dev blog (archives)

corzblog and cbparser

I'm still working away on the new corzblog ßeta (and cbparser, of course) whenever I get the chance. here's how things are shaping up..

v2.4 beta 1

---

• took advantage of cbparser's new balance tags functionality. now if a blogger leaves unalanced bbcode or html tags in their post, corzblog will tell them so at the preview and post stages, offer them a chance to fix it.
  
  
• altered the rss 1.0 validation linkback to un-htmlencoded. hopefully they've made up their mind now
  
  
• moved the sidebar links and titles into the preferences, easier to edit.
  
  
• after a seccessful edit of the about page, the link and auto-jump go directly tothat page, instead of the main blog. it will, in fact, take you directly to whatever article you were editing. editing standard blogs now does the same thing. neat.
  
  
• added a preference for the font size in the edit area
  
  
• made all the documentation 100% cbparser compliant! I did most of it when cbparser was in its infancy, and just dropped raw html in where I needed it. cbparser does it all now, even the tables, so this entire page (the one you are reading right now) is created entirely with bbcode! if you edit any of these atricles (or rather, attempt to), you can see the bbcode for yourself.
  
  

  cbparser changes(also apply to corzblog)

  
  
• added extra cell types for the table tags. namely [c5]: 50% wide cell; [c5l]: same, aligned left [c5r]: and right [c2]: colspan=2 (takes up two columns); [c3]: or three colums; [c4]: or four columns. close them all with a standard [/c] tag.
  
  
• three new flavours of horizontal rule..
  
  
  [hr] standard, 70% wide, centered spacer

  ---

  
  [hr2] 50 pixels wide, left

  ---

  
  [hr3] 100 pixels wide, left

  ---

  
  [hr4] 150 pixels wide, left

  ---

  
  
  I use this under the titles in the version history you are reading right now, amongst other things. I use these ones a fair bit.
  
  
• a [mid]middle tag[/mid] for putting things in the middle, i.e. centred. if you need any more tags, let me know!
  
  
• html2bb conversion now correctly handles backslashes "\".
  
  
• addedDemiCode™. what this means is, you can use pretty much any html tag by simply replacing the "<" symbol with a "[", and the ">" with a "]", and you will get valid html. you can do [h3]type three heeader[/h3] tags like that now.
  
  For instance, even though there is no [center] tag in cbparser, as such, this.. [center][b]this will be centered[b][/center] .. works just fine..
  
  
  
  this will be centered
  
  
  it feels like I'm opening a can of worms with this feature. we'll see. if it all works out, I can dump nice wee chunk of code from cbparser.
  

available from theusual place

;o)
(or

cbparser update

okay, I got a bit carried away with the anti-spammer thing. not the concept, just the code. we only need one variable..

effin_casinos = true;

which you can set tofalse just before callingbb2html(); if you need to do a "mock" preview, or in any situation where the user has already authorised themselves, i.e. a blog or bulletin board. in this case, cbparser will leave the links unaltered.¹

I'll set it tofalse by default; simply passeffin_casinos = true; just before calling thebb2html() function whenever you need casino-spammer protection. my comments engine (which Istill haven't gotten around to releasing) does it like this..

if (isset($_POST['comment_preview'])) {
    $effin_casinos = false; // only for the preview
} else {
    $effin_casinos = true; // when they post.. hahah!
}
$comment = bb2html($_POST['comment'],$name);

This "fix" is in the regular download version,help yourself.

While I was in about the bbcode parser with my spanners and what-not, I added a rudimentarytag balance checking routine. unbalanced tags can really mess up your pages. usually it's unintentional.

if the user's bbcode (or html) tags aren't balanced, cbparser will now returnfalse (same as an empty string(''). you can check for this in your calling script and produce a message telling the user to check their bbcode, or whatever, pretty neat. this..

$comment = bb2html($_POST['comment'],$name);
if ($comment != '') {
    do something funky here;
} else {
    // the user's form will still contain their post
   $unbalanced_tags = true; // I'll use this later
   $comment = "tags don't balance!"; // put in preview area
}

gives you an idea. the balance checking routine should cover most situations, but is probably not foolproof. I'll chuck this version in the beta section for a spell anyway, just to be sure.

That'll becbparser v0.5.10b, then.

;o)
(or

references:

1:in other words, unlike my last blog, Ididn't have to editthese links by hand!

cbparser (super anti-casino version!)

well well well, it seems the buggers just drop in plain <a href= type links. a small addition to the code of our favourite bbcode parser deals with that. ladies and gents, I present to you..cbparser 0.5.8 SUPER anti-casino spammer version!

I added another cute feature, too. it's called "spammer preview". what you do is, just before calling the bb2html() function, you set..

$spammer_preview = true;

and you'll get back a "mock" preview, which looks, to the spammer, like all the links will work just fine. but when they actually post.. hahahah!

this is all just in fun. in reality, I think I'm just gonna start deleting casino spam altogether. great site! yeah thanks. it's bots! I tell ya! bots! you can program a bot to do almost anything. ask anyone who's ever spent five minutes on iChat with weeegary. crazy.

okay, bring it on casino boys! bots, whatever.

for now..

;o)
(or

ps.. cbparser direct downloadhere.
pps.. I had to edit in these links BY HAND!

ppps.. I added pop-up titles for the smileys, too. it's been bugging me. usual story for editing old blogs (does anyone do this?), you'll get the old structure in your browser; simply re-insert the tag if you want the new features.

corzblog 2.3.9.3

here it is, the much anticipated next release ofcorzblog. a few minor and not so minor changes since the last version..

v2.3.9.3

you can now edit the about page from within corzblog. multiple "entries" come up in a drop-down menu, just like the regular blog.

fixed a few formatting foibles on some of the error pages (well, I never see 'em!)


v2.3.9.2

improved error reporting on the edit page.

fixed a bug where if you installed corzblog in a ~user (virtual) folder, although everything worked fine, archiving worked fine; strangely, no archives appeared in the menu. they do now.

made some of the preferences clearer, and more flexible for folks with unusual server setups.

have fun!

;o)
(or

website sync 0.7.5

I added the ability to have "special" files in the sync. that is, files on which you would like to perform additional operations. an obvious use is files that need to be world-writable, for example, .blog files.

the built-in demos for the mac and linux versions have also been updated to demonstrate the new functionality.

