Software, Fitness, and Gaming – Jesse Warden

Blog

  • XML and Text Viewer Panel

    I’m a Flash Developer, and I parse XML all the time. Your a Flash Developer, and you potentially parse XML all the time.

    I’m not sure how you handle schema’s, but typically I’m making up the XML format as I go, and since the structure isn’t memorized, I’ll typically either open it up on Dreamweaver or Notepad, start coding my parser in Flash, and toggle back and forth when I need to refresh my memory on what the XML I’m parsing looks like.

    For smaller chunks, I can just paste an example in my code, and refer to it that way.

    …both ways suck. So, I created this panel that allows you to load text into it. I then can load my XML file into it, dock the panel, and refer to it while I’m coding. You can load any text file, but typically one would use it for XML files.

    I hope this helps your productivity, too!

    JXL XML and Text Viewer Panel – MXP | ZIP

  • Firefox Parasite

    Another confession this week: I like Firefox.

    Before you go, “Aw man, no one gives a hoot… your so late to the party, brah!” or “I don’t care about browsers, dork”, here me out.

    This whole “blah blah site doesn’t support Firefox” etc. I find frankly annoying, whiny, and curious why I should give a frigin’ care. I use IE; it works, comes pre-installed, and most everything I do works in IE. The security flaws are only exploited, in my experience, on less savory websites where one shouldn’t frequent anyway (unless you know what your doing).

    I was tasked at work to research XUL and it’s capabilities. So, I’m really digging using Mozilla’s rendering engine for XUL. It’s pretty neat that it’s nearly identical to HTML and forms development, but they have their own framework + rendering engine + installation system devoted to just this process. I never could get my Chrome install to work, the lack of proper GUI’s for this 2 year-old (it’s older, but most good forum posts start in 2002 that I saw) technology is pathetic, and it was extremely diffucult to debug (I found out later about the developer install/debug version).

    So, I’m testing things in Firefox because it appears to be more progressive in it’s use of extensions. Therefore, I’d have a plethora of examples to take apart and examine. I consider myself a window management meister. In Windows, one must master this skill to remain sane and remotely productive. I’ve found the positives in that skillset to help justify the constant clicking and moving. I then started using tabs in Firefox to switch between XULPlanet.com, Macromedia’s LiveDoc’s on their implementation, and my sample app running locally because I had other IE windows open. On dual monitors with lots of RAM, I’ll load those suckers up with windows.

    Next thing I know, I’m using other tabs for normal websites like Full As A Goog, and others to browse in my spare time. As of yesterday, I started my day opening Firefox instead of IE to visit the Goog. I then started doing it at home.

    Now, my blatant disregard for web standards probably ticks off the w3c-nazi’s, and assure’s you I’m missing the whole point. My confusion, however, stems on how the heck did a “browser” grow on me? I’m not all into web browsing as an experience. To me, it’s a frikin’ tool, end of story. And yet… here I am writing a blog entry about how frustrated I am; I feel violated, befuddled, abashed, “How could this happen?”

    Anyway, if you have time, give Firefox a week, and you’ll see what I mean. It’s just a stupid browser, you think initially. Who cares. Mozilla sux, why would this be any different, right? Bloody hell, I just realized I’m blogging in it, too.

    Damn browser. I’ll tell you, though, if IE got tabbed browsing, I’d probably go back to IE… but the CSS button and the RSS buttons are cool too. Weird man. I never thought I’d care.

  • MUD Hyperlink Engine & XML Creator

    Another one of my failed experiments. Assuming some of the code is salvageable or perhaps one can learn something.

    Attempting to build a piece of a bigger game, and this started as a MUD engine of sorts where it’ll read an XML file, and you’ll interact with speakers. They’ll say something to you, and you can respond by clicking the hyperlink of what you want to say, in effect, having a limited interactive dialogue. The XML format was complicated, so I attempted to build a tool to easily create the XML files vs. writing some cryptic XML format in Dreamweaver all day. After a week, I’ve lost interest. Too much trouble for what I want to do. Back to the drawing board.

    D&D Simple Game: MUD Engine & XML Creator – ZIP

  • Draw Lines with Undo

    Question on Flashn00bz mailing list stuck with me today. A bloke wanted to draw some lines, one at a time, and then have an undo that you could actually see. I figured the command pattern was where it was at.

    Upon getting home, I tried working on a side project, but couldn’t concentrate (lot on my mind), so I fiddled with this. Was a lot easier than using that bloody pattern. It has undo as well as undo all, and you can see them undo. Draw on the gray square via clicking and holding, drag your mouse, and let go of left mouse click.

    Drawing Lines with Undo – HTML | ZIP