Dianara v0.4 is out!

I’ve just released Dianara v0.4, as the first pump.io-based version.

The program is far (very far) from being usable, but I wanted to put a non-development version out there. But still, consider it a demo version.

You can get the code from Qt-apps.org: http://qt-apps.org/content/show.php/Dianara?content=148103

Keep in mind that a lot of the buttons and other widgets are placeholders with no real use at the moment.

What you can do is configure your account, authorize the program to access your account, see the last 20 posts in your timeline, post text-only messages (with some HTML formatting), and see the list of people you follow.

Cheers!

Dianara as a pump.io client

Hello there!

So Dianara is being turned into a pump.io client. Current version in gitorious can now post (with some text formatting), see the last 20 posts in your timeline (with number of comments, likes and shares, but not the comments themselves), and list the people you follow (not your followers, yet).

First step is to configure the account. The process is still a little rough, but it should be pretty straightforward:

1. Enter your pump address (user@pumpserver.something), push the “Get Verifier” button.
2. Your web browser opens up with the right address for your pump server, asking for authorization (you might need to log in first).
3. After you authorize Dianara, you get a “token”, and a “Verification code“. Copy that verification code and paste it in Dianara’s account configuration window.
4. Click on “Authorize Application“. A text should appear indicating that Dianara is authorized to access your data.
5. Click “Save Details“.
6. Profit!

Now your timeline should appear and you should be able to post.

Hopefully Dianara will be a semi-capable client once identi.ca makes the switch to the pump.io system on June 1st.

Still alive!

Hello there! Since the blog looks a little dead, here’s a quick post!

I haven’t done much coding lately, so not much to blog about. The development versions of some of my programs have had some minor updates, but not enough for a release. I’ve also adapted some of them to be Qt5-compatible.

On a side note, sometimes I get visits from people looking for information on why Auralquiz doesn’t work for them. Well, all I can say for now is: use the Phonon-VLC backend. Phonon-Xine worked great with it, but was (and for the moment, still is) deprecated, and Phonon-Gstreamer has some problems with it, so… Phonon-VLC is the one that works for now. Sorry for the trouble.

Revised v0.1 is out!

A week ago I blogged about a new project, Revised, which will eventually be a simple visual editor for a visual novel game engine called Ren’Py.

Revised v0.1 featuring Eileen, from Ren’Py!

The project is going well, so I’ve released a 0.1 version as a preview.

Download the source code from Qt-Apps.org: http://qt-apps.org/content/show.php/Revised?content=152369 (sorry, I can’t provide binary packages for any distributions at this time, check the INSTALL file for compiling instructions).

There are still a million things missing, but there are already several things you can do with it:

• Create new projects, load them, and save them.
• Keep track of chapters and their “steps” in the chapter list.
• Manage character definitions to use in the game.
• Manage image definitions.
• Design scenes with 3 basic things: Set a background image, add other images, like characters or props and add dialog lines.

After some basic stuff has been added to the game, you can save it and run it in Ren’Py, straight from Revised’s menus.

This is Lucy, from Ren’Py, and she’s mad!

I hope you like it, and if you ever thought about creating novel-type games with Ren’Py, but found that writing scripts was confusing or tiring, maybe this program can help you. The goal is that you’ll need no programming experience to make your simple game.

You can check out the main Revised page on this blog for more information, and the Revised category to see all the posts about it.

Feedback is welcome!

Revised, a visual editor for Ren’Py

Time for a new project! This time it will be a simple visual editor, or GUI, for Ren’Py, the visual novel game engine.

Main window of Revised, a few days old

Game creation with Ren’Py is based on writing scripts with special Ren’Py syntax, and the possibilities are almost endless. But writing scripts is difficult for some people, so clicking menus and buttons in a graphical editor feels a lot easier. That’s the idea behind Revised: to offer a simple assistant to create simple games, or the skeleton of the game.
Revised generates .rpy files that Ren’Py will use, and those files can still be enhanced with a regular text editor, of course.

Character Manager and Image Manager

For now, there is basic project generation, image manager and character manager. There are no releases yet, but you can get the current code from Gitorious, here:
http://gitorious.org/revised

As usual, it’s based on Qt and targeted mainly at GNU/linux systems.

StressItOut v0.1 is out!

StressItOut v0.1 has been released.
You can download it from Qt-apps.

This overdue release fixes compilation with Qt version 4.8 and later, adds Ukrainian and Russian translations by Drool, an ALT Linux contributor, and has some basic lm_lensors support, along with other minor enhancements.

StressItOut packages are available on Archlinux’s AUR service, and on Alt Linux repositories.

You can get the latest development source from Git, here:

http://gitorious.org/stressitout

Thanks to all the packagers, translators, testers and bug reporters out there! \o/

Mini-update

Just a quick update to say two things:

1.- If you try Dianara, the Diaspora App, in its 0.2 version from nonGNU or Qt-apps, it won’t get any posts in the timeline. Some stuff has been changed in Diaspora, so you’ll need to test the development version of Dianara directly from Git.

2.- If you have problems running Auralquiz, my music guessing game (if it doesn’t play sound), check if you’re using Phonon-backend-gstreamer in your Phonon configuration. If so, try using Phonon-backend-vlc.

Auralquiz does not work right with the Gstreamer backend at this point, I don’t know yet if it’s some regression in the latest Phonon-gstreamer or a problem in the way Auralquiz handles things. Switching to the vlc-backend should help. Or the xine-backend, if you still can.

Cheers!

Auralquiz v0.8.1, a bugfix release

I’ve just uploaded Auralquiz 0.8.1, a bugfix release.

Changes since v0.8:

– Fixed compilation for GCC 4.7 (fixes this Debian bug). Thanks to Dean Evans for letting me know.
– Added French translation, thanks to ntome.
– Added Italian translation, thanks to Giovanni.

As always, you can get it from Qt-apps, here:

http://qt-apps.org/content/show.php/Auralquiz?content=139127

If you have the development version, you already have these fixes applied.

Dianara’s progress, take 2

It’s been over a month since my last post about Dianara, so I guess it’s time to blog about its progress again. With screenshots, of course! (excuse the dark color scheme, that’s just my system configuration)

First, the posts now display the avatar, the markdown-inserted images, and the “fuzzy date”, like “10 days ago”:

Second, I’ve implemented a basic contact list:

But there’s a catch: the contact list data works using Pistos’ Fake API, something temporary he added to his Diaspora fork, for developers to play with. This means you’ll only be able to see your contacts if you have an account on one of the pods using Pistos code. But then you won’t have the timeline posts.

And third, I’ve started a prototype for the Messages tab, the private conversations, but it still doesn’t handle any real data. It’s a mockup, basically:

I have a 0.1 “demo” version in Qt-apps.org, but there are many changes in the git/development version, including all the above.

Dianara also has a main website now: http://dianara.nongnu.org/
Simple and ugly right now, but hopefully, it will be nicer in the future!

Dianara’s progress

With Auralquiz 0.8 out the door, I’ve now turned my attention back to Dianara, my Diaspora app, for a while.

There’s a lot more API available now, so Dianara can fetch the first page (15 posts) of your public timeline, and display it.

A picture is worth more than a thousand words, they say:

Colors are just my system configuration

There is some basic Markdown rendering (bold, italic, and headers), and basic information about the post: Author, creation time, number of likes, number of comments, and, if it’s a reshare, the name of the original post’s author.

There is no OAuth authentication yet, so it is not possible to see your stream, aspects, contacts… well, anything not public.
In the Account dialog, the “access token” field can be filled with anything, it’s not used at this time. But hopefully soon!