;o)
(or

corz distro machine 0.8rc5

almost ready for release methinks, a few more i's to dot and t's to cross, not a lot left to do for 0.8..

v0.8rc5

add "switch" capability. if a user is inside a download menu, they can switch to the source menu by simply clicking the section title. they can switch back and forth like this. saves having to go *back* to the main menu, then *jump* to the other (source/download) section, then *enter* the sub-section. cool.

this functionality only activates if the target folder exists. otherwise the section title is normal text, not a link.

available formthe usual place

;o)
(or

cbparser (anti-casino version)

I decided to add a totally new feature to my super-cool (no it's silly really) bbcode parser...casino-spam (bot) blocking!

it doesn't block them as such, what happens is, if the poster uses the word "casino" anywhere in their post, their insidious links are altered to instead point to your root. like this..

oh! something has happened to this link..my hoopy casino site

[url="http://www.casino.com"]my hoopy casino site[/url]

spam away!

;o)
(or

ps.. having said and done all that, casino spam seems to be a good indicator of a page's popularity, PR rating, whatever,and another reason I don't have a comments section on my actual blog!

pps.. this feature is optional, a switch is inside the bbcode parser itself.
default:  $effin_casinos = true;

pps.. I think I'll drop some of this post into the cbparser comments…

corzoogle 0.7.5b4

more corzoogle fun..

v0.7.5b4 Nov 2004
added a preference for "embedding", for folks that want to run corzoogle from inside another page. corzoogle will return the results in the same space.

added some notes about the $search_between preference, and how it relates to $search_in_tags.

added multiple corzblog searching. previously we were limited to a single blog installation. you no longer need to specify this, corzoogle will return correct results for any number of blog installations automatically. I spotted this limitation after I started my devblog. if you use a name other than "arc" for your corzblog archives, this functionality will break, though you could edit in whatever name you do use. (why would anyone want to change that?)

availble fromthe usual place

;o)
(or

updates updates read all about 'em

corzoogle andcorz distro machine get more bits chopped off and glued on..

corzoogle..


v0.7.5b3 Nov 2004
fixed a bug I introduced in 0.7.5b1, where certain queries, matching words right at the end of the text could preduce unexpected results, usually putting the entire page into the preview.

fixed a minor bug where certain documents could potentially be scored twice for their filename.

added facility to set initial scoring weight in a multiple-query term.

added switch to force corzoogle to only search documents containing your chosen $search_between tags, particularly for folks that use custom $search_between tags.


v0.7.5b2 Nov 2004
added "notify" facility for searches. you can be emailed every time someone searches your site! you might want to put a filter on that!

this facility is disabled by default, and completely untested; please report back any interesting findings.

$search_between tags can now be case-insensitive, if you need that.

corz distro machine..


v0.8rc4
the distro machine now prevents users from attempting "multi-part" downloads. why some folks would want to download a 50k zip file in five parts is beyond me, anyway, the first part will work fine, any subsequent attempts will get a wee message instead. in this event, the user also has an opportunity to reset their download session maunually (just in case) by pressing a button.

the beta engine apologises for it's brief spell in the wilderness yesterday, effin syndicator!

;o)
(or

corzoogle and distro machine ßetas..

I didn't have enough time yesterday to write an update, but Idid have enough time to upload new betas of corzoogle andcorz distro machine.

corzoogle..


v0.7.5b1 Nov 2004
small performance improvements when searching for queries with -not words

"search between" tags can be case-sensitive (default) or case-insensitive, the latter is marginally slower, but potentially useful.

corz distro machine..


v0.8rc3

added "show all files" option. this bypasses your extensions prefs and shows *everything*. i needed this for something.

added an admin logout button for menu pages. as it stood, you could be logged onto a secure machine as admin, and so automatically cleared for access to the secure area, there was no indicator that this was because you were logged in as an admin, which could potentially lead to confusion ;o)

added direct link to the admin/stats page from the secure area login page. this saves you having to login twice, and prevents a double logout too! the link operates like, and is controlled by the same settings as, the "stats link".

please report any bugs/weirdness to the usual place

;o)
(or

website sync 0.7

Now that my Linux box is back to work, I've taken the opportunity to update and improve a few things, the website synchronizer script was one of them.

The "two machine" version is now known as the "Linux" version, and although it's easy enough to get it using two machines, so long as the backup is on a physically separate hard drive there's no security issue. It doesn't matter to a script what or where a particular mount point really is, so long as it can read and write to it.

At any rate, I've simplified its operation, made it easier to configure and customise, and if you have a Linux/Unix/BSD/etc box on your LAN, I recommend you grab this version

The single-machine (mac) version remains essentially unchanged. It's designed with a single OS X user in mind, but should work well enough on any *nix/posix platform. The main difference is that it uses tar to create the backup and all-important log file. The linux version uses cp, which sucks on a mac.

ahh.. my mirror and website are one

;o)
(or

ps.. there's also a minor fix (0.8rc2) release for corz distro machine, some thingie I'd forgotten.

corzoogle 0.7.4

Living proof that I don'tcompletely ignore user feedback..
corzoogle 0.7.4.. cooler and faster than ever..

changes since last release:

v0.7.4 Oct-Nov 2004
added (ugly) highlights to "exact" word matches. they are disabled by default (they were sort of in there already, some one wanted them working) This looks like someone drew a marker pen through all the exact hits *ewww*

added a switch for searching inside html tags. I'll set this to false, which produces neater reults. if you are using coroogle to "grep" your site for editing, or searching web-development technical documentation, or such-like, you'll likely want to set this to true.

preview snippets can now be presented with the query terms in context, in other words, the query term appears some way into the text, and not right at the start of the snippet. aids comprehension. of course, how far in the term appears, is configurable in the prefs.

corzoogle now attempts to create the "recent hits" file if it's not there, which it did originally (dunno how that got switched off). There's still a message if this wasn't possible (likely).

fixed a wee bug where html tags were being passed to the "past-hits" and users could create interesting html structures at the foot of results pages.

added a few "googies" to the distribution; customised Apache manual index page with built-in corzoogle search, is one.

v0.7.3.6 13th July 2004
added<and> to the removed characters. You won't get unexpected html structures in the results now. Searching for "<select name", for instance, would create a nice select option. Amazingly, corzoogle still returned all the results just fine!

you want this!

