VCF Online - Real Components, Real C++, Right Now!

ImageKit

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:09:57 -0600

Some interesting work has been done with a new kit called the ImageKit. It's inspired by Apple's Core Image API, and allows you to draw images using the GPU and OpenGL to do the work for you. You can apply one or more filters to an image and chain them together to achieve various effects. There's a simple filter tester:

that allows you to test simple filters out (using OpenGL's GL Shading Language) and apply them to an image.

RTTI Attributes

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:53:56 -0600

A while ago someone in the forums asked about attributes in the VCF. Well we now have them. They are not as integrated as C#'s attributes are, but they do allow for any kind of custom arbitrary meta-data to be attached to RTTI information about a class or a class's properties. An attrbiute is defined as a name value pair, where the name is a string and the value is a VariantData object, probably representing a string most of the time. You can add them programmatically or via the RTTI macros. An example would be:

Graphviz Kit Integration

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:44:51 -0600

I have recently, on a lark, decided to give a try to add Graphviz support to the VCF. To my pleasant surprise this was relatively painless, and I'm proud to show off some shots of currently working, with AGG rendering for anti-aliased support.

New Demos Section

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:33:06 -0600

I'd like to introduce a new demos section, on the left hand side of the web site. These are links (and a screen shot) to actual pre-built executables for people to try out to get a taste of what the VCF can do. Probably should have put these up a long time ago, but got tied up with the whole Yahoo/Microsoft merger and getting Jerry fired (by the way, no hard feelings, OK Jerry?). I'll try and fill these in and add more as time permits.

Recent development news

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:49:41 -0500

I haven't posted here in a bit, so here's the skinny on some of the latest changes to the framework. I've made some decent progress with migrating the Carbon OS X code base to Cocoa, Cocoa is actually, for the most part, much less hassle to use.

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 -0600

n/a

ClassBrowser example with executable link

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:14:06 -0500

This is a small utility that shows all of the classes in the VCF's ClassRegistry. One of the cool things about it is that it is able to save various UI states with almost no code:

mainWindow->initializeSettings(true);

That's it! The rest of the individual settings are set in the UI's VFF and the framework does all the work of storing and retrieving them for you.

Upcoming Fish Taco Release and beyond

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:46:07 -0500

Finally, after a very long time, thankfully not in a galaxy far, far away, we are almost ready to make the release you've all been waiting for:

Fish Taco - 0.9.8

The current code is pretty much done, with the exception of an example or two, and further documentation.

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 -0600

n/a

Visual Forms and DPI

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:58:52 -0600

One of the many things that got fixed in the upcoming Fish Taco release is enhanced support for the Visual Form File format. This enables the developer to put together a UI in much less time than if you had to write all the C++ code by hand. The Form Designer of the VCF Builder is built with this in mind, though that project is still sadly behind. However, one of the features is the ability to specify values using units, with the ability to support custom units if the need arises. Currently the units supported are pixels (the default), inches, centimeters, and points (where a point is 1/72 of an inch). The conversion from unit value to pixel value takes into consideration the current screen DPI, thus allowing you to specify a layout once, and know that it will work correctly no matter the DPI settings. Future units supported will be DLU's (Windows Dialog Units), and percent.

A new year, a new example, and various other bits of progress

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 10:11:52 -0600

Well it's been a while, but have no fears, progress on the upcoming Fish Taco release is moving forward, albeit slower than I would like.

The latest example was kind of cool, and I wanted to post about it. It is based on a little article by Ryan Paul at Ars Technica: U CAN HAS LOLcats on Linux with Ruby and GTK. This inspired me to write the equivalent using the VCF:

Big changes in pipeline for upcoming "FishTaco" release

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 15:27:23 -0500

There are some big changes in store for the upcoming release. One of these is a complete revamp of the current delegate implementation in the framework. The new implementation allows for arbitrary function signatures, and for asynchronous invocation. This is the same kind of functionality found in .NET's Delegate.BeginInvoke/Delegate.EndInvoke functions.

Next VCF release code name revealed...

Tue, 22 May 2007 22:43:08 -0500

DATELINE MAY 22, 2007

May 22, 2007 (The Internet) - While the project is keeping quiet, an unnamed source has confirmed that the next release of the VCF, tentatively due sometime in June or July, is named "FishTaco".

Major IT News: Jameson leaves Microsoft for the VCF Project

Wed, 09 May 2007 13:41:53 -0500

DATELINE MAY 9, 2007

May 9, 2007 (The Internet) - In a stunning coup de grace the VCF Project has managed to lure Microsoft press spokeswoman Jenna Jameson away from the software giant.

SVN issues

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 16:27:52 -0500

If you're having any issues with committing code via SVN, specifically getting 403 errors you may want to read on.

It appears that SF made some changes a while ago to the SVN repos, and it may affect some people. Quoting:

On November 31, 2006 the access method for Subversion changed. This
document reflects those changes. The old method had numerous problems,
including spurious 50x error messages and other issues that kept it from
functioning fully. This newly documented access method solves many, if not
all of the issues with the old mechanism.

Users of the old method (https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/PROJECTNAME)
should switch to the new access method
(https://PROJECTNAME.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/PROJECTNAME) using these
steps:

   1. Make a copy of your local working copy.
   2. Run 'svn info' at the root of the repository content, it should
display a line that appears similar to: URL:
https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/PROJECTNAME/trunk
   3. Run the following command at the root of the working copy: svn
switch --relocate https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/PROJECTNAME/trunk
https://PROJECTNAME.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/PROJECTNAME/trunk

So for us, this would be :

svn
switch --relocate https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vcf/trunk
https://vcf.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vcf/trunk

Cheers!