Port to Coffeescript

A new part of the v7 plan is a port to Coffeescript. I'd like to jump directly to Dart, but that's a long way off. I'm also looking to write some test code using some of the JS/CS testing frameworks: http://macwright.org/2011/10/18/adventures-in-testing.html, http://docs.jquery.com/Qunit. Refactoring has become more difficult and error prone, and I can't put off best practice forever.

Resumption of Activities

After a long hiatus, development of the Player's Companion has resumed:

http://charmgr.stepnext.net

This version (0.7) is a port to the Pathfinder rules. The Ranger class is complete, and Sorcerer is coming along. Also damage reduction and special saves (eg v petrification, poison, etc) is now implemented.  Skills with subtypes (eg. Knowledge, Perform, etc) are now correctly handled.

The application is hosted on a Amazon EC2 instance, served by node.js. The code is now hosted on Github, using (predictably) git for SCM. Development has been massively simplified by these changes.

Also, I got a Macbook Air. It is wunderbar.

SharePoint via Java

God bless you, sir!

http://davidsit.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/reading-a-sharepoint-list-with-java-tutorial/

Another Scintilla Editor

http://caladbolg.net/luadoc/textadept/manual/1_Introduction.html

require 'textadept'

local keys = _G.keys
local b, v = 'buffer', 'view'
local gui = gui

keys.can = { new_buffer }
keys.cl = { 'char_right', b }
keys.cL = { 'char_right_extend', b }
keys.cal = { 'word_right', b }
keys.caL = { 'word_right_extend', b }
keys.cj = { 'char_left', b }
keys.cJ = { 'char_left_extend', b }
keys.caj = { 'word_left', b }
keys.caJ = { 'word_left_extend', b }
keys.ck = { 'line_down', b }
keys.cak = { 'line_down', b }
keys.cK = { 'line_down_extend', b }
keys.caK = { 'line_down_extend', b }
keys.ci = { 'line_up', b }
keys.cai = { 'line_up', b }
keys.cI = { 'line_up_extend', b }
keys.caI = { 'line_up_extend', b }
keys.ch = { 'vc_home', b }
keys.cah = { 'vc_home', b }
keys.cH = { 'home_extend', b }
keys.caH = { 'home_extend', b }
keys['c;'] = { 'line_end', b }
keys['ca;'] = { 'line_end', b }
keys['c:'] = { 'line_end_extend', b }
keys['ca:'] = { 'line_end_extend', b }
keys.cd = { 'clear', b }
keys.caN = { gui.switch_buffer }
keys.cn = { 'goto_buffer', v, 1, false }
keys.cN = { 'goto_buffer', v, -1, false }
keys.ce = {
function()
buffer:line_end_extend()
buffer:cut()
end
}

Installing a Bluetooth Headset on Windows 7

Thanks to Komeil Bahmanpour I can use my LG HBM-235 bluetooth earpiece with GMail phone calling.

(Windows will install the device but can't find the driver.)

Building a CLASSPATH in Windows

Thanks to Real's How To:

@echo off
setlocal ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
if defined CLASSPATH (set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;.) else (set CLASSPATH=.)
FOR /R .\lib %%G IN (*.jar) DO set CLASSPATH=!CLASSPATH!;%%G
Echo The Classpath definition is %CLASSPATH%
 ... 
java MyClass

Notepad++, The New Editor King (or, jEdit Dethroned)

I finally gave Notepad++ an honest going over, and it is unquestionably the most flexible tool for editing text the internet has to offer. It:

• handles my keybinding scheme
• is fast(er than jEdit)
• handles large files without choking

You can customize it to a ridiculous degree, and because it uses Scintilla for the editor, schemes should be portable across platforms (Geany, others).

Notepad++'s only real deficiency is its lack of full regex support.

Generalizing for Pathfinder Compatibility

I've looking at Pathfinder for a while (bought the core rulebooks and a few modules), but since listening the Chronicles: Pathfinder Podcast I'm energized to fix up the Grendel to be compatible with the core rules.