;o)
(or

another link..

and so there was the dev blog..

this is like corzblog, but just for software. I realised there were too many compelling reasons to stop dropping this stuff into my main blog, not least of which the opportunity for users (you) to drop yet anotheruseful link into your news aggregators.

you can be informed about important updates, new releases, beta versions and whatnot, without all that corzblog text data getting in the way.

I've been working on beta versions ofeverything these last couple of weeks, a wee bit here and there as I get the time, and in particular, ironing out a few wrinkles, not to mention adding a fair few features tocorz distro machine for its new release..

security reminder: if you are using any version of corz distro machine prior to v0.7b7, thenPLEASE UPGRADE IMMEDIATELY!

changes since last release version..

v0.8rc1(release candidate one)

Improved the overall logic of the html structures, they were confusing even to me. the embedded output, as ever, is a self-contained table which will take up 90% (you can change this) of whatever width you give it. the powerbar's squishing is now greatly improved, and it will appear even if nothing is available.

some css improvements, removed background white in the jump bar (oops), underlining in the links, etc. for both in-built & external green.css

improved some error/user-error handling. attempting to embed from a distro machine running in secure mode produces an embedded user message, for instance.

the name of the subsection you are in is now displayed if you get a "nothing available" page. also works when embedded.

added various options for embedded custom text, menus and titles. you can even embed top-level menus; the machine will deliver the sub-sections in a pop-up window. you can set a few options from the embedding URL now, see the install page for more information.

added prefs for a few things, machine widths among them.

made it easy for you to syndicate your downloads to other sites, they can embed your machines on their pages!

some internal restructuring; with all the new features, things were starting to get a bit inneficient. the table generation is becoming modularised, which should hopefully make things simpler for me, and folks who want to hack the php, editing one place instead of three or four.


v0.7b10

fixed a bug where the downloading link on the source page gave an incorrect URL

greatly expanded the machine's list of mime-types. whatever you need to share is probably covered now.

added "multimedia" downloading switch. useful if you use the distro machine to distribute images/media files/etc, the user gets the file in their browser as opposed to their download manager, in theory.

squished a bug I introduced in the last beta - php error when no custom text file was present.

finally moved the source highlighting colours out of the .htaccess and into the script itself. Apache throws up errors of level warning at the .htaccess versions and advises that we use quotes around the values, even though we already effin did! it was starting to annoy me, not least all that pointless server-side error logging. clearly this makes them easier to change, too. I think I wanted folks to "discover" them, which is just plain silly.

cleaned up the counter code, removed some duplication, that sort of thing. improved the safety of the scores file, again. there was a (very very slim) possibility that one machine process could attempt to read the scores at the exact moment a parallel machine process had the file locked for reading. no more.

custom text can now be displayed in the "nothing available" page. not on "clean" embedded pages, though.

fixed bug where stats link was appearing on embedded pages (see, you should hide that baby!)


v0.7b9

Fixed a minor bug where "special links" for source files weren't being correctly parsed, instead the generic link was showing.


v0.7b8

Cleaned up the formatting of the embedded menu when nothing was available, it shouldn't mess with your page too much now.

Fixed a browser-dependant issue where editing scores directly wouldn't work, the javascript was inserting a literal "&" instead of the encoded & I just removed it. so much for standards.

available fromthe usual place.

I'll get around to wrapping up the corzoogle and corzblog betas sometime soon. looking good so far.

for now..

;o)
(or

wire_v0.9.1

Awoke with a start today (waking people with a start is illegal in some countries, you know. mellow flutes are acceptable), clunk of someone coming in the door. I don't think she quite expected me to leap naked into the lobby like that, (sorry angie, hahah) but I was inspired; a cute idea for the drag-n-send™ window, so I..

• added an auto-advance timer.

while browsing dns-style, hit 'a' and a slideshow will begin, starting at the current image; hit 'a' again to stop it. You can set the time each image displays for in the..

• new preferences dialog. the old window was starting to get a bit, erm, long; thought I might take the opportunity to reorganize things in there. anyhow, prefs are now arranged into logical groups. you'll see what I mean.

• back to the auto-advance slideshow thingie; it has a hidden feature. Once the slideshow starts ('A' or 'a'), if you press the left arrow/keypad-4, the slideshow goes in reverse; you can make it go forward again with the right arrow/keypad-6.

Oh, and if you press pageup/pagedown during slideshow, rather than move one image at a time, it will 'jump' by whatever value you have set as your jump value. pageup moving you backwards, pagedown moving you forwards. doing left or right takes you back to moving one file at a time. The title bar will let you know what mode you are in at any given time.

note: the 'jump' editfield is automatically deactivated by moving the mouse outside of the dns window, and if you are fullscreen and that's not possible, pressing <enter> has the same effect, returning keyboard control back to the quick-keys.

All the other quick-keys work during the auto-advance, too, you can even go in and out of folders while the it's running, it'll just follows you around, auto-advancing all-the-way. clever stuff.

note: if drag-n-send™ is enabled while you are auto-advancing, the slideshow will run at the other end of the±wire too! cool! If you don't want this to happen, switch it off before you begin!

• cleaned up a few of the drag-n-send™ window's display operations. It should a) flash less on non-mac platforms b) remember it's size, and if you lock it; stay locked at that size, and c) show images faster. There's no visible difference on OS X builds, it was already fast, but the windoze OS lacks some of the things we take for granted on the mac.

note: hitting the <enter> key (or <return>) does the same as "o", that is, opens the file in its associated application. On windoze, that means it will open with whatever application you have setup to respond to the "Open" in your explorer context menu.

I find this easier than "o", though the old "o" - (opens in graphicsconverter) - Apple-G (fullscreen preview), was kinda like "Oh Gee!" for images I wanted to see fullscreen. Windoze users, I recommend you install IrfanView as your default image viewer. Then <enter><enter> would do the same thing. (enter is fullscreen on irfan, the best image viewer for windows - similar to graphicsconverter on the mac - and <esc><esc> would take you right back to the drag-n-send™ window, handy)

Gathering folder contents is still slower on windoze than it is on a mac, like four times slower, I'll be looking into this.

for now..

