Some progress

    Hello again

My non-focus on naiv is continuing, and the design of my other project is progressing (though last week was better than this week :P ). However over the last weekend i found some time and did do some coding on naiv. In many ways it pleases me that i can drop my code for weeks / month come back and ... just fix something.

It would appear that my fight with the CVS is paying off and i'm checking the modified code in on SF right now. What the changed code now does is when I (hopefully you also thought there is something in my configuration code which I as yet can not make sense off ... mostly because it's not important yet), hit <Alt> and thus bring up the status information, moving the mouse over the cache contents displays the images with zoom in some ways similar to the way the dock on an apple does things, though not smoothly stepped, and not moving all over the place.

The code is very buggy, but it doing that is important to me. Flicking through the images updates the cache information in the 'cache bar' and that's also good. However, i don't recall if the code i'm checking in is the version where i then started to optimize speed by not generating the entire cachebar each time the image is flicked... the problem with that is that my buttons are missing their setX() and setY() and the logic to calculate the new locations is missing ... but you know, i'm working on it.

I have tomorrow off work, so there is a chance i'll do some work on this...

chakkerz

-- Posted by chakkerz 2007-09-29

Break

    Hello there

As you may have noticed i've been taking a break from naiv. I'm half way through the next release version which would bump this into beta rather than alpha as it currently stands (the 'cachebar' is a vital aspect of this).

Development went really excellent and then i hit a wall. I've worked through that wall for the most part, alas i do not seem to string sufficient time together to make any real progress. Coupled with programming a lot at work and long hours there (that partially is my own fault) and up-comming training all over the place (yay!! i get to go to Melbourne [for certain] ... and possibly Sydney) and a very busy partner doing her prac; nevermind the hour long treck to work and PLUS back I rarely am inclined to code. Lastly there is another project I've started on recently (still design phase) which I kind of am more interested in. Seeing as i've never gotten much feedback i don't think naiv is too interesting to anyone but myself.

This project is not abandoned, but at the same time it is only in passive development.

Any issues let me know and i'll still work on incorporating them when i find more time...

happy computing all.

-- Posted by chakkerz 2007-06-08

A new year and ... well this is where naiv is at

I've moved, i've built a new computer, i've bought a new mouse, i've worked on naiv and ... well things are moving:

Some bug fixes - the cachebar is now staying in sync as one moves through the images (though my new mouse is currently triggering two clicks per scroll on the mouse wheel ... this might be linux only).

Starting the program has had a stack of fixes and a complete revision of the persistence handling (i may have mentioned this before, but i had mostly forgotten that i'd done it ... one I realised that i had, i remembered all the recurssion that was in there ... the reason i might be mentioning it again is that i just did the documentation).

I'm currently in the process of building a new ikea desk, then the new Core2Duo will have a propper home, external drives and such will be setup, my Athlon 2800+ will be reconfigured for testing (it will run Slackware while the Core2Duo will run Sabayon and XP ... and probably a vm for FC)

Oh yes and the CVS is live now. So if you want to look at the day to day enhancements (*cough cough*) you now can ... i'm sorta happy to have an offsite CVS :)

Anyways... i'm hoping to get the CacheBar buttons and other components into classes of their own and making the cachebar the manager class. (and finally removing all the temp stuff which will go into permanent form in their own classes).

eitherway work continues ...

-- Posted by chakkerz 2007-01-15

CacheBar Progress report

The CacheBar implementation is now in full swing, with memory and filename output completed and hooks into the config for the customizations. As far as i can see, this is working flawless. The cachebar itself ...which if you are not quite on the same wavelength as me, or missed me saying what it was, let me just explain that first:

The 'CacheBar' is essentially a fusion of the toolbar and statusbar. The toolbar never existed and was initially intended to be a boring toolbar type thing that you could use to navigate through the images if you didn't have a mousewheel, or like the concept of clicking on a button in favour of spinning the mouse wheel. There was a plan for a friend to implement a status bubble which visualized the cache's data, but due to him having other commitments never got looked into. This status bubble concept would have been a couple of little popup icons, which would give a preview of what is to come, what has been ... in essence all the images cached.

So that is all pretty neat, there was even some plans to make the preview's sizes vary to give the appearance of context. Fast forward (from 0.4.0 pre1) to today (0.4.0 pre13) and some things have changed. The toolbar mentioned has the problem that it required icons, and ... frankly i'm not great at drawing stuff (sok, i'll still need to do that) so i figured well, what if the toolbar and that status bubble merged, and i skipped the whole boring toolbar thing, and made it something that is reflective of what's in the cache? What functions do you need in a toolbar anyway? forward, back ... maybe some mode selection ... possibly opening files, printing ... So i concluded that the best solution would be to offer just that. Forward and back through the cache ... give mode changing ... modes should be very apparent to the user, so hey ... why not incorporate the status of the mode into the button (the prototype also had a zoom icon on the mouse pointer). Opening files and printing are ... well not really planned as being a part of the toolbar (for one printing is not implemented, and does not strike me as a too commonly used feature, and opening files ... well that is more common, but I'm not sure if i should include that (though it is on the todo list).

So where is the implementation at: the borders for the icons are being drawn, a preliminary data structure exists (this will be changed next into the final data structure ... based on the Cache ADT that already exists but with two extra (independent) nodes. And then the icons (small previews of the contents of the cache) are going to be painted on (atm only current is displayed on all). After that i'll look into recognizing the clicks in the location where the buttons are drawn, and implement button highlighting (and undoing this again). And then bring it all together and add the functionality to use the buttons for their intended function. Somewhere in there will be painting icons (for showing what the button does).

