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Wednesday 27 August 2008

First parts of the C++ API

Hi,

I uploaded on the SVN repository the first part of the slack-get C++ API.

I am coding this one to be as close as possible to the Perl one. So the first two classes uploaded are, of course, Slackget::Package and Slackget::PackageList. As you can see I am using the Slackget:: namespace in order to identify slack-get's classes.

As usual, the documentation and all doxygen needed files are already on the SVN too.

I am focusing on usability and stable features for this C++ API. This means that, in a first time, I will not translate all features. All classes that will fall in those exceptions will be adequatly documented.

My goal with this API is to start coding the graphical user interface as quickly as possible.

Arnaud Dupuis

Monday 17 March 2008

New english data file for PKanaEditor

Hi,

I saw - thanks to users mails - that I only gave a french data file with PKanaEditor 0.2.
So I hereby correct this mistake by providing you (attach to this post) an english localized data file (PKanaEditor English localized data file).
I hope it will fit english speaker needs !

To use this file, you just have to download it, open PKanaEditor's settings, choose a "Custom..." data source and select the file you just download as the source.

In version 0.3 there will be an automatic OS language discovering. While I'm confessing about the next release I can also tell you that I'm rewritting the auto-completion engine. The current one is indeed... a bit buggy... It generally works not too bad but their is some important issues (for example when you hit the carriage return key, you have to also hit the space key or no completion is done...).
The new engine is way better because I put the code I wrote to the dustbin and I'm now using Qt's features... And wonder what ? It's A LOT better ;)

Oh and by the way the slack-get development diary will be back this week (probably on wednesday), because I have one or two little thing to tell you.

Enjoy!

Arnaud Dupuis.

Saturday 8 March 2008

PKanaEditor - The "P" Kana Editor v0.2 - windows binaries

Hi,
Since I'm currently working on a windows xp computer, I got the occasion to compile PKanaEditor on this platform.
So, attached to this post is the windows installer containing required Qt dll and PKanaEditor binary.

This version is provided for convenience without any guarantee it will work on your windows install ;-)

Enjoy !

Arnaud Dupuis

Monday 3 March 2008

PKanaEditor - The "P" Kana Editor v0.2 released

Hi,
After some weeks of kind of hard work, here is the 0.2 version of the "P" Kana Editor.
It's now fully rewrote in C++/Qt 4.x and that's one of the smallest changes I made !
I also add a configuration window and the editor now features an intuitive "kana" completion and an help system on completion's proposal !
Moreover PKanaEditor is now multiplateform and can be used on Linux based system but also on windows systems (only XP tested) and Mac OS X (hum... it should be...) and most of the UNIX based system (*BSD, etc.).
You can download the sources from Qt-apps.org or from here. The archive is also attached to this post.

The one thing I couldn't do for this release is to find a meaning to the "P" ;-)

I hope you will enjoy it !

Arnaud Dupuis

Tuesday 26 February 2008

Public test of the PKanaEditor main widgets (KanaEditor, KanaTextEdit and KanaListWidgetItem)

Hi,

I finished to implements almost all features I wanted for PKanaEditor 0.2... in the editor widget. Well that left some works to have a complete application working smooth and fine. But since the editor widget is almost finished, I would like to have some feedback.
So I hereby release the first alpha version of this editor. Please note that this is not the complete application, it do not allow you to save your work and do nothing else but to translate what you write from romanji to kana.

I still would like some feedback about the choice I made in the implementation.
I am particularly interested in your opinion about the following points :
  • the way the kana are automatically presented to user (the completion through the "helper" popup)
  • the contextual help system (when you let your mouse above a kana a tooltip with a big version of the kana and it's meaning (for kanjis) is drawn)
  • your global feeling about this editor.
Please keep in mind that this is only the editor part of the software !
There is still time before the release of the whole program. So if some brave souls could test this editor and give me interesting feedback, I could make it better.

In order to use this editor you have to compile it. This means you need Qt4 (at least 4.2.0 but 4.3.0 or newer is recommended), g++ and make.
To compile the code for your plateform you just have to do the followings :
qmake PKanaEditor.pro
make
./PKanaEditor


I tested it on GNU/Linux (Slackware+KDE) and Windows XP and it should compile and run on Mac OS X and most of the common Unice (*BSD, etc.).
Here is a screenshot of the windows xp version :


I hope you will like it !

don't forget: feel free to send me your feelings about this... Did I mention that I wanted feedback ?

Arnaud Dupuis

Monday 25 February 2008

PKanaEditor updates

Hi,
After some thoughs I choose to change the way the helper is shown in the KanaEditor.
The tab-based widget was not easy to use in real usage conditions.
So I changed the thing and made a new helper based on a single QListWidget.
Here is the new result on Linux/KDE :


And on windows XP :

I think the Japanese font installed on the windows I use are just crappy.
Else, I can't explain the difference in quality between the windows version and the Linux one.
Next time, I will try to compile it on apple's Mac OS X.

Last but not least, I made a Qt Designer plugin of this KanaEditor widget. And thanks to the guy of irc://irc.freenode.net#qt I fixed a damn semi-colon at the end of the class definition which was "preventing" my code to compile...

See you later.

Arnaud Dupuis

Wednesday 20 February 2008

PKanaEditor new version proof of concept

Hi,
I never talk about my private life (or very few), but this time it had an influence on my Open Source work !
So here is the information : I will be married by june !
And my futur wife and I decided to spend our honeymoon in Japan... So make the link by yourself between this journey and PKanaEditor ;-)

So I have begin to code a proof of concept in C++/Qt4 and with some surprise it works pretty good ! Have a look at this screenshots :


Moreover, my new mission force me to code under microsoft windows xp, so I tried to recompile this PoC under windows and it works too ! Have a look :


Dudes from Trolltech made some incredible works ! I know it works since years but I didn't put my hands on a windows computer  in more than 8 years, and at this time I wasn't programming at all... I was too young ;-).

I now lack the XML loading of the data file and this PoC will be a stable version :)

For those who are interested in Qt programming, I do the trick translating romanji to (hiraga|kataka)na|kanji by subclassing QListWidgetItem and adding a _romanji internal QString to this item. The actual displayed character is set as the item text. Pretty simple, like the major part of Qt programming !!

The only real problem is to find a new meaning to the "P" of PKanaEditor (because it originally means Perl Kana Editor)...

Arnaud Dupuis