One of the big projects I've been working on for the last few months is a custom store system for the Neversummer project. The store system that comes with Neverwinter nights 2 is not really up to the task of dynamically pulling it's contents from the database and been able to set the buy/sell/identify price according to fields in the database.
Since we have all that data in the database already, I set about writing a custom GUI for Neversummer 5 that would allow us much more control of the stores. This is mostly complete now. The custom GUI stuff in Neverwinter Nights 2 is pretty impressive once you get the hang of it. It's mostly written in XML with some NWScripts. To start with I want the GUI of the store to be the same as the neverwinter nights 2 version, but pull content and prices from the DB.
Their are a few problems I've not found fixes for. First one been I would like to be able to drag and drop items between the store and the inv to sell them. I've not found a way to get the item that is dropped on the store.
The second problem is todo with context menus. I can't remember all the details now as it's been a while since I looked into it, but I think I was unable to stop the "Identify" menu item showing when the store was not open.
I'm currently working on the web frontend we have created to control the content of the game. This is going to be the place were the store contents are control. It's about 80% done now. When it's complete, people with access to the tool will be able to create new store and change the content of them easily.
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Neversummer
Util now I've not mentioned the other project I'm involved in, but as were looking to get blog's to apear on the projects website I though it was about time a blogged about it :-)
Neversummer is a world created on top of the nwn games. They are a completly set of content, that uses the neverwinter nights game engine. I started to work on Neversummer 4 after been a player for quite a while. Now were working on Neversummer 5 which runs on Neverwinter Nights 2.
My main contributions have been in web based tools for adding and controlling the game content and NWN Scripts which I used by the game engine. If your intrested in find out more, then visit the website.
Neversummer is a world created on top of the nwn games. They are a completly set of content, that uses the neverwinter nights game engine. I started to work on Neversummer 4 after been a player for quite a while. Now were working on Neversummer 5 which runs on Neverwinter Nights 2.
My main contributions have been in web based tools for adding and controlling the game content and NWN Scripts which I used by the game engine. If your intrested in find out more, then visit the website.
Monday, 20 April 2009
Media Centre's - Plex
I've been looking into different media centres for use in my home. I made a previous post about XBMC. This showed a lot of promise, but had a few issues (since that post I've tried the SVN version and a lot of the problems have been resolved). Since the main use I have a media center is on a mac mini below the DVD, I though I'd give Plex ago.
Plex is a media center that was forked for XMBC and only works on Intel MacOSX. The aims of the project are to produce more integrated version of XMBC for OSX.
As I stated in my previous post, I've been running MediaCentral from Equinux. However this had a few problems:
Anyway I'll start of by saying, I've been very impressed with Plex. First of it plays all my media files with no problems, both low def and high def content.
Once of the features that I really like is the the remote control support. Both Plex and XMBC (I'd not tried this till now) allow you to use a harmony remote. So I no longer need to use the apple remote with it's limited buttons. This has been really great. It makes the media center much more usable as I refuse to attack a keyboard and mouse to something below the TV.
It's also possible to add special buttons for things like "Eject". So finally I'm able to eject DVD's from the mac mini with the use of a remote control. This is quite a big deal as I've always had to do it via SSH session from a laptop before.
The plugin support has been hugely improved from what I'd seen with XBMC. I've been using the iPlayer plugin and this is very responsive and no longer needs to spend ages reading content from the BBC.
The interface for downloading new plugins is very slick, I was quite impressed. You just go to the application section and select the pluing you wish to install. This was a big advantage over XMBC. Another nice feature is the automatic update. I was prompted to ask if I wanted to install the latest version. I select yes (with the remote control) and it installed the latest version!
Plex inherits all the good features of XMBC, so it has some really good themes (once i got used to default on called "MediaStream" I've really got to like it.) It's meta data support is also great.
The only negative I've found so far is that it does not allow the playing of DVD's. From what I've been able to find out, they claim that this is buggy and have disabled it. This is a real pain, at the moment I've using the PS3 to play DVD's. I'm hoping that this gets turned back on at some point. It's worth noting that XBMC has no problems with DVD's.
