While UI is often the last thing a programmer thinks about when starting on a new project, it’s often the very first thing a user knows about your project. Why then don’t we all use the latest and greatest UI patterns? Perhaps many coders find visual design to be out of their domain, or perhaps they feel that the execution of the algorithms contained within their program are of paramount concern to users. Regardless of the reason, disgruntled users have started to leave once trusted programs whose interfaces have not kept up with the times. How then to update your app(or game!) to the newest visual hotness?
As programmers, we’re almost universally guilty of it: Boring Readme.md files that nobody wants to read. Why then, shouldn’t we spice up our Readme.md files with some pizzazz? A source tree visualization is easy to add to a Readme.md using GitHub markup, and there’s an open source project which makes the visualization of the tree itself a breeze. While it never found a market as a product, Source Tree Visualizer (STV) has found a new life since being open sourced last spring. Below, I’ll show you how to add STV to your build process and display the most current version in your README.md file.
I’ve been working on a skeletal animation/game programming article for a little while now, and it has prompted me to update some of my other projects. The first update is that ‘Quick Grapher’ functionality is now embedded into my WordPress theme. I’ve posted up the original ‘Quick Grapher Embedded’ tutorial page here.
So you’ve seen the power of Quick Grapher and want to add it to your site? What’s the absolute fastest way to do this? Well, you can always grab the source from the GitHub repo, but if you don’t want to mess with all that, just include the files from hunterdavis.com like:
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While pushing out an update to ‘The Grind‘ this week, I had a few users who reported crashes with the newest content pack update. Unfortunately, Google Play’s dev console did not show the errors, and the users were not sure where the crashes were occurring. What is a developer to do?
Just a heads up for folks leveling characters in my pseudo-RPG The Grind, I’ve just pushed live a new expansion pack! This updates the leveling system and adds a ton of new data items. You can (of course), grab the newest code from the GitHub repository, or from Google Play
This is the second in an article series about Android development, open source software, audio production, and so much more. You can read part 1 here.
Just a couple of quick updates for my weekend readers.
After a week or so of using my unfinished Dreamcast coffee table, some of its flaws were beginning to irk me. The 1/8″ acrylic top was too bendy to hold heavy drinks or pitchers, and the clear-top table was too camouflaged for my aging dog to see properly. As such, she wouldn’t notice it was there until she was right up on it; at which point she’d get spooked and run off. I taped paper over the corners in an effort to not terrify my dog on a regular basis. This helped her see the table, but looked rather unfinished. I knew what had to be done. I headed out to my local hardware store to purchase some 1/4″ acrylic sheeting and a can of “Gamecube” purple spray-paint. I have to say, there’s something oddly satisfying about embedding a Sega system in a table painted like a Nintedo system.
A couple of weeks ago I threw a Dreamcast and an LCD monitor into a Printer/Scanner shell. It turned out great, but was just the beginning. I was playing some Marvel Vs Capcom on it, and I realized that with a bit of modification it could make for a great coffee table. The first part of that modification is completed, and the lower top-plate has been attached to the unit. It’s pretty much finished, functionally speaking, but there’s still much to do in the visual department. I still need to decorate the case, add a front-plate for the DC controller ports, decorate the upper portion of the top-plate and secure it the the plate that’s currently on there, and a few other visual niceties (like a volume control rocker). In the meantime, here’s a preview of how it’s going so far.
