The first beta release of bulbcalculator is out.
After about two years of work, finally I can announce it.
All the details are in the temporary home page, as soon as possible I will come up with something better
Oct 232010
Oct 212010
After about 2 years of development, the new version of BulbCalculator is ready to enter the testing phase.
Today I pushed two commits that fixes the two last standing point that block the release.
After that, I am going to do some test and data validation and then release a beta.
If nothing goes wrong, it will be release before the end of the year.
May 272010
So, just to focus on something else, I upgraded all the software on the server. In the process, I also switched to viewgit to publish my repository on the web.While doing it, I also find the time to send a patch to the viewgit author to be able to exclude some repositries when using the directive ‘projects_glob’. This is usefull if you want to exclude just some repositories in a long list (the basic idea of using the ‘projects_glob’ option) for some reason.
Well, the patch was accepted and merged (on the second try, the first one I used an approach the author does not like), so I am glad to see that I still know how to code with php 
Jan 192010
On bulbcalculator.grys.it it available the first (win32 only) snapshot of BulbCalculator. It has bugs, it have not functionalities (no print, no import, no open/save) but it already do some basic calculations and it is possible to export the data in a text file.
Later this week I hope to release a new snapshot with some more features and less bugs
Jan 042010
After some more research for a good opengl widget to integrate with Qt, I decided to use the QGLViewer. This for 2 basic reasons:
- I am now able to compile a software that use it under windows
- I use it for another (now sleeping) project, so I already know it
The first point is the most important. Since the software (BulbCalculator) is a port of a win32 software, one of the main goal of the project is that it must run under windows. After some more research I probably find why I was not able to compile a project with libQGLViewer and after solving this issue (glut was missing) I changed my mind and istead of using the standard QGLWidget from Qt 4, I will use libQGLViewer.
Dec 272009
BulbCalculator is coming along nicely. After beeing stuck with the 3d part for some time, I move to implement the other functionalities, since I am thinking that it is better to have a fully functional software than to have a nice software. At least I will get an usable version, also if not 100% complete,since anyway the basic porting is only the first step of that project.
So now I impemented a view of the bulb data, ready to be exported in text format. I’d like to add some more format for the export, but for now I am still not convinced. I also fixed some bugs that I found along the way had some good ideas on features to add to the software, so for now the project seems to be promising.
Nov 262009
In the last days I have the opportunity to test three different OpenGL widget: the QGLWidget from the Qt4 library, the QGLViewer and the GLC_lib. Both QGLViewer and the GLC_lib are based on the QGLWidget. Here is my impressions
QGLWidget
Perhaps the simplier. It is a basic OpenGL widget that come with the Qt4 library. It is good enough to make some simple 3d application without too much trouble, but I think that its simplicity is the biggest limit.
QGLViewer
It is the first widget I found when looking for a better widget or library to use. It is nice and well supported, at least under linux. It extend the basic QGLWidget without adding much more. Of course it make easy some operations. A nice widget to use if you need only OpenGL support.
GLC_lib
This seems to be the most complete solution. It expand the QGLWidget and add some more things (like the support for some graphics file format and more). I cannot try it on my Windows machine since it crash, but I was impressed with the test under Linux.
So, what widget to use ? I choose the QGLWidget since the program must run either under Linux and Windows and the targer audience is not so techical (I suppose), so no need for external dependecies o package to install.
The other two failed to work under Windows (my bad probably) , but my software was rather simple on the 3d front, so I have no particular needs.
Having to write a Linux-only software or a much more complex application, I probably choose QGLViewer since it has also the python bindings, but also the GLC_lib is a good choice expecially if you have to use some standard format for 3d file (like .3ds files).
Oct 212009
With the last commit (and push) I’ve completed the html export of BugEverywhere
After the suggestions from W.Trevor King (who also give me a good insight about bzr workflow) I added two other options for the command (–export-template and –export-dir-template).
The first one simply export the default template in the default directory, the second one let you to specify a custom directory as target for the export. This default template can be used as starting point to write a custom template for the export.
Trevor also added two options to let you to personalize the title and the index header of the export (–title and –index-header).
At this point, if no bugs are found, I think the export is complete.
Oct 082009
Just pushed to my branch the new template system for the ‘html’ command of BugEverywhere.
Now there is a default template hardcoded in the command, and a new option (-t|–template-dir template_directory) that can be used to pass a different template for the html export.
The template itself is a simplified version of the previuos one, and with the -t option is no more necessary to modify the source code to modify the look of the output, but just put in one directory 4 files:
- style.css
- index_file.tpl
- detail_file.tpl
- comment_section.tpl
The tpl files are just normal html files, and of course the css file is a normal css file
As a bonus, there is also a verbose option to have a complete output of the command execution, very useful if the command is executed with a cron job.
Oct 022009
After too much time, I do some new work on BugsEverywhere. The main task for now is to merge my branch with the main branch and the Trevor’s -rr branch. After the merge, the idea is to complete the the html export and start to work on other things like target precedence and so on.