Anyway enough of the slight dislike towards Javascript. Summer is coming, it’s already getting hot and I’ve already been for a beach session. Things are looking good. All the work I’ve handed in has achieved a pretty high mark so I’m really happy with all of that, I’m just a bit worried about the upcoming exams as they aren’t my strong point. But who knows what could happen with them. I’l have to wait and see.

2 Weeks left and counting.

PS. My new PC is a beast

Autoindex Dark Theme Preview

Since this was more for a personal project, testing isn’t far a wide. I have had a quick look on the common browsers, if you want to diverse into the world of obsure browsers for testing, be my guest. As for the common ones, they all display it ok. Some elements of the CSS may not work with some browsers as I have used pseudo selectors as well as a few bits of CSS3.

Working In…

• Internet Explorer 8
• Google Chrome
• Firefox
• Opera
• Apple Safari

Download

Autoindex dark theme v1

Installation

Unzip the file, and paste the folder “dark” into your autoindex themes folder /templates/

Enjoy!

I’ve just ordered a new computer for University as my current one is beginning to show its age when I’m running around five Adobe programs, iTunes, Messenger and whatever else I need. So it’s finally time to upgrade from the Pentium 4 ‘Prescot’ core to a high end Dual Core. I was going to get a Quad core but I’m not going to be using it for gaming much so  two cores are fine.

Work has been a bit slow over Easter, lacking enthusiasm at the moment. But I’ll get back into it.

When i visit parts of Google where techniques like this are used instead of Chrome dealing with the CSS and seeing that only part of that image should be used, the whole image is used about 400 times on the page as different parts are used all over. Making the page a little hard to read.

The other main concern is that Both Google Mail and Calendar don’t load with Chrome. Calendar doesn’t even know what browser its being viewed in, and throws a message at the user explaining this, and Google mail gets all the way to 99% and decides that it doesn’t want to do anymore and freezes. Even the HTML version breaks. Why?!

Countless errors with pages only using the most basic of designs even seem to struggle, I wonder if this is just me or if others get the same problems. It’s a dying shame as Chrome for other OS’s is working well and has taken over the use of Firefox, a long running top browser for many years.

I currently run Linux on two desktops and one laptop, all seem to have these problems with Chrome. Let’s hope the wizz kids at Google get them fixed soon, else it’s back to Firefox.

Ok so my little rant is over, for now Firefox is back, but not for long.

I’ve just finished functionalizing the main administration script that controls pretty much everything that’s not classed as aesthetics. So that’s about 90% of the CMS completed. I’m going to add user list displays for anyone classed as Administrator, everyone else won’t even be given the link in the navigation (more dynamics). On the subject of the navigation, the actual links are built entirely through php, this means that each section of the site can have different nav bar links and some parts contain sub nav bars with links relating to the current content. So basically I’m forcing as much dynamic scripting as I possibly can into this project. I don’t think it will be as effective otherwise. More to come soon.

Dramatic representation of me in excitement

So yes as the picture is showing above, I’m happy that’s all out the way.

I’ve just started work on the next scripting assignment which seems more to my liking. It’s a web tool instead of a game which is much more interesting to design and code so I’m enjoying starting this one. The basic outline is too have an administration page to control users who have registered with the site. These users will be able to access certain content which can only be accessed by being logged in. Simple really, the registration form needs to have all the standard error trapping and validation as any other form would have, this goes for pretty much anything where there’s an input box basically. Anyway moving on, the premise for this project is simple, so I’m in no worry about completion on this one, the game assignment was such a vast project it began to get problematic near the end. Hopefully this won’t be the same.

February has been an off an on month, there’s been so much to put together lately time to myself has taken a back seat, however now that I have cleared one of the monster assignments I think I can take a breather. Bring on March.

The actual game fully runs at the moment, however there’s no win scenario so it’s a bit pointless doing much on it at the moment. I should have the full version complete by tomorrow.

Bugs and Fixes

So there’s been a lot of problem with bugs near the end of the programming assignment. When I first started out there was next to nothing in the way of bugs. But now it seems as I stitch the final part of the canvas, other parts are beginning to rip. My main script is programmed chronologically, so now I work at the bottom of the page, it feels like I’m working in the basement of a large building where all the little things make the building tick, strange analogy but it’s what it feels like.

What I always find, as a programmer of sorts, is that the smallest most insignificant parts of programming cause the most damage and hassle, why? Because they have to assert themselves somehow! If they’re not noticed in the final outcome then to make things equal they’re a pain in the backside behind the scenes! That’s my theory on it anyway.  I’m sure I’m not the only crazy guy thinking this.

I think I’ve spent more time overall on this assignment debugging it, than actually doing some  proper coding. It’s a bit annoying at times as I feel like I’m not getting anywhere, then suddenly out of nowhere I’ll manage to fully fix the problem and feel slightly better about it! Here’s a couple of the main bugs which are currently killing my will to live.

Problem Number 1

First and foremost, there is a major problem with my puzzle coding, I’ve designed it so that there are no hard-coded parts to the script, it’s all database driven. And by doing this means I only have to add new entries to the puzzle table for it to appear in the game. Dynamicity at its’ purest. Anyway at the moment I can only seem to add a maximum of two items to the puzzle, by items I mean items required to complete the puzzle. The reason is most likely to do with whitespace or something that’s going terribly wrong inside my insane two tier foreach loop:

foreach ($items_required as $item_required) {
if (in_array($item_required,$inv)) {
foreach ($objects as $object) {
if ($count == 1) {$object = str_replace(" ","",$object);}
if (in_array($object,$items_required))  { $i = $i + 1;}
}}}

Ok so for people not php orientated, or not code orientated in general. Here’s what this little beast does.

1. For each item the puzzle requires
2. Check if it’s in the user’s inventory
3. If they have the items
4. For each object the user typed into the input
5. Check if its part of the required items
6. If all is good add ’1′ to $i

Yea? No? Ok don’t worry, I’ll sort it. I think I’ll just split the two foreach statements up, then it may not die out on me.

Problem Number 2

Ok so this one is totally not a main problem , but as I finished writing the first problem I forgot the other main one…Skills.

I still have a problem with the puzzle trigger, at the moment if a user steps on a location to which a puzzle is located, they trigger a variable to turn to 1. This then means that any user inputs they revolve around items usage get passed through the puzzle function instead of the normal item usage one. The reason these two are interlinked is for ease, in theory they both do the same thing, but with different outputs. So by changing the paths when needed, i can contain both item usage and puzzle item usage in the same place. Nobody ever said efficiency was easy to achieve.

“Tempus Fugit”

Yes, time flies. I’m running close to the deadline now, I still have the write up to do. But hopefully these problems can be sorted today. Fingers crossed.

I think i  managed to create one of three using the HTML template given to us by Gaye, but the other two were impossible, in the sense that they would look god awful. But that’s just my own opinion. I guess it’s down to preference, I for one can’t create a site with pre-created html. Let’s see what I can come up with…

The three sites have to be based on the Logo Designs I used in Mike’s lesson:

1. Rendezvous
2. Source Share
3. Experian