DeanLogic

I made an update to my Flex Egg Timer example. The Egg Timer uses Degrafa libraries to create the images. They released beta version 3.1 back in December, which was after I started working on a project that used the Egg Timer. Well, when I created an updated version of the project using the new version of Degrafa, I was getting some very odd looking pie pieces. I was using an EllipticalArc to draw both the white timer and the red background. It gave the effect that the red background was the timer and the white part was the background. The initial arc position was set to 90 (90 degrees) or 12 o’clock on the timer. Then I had to draw the rest of the arc, which would be 360 degrees from that point. Well, the new version of Degrafa didn’t like the 360 degrees from 90, so I figured out that I need to just draw it 359 degrees from 90. It makes the clock start with one tick, but that’s not a big deal, the timer still works since it goes off of a millisecond timer.

The call to the timer still uses 360 degrees divided by the time amount. Apparently it is only the starting angle and arc that causes the issue.

EggTimerOne.setArc(360 - (event.target.currentCount * (360 / oneMinute)));

As the title of the post suggest, I also changed the example to use scaling. Flex and Flash use [w:Vector Graphics] for images. This allows the applications to easily scale due to user screen size. Since I have just started using Flex, I haven’t been working with the scaling like I should be. During the update for the application at work, I changed how things were sized by scaling based on a default size. By grabbing the screen size, I figured out the scale times value for the width and height and then scale the application parts accordingly.

In the Egg Timer example, I am scaling the different timers by a certain number to change the size, instead of altering the height and width. With this method, I can create the component at a certain size and then scale it for it’s needs. The one minute Egg Timer is put into the Application Tool bar and scaled according to the ration used in another application.

 scaleX="1.65" scaleY="1.62"

As I continue to make new components, examples and applications, I will make sure I use this scaling option more often.

Arrrghh!!

So, the Plugin Directory finally pushed the 1.1.0 version of my Mixed Tape plugin to the repository to download. After I upgraded the plugin through the admin Dashboard, I noticed that the players were not showing in the test page. Well, apparently the svn check in blew up when I tried to add the 1.1.0 version and never put the audio files up to the site. I copied the audio directory from the trunk, which is apparently a no no. So, from now on I will have to remember to copy it from my working directory, which happens to be my local directory of my site.

I know some people have demo sites of their blogs. I really never thought I would have to worry about that, until now. I really don’t want to go through the hassle of setting up a duplicate blog just for testing, but it might come to that. My blog doesn’t get much traffic, but who knows, with the plugins and the Meetup Organizer Tool, it might just start.

Anyway, I’ve released 1.1.1 of the Mixed Tape and I see that the audio directory is under that version. I guess this will also be a good test to see how the tags/revisions work. Since the audio folder wasn’t in 1.1.0, then there will be a definite change between the two version. Of course, I will have to wait until it gets pushed through the repository, however long that will take.

So, I apparently didn’t get enough sleep last night and my brain isn’t working on all cylinders. Anyway, it hasn’t stopped me from some side brain storming. Since I finally got my Mixed Tape plugin to show up on the plugin directory, I guess I was thinking about the type of people who might use it. I shared it with one of the guys over at Music Brainz, who plans to do a little write-up about the plugin. I guess that was in the back of my head, because it came to me that people who review music could use the plugin. Of course, that might have nothing to do with a music database, but it might. I bet there are plenty of people who write-up reviews about the latest album from their favorite artist, before they submit it to Music Brainz.

Since the plugin basically just takes the tracks and makes a playlist a reviewer could discuss each of the tracks on the album and link to the track as the review goes along. So, when they are done, someone could listen to the track and see if they have the same impression as the reviewer.

So, this means I probably need to make some small enhancements. I can probably add an option to the playlist to show either the mixed tape or a cd or maybe just an album. Or maybe I could show do a thumbnail of the album art, if the reviewer had that. Then I guess there would be an option as to whether or not the page contained a mixed tape or single album.

Welp, guess I better add that to the “to do” list.

Arrghhh!!
So, I got approval and the “go ahead” e-mail for my Mixed Tape plugin. I did the checkout using TortoiseSVN and it created the folders for the plugin. But, after adding files to the trunk, creating a tag folder and committing the files back up to svn, nothing. The files are up on svn, but the download page has yet to update. The page still shows my login as the author and doesn’t have any of the other information that my WP People plugin download page has. Very frustrating.

I know I’m not the only one who has gotten frustrated with creating plugins. Just check out The Agony and Ecstasy – Creating a WordPress Plugin. I even found a guy who posted a video series called How to Host a Plugin on WordPress in a four part series. The only thing I learned from the series is that it would be nice to have a new computer and maybe I would use a free open source IDE called Aptana.

