qooxdoo is a rich internet application framework, which basically means that it allows you to create javascript based web applications that look pretty similar to native applications by providing common GUI elements which you can not get by using just HTML and recreates some others in order to give the GUI a consistent design. The framework part means that in order to create your own qooxdoo application, you need to install some software on the operating system you are developing with.

This software are actually a bunch of python scripts that merge many javascripts together, strip them down and do some other useful tasks. That means however, that you need to build your project, before you can release it.

I haven’t done much with that framework yet – except for creating an AUR package – but I guess I will code something with it in the future

If this stuff sounds interesting to you, check out the demo browser.

PS: Yes, this article will probably appear twice on twitter and/or your feed reader. Why? Because using wordpress.com with effective cache settings seems to be a bad idea. I guess the other article I wrote this day just replaced this one. Luckily I had a tab open and so I just copy pasted the whole thing.

Speaking of AUR packages, I have spent a lot of time on trying to make a working lightning-hg package. In case you do not know what hg is, it is the name of the binary that one can use to access a mercurial repository (something like git, svn, cvs etc). Basically it should provide the most bleeding edge version on the interwebs, which works with thunderbird 3.

Anyway, the mozilla build process is very complicated as there is one repository for many mozilla apps and some of their add-ons. I made a PKGBUILD which downloads the source properly, but I couldn’t get the compile part right yet (and I’m too bored to try harder right now).

So if you think you are a skilled AUR contributor and/or would also like to see a lightning-hg package, write something in my archbbs request thread. Thanks

…I finally found a lyrics display program, that fits my needs. As always, I am looking for some specific features I want definitely to be implemented. In this case, I required realtime scrolling with the text (so it displays just the line that gets spoken on the song right now), support for Amarok 1.4 and the ability to act as OSD (on screen display). Last but not least I wanted to get the lyrics downloaded automatically from the intertubes. Well, after spending too much time trying out all the lyrics programs I could find – twice – I decided to stick with osd-lyrics. It has a few bugs though, but it basically does what I want it to

osd-lyrics in action

Posted in English Tagged: amarok, lyrics, music, osd, osd-lyrics ]]> http://thoughtyblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/after-a-long-search/feed/ 0 thoughtyblog osd-lyrics http://thoughtyblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/my-first-wall-texture/ http://thoughtyblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/my-first-wall-texture/#comments Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:31:21 +0000 thoughtyblog http://thoughtyblog.wordpress.com/?p=1210 ]]>

I decided to make a wall texture and see how it turns out, but the only think I really like about it are the colors. Compared to a wall texture I used from another Urban Terror map just for testing, this one has much bigger bricks (but that isn’t too bad as it is theoretically possible to scale it within the level editor).

But the thing that really bugs me is the blurry middle part… in case you don’t know too much about such textures (as I did yesterday until reading some tutorials), you take a square of a (free-for-use) photo and then set an offset for the image in GIMP (or what you like to use) to x/2 and y/2 (if your imagination isn’t that good, here are some example pictures). The goal is to make a transition between all the edges (which are now in the middle) and in my bad example, it looks like the that part is painted or something :-\

I’m glad I did a wall anyway, because now I know exactly how it works. But for good looking textures, I’ll probably use some from the default UrT maps and change the color in order to get what I want.

…that I can use to write an article in my blog. That software I develop, ghostship, runs very stable in my experience. I think *someone* should package it for other Linux distributions. I’ve got already someone working on a Debian port, but I am not quite sure if and when he will actually do it – maybe I will do it myself in a few weeks.

Twitter became a handy tool for me, now I am able to post things like „the new southpark episode is [my opinion] [link]“ in just a few seconds rather than expanding this information to a whole blog article and finally posting it on wordpress (like I used to do previously). Another cool thing I noticed is that this information does get indexed on my blog by Google however, because the most recent (and who reads old ones anyway) tweets are shown in the navigation. That way you don’t even need to „follow“ me or add my twitter account to your feed reader

I’ve experimented around a bit with GTKRadiant (a map editor) in combination with Urban Terror as I wrote earlier. By now I am trying to remake cs_1337_assault from Counter-Strike 1.6, as this is one of my favorite maps with some outdated graphics though. On the other hand, I don’t like the Source version, because it is too different from the original cs_assault – I’ll try to mix it up with my own ideas. But by now I don’t have much yet except for the one building which is directly in front of the CT spawn, crappy lighting and some lame textures which I just use from the default Urban Terror maps. Well, if I have enough time and the map turns out to look great and be very playable without changing the original cs_assault feeling too much, I’ll definitely post it on this blog.

