the donationcoder.com url indefinitely.
I have removed the Donation links to paypal and replaced them with a permanent license key.  The software I wrote will all continue to work of course.

I will try to write more about how much you all have meant to me in the coming weeks, and how much DonationCoder has meant to me over the years.  It all feels very raw trying to write this and I'm having a hard time finding the right words.  I have met some wonderful people here, and I'm finding it hard to express my thoughts about the whole project without breaking down.

UPDATE:
1. You can now export all of your received and sent personal messages; just go to the My Messages inbox, and from the action menu you should see an option to Export all personal messages (sent and received).
2. Please feel free to request a cashout of any donationcredits in your account from now until the end of the year; just go to the DonationCredits page and choose to request a cashout, and no need to feel any weird way about it!
3. As I said, we are going to archive the site in read only mode and move it to a cheap server where it should be able to outlive all of us as a record of a different time.
4. I'm still on Discord every day and you can find me in the DonationCoder discord server: https://discord.gg/BV8rRWx6vz

-jesse (mouser)

We did have fun didn't we?
4
Living Room / A recent programming project and my experience with AI Coding (Claude)
« Last post by mouser on February 09, 2026, 10:05 AM »
So I recently spent a solid month coding a new tool for my board game project, and used an AI coding tool substantially for it.
This was my first time seriously using the modern AI coding tools other than for little quick research.
You can hear me talk about the experience in this design diary from the weekend:
https://www.youtube.com/live/k6TWGGLma20


It's a long video but the AI coding discussion is around 1:44:32.

Bottom line is that I was walking around for a month with my jaw dropped to the floor. These tools have gotten so good, and are so useful, I just had a hard time believing it.
5
General Software Discussion / Re: N.A.N.Y. 2026 sub forum?
« Last post by mouser on December 23, 2025, 04:56 PM »
I created a subforum here: https://www.donation...ndex.php?board=340.0
6
Android Apps / Re: WhenLast (Android app) - v2.20 Beta - Aug 20, 2018
« Last post by mouser on November 20, 2025, 09:27 PM »
I didn't intentionally remove it from the google play store, but I guess they removed all my apps at some point because I did not keep up with some nonsense new thing they wanted me to do.
7
Living Room / Re: want to get a new 3d printer in 2025
« Last post by mouser on October 04, 2025, 12:11 PM »
I recently ended up buying a Creality K2 Pro recently.  The difference between a 3d printer from 2018 and 2025 is incredible.  Faster, multicolor, but most of all so much more reliable in terms of prints succeeding.
8
Screenshot Captor / Re: My Captor Screenshot is slow
« Last post by mouser on October 04, 2025, 12:10 PM »
I have noticed this can happen if you have a lot (hundreds) of screenshots in your screenshot folder, try moving them someplace else.  There are even some menu options under the MoveTo menu to help you file away older screenshots.
9
DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Cloudflare protection?
« Last post by mouser on March 25, 2025, 09:56 PM »
i apologize for the frustrations.
caching for downloads seem like a good idea let me see if i can figure out how to do that.
10
Living Room / Re: want to get a new 3d printer in 2025
« Last post by mouser on January 03, 2025, 12:49 PM »
As for software CadQuery is akin to OpenSCAD but uses Python.

now THAT sounds interesting, especially since I've been coding in Python a lot these last couple of years.
11
Living Room / Re: want to get a new 3d printer in 2025
« Last post by mouser on January 03, 2025, 04:03 AM »
Thanks everyone.  Yeah I should admit I'm not really good at tinkering with printers so getting the proven reliable bambu may be the way to go.
Lately I mostly print board game extras, but I have in the past printed some custom coded award tokens and stuff by writing code with openscad, and custom printed some repair part gears for a broken plastic gear.
Honestly the openscad stuff was the most fun because i can write code to programmatically generate models.  It's also where I think I could have fun with some of the new multicolor stuff.
It's all just hobby stuff.
12
Living Room / want to get a new 3d printer in 2025
« Last post by mouser on January 01, 2025, 04:35 PM »
Ive had a 3d printer for last 5+ years, but im getting ready to pull trigger on a new one in 2025.
Im thinking Bambu P1s, though a new Anycubic S1 Combo also has my eye.
Anyone keeping up on 3d printer stuff have any thoughts?
13
Living Room / happy new year 2025
« Last post by mouser on January 01, 2025, 01:01 AM »
Happy New Year to everyone here.
I hope you all have a wonderful 2025.
14
N.A.N.Y. 2025 / NANY 2025 Entry: Nynoir.org website and casebook language and tool
« Last post by mouser on December 31, 2024, 05:43 PM »
Some of you know that I have been working on a board game system for the last two years, called New York Noir.
You can read about it here: https://boardgamegee...steries-high-and-low
And you can watch my youtube design diaries here: https://www.youtube.com/live/UWlRotB3TnI


Most of my coding efforts over the last 2 years have been focused on software tools for this game, both in generating the data and directories and materials, but more recently in making tools to allow other authors to write mystery cases for the game.
I just recently completely rewrote the main tool for building cases into a proper little language that I call Casebook.

You can read about Casebook here: https://docs.google....2uk/edit?usp=sharing
And you can check out the website where authors can build cases and use the storybook builder here: https://www.nynoir.org/

This is an open source project, but I have not updated the latest casebook and website tool code yet.