As always, I need knowledgeable testers to validate my suspicions (also some data entry help would be a huge help):

http://backdraft.cs.binghamton.edu:8080/cm-dev/unferth/grendel.html (short link: http://goo.gl/LbwE4)

If you're unfamiliar with Pathfinder, it's essentially a light extension of the 3.5 rules in a well-articulated campaign setting. It's published by the old publishing arm of Wizards of the Coast, Paizo Publishing.

Interesting fact about Paizo: the publisher writes modules.

Fixing XP

Here's a list of utility programs that make Windows XP a little nicer:

Alwact Clock: Onscreen click-through clock

AutoHotkey: keyboard mapping and scripting

SetCapsLockState, AlwaysOff

CapsLock & a::

IfWinExist jEdit

WinActivate

else

Run C:\PROGRA~1\jEdit\jedit.bat

return

CapsLock & q::

IfWinExist ahk_class Chrome_WidgetWin_0

WinActivate

else

Run "C:\Program Files\Chrome\chrome.exe" --enable-accelerated-compositing

return

CapsLock & s::

IfWinExist xplorer²

WinActivate

else

Run "C:\Program Files\zabkat\xplorer2_lite\xplorer2_lite.exe""

return

PathTooLong: If you can't delete a directory because the path is too long
Power Menu: Window always-on-top
Power Resizer: Windows 7-style window resizing (half-screen on edge)
WizMouse: Scroll the window under the mouse

Also, Character Sheets

Here it is, a character sheet:

The nice thing is, if you don't like it, they're easy to make and easy to fill in with character data.

multi-class in motion

Help me test v0.6!

http://backdraft.cs.binghamton.edu:8080/cm-dev/wiglaf/grendel.html

This version is undergoing regular development, so the usual caveats apply. If you find what think is a bug, please create an issue on my Google Code project site, or leave a comment on a recent blog posting.

Batch upload script for CouchDB (using curl and jsawk)

I looked all over for something small and simple like this, but couldn't find anything.

Dependencies:
spidermonkey (required by jsawk)
libmozjs2d (required by spidermonkey)
jsawk (for parsing CouchDB response)
curl

Ubuntu doesn't include spidermonkey in the repositories (it uses rhino instead) so you'll have to grab spidermonkey from the Debian.

Copy the below script (change http://localhost:5984/cm-dev/hrothgar to your server/db/document) and save yourself a lot of clicks in Futon.

Usage: upload.sh [path containing the files to upload]

hput () {
  eval hash"$1"='$2'
}

hget () {
  eval echo '${hash'"$1"'#hash}'
}
hput js javascript
hput html html
hput css css

directory=$@
if [ -z "$directory" ]
then
 directory="."
fi

filetypes="$directory/*.css
$directory/*.html
$directory/*.js"

for file in $filetypes
do
 filename=`basename "$file"`
 ext=`hget ${filename##*.}`
 rev=`curl -sX GET 'http://grendel.cloudant.com/cm-dev/hrothgar/' | jsawk 'return this._rev'`
 echo File              : $file
 echo Current revision  : $rev
 echo Uploading document: $filename
 echo "${ext}"
 echo curl              : curl -X PUT http://grendel.cloudant.com/cm-dev/hrothgar/$filename?rev=$rev --data-binary @$file -H 'Content-Type: text/'$ext
 
 curl -X PUT http://grendel.cloudant.com/cm-dev/hrothgar/$filename?rev=$rev --data-binary @$file -H 'Content-Type: text/'$ext
 echo --------------------------------------------
 echo
done

Thanks to Micha for jsawk.

Multi-class support

The major feature for v0.6 will be multi-class character support.

Post your thoughts on what to put in the space created by the edit page rearrangement.

chardata.class_name => chardata.classes[name]=level

edit: current look

Flexible UI

I'm cooking the new UIs for v0.6, starting with 768x1024 (and 1024x768), since that's the iPad resolution, and I know a couple people with iPads (it also maps nicely to a sheet of paper). Everyone has opinions on what makes a good character sheet and pretty much everybody can draw, I'd appreciate some feedback on the new layout.