So in conclusion a very good media center for the OSX machines that does everything I'd want with the exception of DVD playback.
Plex is a media center that was forked for XMBC and only works on Intel MacOSX. The aims of the project are to produce more integrated version of XMBC for OSX.
As I stated in my previous post, I've been running MediaCentral from Equinux. However this had a few problems:
- Unable to eject the DVD!
- Not able to play .mkv's (they don't show up in the media lists)
- No plugin support
- No meta data display
Anyway I'll start of by saying, I've been very impressed with Plex. First of it plays all my media files with no problems, both low def and high def content.
Once of the features that I really like is the the remote control support. Both Plex and XMBC (I'd not tried this till now) allow you to use a harmony remote. So I no longer need to use the apple remote with it's limited buttons. This has been really great. It makes the media center much more usable as I refuse to attack a keyboard and mouse to something below the TV.
It's also possible to add special buttons for things like "Eject". So finally I'm able to eject DVD's from the mac mini with the use of a remote control. This is quite a big deal as I've always had to do it via SSH session from a laptop before.
The plugin support has been hugely improved from what I'd seen with XBMC. I've been using the iPlayer plugin and this is very responsive and no longer needs to spend ages reading content from the BBC.
The interface for downloading new plugins is very slick, I was quite impressed. You just go to the application section and select the pluing you wish to install. This was a big advantage over XMBC. Another nice feature is the automatic update. I was prompted to ask if I wanted to install the latest version. I select yes (with the remote control) and it installed the latest version!
Plex inherits all the good features of XMBC, so it has some really good themes (once i got used to default on called "MediaStream" I've really got to like it.) It's meta data support is also great.
The only negative I've found so far is that it does not allow the playing of DVD's. From what I've been able to find out, they claim that this is buggy and have disabled it. This is a real pain, at the moment I've using the PS3 to play DVD's. I'm hoping that this gets turned back on at some point. It's worth noting that XBMC has no problems with DVD's.
So in conclusion a very good media center for the OSX machines that does everything I'd want with the exception of DVD playback.
Monday, 23 March 2009
Media Centre's - XBMC
I've been looking around for a media centre to use. I have a mac mini below the TV that is used to play content stored on my server. I'm currently running MediaCentral from Equinux. However this has a few problems:
So first off XBMC seems to work on linux, windows and OSX. However after playing around with it a bit this is not quite the case. I could not get it to start on my OpenSuSE Linux box at all, it just complains about a problem with Open GL. I suspect that this is a problem with the ATI Linux graphics drivers and 64 bit, though no other app has a problem. I tried it on a different Linux box, and it started fine their.
The windows setup was a little odd, first it seemed to be working fine, then I tried to setup the media, which is on remote samba shares as far as windows is concerned. This did not work as a XBMC witch is odd given that you would expect windows shares to work very well on windows. So I tried mapping them to drive letters, and got one of the sources add to XBMC. However I was not able to add the others. Every time I tried, I though the drive letter as relative to the users home directory. So not very usable on windows!
Next I tried it on OSX on my mac mini, this is the device that really matter as it's below the TV. I'll be expecting HD 1080p output for this and surround sound via the digital out of the mac mini. I also need the remote control to work as this device does not have a keyboard or mouse. All this stuff pretty much worked. The remote control functions took a bit of getting used to, but was actually quite good. All the previous mention problems were fixed, I could even eject DVD's and play lots of different media types.
Next up I wanted to try some plugins. One of the ones I was most eager to try was the iPlayer plugin. This worked very well. on mac os, but not on windows. It was actually very impressive watching iPlayer content on the large TV screen, makes you wonder if you still need a TV tuner.
I then tried to watch some media files, and this is were the mac OSX problems started. It would start of playing quite nicely, then become choppy. This is low def content, so it's quite unexpected. This content plays fine in Frontrow and MediaCentral. Also fast forwarding on the remote seemed a bit clunky and made things go choppy to.
The meta data display was great for films, however did not work very well for TV shows. Mainly because I wanted to be able to store them in a directory and take the show name from the directory. This was only supported for films, but I only wanted to do it for TV shows. It has the ability to add scrapers for different sites via XML files, which is quite nice, but I could not find anyway of parsing data fetch my own application.