;o)
(or

wire_v0.9

Been a helluva week for visitors, this week (although the one guest I was expecting didn't show up!) but every spare moment I've had has been spent working on the±wire. I appreciate daily how stable OS X Panther is for this kind of work, hit sleep, walk away, come back twelve hours later, pick up where you left off - it's interesting to note that while my network shares drop off during this time; and sure, only take the click of an alias to recover; the±wire remains connected - anyways, version 0.9: this is an essential upgrade for beta users, indeed everyone on planet earth, fixing a couple of wee annoyances, a few foibles, and with a generous sprinkling of improvements all over, en-joy..

You should know now, a lot of the±wire, I got an idea and the code came all-at-once like, me scrambling after, typing like a bastard; so if you come across wee bugs or foibles, please do tell, I might have missed them, scrambling after the next idea..

I'm real thankful for this, the RealBasic IDE; allows a kind of creativity that was previously to be found nowhere in the world of software development. The level, yes, the kind, no. There's an all-at-once-ness about this in-yer-face objective programming that is a harmonic of my working style, my way of thinking about how applications work, and should work; something I do more than you would probably believe.

As far as I'm concerned, the code-snobs can stick a Fortran manual up their arses and kiss their life goodbye; yer pissed off cuz we RB dudes can do in seconds and minutes what takes you minutes and hours, days; I know; but don't take it so hard, you can still use those talents writing RB plug-ins and stuff, it's not wasted. /me does dead-pan expression

I like to spend my hours doing stuff that matters, creating and experimenting with better ways to do things, not reinventing wheels, longhand. There isn't a computer language today that couldn't be, if not mastered, then at least capably understood by the average five-year-old. Get out of yer wheelchairs and run! These sorry relics are destined to become no more than interesting mental stimulation for the hyperactive children of tomorrow, the real work being done at a level of abstraction presently unknown, even to realbasic programmers.

Cocoa appeals to me massively, yes, but sitting down with three separate IDE's to develop the±wire (which is cross-platform by its very nature); something I can do in RB, with ONE codebase, and all on my mac; just isn't on the cards. Nothing comes close to RB for this splendid work. I owed the boys at realsoftware a shout, for sure. Now, on with the show..

• Automatic Logging: We have this now, yes! Logs can be created automatically in a folder of your choosing. the±wire will append chat to whatever log, depending on which scheme you have chosen; log by connexion (creates lots of logs), log by day, by week, by month, or finally, log by buddy (the default).

You can use the check on the log box to toggle the actual logging process, or if you don't enabled autologging, that control can be used it to create individual logs as before.

° Fixed a few wee bugs in the prefs window, stuff I hadn't cleaned up when I moved some internal prefs for the last version. Well, I never switch off the tips!

• Still on the prefs; I needed to be able to add new keys to the preference file with future application upgrades; as things were, this was difficult; I'd created empty keys for every feature I planned to add, but now I realise that not only did I not think of everything, but that I still might not have thought of everything, and this fixed-preference file is a Very Bad Idea, both limited, and limiting.

I reworked the prefs handling, giving me a mechanism to upgrade features and their related preferences seamlessly, well, almost. From now on, if the±wire finds a default preference file next to itself (or next to the binary in OS X packages), it will use it. Once it has used this to create your preferences, the default will be renamed to wiredefault.plist.bak. Your old prefs are backed up too, just in case you there's something in there you need to retrieve, that secret port number perhaps.

You can delete these .bak files if you wish. Though if anything were to happen to your real preference files, the±wire could use these to recreate a new set.

The down side is that when you upgrade to this new version, your preferences will be reset, things like retry rate, help tips and so on, but in balance, it's a worthy trade-off for the extra features. The old method sucked. Your buddies remain untouched. Although they share the same new mechanism, if you already have a buddyfile, it will always be used and the new default buddylist ignored, renamed to wirebuddies.plist.bak

Once we get to final release, this sort of thing wont happen any more, probably.

° fixed the extra spaces in the log files. they are tab-deliminated, by the way; you can import that easily into other applications, databases, whatever.

° fixed the extra linefeeds in the log box too, that was a weirdo.

° fixed a bug in the autocopy™, where the nick part was getting copied too. oops. sorree!

• Removed the limitation with the tips. previously, if you disabled the help tips, you would need to restart to get back any tips that you had hovered the mouse over since disabling them. No more; now you can toggle them on and off as required (apple/ctrl-T, also available from the help menu). No tips are "lost". I've got this working on all platforms now, I think.

Apparently, "Classic" Mac OS balloon help truncates the display of some of the tips, you guys will have to either a) wait for me to do a "how-to" page with all this info and more on it, or b) get a real operating system. I recommend the latter.

° fixed a bug on the windoze builds where if you drag-and-drop multiple lines of text from another application (say TextPad) or from the±wire itself, only the first line got displayed. The others were there, just not displayed.

° fixed those sounds so that they don't play if you have sounds disabled - well, I wanted you to hear them!

• moved the PING response over to log box (the log box will scroll to show you the result, regardless of the scroll setting, unless you have messages switched off, of course) Also, there's now an audio alert for a successful ping (when it comes back). If you disable both messages and sounds, you'll never know if a ping was successful! - remember you can use "/ping" in the main chat.

• fixed the time settings, pings, and other stuff will now have the correct time, as opposed to the application launch time. oops.

• added audio confirmation when deleting items from the drag-n-send™ window (backspace on mac, delete key on other platforms) - creating interesting sounds is one of my favourite coffee-break activities. WARNING: this sound is highly addictive, I can't be held responsible if you delete your whole hard drive just to hear it over and over.

• some minor enhancements to the nick changing - remember you can do "/nick whatever", just like IRC, as well as use the login window for changing your nick)

• cursor in drag-n-send™ window will now change to "hand" (Mac Carbon) or "centre" (other OS) to reflect what action will be performed when you click on an image too big to fit in the window.

• you can now set the jump value (the number of files you "jump" if you do pageup or pagedown) in the drag-n-send™ window itself. The editfield itself does simple, clever things, take note.

• the filesize of non-image files is now displayed in the drag-n-send™ window, in quasi-human terms.