If you're feeling particularly contributory, send me a note and I'll add you to the drawing so you manipulate the bits yourself.

Ideas for v0.6

If I ever get v0.5 to run on an iPhone, here are some ideas for v0.6:

Expandable UI
Depending on the size of browser viewport, the UI will reconfigure itself to better utilize the available space. Thinking the 2-column sections go 3 or 4, eliminate multiple edit screens (leaving just main and edit).

Also, the Google Drawing app is just about "good enough". Still needs connectors.

Multi-class support

See later post for details.

Fast character switching

Currently, switching between characters requires a full reload of the webapp, should be able to change change character data without loading all the application data.

Use Google CDN for JQuery resources

The images for the JQueryUI haven't displayed correctly since I moved to CouchDB. Hopefully will fix that.

Firebug to the rescue

Firebug has a more readable and perhaps more insightful profiler than Chrome:

My reckless use of TaffyDB is the biggest offender, with isNumeric() way out of proportion (I mean, is it a number, or isn't it?).

UPDATE:
It appears the horrendous performance suction was caused my ordering of all static data elements:

  spells.orderBy({name:"logical"});
  feats.orderBy({name:"logical"});
  races.orderBy({name:"logical"});
  domains.orderBy({name:"logical"});
  classs.orderBy({name:"logical"});
  schools.orderBy({name:"logical"});
  weapons.orderBy({name:"logical"});
  armors.orderBy({name:"logical"});
  skills.orderBy({name:"logical"});
  languages.orderBy({name:"logical"});
  deitys.orderBy({name:"logical"});
  specials.orderBy({name:"logical"});
  favored_enemys.orderBy({name:"logical"});  

I found the offending block by starting and stopping the Firebug profiler between breakpoints. It posts the results in the console, in the context of the logging. Just phenomenal tool.
Down to 4 secs:This doesn't mean it will work on the iPhone, but it can't hurt.

localStorage for offline use

I've put in some caching for the static data using the HTML5 feature "localStorage", localStorage is essentially a cookie, but without a cookie's size limit, and it will not get sent to the server (something I didn't even know about cookies). The Player's Companion should now be able to function offline, but unfortunately it does not appear to have any impact on load performance.

v0.5 in Testing

v0.5 involved a complete rewrite of the data load scheme, and the way rules are handled. Basically, to add feat attack effects before, I had to add some JS to the calc_attack function (messy and does not scale). Now, I ask for all feats with an attack attribute (which is a function), and execute that block of code:

feat description:

attack: "if(weapon.category == 'exotic') { attacks.weapon_proficiency = 0; } return attacks;",


function calc_attack() {
...
char_feats.get({ attack : { "!is": null } }).forEach( function(feat, i) {
// TODO - can we do this by reference
console.log("attack: " + feat.name);
attacks = feat.attack(attacks, weapon);
return attacks;
});

While it's probably technically better, an unfortunate side-effect is that it no longer works on my friends' iPhones or my Android emulator. Must be my IBM training to write software for next-next generation hardware (I'm still waiting for a machine to run Lotus Notes).

jEdit, Lord of the Text Editors

After a brief dalliance Sublime Text, I'm back to jEdit. Faster with large files, customizable keybinding, cross platform, truly awesome find/replace and it's Open Source (Sublime Text costs $60).

Plugins:
JDiffPlugin
TextTools
FirstMate (http://www.rutherfurd.net/jedit/plugins/firstmate/)
Minimap
Whitespace
Beauty

Two features I'm missing are next/previous recent buffer, and true full screen (a la Darkroom).

Thank you, jEdit!

jEdit Maths

Search: ^(\s+)"(.+?)" : ([0-9])(,?)
Replace: _1 + "\"" + _2 + "\":" + (Integer.parseInt(_3) + 1) + _4