In summary, it's a really nice media center with a lot of potential. At the moment, it does not quite meet all my needs due to the different problems on different platforms. I think the the choppy playback could be solved I'd probably use it.
- Unable to eject the DVD!
- Not able to play .mkv's (they don't show up in the media lists)
- No plugin support
- No meta data display
So first off XBMC seems to work on linux, windows and OSX. However after playing around with it a bit this is not quite the case. I could not get it to start on my OpenSuSE Linux box at all, it just complains about a problem with Open GL. I suspect that this is a problem with the ATI Linux graphics drivers and 64 bit, though no other app has a problem. I tried it on a different Linux box, and it started fine their.
The windows setup was a little odd, first it seemed to be working fine, then I tried to setup the media, which is on remote samba shares as far as windows is concerned. This did not work as a XBMC witch is odd given that you would expect windows shares to work very well on windows. So I tried mapping them to drive letters, and got one of the sources add to XBMC. However I was not able to add the others. Every time I tried, I though the drive letter as relative to the users home directory. So not very usable on windows!
Next I tried it on OSX on my mac mini, this is the device that really matter as it's below the TV. I'll be expecting HD 1080p output for this and surround sound via the digital out of the mac mini. I also need the remote control to work as this device does not have a keyboard or mouse. All this stuff pretty much worked. The remote control functions took a bit of getting used to, but was actually quite good. All the previous mention problems were fixed, I could even eject DVD's and play lots of different media types.
Next up I wanted to try some plugins. One of the ones I was most eager to try was the iPlayer plugin. This worked very well. on mac os, but not on windows. It was actually very impressive watching iPlayer content on the large TV screen, makes you wonder if you still need a TV tuner.
I then tried to watch some media files, and this is were the mac OSX problems started. It would start of playing quite nicely, then become choppy. This is low def content, so it's quite unexpected. This content plays fine in Frontrow and MediaCentral. Also fast forwarding on the remote seemed a bit clunky and made things go choppy to.
The meta data display was great for films, however did not work very well for TV shows. Mainly because I wanted to be able to store them in a directory and take the show name from the directory. This was only supported for films, but I only wanted to do it for TV shows. It has the ability to add scrapers for different sites via XML files, which is quite nice, but I could not find anyway of parsing data fetch my own application.
In summary, it's a really nice media center with a lot of potential. At the moment, it does not quite meet all my needs due to the different problems on different platforms. I think the the choppy playback could be solved I'd probably use it.
Monday, 12 January 2009
OpenSUSE Build Service
Whenever I install a new Linux system, I always find that their are packages I'm unable to get. So I usually end up building these from source. This is then something that needs to be done every time I reinstall :-(
It occurred to me that I'd be better of learning how to create RPM's and install things that way. This did make things a lot better, however getting them onto multiple systems and having to rebuild them when I upgrade the distribution was still a bit of a pain.
So I though I'd give the OpenSUSE build service ago. First thing I did not reliase was that when you create a account, you get your own Repository. Any packages you build go into here and then they can be moved to other projects if you want to.
So I've done this with my packages and now I just register my repository on my system and use the package manager to update the packages and install updates. This works great!. You can also say what distrobutions your packages should be built for and the build service builds them. This will make upgrading a lot easier.
So all in all, I think once the initial learning of RPM spec files and the build service was out the way, thing have got a lot easier and this will probably save me a lot of time.
I've now started adding some of my own projects, and things I usally build from source. Hopefully they will be usefull for other people too.
It occurred to me that I'd be better of learning how to create RPM's and install things that way. This did make things a lot better, however getting them onto multiple systems and having to rebuild them when I upgrade the distribution was still a bit of a pain.
So I though I'd give the OpenSUSE build service ago. First thing I did not reliase was that when you create a account, you get your own Repository. Any packages you build go into here and then they can be moved to other projects if you want to.
So I've done this with my packages and now I just register my repository on my system and use the package manager to update the packages and install updates. This works great!. You can also say what distrobutions your packages should be built for and the build service builds them. This will make upgrading a lot easier.