• receiver now gets a file transfer progress box too, and thence, the ability to cancel any file transfer in progress, if they so wish. note: if either end cancels the file transfer, the "part" at the receiver's end is deleted immediately (if possible) and the drag-n-send™ window reverts to its previous state, either browsing some folder, or closed.

• There's now a confirmation dialog for new file transfers, before the transfer begins, you will be asked whether you wish to accept files from this human. If you click "yes", that buddy can transfer files to you for the rest of the session without further dialogs.

If they are also in your buddylist, the "yes" will be remembered permanently (or until you delete/resave their buddylist entry/hack your plist file), i.e. that buddy is now cleared for sending you files. (another good reason to use their usual nickname as the entry name) Similar story for "no".

• brought back the remote address notification. When you connect, the±wire now reports "wire with so-and-so (192.168.0.1) established", or whatever. Useful in verifying you are chatting with who you think you are chatting with.

• When you recall a buddy, any custom port settings you had will now be honoured. If you need to specify a custom port for a particular buddy, remember to set that (in the prefs) before you save them to your buddylist.

• added a couple of interesting twists to my homebrew encryption scheme. beta testers, please ensure the person you want to chat to is also using version 0.9, or else secure chat will be complete gobbledygook! For you amateur cryptanalysis out there; here's that same phrase I used earlier, but with the new encryption scheme..

≈Ω∆Å∆åƒ∏∆Ñ∆ë≈Å∆ò∆è∆è≈ç∆§ ∆ú∆£∆û≈ú∆•∆±∆∑≈®∆¨∆∫∆Ω≈ ¥∆æ«â«å«Ñ∆É«ì«é«ö∆ 諶«§∆ò «û«≠«Æ« ©∆߫櫺∆∞»á«æ «æ∆º»Ä»ã»â «à»ö»î«ë»®»ü»ü« ù»∞»§»∏»Ω…Ö

interesting, huh?

• nick data and suchlike now always travels encrypted as well, though with a weaker algorhythm than the secure chat, as the keys must be known in advance, i.e. fixed.

• Still on the subject of encryption; I've been asked to install PGP. Two things spring to mind.

1) All current encryption algorhythms are a joke.

The adage "no security is better than poor security" is true. When quantum computing hits the high-street sometime in the next few years, the time required to break (and the so-called security of any encryption algorhythm has always been measured by the time it would take to break) any of our current schemes will be reduced from years to microseconds - phrases like "ten thousand years using all the computers in the world" - very common with the experts - become completely meaningless when capabilities like these are bestowed upon the average games console. All bets are off; any data you've sent encrypted in the last twenty years will be converted to plain text this decade. Deal with it.

Quantum computing will, of course, enable us to create infinitely more complex, and indeed unbreakable encryption algorhythms (at least until the next quantum leap in earth physics); but until then, we're all just having a laugh, right? and

2) Isn't that just like a red rag to a bull?

However it does seem reasonable to assume that the more we all encrypt our data, the less red that rag becomes, so I guess I'll be installing PGP sometime soon, and pretend my arse is covered. pffff..

I put this blog up on my own (Linux) server yesterday morning, expecting to punt it to the live server sometime soon after, along with the 0.9 betas, of course (on itonit! give us a minute or thirty before you start grabbin). That didn't happen. It's Sunday night, and even though there's definitely an hour missing somewhere, I've managed to find my way home, and back in front of the puters again. Karma got all the spills, still a wee bit hung-over, poor lass. Good weekend, hope yours was, is.

for now..

;o)
(or

wire_v0.8.5

I'm feeling more confident about this whole Unicode business now, in fact, I think I actually understand what it's all about. Like most folks, especially software developers, I was kinda hoping the whole thing would just go away. It wont.

Here's something crazy; Windows uses UCS2 as its standard string type, for the OS (XP/2K/2003/etc) and Visual Basic, COM, etc; nothing wrong with that, UCS2 is a useful encoding; yet RealBasic, which compiles, and always has compiled applications for Windows, has no UCS2 support! Supports just about every other text encoding on the planet, but no UCS2. The word "brain-dead" comes to mind. Until that happens, windows users can expect oddness with extended characters in the±wire. sorry-o.

• I further extended the abilities of the log box. You can now drop text clippings (clipping files or dragged text from other apps) directly into the log box. If there are multiple lines in the clipping, it will display them all, just like it does when you drop regular text files on it. All the log box functions work when you are offline.

• after much soul searching, I have finally decided to add this capability to the main chat window. If you drop a clipping with multiple lines, they will all be displayed, and sent straight down the±wire. You've been warned. Enough folks asked me about this for me to seriously consider it.

the±wire tries to be clever about the text you drop, code should remain well formed, etc, making it easy enough for someone at the other end to retrieve bits easily enough. I'd still recommend sending bigger text files with drag-n-send™ The chat window is really just for chat (which is why the input box has a set limit)

A sad day; I removed the cute "try here" when you drop files into the chat. Now the±wire just loads them up in the dns window, saving you dragging them twice. Makes sense, sure, but the dns window popping up and saying "try here" always gave me a wee thrill. I might do a pref, heheh.

note: if you drop text files directly into the chat, they will be displayed in the log box. if you want to send them over the±wire instead, drop them directly into the drag-n-send™ window. (apple/ctrl-d)

• I added font and font size menus to the log box, you don't need to hack the plist to alter those now. There's a small time penalty at startup, I guess, as it populates these menus, milliseconds.

° Fixed a bug where if you received a file and had the "dns stays put" setting enabled, there was no "parent" folder for the file, and moving left/right/etc would crash the±wire.

° Fixed the bug in windoze builds where the±wire wouldn't enter an autowait state if you had the log box showing.

• Finally got the windoze builds to accept dragged files. Now you billy-goats can drag and drop most filetypes onto the drag-n-send™ window, even the main chat window. You can also drop text files into the chat/log box windows to be displayed, and even drag text from other apps. have fun!

° Fixed some of the weirdness on the windoze log box. It shouldn't wobble about now, much. It still wont go where it was put, though.

° Fixed the executable files rejection. Everything gets reset properly now. note: you can still send excecutables, but both parties must hack their plists to do it. This is to prevent possible vulnerabilities on the windoze platform

• Added the facility to store your "wirefiles" in a different folder (a.k.a custom location). You might not want that on the desktop.

for now..

