With the heavy snow (well heavy by our standards) snow in Nashville, the family hasn't been able to get out of the house, so I've had a little more time to sit and program rather than running all over creation.
I've gotten a not completely insignificant portion of the interface wired up with Interface Builder and have moved on to start working on the text windows. This part is going to be a bit challenging since I'm trying to integrate traditional Cocoa controls on top of an OpenGL view. It can be done, but not having attempted it before, it's going to take some playing with.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Some more progress
Nothing too exciting to report, but given the extra time over the holidays, I have been making more progress than I normally can. I've started hooking up some of the user interface items and am working on the preferences dialog.
Still tons to do, but bit by bit it's starting to look like an application rather than just random code.
Still tons to do, but bit by bit it's starting to look like an application rather than just random code.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Time...never enough
I realize it's been a while since I've posted, so I wanted to post something.
Things are going more slowly than I'd like. There's really no technical reason; work has been killing me lately, and with two eight-year-olds around, there's an activity nearly every evening. Most of my development time has been coming in 30-45 minute spurts, and as developer will tell you, it's difficult to work like that. You barely can get your mind focused on where you were when you left off and suddenly it's time to quit.
The good news is the transition of the drawing code to Vertex Buffer Objects (VBO's) is complete. While not necessary for performance, it allows me to avoid a rewrite should the rumored removal of Immediate Mode in OpenGL 3.0 come true.
I'm currently working on figuring out how to set all the colors for all the objects. My hope is to be able to set colors on individual line segments, rather than just a whole class of objects. While perhaps not the most mind-blowing feature, I'm sure people would enjoy the extra level of customization.
Things are going more slowly than I'd like. There's really no technical reason; work has been killing me lately, and with two eight-year-olds around, there's an activity nearly every evening. Most of my development time has been coming in 30-45 minute spurts, and as developer will tell you, it's difficult to work like that. You barely can get your mind focused on where you were when you left off and suddenly it's time to quit.
The good news is the transition of the drawing code to Vertex Buffer Objects (VBO's) is complete. While not necessary for performance, it allows me to avoid a rewrite should the rumored removal of Immediate Mode in OpenGL 3.0 come true.
I'm currently working on figuring out how to set all the colors for all the objects. My hope is to be able to set colors on individual line segments, rather than just a whole class of objects. While perhaps not the most mind-blowing feature, I'm sure people would enjoy the extra level of customization.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Another Windows Beep of Death Fix
A new version of XSB is coming soon, but until then, Windows users need a new beep-of-death fix, so here it is.
Windows Voice Fix
Windows Voice Fix
Friday, August 21, 2009
Latest on the ATC Client
Not much to report on the ATC client. I've been working on a new version of XSB and meeting some deadlines for my other project (Targetware), so that's consumed the majority of my time.
I did switch from using an NSOpenGLView to a GLView subclass. This gives a lot more flexibility. The OpenGL context can be on multiple screens, it can have Cocoa controls on top, etc.
Right now I'm in the process of moving the drawing code from Immediate mode to Vertex Buffer Objects. It's an optimization that's completely unnecessary given the trivial requirements of a radar client, but Immediate Mode is slated to go away at some point, so better to change things to use the "right" way now.
I should get some more time near the end of the month to work on the client, and should have good things to report then.
I did switch from using an NSOpenGLView to a GLView subclass. This gives a lot more flexibility. The OpenGL context can be on multiple screens, it can have Cocoa controls on top, etc.
Right now I'm in the process of moving the drawing code from Immediate mode to Vertex Buffer Objects. It's an optimization that's completely unnecessary given the trivial requirements of a radar client, but Immediate Mode is slated to go away at some point, so better to change things to use the "right" way now.
I should get some more time near the end of the month to work on the client, and should have good things to report then.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Looking for a web designer
Copied from my post on x-plane.org:
Ben and I are in the process of moving the XSB website to a Content Management System so that I can directly edit the VERY outdated FAQ and other documents. It also will allow me to post new releases without having to take away from Ben's X-plane development time.
The problem is, Ben and I are both programmers, and are absolutely awful as web designers.
So here's your chance to contribute. We're looking for someone who either has experience working with the Drupal content management system, or just has high-quality CSS skills. Additionally the person needs to have good design sense too. Just knowing how to install a web server and MySQL isn't what we're looking for. We're looking for someone who considers themselves an actual web designer and can do crazy things like match colors.
This will likely be a one-time time commitment. That is, once the site is designed and up, there likely won't be anything left for the site designer to do. So it will not require a long-term time commitment. Additionally, we're only talking about a few templates/pages. This is NOT a major design project.
Anyone that's interested, please email me at wade@dogwatchsw.com
http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=39623
Ben and I are in the process of moving the XSB website to a Content Management System so that I can directly edit the VERY outdated FAQ and other documents. It also will allow me to post new releases without having to take away from Ben's X-plane development time.
The problem is, Ben and I are both programmers, and are absolutely awful as web designers.
So here's your chance to contribute. We're looking for someone who either has experience working with the Drupal content management system, or just has high-quality CSS skills. Additionally the person needs to have good design sense too. Just knowing how to install a web server and MySQL isn't what we're looking for. We're looking for someone who considers themselves an actual web designer and can do crazy things like match colors.
This will likely be a one-time time commitment. That is, once the site is designed and up, there likely won't be anything left for the site designer to do. So it will not require a long-term time commitment. Additionally, we're only talking about a few templates/pages. This is NOT a major design project.
Anyone that's interested, please email me at wade@dogwatchsw.com
http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=39623
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Some work on the Mac ATC client
After many months of having no time to devote to the Mac radar client, I had a little bit of time over the weekend.
To properly set expectations on where things stand, right now it's just loading the sector file and drawing it. I had been having problems with zooming and panning that were bugging me, but those have been resolved.
However, despite my warnings of the rudimentary state at which we're at, I can't resist a small teaser:
That boys and girls, is KLAX from the ZLA sector file. (Only airports, runways and geo's are being drawn in this example.) The colors no doubt need adjusting, but any ZLA controller will certainly feel at home looking at that diagram.
So what's up next?
Before I get too far, I need to optimize the drawing routines, so that's probably next. Then I'll start wiring up the interface to allow the enabling / disabling of drawing of all the various sector file elements without having to change code. After that I'll start working on the text system (chat windows and such). Once all that is done, we'll be ready to start delving into networking and making planes move.
To properly set expectations on where things stand, right now it's just loading the sector file and drawing it. I had been having problems with zooming and panning that were bugging me, but those have been resolved.
However, despite my warnings of the rudimentary state at which we're at, I can't resist a small teaser:
That boys and girls, is KLAX from the ZLA sector file. (Only airports, runways and geo's are being drawn in this example.) The colors no doubt need adjusting, but any ZLA controller will certainly feel at home looking at that diagram.
So what's up next?
Before I get too far, I need to optimize the drawing routines, so that's probably next. Then I'll start wiring up the interface to allow the enabling / disabling of drawing of all the various sector file elements without having to change code. After that I'll start working on the text system (chat windows and such). Once all that is done, we'll be ready to start delving into networking and making planes move.
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