Tree Inspector, Version 0.2
May 26, 2008
I had a situation this morning, in which I had to whip out the Tree Inspector to resolve a problem with a FarCry tree. Some of the nlevel values were wrong, but Tree Inspector didn’t allow me to fix those; so now it does!
I’ve added a version number to the top (along with a h1 title), and you can now modify the nlevel values by checking the checkbox appearing next to each node.
It also occurred to me, that if this file sits unprotected on a website, someone who knows the name of the file can do some real damage. So I’ve added basic Authentication support to the script so it is now protected by default.
You should change the username and password before using the script, and I suggest you upload the file, use it and then remove it. Just like the install directory (that comes with FarCry), this is a file that shouldn’t be sitting on a production server.
Cairngorm Stub Files
May 23, 2008
I really like Cairngorm, I think it is an excellent framework to build RIAs in. I just don’t like all the work, memory involved in setting it up all the time.
I’m not really sure how others do this, but I usually grab an example application (such as the Advanced Cairngorm Store) and start ripping out all the bits and pieces I don’t need. This is a laborious and boring task, so I decided to do something about it.
I created a set of Cairngorm Stub Files (setup under the com.example path). They contain stub-code/files for most of the Cairngorm infrastructure that you would usually use in a Cairngorm project.
The files make a nice starting point, and because there are so many bits and pieces to the Cairngorm Framework, they also act as a nice cheat sheet to all of the classes, and patterns in Cairngorm.
Let me know if you find any bugs and I’ll update the stub files.
Automated Apple TV Conversions
May 21, 2008
I recently purchased an Apple TV. I’m really enjoying watching my iTunes purchases on my TV, rather than my little MacBook screen. And surprisingly, I’m really enjoying the RSS feature, there are some really great Podcasts available.
With the Apple TV having limited support for various popular codecs such as XVid and DivX I needed a way to quickly and easily convert my XviD and DivX content to H.264. Of course, you can use ffmpegx, but I wanted a more automated solution.
After much research using Google, finding bits and pieces but not one easy solution, I wrote an Apple Script to solve my problems.
I’ve attached the Script to a folder in my “Movies” folder called “ToConvert”. As soon as I drop a video file into the folder, it asks me if I’d like to have the file converted, when you select “Yes” it starts converting and some 40 minutes later drops the file into the “Converted” folder, as an iTunes and Apple TV friendly MP4 file.
The Script uses the ffmpeg encoder, but the one that comes as part of the ffmpegx application (ffmpegx is a nice GUI wrapped around ffmpeg and a few other video encoders, such as X264).
You can try the file out for yourself, but you will have to make some modifications first. Download the file and open it up using Apple’s Script Editor application. Make sure you have ffmpegx download and installed, I installed mine into the Applications folder, if you have installed it in another location you’ll need to adjust the path. You’ll also need to customise the path to the converted folder, my “Converted” folder lives in my movies folder, so you’ll want to customise that path too.
You can also customise the settings that are used to encode the video. I haven’t tweaked the settings in the Script yet, I plan too, but I don’t have too much time to muck around with these sorts of things. I’m not 100% with the encoding quality based on the settings currently, so I do plan on experimenting and altering those.
Once you’ve done all that, attach the script to a folder, drop a DivX AVI into it and, fingers crossed, it starts converting!
I might even spend some time improving the Script if enough people find it useful. Good luck!
Enpresiv Developers Blog
May 21, 2008
Wow, I haven’t posted in a long time! Almost one year. My blogging record never has been that consistent, however. With changes in my role at work, hopefully I’ll have more time to blog and more interesting things to blog about.
Speaking about blogging, we’ve recently launched the Enpresiv Developers Blog. It was only launched yesterday, so the idea of blogging is still working its way around the office, but I’m sure in time the number and quality the of blog posts will increase.
I’ll be posting on both blogs, and from time to time I’ll post the same post on both blogs.
The main aim of the blog for Enpresiv Developers to improve communication and programming knowledge within the office. So often, in day to day programming, we might resolve the same problem in isolation, unbeknown that the developer sitting next resolved that challenge last week. If we find anything that we need to store (its hard to remember everything, especially utility scripts or neat SQL code), think will be interesting or want to discuss with others, we’ll blog about it!
I’ve just posted an item about the Tree Inspector, a nice little file which can help you to resolve any problems you might be having with the FarCry Site Tree. It automatically highlights problems that it finds, and you can even attempt to resolve the problems directly from the same script!
