AMP v1.0 Worklog

**aychamo** · 07-07-2006, 07:11 AM

Originally Posted by Jirka Jirout

....

Feel free to write patches for any of this and submit them

**Jirka Jirout** · 07-07-2006, 07:24 AM

Originally Posted by aychamo

Feel free to write patches for any of this and submit them

Well, I can write *some* patches (the focus ring for example, or few lines to send the distributed notifications), but the monolithic design of the app can't probably be easily addressed by a patch ;-)

**aychamo** · 07-07-2006, 07:40 AM

lol

Yeah, I'd love to see some examples of the distributed notifications. I didn't know I could just send the setFocusRingType to a window and all of the buttons, etc, would inherit it. I'll test it out today.

Hey guys - I need you to please answer this. For those who have a Xenarc, etc. When it is set to 800x600, and you run AMP, how does AMP look? I know about the black bar up top. I'm asking, compared to how it looks on your computer's screen, does it look the exact same? Or is it squished, etc? Does it looked warped?

I remember reading on one webpage how putting the 800x480 screen into 800x600 made it look weird. If 800x600 looks fine, I have absolutely no problem bumping AMP's resolution up to 800x600. It would give me a lot more freedom in the UI.

Damn the airport for stealing my monitor!! I'm stlil over a week away from getting it now!

**Jirka Jirout** · 07-07-2006, 08:22 AM

The distributed notifications work exactly the same way as the regular ones, except one thing - you use a different distribution center.

You cannot sent the setFocusRing to an NSWindow object directly. You have to retrieve the content view, then its subviews and send the messages to them. The code would look like this:

Code:

NSArray *allViews = [[aWindow contentView] subviews];
NSEnumerator *viewsEn = [allViews objectEnumerator];
id view;
while (view == [viewsEn nextObject]){
   [view setFocusRingType:NSFocusRingTypeNone];
}

You can insert this code into several places. I would personally implement it as -windowDidBecomeKey: method of your NSWindow subclass.

**iamgnat** · 07-07-2006, 09:57 AM

Originally Posted by aychamo

re: my code; AMP is actually pretty much my first real project in Cocoa.

Don't misunderstand me, it's not perfect. But for a first time, I think you did very well. With a good mentor or two (school is useless for programming IMHO) I think you could be good at it. You seem to have the mind for it.

I really should have organized the methods better, and broke it up into smaller files (lol @ 55 methods or whatever in one big file.)

The size of the file and the number of functions/methods is irrelevant really. The important part is that they all relate to one another logically. In this case you should have had a Movie object, Music object, etc.. so everything is grouped accordingly. To fix that, most programmers have to actually sit down and plan out what they want (the whole requirements gathering stage

) so they can decide how to best lay out their code. Some of the best programmers have an inate talent for just being able to do it, but they are rare.

I'm still hoping to work on AMP. I just hope with some other developers out there that we can get some patches sent it, and some other nice stuff going on.

What we really should do is get it in SourceForge or some other OSS source management system rather than people having their own versions of the file. Before a team approach can be taken, the AMP_Delegate needs too be broken up though

Re: 800x600; I really think that it would be a huge PITA to try to make AMP work for both 800x480 & 800x600. The best I could do would be make AMP be centered in 800x480 on the 800x600 screen, and the other stuuff would stretch, but not the UI.

It depends on the approach you take (and the approach you took for what is already done). It can be as simple as making the window 800x600 with "extras" in the difference area, then simply resizing it for a 800x480 monitor where you wouldn't see the extras. As long as you don't offer anything that can't be gotten to in another method, then the 480 crowd only misses out on convience and the 600 crowd makes the most of their screen space.

To be honest though, I still don't have my Xenarc (would you believe it got stolen in the airport out of my families bags?? I have to order another one.. Hello mp3car.com store!)

That sucks

Does 800x600 look fine on it?

I'm still running an older version of it so it sits on top of my dock and has a gap between the top and my menu bar roughly the size of a window title bar. I actually kinda like it that way over a full screen approach

I use a Lilliput instead of a Xenarc, though it shouldn't matter.

I've got it running in a test program, so I'll try migrating it over to AMP real quick and see how it goes.

Yeah, you would make a good programmer

Go study. Fail no more tests on our account!

-dave

**iamgnat** · 07-07-2006, 10:04 AM

Originally Posted by Jirka Jirout

Well, I can write *some* patches (the focus ring for example, or few lines to send the distributed notifications), but the monolithic design of the app can't probably be easily addressed by a patch ;-)

Well it *could*, but it would be easier to just use the new source tree

Work on backlight, play with code, watch world cup, drive to columbus to watch footie I care about. Work on backlight, play with code, watch world cup, drive to columbus to watch footie I care about.... Too many choices this weekend

-dave

**pepsibobby** · 07-07-2006, 10:08 AM

for not working on it your doing alot of work Alych

**aychamo** · 07-07-2006, 11:33 AM

Originally Posted by pepsibobby

for not working on it your doing alot of work Alych

LOL

No joke man.. I just keep getting a lot of ideas, and now that the source is out and more people are talking, its just more and more ideas. I get pumped over it!

Hey I looked up distributed objects, for interprocess communication in the documentation today, and it says this:

"Limitations
-
Cocoa’s distributed objects system is available only to Objective-C applications."

Yikes! So that would limit developers to only being able to write plugins in Objective C! While I'm sure using dist. objects is the cleanest solution, is it also the most limiting? I figure any application out there could write the .plist file. I don't know.. What do you think?

Jirka - Thank you for that code re: FocusRings. I had no idea it could be so easy. I can pull the AMPButton class out now and reduce a little bit of the monolithicness

**aychamo** · 07-07-2006, 11:37 AM

Originally Posted by iamgnat

Yeah, you would make a good programmer

Go study. Fail no more tests on our account!

-dave

Thanks Dave! I'm in med school right now to become a doctor. Honestly, I had wanted to pick up Cocoa/ObjC to try to write some medical related applications. I'm just not far enough into my career to have any good ideas (ie, what is needed)!

I had wanted to write a program to simulate ECGs and kinda "quiz" you on what's going on, and how you would treat it, etc. I just have a lot more learning to do with graphics, etc.

One thing in programming that's never clicked with me is graphics. I remember looking at the old graphical demo team code (like Future Crew, etc), and I never understood how they could just do some crap and then these amazing things were drawn on the screen. It just won't click. Anyway, thats a story for another thread, haha

**aychamo** · 07-07-2006, 11:40 AM

Originally Posted by iamgnat

What we really should do is get it in SourceForge or some other OSS source management system rather than people having their own versions of the file. Before a team approach can be taken, the AMP_Delegate needs too be broken up though

I agree it needs to be broken up. I was never really sure how to do it. In the whole MVC thing, I never realy saw where the lines would be drawn with AMP. Or how you would get from the main menu to the music module, or how you could be in the photo module and pause a song (I guess with distributed objects?)