And after that, bug fixes, some documentation and drag and drop into the main window to define series ... and all the joy that will come with that.

Anyway ... now you know where naiv 0.4.0 pre13 is headed. The release after that are pretty planned, but i'll deal with that later (when things firm up).

cheerio

-- Posted by chakkerz 2006-11-13

Cachebar design and progress

Hello there

Cachebar design (stage 1 - the statusbar replacement) is about to be completed. The memory meter is going to get an info output revision which will narrow (and widen) depending on available screen real estate.

Stage 2, the actual toolbar replacement (which ... never saw an implemented toolbar) is next after that.

Drag and drop support is going to be next after that, possibly there will be another test program written ... but time will tell.

The autoflick bugfix will also be implemented most likely (it depends how deeply it is tied into the OptionsFrame / Config data structures.

Pre 14 is planned to see the inclusion of a lot of new options and a general options overhaul. And probably german language support. It may also be RC1 and will also move the project into Beta state.

Pre 15 / RC2 will concentrate on bug fixes, probably better installation process (oh who am i kidding, a installation process).

0.4.1 goals are starting to be set atm.

Release date for 0.4.0 pre13 ... at this stage not sure, but probably not before the end of the year....

-- Posted by chakkerz 2006-10-26

Drag and Drop Demo for JAI released

G'day

Pending the request in my tracker I've taken some time to work out how to do Drag and Drop into a DisplayJAI (the container I use to display my images). I know that this isn't just a matter of now dropping this into my code and things will work, but it is a big step considering two nights ago i was considering not implementing the feature because the documentation across the web made ... less than sense. Sun's tutorial page was equally bad, but after getting NetBeans to agree with what I wanted to do (I never realised that it didn't re-compile associated classes unless they are either in a project OR it's explicitly told to do so).

Anyway from that point i set about ripping out all the stuff I really did not care about (like the file chooser at the top of the window they have, and such, since i want to drag and drop from a file browser or the like. AND (more importantly) understanding how this all worked. Realizing that the code in the tutorial makes some assumptions which explains why stuff is being passed around the place, without said arguments being used in the functions ... eitherway. This thing works in Windows, as the top shows this was coded in Windows, so i'm making good on my promise to put some effort into compatibility with Windows.

Eitherway, the code is here: http://naiv.sourceforge.net/DragFileToJAIDemo.html or http://naiv.sourceforge.net/DragFileToJAIDemo.java

One thing to note is that you'll have to remove the 'package test_code' at the start ... :)

Good luck with it

-- Posted by chakkerz 2006-09-15

Zoom functionality and 0.4.0 pre13 progress

Firstly, zoom has been added in two different ways:

1) Q&D (quick and dirty) - zoom on the fly by flicking the mouse wheel while holding a modifier key; and

2) area selection - same modifier key, and drag select the area.

This is working quite well so far, though there are some missing features ... like the ability to restore to the original image. Also I'd like to add the underlying code structures to allow a number of customization things. This brings me to my second point, pre13's goals are most likely going to be split into 2 (possibly three). At this rate pre14 is probably going to be entirely focused on enhancements to the OptionsFrame and the addition of options, as well as the ability to reduce the number of options (that is hide complexity due to configurability).

I'm not certain as to the cachebar and where it will fit in, because the changes to the options is going to be rather extensive - the zoom functionality has added some significant changes (without looking it up, at least 4 more interaction/appearance related options). Plus there are some other planned things in there atm ... I'll have to see.

... Anyways. The next thing that will be addressed (aside from addressing the missing features and such for zoom) will be drag and drop support ... This will likely feature a series of stubs into the options.

I guess what i'm trying to say is this: work is progressing beautifully :) .

-- Posted by chakkerz 2006-09-12

naiv 0.4.0 pre12 RELEASED

Finally ... it's out. Have fun with it.

-- Posted by chakkerz 2006-07-19

0.4.0 pre12 feature set ... re-extended

Hello All

I've mentioned before that i was intending to not release naiv 0.4.0 pre12 with tooltips, this has changed for two reasons.

Firstly, i've done the manual and figure if i don't do it now, i won't want to do it later, but more importantly:

Secondly, naiv has serious problems on Windows.

In particular the preferences window does not show up when told to, and the fullscreen operation is a little ... flaky ... (it will go into undecorated mode, but not max size ... i expect this to be minor, and the preferences window to be more involved).

Eitherway, since the people that bug me most about naiv are having issues with naiv on windows ... I'll address this, and because i'll do the indepth testing (well reasonably indepth) i might as well do the tool tips as well.

I'm still aiming for Mac OS X, GNU/Linux (KDE) and Windows XP. Reason for the move to Windows as outlined prior is that i'm getting rid of the OS X laptop until the Core 2 Duo's are featured on the MacBook Pro, so testing will be limited to my flatmate's, but seeing as i'm updating some minor display issues which should have universal code, this should not be an issue. to overall operation.

I'm still happy with an August release, but most likely we are still gonna be cooking by the end of July. (Just for the record, planned release date was end of August, so i'm currently way ahead of schedule).

Catch ya 

-- Posted by chakkerz 2006-07-09