;o)
(or

wire_v0.8.3

Magical days.. not getting a lot of coding in, though. Had three wee sessions since we last spoke.

° Fixed a couple of minor bugs in the directory handling of the drag-n-send™ window. As well as the usual evil .DS_Store files, the±wire is now savvy about other invisibles, and will ignore them entirely. A directory containing nothing but such files is considered empty.

• dns window titling is now more consistent, regardless of the filetype you are currently viewing.

• I started on converting all the internal strings to UTF8, I'm committed to getting on top of this. Truth is, I don't really understand this whole text encoding business, and I suspect, neither do you.

It occurs to me that many parts of the development process are invisible to users, most of them, in fact. How could you know the heartache and frustration involved in getting, say, an encryption scheme or communication protocol unicode savvy; a bag of bugs emptied slowly. It's a take for-granted, only when it's broken do folks notice, send emails.

• well, for fun, I added counters for zener scores with particular buddies; if you save the buddy's name as the entry name in your buddylist, zener will update that counter whenever you are challenged by that buddy. If they use a different nick during a challenge, it wont update the tally. This feature will polarise opinions. hahah

I've discovered a(nother) bug in the RB's implementation of metal windows. The workaround I used for the metal window drawing problems also fixes this.. LEAVE THE LOG BOX OPEN! I've added a warning message along these lines for when a carbon version user attempts to close the log box. hopefully the boys at realsoftware get this nailed soon *sigh*. It's been there all along, I just never put my window off the bottom edge before.

• Added a shortcut for secure chat (apple/ctrl-e) (think "encryption") you'll find this handy if you're the kind of person who gets a kick out of repeatedly switching on and off the ship's cloaking device.

• the±wire will now display its own logs if they are double-clicked/dropped onto dock/explorer icon, etc. Previously it just ignored them. It will send other (non-text) files to the dns window. On OS X, you can force any application to accept any dropped file by holding down apple-option as you drop the file onto the application's dock icon. This way, you can drag any file into the±wire, have it launch and jump straight to that file in the dns window. This works on windoze too, just drop any old file onto the±wire's icon/shortcut, which kinda makes up for the lousy drag-support in windows generally.

• Log Box: If you desperately want to change the font/fontsize of the log box, you can hack the values into the plist file. there's no pref for it, but I might do that yet. If you hack something invalid, the±wire will use its defaults.

• You can also hack the "jump" value, that is, how many files a pageup/pagedown will jump. The default is 10 files. Put in whatever you like.

• Another thing you can hack is the text files definition. Add any extensions you'd like to be displayed in the log box. Did you know you can drag text files straight into your log box and they will be displayed there? well, you can, and they will. Other filetypes get redirected to your drag-n-send™ window, and if they are images, displayed. Note: files actioned this way will NOT be automatically sent down the±wire via the drag-n-send™ mechanism, even if that is enabled. This is by design. Only files dropped directly into the drag-n-send™ window itself are eligible for this special treatment. It also prevents you from accidentally sending files to unwitting recipients simply by double-clicking them, or dropping them on the wrong dock icon, or whatever.

my body needs to get some sleep, it's been a long session, but with nice unicode handling throughout (at least on Mac OS X, fingers crossed for the rest), and a slew of improvements, features and fixes, I'm proud to announce we are at, erm 0.8.3

;o)
(or

wire_v0.8

° Fixed the few minor bugs, including the sticky login window problem on windoze.

• Finally removed the "log to file" checkbox from the main window.

• drag-n-send™ window: added a pop-up menu of all the files in the current folder, so you can select any file directly. There's a small time penalty, but well worth it I feel. It's still pretty darn swift, even with LARGE folders.

To give you an idea, on my 333MHz iMac running OS X Panther, the••wire will index a folder of 1359 images (my "wonky pix" folder, on a remote volume on my network), build the pop-up, and display the first image in just over three seconds! Don't expect to chat while this is happening!

note: you can use the pageup/pagedown keys to move very quickly through the pop-up menu of very large folders.

• I added a preference to tell the dns window to stay put, that is; in the folder you are browsing. In other words, it WILL NOT jump to your "wirefiles" folder on receiving a new file. It will display the new file/image as usual, but moving left/right/up/down continues from exactly where you were.

• Also added a few other hot-keys to the dns window:

delete	moves current file to trash (no warnings, cuz it"s in yer trash)
backspace	same as above, but for mac users. (on other platforms, backspace takes you LEFT)
home	takes you to the first file in the current folder
end	takes you to the last file in the current folder (any Mac keyboards have this?)
u	update the folder. useful if you have added items to a folder and want the±wire to index it again. If you were at file no. 3, you will remain at file no. 3, regardless of whether or not file no.3 is still the same file after the update. note: this happens automatically on new files dropped/received
L	toggles the "lock size" control, which prevents the window size from altering.

This is in addition to the current commands:

left arrow/keypad-4	previous file
right arrow/keypad-6	next file
down arrow/keypad-2	takes you into a folder (or RIGHT, if it"s not a folder)
up arrow/keypad-8	takes you up to the parent folder
PageUP	back 10 files
PageDOWN	forward 10 files
spacebar	wire it!
o	open/launch file
apple/ctrl - d	drag-n-send™ toggle the drag-n-send™ functionality, which automatically wires every file you drop.

Still doing my rounds through the code, hoovering and dusting. which reminds me, I think I"ve got someone coming to stay any day now, I"d better do the same to my apartment sometime soon. I knew sacking the cleaner was a mistake! hahah

for now..

;o)
(or

mondays

Sunday didn't quite go according to plan, it rarely does. A good thing. But even with the guests and the dramas and the other interruptions, I still got my html finished! Let's just say it was a late night.

The trouble is STILL the downloads page; the actual downloads themselves. It's bugs you see. Just when I thought I was out of the woods one of those beetle-like things with the curious proboscis flies straight into my puter and starts chewing stuff.

I have a wee job on tonight, and when I get back, I'll get stuck in. You might even get to read this blog, at last! hahaha

for now..

;o)
(or

html=more code

I've been updating the pages for the±wire tonight (in between well, Sunday), looking good; got the FAQ's and the main page ready to go, the trouble starts when I get to the downloads. It's not the secret beta download area any more, it's the internet! Where anyone can see. The known bugs page is a scroll and a half. Poor windows users, nuff said.

