Slaad's Programming Stuff

Well my NetMD has kicked the bucket. It still works great as a player. But it's caught the Blankdisc Bug. As a result I fear using any editing functions on existing MDs I own. So, until I get the unit replaced (Or someone buys me an N10 replacement ;), I won't be working on BeNetMD / libbenetmd. Sorry.

Being that I'm so far into the depths of boredom thanks to Jaycar taking several weeks to deliver something, I decided to ask on #bedev for help on the BPopUpMenu / BColumnListView bug. Turns out voidref was able to shed some light on it. It's a bug in BCLV. So if you ever have a problem whereby a BPopUpMenu disappears instantly after activated in a BCLV do the following;

BPoint screenPoint = fList->ScrollView()->ConvertToScreen(point);
screenPoint.x = screenPoint.x - 2.0;
screenPoint.y = screenPoint.y - 2.0;

// Make use of screenPoint in Go()

I also fixed the Time gibberish bug. Now I just need to finish testing some functions. I feel a release is rather close.

The group nuking bug has been fixed and group manipulation should be better than ever.

Whilst on the trail of this bug I discovered a pretty serious flaw in the Time class. It basically needs a total rewrite to be more concurrent access friendly. Actually most of the classes will require this.

Once this is done it's just that darned BPopUpMenu bug remaining. Which I'll get one day, honest! If it takes me too long I'll just have to leave it in there and make a new release. Apart from that ... the next release is shaping up rather nicely.

Anyone wishing to submit a wishlist, please do so via email: slaad AT bong DOT com DOT au. Anyone requesting the ability to write tracks will be met with head nodding and requests for them to provide protocol documentation and a Translator for ATRAC3. That is to say - don't request writing / reading of track information. Everyone wants that and obviously I have plans for that to happen. I'm more after things like "You should add a pretty little icon to indicate if it's a disc, group or track" (Which I plan to do anyway).

Hah! Get it? What a pun. Well, no you wouldn't get it until you read the update.

I just fixed the logic behind the Time::Scale / Time::operator / (const float scale) So now scaling actually scales the time, not each unit. (Eg. Previously 2 minutes 3 seconds scaled by 0.75 would equate to approximately 1 minute 1 second. Should be 1 minute 32). It was a rather silly bug, but it's fixed. Which means that the Track Slider should work far more reliably now. Yay!

Still being haunted by the BPopUpMenu bug. Oh, and that Group nuking bug. Whoops

Huzzah! I nailed the one-opening-of-Track-Window-per-execution bug last night. It was a combination of removing the rows in the wrong order and some misallocation of memory in the library. So that's all fixed now. Whilst finding it I found a bunch of other allocation related problems thanks to MALLOC_DEBUG=15.

On the down side I also rediscovered, that is to say remembered, a bug relating to the BPopUpMenu for right clicking items in the Track Window. I'm not sure what the deal is here, but I'm obviously going to try and fix this. I'm really hankering to get a release out so that people can find bugs and have their precious MiniDisc's nuked - "Oh, yeah, I forgot about that bug, you can't try and name a Track, it calls EraseDisc() if you do." On the more serious side... I'd just like to finish my rewrite of the Intellimouse Drivers - which are actually just drivers for any USB Mouse featuring a scroll wheel and extra buttons. If you want your mouse to be supported read this (That link may not have worked - it's the entry titled "Attention: Please Read")

The ever famous TODO list dates 2002-11-21 now stands at;

• Finally get rid of the need for the commandline DONE!
• Make Track Listing window use the proper hierarchy (disc -> group -> track)  DONE!
• Disable attempting to update items when the disc is write protected DONE!
• Clean up the excessive debugging output DONE!
• Replace ASCII butt-ugly buttons with BPictureButtons or Marco's TapeDeck buttons DONE!
• Fix clicking on the Track Slider - may not make it into next release
• Fix up a drawing bug with the new Track Listing window DONE!
• Fix a crash which only allows one opening of the Track Listing window per execution
• Fix updating of track rows DONE!

The current versions have a slight bug - well not so much bug as lack of functionality - regarding long titles. libbenetmd would only get the first 216 bytes of a title this usually meant that on a disc with a lot of groups not all your tracks would appear in their proper groups. Thanks to a guy - who I think is called Marc, but his last name escapes me - and his tireless efforts on the NetMD protocol this bug will be eliminated in the next release. Which means libbenetmd will support the full ~1720 character titles that the NetMD allows. Huzzah!

P.S. Anyone into EBM/Industrial music should check out a friend of mine's band at http://symbiotic.boredofstudies.org

Rock! I just added NetMD::SetPlayBackMode() to libbenetmd. This allows some features which are not in OpenMG. Which I think is very cool. Currently allows normal playback, repeat, repeat single, shuffle and shuffle repeat. I'm also about to implement a ForceTOCUpdate() command to ensure that the "cached" data that libbenetmd and the actual data on the player are in sync.

I've got to put it into BeNetMD - but that should only take a few minutes.

Other than that, not much to report. Been a bit bored of programming lately. Now's a great time to send emails telling me I rock or CDs from A Different Drum. </leech mode>

Lately I've been relaxing. When not relaxing I've been looking through the Intellimouse Driver source which Jim Mussared graciously sent me. However I'm still doing things for BeNetMD / libbenetmd. And just to proove it... a new screenshot

BeNetMD: Because we care

So there you have it - proof I still do stuff. I can't tell you when the next release will be out, as I honestly don't know. At the moment some bugs in the MoveTrack() and the Group manipulation functions. Once those are sorted I'll post a new release. Enjoy

Things haven't been progressing quite as planned. Mostly due to laziness on my part. As well as an addiction to PS2. I guess that's what happens when you use software written in someone's spare time, eh? However my TODO list dated 2002-11-21 now stands at;

• Finally get rid of the need for the commandline DONE!
• Make Track Listing window use the proper hierarchy (disc -> group -> track)  DONE!
• Disable attempting to update items when the disc is write protected DONE!
• Clean up the excessive debugging output DONE!
• Replace ASCII butt-ugly buttons with BPictureButtons or Marco's TapeDeck buttons
• Fix clicking on the Track Slider - may not make it into next release
• Fix up a drawing bug with the new Track Listing window
• Fix a crash which only allows one opening of the Track Listing window per execution
• Fix updating of track rows