Dev Diary

[stigzler]

I should have done this a year and a half ago! This is a place for the trials and tribulations of software development! Of course, I can't give too much away - I don't want these other buggers nicking my ideas. 

Webpages: had a bit of a result. Found some really quick and effective ways to speed up the serving of webpages in IIS. See here for more details. I'm sure there's some more tweaks I can make to ensure the caching facility is prolonged. 

[stigzler]

Here: OxCom

Can change themes in settings + pick from many languages.

bbcode: [­syntax=vb]Code here[­/syntax]

vb.net example:

Code: Select all

'Cycle through visible PageEditors and update any that contain the changed DynamicImage
For Each pe As DockWindow In dockController.DockWindows
    If pe.UserControlType = "GameInfoz.PageEditorUC" Then
        'This is a page editor window
        Dim peuc As PageEditorUC = pe.Control
        Dim dils As List(Of mSelectorList) = peuc.mpage.SelectorLists.Where(Function(x) x.ID = s.ID).ToList
        If dils IsNot Nothing Then
            For Each dil In dils
                peuc.UpdateDesignItemOnPropertyChange(s)
            Next
        End If
    End If
Next


[stigzler]

Day aims: code a pluing that syncs wordpress/phpbb registrations with MantisBT
Frustrating day. Mood:

Having gotten the wordpress/phpbb sync working nicely with the BridgeDD plugin for wordpress, I moved onto trying to sync to MantisBT (the bug tracker) on new registration. Some success there - managing to grab the relevant details and populate the mantisBt database. 

However, as ever the devil was in the detail. For true synced authenticaiton, I needed to leverage phpbb auth from MantisBT. Research produced some promising solutions, but got stuck on a pesky file permissions error when trying to include a phpbb file in my mantis plugin. Ventured into IRC 'chatrooms' (although I don't see many people chatting, despite lots sat in the room). 

Feels a bit intractable - forum postings made - let's see if we get any help. 

Overall, very happy with the way the new website and forum are looking. 

[stigzler]

Following on from my general IIS setup guide here I've found further optimal settings:

1. Don't use any wordpress cache plugins
   
2. Do enable zlib.output_compression in your php.ini and set zlib.output_compression_level = 9
   
3. Don't use IIS output caching (this caused some strange behaviours where only the homepage would load).
   

[stigzler]

Ignore that last post. Don't enable the zlibl, it causes php errors. Also, do use a caching plugin as it speeds up browsing for non logged in browsing. If you enable page caching on w3 total cache you get odd behaviours. Transpires caching and iis are a dark art

[stigzler]

I knocked together a quick plugin that grabs user registrations/password changes in wordpress and syncs them with MantisBT. Details here

[stigzler]

Added ranks and a reputation system to the forums. I do love phpbb - free, fast, 20 years old but still looking great.

[stigzler]

checkout mchat

[stigzler]

Having procrastinated spectacularly, it's back into the main code. It's getting tricky (involving setting up an implementing the controllers + controls functions of OGZ) and there's quite a few layers of abstraction involved. Think that's why I've been avoiding it a bit. 

However, the bare bones is done, just need to do all the admin FE stuff. I've also built it in so that it works as both a controls database for different system's games and controls, but also as a database for controllers that you can plug into your PC. This all goes back to getting position-able items (such as the selection list) with controllers, not just keys. This was some time ago and been down a rabbit hole since then. Still, forced me to confront one of the main features of my app: a controls database. 

 Glad I'm back on it. 

[stigzler]

Finally.... I've just sorted a bug that has been bothering me for ages. A simple small thing that irritated me no end. It has to do with the .net TreeView control not rendering transparent images properly. It would render them thus:

treeview2.png (7.45 KiB) Viewed 169809 times

Transpires it's a bit of a bug in the control. Found a hacky solution (see here). Final result:

treeview1.png (7.98 KiB) Viewed 169809 times

(The above a test case, not OGZ)

Aaahh.. 

This coding malarkey's bonkers. Sometimes it's the smallest thing that has the biggest impact..