I'd love to find more people who want to write a mystery game in the New York Noir world, so stop by if you are interested!
15
N.A.N.Y. 2025 / NANY 2025 Entry: JrDockie - OBS plugin for managing docks
« Last post by mouser on December 31, 2024, 05:38 PM »
This year I released an open source plugin for OBS (Open Broadcaster Software), called JrDockie:
https://obsproject.c...d-dock-layouts.1955/

You can watch me talk about it here:
https://www.youtube..../watch?v=ErdDOv8WwF0


It helps you save and load configurations of your docks and windows.  I've written a couple of plugins for OBS, but this is by far my most useful and easiest to use.
16
N.A.N.Y. 2025 / Re: NANY 2025
« Last post by mouser on December 18, 2024, 07:17 AM »
Folks, life is too precious and short to take it so seriously or get offended so quickly.
Let's all take some deep breaths and separate that which annoys us from that which angers us to action.
17
N.A.N.Y. 2025 / Re: NANY 2025
« Last post by mouser on December 16, 2024, 02:27 AM »
Hi all.

I apologize for being slow to respond. As most of you know I have become wrapped up in my boardgame youtube channel and creating software for a board game I've been working on for the last two years, and I haven't been so active here.

Ok so let's see..

NANY has always been a small little event, mainly just a way to encourage people to set a deadline to a project they were working on.  And we've never been to strict about it.

But the intention was always that the software created during NANY should be free for home users, and not commercial software.

I think if it were back in the day when we would do a big NANY write up and other sites would feature the software created, then I would say that it would definitely *not* be appropriate to submit an entry where there were features not available for free users.
And it not really in the spirit of NANY to be submitting commercial software.

On the other hand, if no one is featuring the software anywhere and it's really just a matter of self-motivating, then it's hard to see how it makes much of a difference...  And if the event helps motivate you to create something that's a good thing.

----

But I think the bottom line is that a feature-limited program is probably not a good official match for NANY.

By all means, share it on DonationCoder, even mention it in the NANY thread, and don't feel bad about creating commercial software.  Even make a post linking to it in the NANY section.

But not as an official NANY entry.

Don't let this discourage you from creating and sharing whatever software you want.  Anyone writing code is welcome here and welcome to share their work and get encouragement.
But if NANY is a tiny small thing we might as well keep it focused on software that is free (at least for home users).

Just my 2 cents.
18
Living Room / MOVED: NANY 2025
« Last post by mouser on December 10, 2024, 06:44 AM »
This topic has been moved to N.A.N.Y. 2025.

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=54389.0
19
Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!
« Last post by mouser on August 18, 2024, 02:32 PM »
Love this:
https://www.youtube..../watch?v=mi106DZJhuQ
20
Living Room / Re: Is mouser on vacation ?
« Last post by mouser on August 03, 2024, 02:24 PM »
yep im at the gencon board game convention until sunday!
-jesse

ps.
One of the things I am doing there is running a session on my new boardgame (New York Noir Mysteries High and Low)
21
Living Room / Re: Upgrading/migrating server prepare for some downtime
« Last post by mouser on July 05, 2024, 07:36 PM »
Donationcoder is an old girl.. having started in 2005.. We've been through a lot of changes.. When we moved to a dedicated server in 2007 or so (?) cpanel was a lifesaver, giving us many wonderful options to tweak things.  Now in 2024 it does not feel as wonderful and seems to provide many ways to get into trouble :)
22
N.A.N.Y. 2024 / Re: NANY 2024 - Tools for New York City Detective Mystery Boardgame
« Last post by mouser on July 04, 2024, 12:48 AM »
I have continued to work on my software for creating mystery cases for my High & Low game.  A major milestone was reached in developing an online website for building casebooks.
The next major step of the project is to support a kind of slow play by mail engine for the game, which I am excited about.

In the process I familiarized myself with Docker, a tool for setting up virtual operating system setups and running things in sandboxes.  It has made hosting a python-based tool much less stressful. highly recommended.

Here was my latest livestream diaries:
https://www.youtube.com/live/x5Bc_K5RoAU


https://www.youtube.com/live/3HB82TqmgLM


And the official bgg game page:
https://boardgamegee...steries-high-and-low
23
Official Announcements / Re: New server/OS update
« Last post by mouser on July 03, 2024, 11:01 PM »
It's clear the server upgrade is not proceeding at a satisfactory page, so I'm going to take the forum out of maintenance mode for now.
We will wait until we are truly ready to move over the forum before we shut it down again.

For now we are just going to stay on our current server until we get all the ducks in a row and then we can proceed to migrate in a more orderly fashion :)

My apologies!
-jesse
24
Official Announcements / New server/OS update
« Last post by mouser on July 02, 2024, 04:43 AM »
i apologize for the forum downtime everyone -- i am shifting my attention to it now
there is nothing wrong with the server or data, just an overdue need to move to new operating system and/or server, and its my least favorite kind of thing so ive been dragging my feet.  i just put the forum into maintenance mode so that when the hosting company moved the database we wouldnt lose any recent posts.  But if it takes too much longer I will re-enable to forum, and we can manually move over the most recent version of the forum database after we get everything else set up.
25
Living Room / Upgrading/migrating server prepare for some downtime
« Last post by mouser on June 21, 2024, 02:08 AM »
We are migrating/upgrading the server so prepare for a bit of downtime.
The server OS and CPANEL install have reached end of service so we need to upgrade the OS, and it's a bit of work.
Crossed fingers it will all go smoothly!
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