I think I’ll let it set for a day and hopefully it will magically fix itself. Until then, I manually reloaded the plugin so that the demo page would still work.

I am about to release a new plugin for WordPress. I am calling it WordPress Mixed Tape (WP Mixed Tape). If you have no idea what a mixed tape (mix tape) is, well, take a little trip back in time with me. Back in the day (let’s say the 1980′s), [W:cassette tapes] where the way taking your music with you. The [W:8-track tape] had gone the way of the [W:Dodo] and record [W:albums] were not portable. If those terms seem foreign to you, I included Wikipedia links to help you understand a little better. The great thing about tapes were that you could copy them to another tape. And, if you didn’t particularly like all the songs on a tape, you could copy tracks or part of tracks off of one tape and put it on another. You could even put your own voice recording or other recordings on to the tape.

Of course, this lead to people making their own full tapes for different purposes. One of the best or worst purposes for mixed tapes was for wooing someone. If you had a crush on someone or had been dating them for a period of time, you could show your love by copying a bunch of different songs that related to your emotional attachment to the other person onto a mixed tape. You could also be creative and add your own commentary in between tracks to show how that particular song meant so much to you about the current situation. For better or for worse, mixed tapes either helped or hurt the lovelorn and their situation. In today’s digital age, mixed tapes are now replaced by CDs (if you are legally allowed to make them now). But, even CDs are going away, since people can download music directly. So, what is a person supposed to do now to make a mixed tape? Well, you write a blog post as a mixed tape.

You are probably wondering how I came up with this idea. Well, Dean Logic is always all over the place, but there was a focus for this.

I was reading a coupe of posts on Gizmodo about the Windows PC commercial where “Lauren” buys a laptop for under $1000 and keeps the change. The Apple Fan Boys on Gizmodo didn’t appreciate Lauren’s selection. Not really caring about what her selection was, I was thinking I could write her an open letter stating that I didn’t care what she bought, because she’s cute. Then I started thinking that it would be great it I could make the post into a Mixed Tape. And that’s how this came about.

Basically, you add tracks to your post as you write. The idea would be that the tracks correspond to that particular part of the post. And then you add a tag to add the play list to the post with the name of your mixed tape, because very good mixed tape has a label. The code goes through and converts the track and play list tags and presto! You have a post that is also a mixed tape.

Now, to work on my open letter/mixed tape post for Lauren.

Well, I was getting a little annoyed with the look of my blog and forum, so I decided to do a little clean up.

The theme I was using on the blog was called Life Is a Byte. For one reason or another, the site I got it from is no longer available. After adding the cloud widgets and some other things, I noticed that it was behaving badly on IE. Well, I wouldn’t recommend IE to my mother, so it really wasn’t a big deal. However, I did want to get it fix, so I went searching for a new theme that was similar to what I had. My thought was, I could find a similar theme and just fix the problems in the old copy, paste and steal method of the web. Well, as you can see at the bottom of each page, I found the original theme site that my old theme was based off of.

i3Theme apparently is the “most downloaded Mac theme”, according to the site MangoOrange. Well, I like mangoes, so I have no problem that it’s supposed to be a Mac theme, I just want it to work with my blog. If you look at the site, you’ll notice that the theme comes in bright blue, dark blue, red pink and green. As you can tell by my site, I did a little alterations to one of those version. I took the red version and changed the background images to fit my darker theme. If you look very closely, you’ll notice that it’s not completely black. Unfortunately, I couldn’t copy the swoosh look they have on the colored versions, so I just did some hue alterations and left it at that. It works for what I want.

The great thing about using the original theme is that the background images in the side panels now works. Of course, that means I need to go back into the cloud widgets and make the backgrounds transparent. I am happy with how it looks in FireFox, but IE has decided that it won’t work with the theme. And, it’s not just my site, because MangoOrange has the same problem when viewed through IE. I guess they figure their users for Opera, Safari or FireFox fans.

After getting that straightened out, I did a little tweak to the Forum. The biggest problem with using WordPress for the main site and phpBB3 for the forum, is there are no good links between the two. So, I can’t stick the forum inside the blog and use the blogs theme. Also, I a member can’t register in the blog and also be registered in the forum. I tried to use a hack that would do that, but it about blew up my site. So, the most I can do is use a theme close to the one I am using on WordPress. The one I found is called ProNight. The base theme is called ProSilver, so I guess that’s how they came up with the name. After getting the new theme on the blog, I took the background image and replaced the header image on the forum. Then I added a link back to the main site (you have to do that, because there is no built-in link back to the main page). To clean things up, I removed a small site logo and change the font of the forum description. I think it fits in nicely with the site, but gives the user a slightly different look, so that they know they are on the forum and not the main site.

I also made some updates to my WP People plugin for the blog.

Little by little, I’m getting things done.