Got to get this itstory on the real webserver, not fair keeping it to myself. But when was life supposed to be fair, huh? Eh? Where was I? Blogging; thought it would be cute to use it for the version itstory, handy soft-stuff this corzblog! ;o)

Oh yes! I do like metal windows, well apparent on the new page, as you'll see. I make no apologies for this, took me long enough to come over to the buggers, but I wont, can't hide my addiction any longer, it's hopeless. Look into my eyes!

Viv$eacute; la Aluminium! (Le? sorry french people, erm..)

RealBasic's funky new metal windows still leave many things to be desired, but I fairly enjoy desire, and the emails it creates, postings. Heading in the right direction though, RB. I might blog about it another day, I get passionate about this, and there's still HTML to do.

for now..

;o)
(or

wire_v0.7.5 (fc1 - not)

Yup! We're at final candidate stage now. W00H00!

Secretly, for a long time now, I've been thinking about a "hidden game" for the±wire, something that folks might enjoy over a network, but nothing really came to mind. I thought about tic-tac-toe, about battleships and such. They all sound like suck-city to me, well, maybe tic-tac-toe (or rather, naughts and crosses, as we call it) would be okay. In the bath today, it hit me! A zener game! Of course!

Chat has to be about the best method of "connecting" online, I mean really tuning in with people; so what better way to stretch your psychic mettle than with the time-honoured classic test; zener cards!

One hour later, with soapy water still dripping from my mac keyboard, we got it! Zener Extreme! Hell, the±wire will even keep your scores! AAAAALRIGHTEEEE±!

Couple of screenshots..



later..

Strangely, the old "disconnexion at connexion" bug has reappeared. This is weird; almost every part of the protocol has been re-written from scratch. I'll scratch my head a bit, and think metaphysics, I think.

It goes like this. Right at connexion, it cuts off again, and then reconnects quickly, looks like you're connected okay, but you aren't. If the connector tries again manually, it *really* connects, no problem. And all the while, the person at the waiting end is blissfully unaware of the whole episode, they think the connexion went fine; they might even be chatting away. It only happens very occasionally, but still. hmmm..

I think the final candidate thing is a curse.
Maybe scrub that for now, eh.

;o)
(or

wire_v0.7.4

• I think I've cracked it. that is, intelligent directory handling. the drag-n-send™ window will now check some things for you, like whether a folder is empty (no point going in if it is), and will (fingers crossed) back up to the correct folder when you go "up" again, and again, and again. pretty cool.

I spent an age debugging what turned out to be a silly error on my part; time well spent; what we've ended up with is way smarter and much smaller (code-wise) than the old viewer.

;o)
(or

wire_v0.7.3.5

• got the "lock size" function to work properly, and update correctly, at last. coded up the copy button so you can send images from the drag-n-send™ window to the clipboard, regardless of whether they are dropped or received.

• Finally! I coded up the actual drag-n-send™ button! now you really really can drag-n-send! Just turn that on (drag-n-send™ toggle button), and drop stuff into the drag-n-send window to have it shoot straight across the±wire! even just running it locked as a wee box in the background on your desk. real handy. thanks to good design, this was only one line of code!

• fixed a few more bugs in the file-handling. stuff like deleting cancelled transfers now gets done automatically, and wont crash the±wire in the process.

;o)
(or

wire_v0.7.3.3

• I realise I have just created the finest image viewer known to man. well, okay, it lacks most of the features of a decent image viewer, no fullscreen, no slideshow, no scaling, whtahaveyou, but, BUT! the navigation system is utterly to-die-for. Why didn't anyone think of this before? With just four little keys you can go anywhere, view any image, send any file. It's beautiful. now for all those bugs..

In fact, a lot of the time I say I'm fixing bugs, I am in fact "adding features". the rationale here is that I like things to be just-the-way-I-want-them-to-be. And until that point, they are flawed, bugged. Of course I got some real hooters too, and a fair few of those out-of-my-hands-down-in-the-IDE thingies to work around as well, but mostly it's fine-tuning, getting stuff "just so". and lots, and lots of testing.

;o)
(or

wire_v0.7.3.2

° fixed the zero-length files bug. They will now simply be rejected, along with other evil files and folders (I'll possibly look into wiring whole folders some time in the future)

• added more intelligent error reporting for some possible network errors.

• started work on beefing up the "image viewer" capabilities. You can now cycle through a folder of files with the left and right keys, sorta. Images will be displayed along the way.

;o)
(or

wire_v0.7.3.1

• added autowait™ (you love these cute terms I coin, dontcha!) which basically means, you can have the±wire begin waiting for a connexion automatically at launch-time. someone asked for this.

• added a few "nice wee touches", among them, the ability to remember your last login details, and enter them for you automatically at launch time. now connexion really is a one-click process!

;o)
(or

wire_v0.7.3

° fixed loads of bugs in the dns window and the file transfer itself, and some other stuff too. there were a couple of real nasty ones. removed the ability to send a file straight back. I mean, how crazy is that? Of course, if you drag it from your wirefiles folder into the drag-n-send™ window, you can send it like any other file, if you really must.

• added a progress bar for the file transfers, useful for large transfers, though it has a tendency to freak out with very big files (50MB+), giving information like "transfer -37% complete". (that's MINUS!) erm..

• added the facility (for the sender) to cancel a transfer in progress

• chunked the send data (5k chunks), which should make large transfers much more reliable over slow networks. You also get the user interface back now! *grin*

• the±wire will now report in the chat window when files are being sent and received, and again when receive is complete. name and size (rounded up to the nearest kb)is also reported.

;o)
(or

wire_v0.7.2

• too many wee fixes and improvements to mention them all.

Got to spend some quality time with the new image transfer window and other stuff, and devised something called something revolutionary... drag-n-send™ technology (TADA!) over a nice cappuccino. It's just a useless checkbox for now, but I think you can see where I'm going with this.

• ahem. I got the dns (drag-n-send™, you know) window on windoze to behave better, attempting to do what the mac one does naturally. In other words, keep the image in the centre, rather than crop the bottom and right sides off. Don't ask me for rescaling images, it's not even on the cards.

I then thought it would be a cool idea to be able to move the image around by dragging it, for instance, if it is bigger than the window. this wee journey has introduced more bugs and problems than everything else so far; image handling across platforms is vastly different. Works great on OSX though!

