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Android Developer Challenge

Published by Matthias Gall

Google has announced the second Android Developer Challenge and I’m seriously considering taking part. They have ten different categories with three attractive prizes each and one overall category with three even more attractive prizes. Given the facts that there were only 1788 submissions last year, that I have already gathered some experience in mobile device development and that I do work with several Google APIs for my freelancing job I consider my chances not too bad. Idea, anyone? 😉

Firefox AddOns and OS X Software I use

Published by Matthias Gall

People seem to like posting their favorite plugins and software these days, so I thought I could add my little list of useful stuff here, too. I’m open to suggestions for other good extensions, of course.
Here’s my list of Firefox AddOns I am using actively:

  • Adblock Plus
  • Firebug
    A powerful debugging aid for web developers. Comes with e.g. a DOM explorer and a JavaScript debugger.
  • Web Developer Toolbar
    A toolbar which offers many useful functions for web developers. In particular, I like outlining of block elements or enabling read-only form fields.
  • FoxyProxy
    Manage proxy configurations and use them depending on URL patterns etc.
  • ImageZoom
    Zoom images with RMB and mouse wheel.
  • Foxmarks
    Synchronizes bookmarks. I found it particularly useful to define synchronization profiles so that I can separate work bookmarks from private stuff.
  • Tabinta
    Ever tried to enter a TAB in textarea controls? Tabinta allows you to use TAB there.
  • Flagfox
    Shows the country flag of the server’s origin in the address bar.
  • Split Browser
    Splits the browser window into multiple areas.
  • Nuke Anything Enhanced
    Allows to remove any DOM object under the mouse. Useful e.g. to get rid of layer ads that Adblock Plus doesn’t catch.

I also found the following OS X software to be useful:

  • On the Job
    I bought this one to do my expense tracking and invoicing when I do freelance work. It can be tested freely for 20 days and I really liked it from the beginning, but I got convinced to buy when it offered me another 10 days trial after the first period was over – wasn’t that nice?
  • Cyberduck
    Great FTP client.
  • TextWrangler
    Powerful text-editor with FTP-support.
  • The Unarchiver
    Unarchiver which supports plenty of file formats. Good replacement for the native ZIP tool which is pretty limited.
  • LabTick
    A little tool which keeps the keyboard light on all the time, independent of the ambient light.
  • Little Snitch
    Firewall which monitors outgoing traffic and keeps programs from “phoning home” if you don’t want them to.
  • ChMox
    Tool to read Windows CHM files.
  • 0xED
    Small and fast hex-editor.

2D Graphics

Published by Matthias Gall

I was searching for a nice 2D graphics library today, again, because I wanted to piece something together very quickly. My requirements were:

  • Should be available for the Mac so that I could code with my MacBook Pro on my lap. Currently I really prefer this way of coding. Screw dual monitors!
  • Crossplatform would be a plus so that I could continue coding on the PC if need-be.
  • Should have a somewhat modern C++ API, i.e. SDL was out of the question.
  • Should provide basic shape drawing functionality (e.g. circles, lines,…) and font support (TTF or at least bitmap fonts) innately. SDL disqualified again.
  • Either mature enough to be almost bug-free or still under active development.

I came up with something that was described as a “C++ version of SDL” somewhere. I must admit, this didn’t sound very promising to me at first, but when I digged a bit deeper, I became confident that this was what I was searching for.
http://www.sfml-dev.org/
SFML has everything I need plus lots of other cool features. And the best is, it even comes with pre-compiled OSX frameworks and XCode project templates to get you started directly.
The standard main.cpp looks somewhat like that. It’s pretty straightforward and you can jump right in and take care for the more important things:

#include <SFML/Graphics.hpp>
using namespace sf;
int main( int argc, char* argv[] ) {
    RenderWindow app( VideoMode( 640, 480 ), "SFML Graphics" );
    while( app.IsOpened() ) {
        Event event;
        while( app.GetEvent( event ) ) {
            if( event.Type == Event::Closed ) {
                app.Close();
            }
        }
        app.Clear();
        app.Draw( Shape::Circle( 200, 200, 100, Color::Yellow, 10, Color::Blue ) );
        app.Display();
    }
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

The only thing I don’t like so far is the PascalCasing for method names, but hell, you can’t have everything, can you? So I’ll be using SFML for some debug graphics for another project I’m working on, DVW-related.