Pal Szasz’s blog… or something like that…

Hi!

Since I moved to Sweden and started to work for Sony-Ericsson, I didn’t had time to blog… actually I didn’t had time to work on my projects, so there was nothing to blog about. But actually I did worked on some smaller prototype applications at work, and now I have a new blog where I will write about those: https://developer.sonyericsson.com/blogs/Szasz/

I still keep this blog as well, since I can use this for personal stuff… but I will probably post to the other blog more often.

Well, it was a long time since I posted… but I’m not abandoned my projects, I just delayed them. The main reason for the delay is I got a job at a very nice company in Lund/Sweden (I let you try to guess which company), so I moved from Romania to Sweden. Since then I don’t have too much free time (no, the company doesn’t force me to work 12hours per day, including weekends ), but I hope it will change.

Changes:

• Added normal grid (ie. not the pixelgrid)
• Added color stack to color editing dialog
• Added multi color editing dialog: it let’s you edit multiple colors at once

Here are some screenshots:

UIQ3 demo version and PC versions will be uploaded soon to pixy’s page.

I didn’t had time lately, since I was travelling to Bucharest and back (and again to Bucharest and back). First time I was travelling alone, so I hade quite some time to test Pixy . Although it was pretty usefull, I missed some functionalities, so I made a quick update. The new functionalities are:

• Added Image scale, crop and expand (and support for undoing them)
• Added scrollbar for the big image view (later I will make it optional)
• Added the separator tool: replace all occurencies of a color
• Added command to pack the palette (ie. remove unused colors)

I will upload the new uiq3-trial version and the pc (windows/linux) versions soon…

Meanwhile I imported the code of TOSC into the SF CVS structure.

Let’s start for a more important news for you: I applied for Sourcefoge project hosting for some of the open source UIQ3 programs I wrote. So far StickIt is in CVS (and I will use the SF CVS host from now on, which means the latest version of the source code will be always accessible to the pubic ), and ClockSS and TOSC is comming soon (the projects are already created, I am importing the code in CVS now.

So, the URLS:

• http://www.sf.net/projects/stickit
• http://www.sf.net/projects/clockss
• http://www.sf.net/projects/tosc

You can use the bug tracking services of SF to post bugs you find in this app. That way it will be easier for me to track them (since right now I got feedbacks, bug reports and feature requests from at least 4 different sources (forums, this blog, emails)). And it’s quite possible that I miss a few bugs.

And now some other topic: today I had to wait a lot (in a hospital), so I tested Pixy by creating some icons (40×40 and 64×64) for it. The 16×16 icon was also made by pixy. They are not perfect, but Pixy is already very usable (more usable then the previous/old UIQ2 version, thanks to the UNDO feature )

Here are the icons:

Well today I started to backport Pixy to UIQ2. Actually I started it yesterday, but I spent only a minimal time just to create the project file.

Now I finally have a version, which starts, most of the functionality is working. Still todo are:

• The screen is flashing, I think I need to implement doublebuffering (or use Backed up window?)
• Load/Save dialogs not implemented yet
• Menu bar not implemented yet

But apart from these it seems the program is functional. So in a few days I might have an UIQ2 version as well.

Btw, I’m really curious, how many UIQ2 and UIQ3 owners are out there…

First of all, I released a demo version (save functionality removed) of Pixy v0.4: pixy_0_4_demo.sis.

Other changes:

• Added command/tool to toggle between filled and not filled mode (now rectangle drawing takes into consideration this flag).
• Added command/tool to toggle between use of transparency (usefull with the select tool)
• Added tools Select and Sele w/copy: they are like cut+paste and copy+paste: select a rectangular area and move it or copy it elsewhere in the screen. They check the transarency (colorkey) flag.
• Fixed some minor selection-rectangle renderig bugs

And now about ClockSS: There are 10 types of people: those who understand binary, and those who don’t Well, it’s an old joke, but I just remembered it

For those who don’t understand the binary clocks: The filled circle corresponds to 1, the empty 0, in rest they are the same. To find out the current time, jus tconvert the two numbers from binary to decimal.

Let’s take an example, let’s suppose the hour sais: 01101. Each digit must be multiplided with a power of two, then summed together. We start from the right hand side: 1 * 2^0 = 1 * 1 = 1; The next digit is ‘0′ (0 * 2^1 = 0 * 2 = 0). Next is ‘1′ (1 * 2 ^ 2 = 1 * 4 = 4). Next is again ‘1′ (1 * 2^ 3 = 1 * 8 = . Since the rest is all 0, we ignore it. So the result is 1 + 4 + 8 = 13. Piece of cake, right?

If anybody interested, normal binary led watches can be bought at www.thinkgeek.com When I saw them, that was the time I decied to make a binary clock screensaver for my P800… but I didn’t had the proper knowledge then… and i still don’t have it now

I finally made some time to update the clock screensaver (or something like that) application, so you can download v0.4 here.

Changes:

• Added floating small clock to show to current time anywhere
• By clocking on the small clock willactivate the screensaver immediately
• The application should not activate itself in the middle of a call
• The date is shown as well (for now in fixed format: YYYY.MM.DD)
• Analog clock fixed
• Option added to not hide the top of the screen (so you can see new message, or not answered calls). Clicking on any icon in the top of the screen deactivates the screensaver (except in total lock mode)
• Total lock fixed

I worked some days on pixy, and now I already have a working version. It’s not complete, but contains most of the functionality.

You can get more info about it (userguide, screenshots, PC versions) here: http://www.saxoft.com/pixy/. Yes, I said PC version: to make things easier for me, I do most of the coding on a PC version, then recompile for UIQ3. The PC version has the same functionality but a bit different look. I made versions both for linux and windows, so you can try it out on your PC.

And now the bad news: I decided that this program will be commercial. Yeah, i know, it’s way cooler to make freeware apps, but I have to make a living also. I will release a trial version soon (the only change from the fill version will be the lack of saving). But until then you can test the PC versions.

Any comments are welcome, I read them ALL!

And here is an animation, which shows the progress of making a teddy bear icon:

And a slower version (so you can check out some functionalities of the program):

I added some new controlls: Box, Label, ScrollBar, and also the color edit dialog. So now its possible to edit the palette

I also added the PAN tool, so now it’s possible to scroll in the view.

I still have to port a few things to Symbian (the file selection), but I’m getting closer to the release data