Yesterday and today I’ve been trying to get a version of gtkradiant working with Archlinux in order to make own Urban Terror maps. The result is that I expanded the UrT wiki page and created two AUR packages. Everything seems to work now, I just need to get skilled in that editor

Yesterday night I decided that it was time to give my desktop a new design. In my case, usually everything begins with a new wallpaper, but this time I decided to also use a new icon set. So I asked yaourt what the AUR had to offer and stumbled upon some very nice themes called gnome-colors. They are beautiful, I am using GNOME-Carbonite, which is included in that package right now. The next step was to find a fitting background… in the end, I chose Kurt Russell who plays Stuntman Mike in Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof (which is part of Grindhouse). Needless to say that I like the movie and recommend it, if you like QT’s other movies. Last but not least, one needs to set some matching gnome colors (I pick them with GIMP right off the wallpaper) and re-configure conky. I’m glad I did that, because my old desktop setup got kind of boring (as with all of them after a while).

desktop, stuffed

desktop, clean

Das zweiter Update für den languages Abschnitt der Navigation auf der rechten Seite ist nun fertig; ein Twitter Icon. Das erste Update war übrigens das Symbol mit dem Briefumschlag, über den es dank feedmyinbox möglich ist die neuen Artikel via E-Mail (es soll tatsächlich Leute geben, denen das lieber ist als einen Feed-Reader zu nutzen…)  zu lesen. Aber im Gegensatz zu dieser eher simplen Änderung, die ja wirklich nur aus einem Link und einem Bild besteht, forderte die jüngste doch mehr Aufwand. Zwei Twitter Accounts sowie einen Account bei RSS2Twitter.com als Kleber zwischen den Protokollen sorgen dafür, dass die Sache läuft.

The second update for the languages section in the navigation on the right side is now complete; a Twitter icon! By the way, the first update was about the symbol with the envelope. Thanks to feedmyinbox, it allows you to read all the new articles via E-Mail (some say that there are actually people who prefer that over using a feed-reader…). But compared to that rather simple change, which was actually only a linked picture, the newest one needed a bit more work. Two Twitter accounts as well as one account at RSS2Twitter.com as glue between the two protocols do the job.

Bis vor kurzem hätte ich zwecks mangelnder Erfahrung nicht gedacht, dass IT besonders langweilig sein kann. Doch ich lag falsch, wie es sich zeigen sollte.

Als erstes gab es zwei Vorbereitungsstunden, die in einem Raum stattfanden, welcher nicht mit Computern ausgerüstet war. Es wird wohl erst mal lange Zeit um das Thema Tabellenkalkulationsprogramm nutzen gehen, weshalb der Lehrer erklärt hat, wie denn die Tabellen aufgebaut sind, wie man Formeln in die Zellen schreibt und was absolute und relative Adressierungen sind (das mit $A$1 bzw. A1). Es ist tatsächlich möglich damit neunzig Minuten zu füllen, wobei jeder, der zumindest einen Computer von Weitem schon einmal gesehen hat, selbige Informationen durch eine Demonstration an einem solchen Gerät in sagen wir mal maximal 20 Minuten aufnehmen kann. Denn dann braucht man sich nicht alles selbst vorstellen, sondern sieht direkt wie es funktioniert. Stichwort: praxisnah.

Aber genug davon, war halt vom Stundenplan her nicht anders zu organisieren, dachte ich mir und so freute ich mich schon auf die nächste Doppelstunde. Es fing auch ganz gut an – wir bekamen ein Arbeitsblatt mit einem mathematischen Problem, dass sich leicht in Excel, das Tabellenkalkulationsprogramm, welches in diesem Raum installiert ist,  lösen ließe. So weit so gut. PC anmachen, ein bisschen herumprobieren und innerhalb von ein paar Minuten dann das Problem gelöst haben, den Anderen ein bisschen helfen, nächste Aufgabe? Pustekuchen.

Viel mehr begann der Lehrer dann damit eine Tabelle an die Tafel zu zeichnen und uns nach Formeln zu befragen, wie man nun jenes Problem lösen könnte. Das ging so weit, bis detailgenau jeder einzelne Mausklick besprochen wurde und alle benötigten (es waren eh nur zwei oder drei) Formeln in Excel Syntax an der Tafel standen. Das beste ist, dass unangekündigte Tests auch so ablaufen werden – ohne Computer, einfach alles schriftlich auf ein Blatt schreiben. Und wehe es ist etwas falsch! Dann gibts keine Punkte, also besser Rechenweg auch noch dazuschreiben. Was? Haben wir jetzt doch Mathe oder Physik?

Fünfzehn Minuten vor Schluss durften wir dann die Rechner booten und den Kram in Excel eintragen. In dem relativ langsamen Schulnetzwerk dauert das Hochfahren einer solchen Maschine schon an die fünf Minuten, das macht dann praktisch zehn Minuten stupides von-der-Tafel-in-den-PC-eingeben. Toller IT Unterricht.

Angenommen es würde um irgendetwas kompliziertes gehen, wie das lernen von C++ oder so, dann würde ich ja verstehen, dass man alles vorerst an der Tafel macht. Aber doch nicht bei Excel! Das funktioniert intuitiv, da ist man wirklich schneller, wenn man es einfach ausprobiert, bis es passt. Das läuft in der Praxis doch auch so ab, da wird nicht erst >60 Minuten Brainstorming durchgeführt!

Ich bin tatsächlich ganz froh, dass ich nur zwei Stunden von dieser Sorte von Informatik in der Woche habe.