So all in all, I think once the initial learning of RPM spec files and the build service was out the way, thing have got a lot easier and this will probably save me a lot of time.
I've now started adding some of my own projects, and things I usally build from source. Hopefully they will be usefull for other people too.
Friday, 9 January 2009
Upgrading to OpenSuSE 11.1 Some issues.
So as I previously mentioned, I've been upgrading my machines to OpenSuSE 11.1. First of I have to save it's very impressive. As previously mentioned, it's great that ALSA works now on my laptop.
I've also upgraded my work computer, and this has been having issues resolving host names. I think I've not tracked this not to a IP v6 problem. I found out how to disable it here. Now things are much better on this machine.
On my laptop I've seeing problem with the networking. Basicly I use knetworkmanager to control the networking via the NetworkManager does not work unless you run it as root. It will launch as not root, but is unable to find either the wired or wireless networks. I suspect this is to do with dbus permissions but I don't yet know much about these :-( More investigation is needed.
UPDATE: I've tracked things down a bit more. I've been having problems with KDM, probally due to something I've done and my use of a usable version. So I've been starting X from the command line. I just tried GDM instead, it seems it must set something up when it's started, cause now I can see networks in the new KDE network applet and knetworkmanager from kde3! Hopefully when I fix up KDM, that will also work.
I've also upgraded my work computer, and this has been having issues resolving host names. I think I've not tracked this not to a IP v6 problem. I found out how to disable it here. Now things are much better on this machine.
On my laptop I've seeing problem with the networking. Basicly I use knetworkmanager to control the networking via the NetworkManager does not work unless you run it as root. It will launch as not root, but is unable to find either the wired or wireless networks. I suspect this is to do with dbus permissions but I don't yet know much about these :-( More investigation is needed.
UPDATE: I've tracked things down a bit more. I've been having problems with KDM, probally due to something I've done and my use of a usable version. So I've been starting X from the command line. I just tried GDM instead, it seems it must set something up when it's started, cause now I can see networks in the new KDE network applet and knetworkmanager from kde3! Hopefully when I fix up KDM, that will also work.
Thursday, 1 January 2009
Dell Studio 1535 OpenSuse 11.0 and latest ALSA
Over the Christmas I set about updating from OpenSuSE 11.0 to OpenSuSE 11.1. I always like to have the latest and greatest distro :-)
So I changed all my sources in Yast/Zypper over to the 11.1 distro and a manual update of most the packages, then the rest with a zypper dup. It all went pretty smoothly, the only exceptions were the kernel modules I'd compiled my self. These were the ATI graphics drivers (fglrx), the wireless drivers.
The first was a simple fix, I just reinstalled the ATI drivers. The second has been a bit more compilated as the broadcom source does not build agist the lastest kernel. Howerver I think I have a fix for this, so will blog about that another time when I've had a chance to test it.
The best thing I've notice so that about OpenSUSE 11.1 is that the sound hardware in the latop now works correctly!!! without any hacking. The sound is much louder, and both ear phone sockets work. Also the laptops internal speakers cut out with you plug speakers/head phones into either headphone socket. I put this done to the latest version of ALSA been in the OpenSuSE 11.1 release. Fantastic!
So I changed all my sources in Yast/Zypper over to the 11.1 distro and a manual update of most the packages, then the rest with a zypper dup. It all went pretty smoothly, the only exceptions were the kernel modules I'd compiled my self. These were the ATI graphics drivers (fglrx), the wireless drivers.
The first was a simple fix, I just reinstalled the ATI drivers. The second has been a bit more compilated as the broadcom source does not build agist the lastest kernel. Howerver I think I have a fix for this, so will blog about that another time when I've had a chance to test it.
The best thing I've notice so that about OpenSUSE 11.1 is that the sound hardware in the latop now works correctly!!! without any hacking. The sound is much louder, and both ear phone sockets work. Also the laptops internal speakers cut out with you plug speakers/head phones into either headphone socket. I put this done to the latest version of ALSA been in the OpenSuSE 11.1 release. Fantastic!
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