• moved the received files folder (this has been annoying me). if it doesn't exist, the±wire will create a folder called "wirefiles" on your desktop. There's no need to ever save the files you receive, everything lands in there automatically. This also makes it uber-easy to trash the whole lot at the end of a session (with killer! heheh).

;o)
(or

wire_v0.7.1

° Fixed most of the major bugs in the image transfer. the±wire wont crash if you send the same image repeatedly, or send back an image you just received. You can send non-image files too, though currently there's no way to get the windoze version to accept dropped non-images.

Without threading, transferring large files over slow networks (particularly if you are short of memory, on a dial-up connexion perhaps) will be frustrating, but I've transferred 100MB+ files over a local network without problems. I'll look into more efficient transfer methods for slow networks. And threading too. When I've got a more logical head on. It's almost a full moon.

Oh, and if you come across some filetype that wont send let me know.

The prefs are all live, by the way. If you make a change, it's updated immediately in the plist file, and only then (well, also at quit). It's a good system, in the event of a crash, the last saved prefs remain. I haven't had a trashed plist yet, and I've crashed the±wire a *lot*. Ah, the joys of debugging...

;o)
(or

wire_v0.7

• image transfer is GO!!!

You can drag an image into the chat (mac only for now) and it will pop up a window with the image in it. Click "send image" and it will be sent -as if by magic- to the other end of the±wire, where it will pop-up an identical window, image and all. I've been doing wee slide-shows for folks on my home LAN! heheh

This works on windoze too, but you have to drop the images directly into the image window itself (I'll add a control to pop that up manually). You can do it this way on a mac too, of course.

My plan was to support "wee files of any kind"

The code is pretty loose and shaky at the moment, but I just tried to transfer "calc32.exe" from my mac (in fact I was grabbing it from a peecee via samba! but it was on my mac, if you know what I mean) to a peecee via the±wire. It worked! crashed the±wire on the peecee, but calc32 calcs just fine at the other end! I feel like A.G.Bell!

In fact, you can transfer any old file like this, but non-image filetypes will likely crash the peecee image viewer (I'll look into this). no problem the other way, the peecee barely accepts dropped images let alone anything else. Amazingly I didn't even have to mess with endianess! (just wait til a classic mac user tries a transfer! - get an OS will ya!)

Currently, on a Mac, anything that quicktime supports, the±wire can display, PDF's, for instance (at least the first page) The peecee version can't support *viewing* of so many filetypes, but you'll *always still get the file*. Just use your regular viewer on it.

If you drop a PDF in at the peecee end, it will pop up just fine in a mac viewer, for instance. There's no way to stop it, in fact, so if one of your "mates" starts throwing random porn at you ... Well, I might do a ban-list thing, or post a "do you wish to receive file named 'anallypronged.jpg'?" dialog, or something.

I don't plan to support mac resource forks either, applications (and the like) are best archived before *any* transfer, over the±wire or elsewhere. I also don't plan to support image "clippings". Only real data files. (when will Apple wise-up about clippings, huh?)

the technical bit: when you "send" a file, you actually send a request to the receiving machine to connect back to YOU. This will allow us (at some future point in time) to present the receiver with an opportunity to deny the transfer, and as the receiver is connecting *to the sender*, who is effectively acting as a listening server. The security benefits of this architecture are apparent. Exactly how far into the future it will be before I actually implement the authorisation part is anyone's guess.

• oh, I forgot to mention, you can /ping a remote host at any time (like when you wonder if something maybe happened to the connexion). Their copy of the±wire will respond with a confirmation, along and their local timestamp. They don't smell your ping.

;o)
(or

wire_v0.6.5

° some small fixes.

• Improved the help-tags throughout. When they get annoying, you can switch them off in the prefs. WARNING: Some contain humour.

• cleaned up the logic for the custom port selection, it now keeps you right and won't let you make a mistake, in theory.

• added the font menu. you can now select a font for the chat. this causes a small startup delay while the list is populated. though this is better than building it every time you open the preferences window, imho. The menu is dynamic; the changes will appear instantly, affecting all the chat, so you can easily see which font suits you best.

;o)
(or

wire_v0.6.4

okay, I trashed the EasyTCP class and put together a new protocol, this will allow us room to expand, especially when we want to drop files and images over the±wire.

started to add some basic image facilities. You can drag an image into the chat and it will be displayed in a window. Don't try to send it across the±wire yet, it will crash the other computer! (maybe I'll disable that button for now) more to come.


Of course, the±wire is now useful as a handy image viewer.

• added a facility to customise the ports. you may have your own reasons for wanting to do this.

• Added a menu for the font size. Some people can't see very clearly, apparently. Font menu next!

• I moved the default prefs files to inside application bundle on OSX, so no one has to even see them. much neater. pity (*sigh*, again) there's no windows equivalent.

;o)
(or

wire_v0.6.3 (pseudo-public beta)

° fixed some login-related issues, nothing serious, just the popups getting wierd sometimes. keep an eye out for that still, the xml parser can be a bit moody.

• beefed up the chatbox, you can now copy multiple selections* into the clipboard using the copy (apple/ctrl-c) menu, and you can delete lines/selections in the log box with the delete key, amongst other minor improvements.

*use the apple -ctrl on windows- to make multiple selections, shift to make big selections, or a combination of both.

• sorting out the menu's. added a couple of rudimentary concept menus too, put the editing functions on a right-click. (ctrl-click for one-button *sigh* mouse users). The log box has a concept menu too, and this is the preferred method for clipboard functions. note: it is possible to drag lines around in the logbox, even multiple selections, even to cut lines and selections right out. think of it like a chat-sorting window. you can prepare sections before dragging/copying them somewhere else.

° cleaned-up some of the internal logic, which is a nice way of saying some of the internal logic sucked.

• the±wire now let's you know if it can't locate the address you are trying to connect to. However, it won't prompt you to check your spelling or anything like that.

° started messing around with the sockets again. I'd been trying out the new realbasic easytcp class, but its limitations are becoming apparent. Toying with a few ideas for now. don't expect the next version of these betas to be able to speak this one!

° preference files are now stored inside their own folder in the preferences folder, methinks you might have some of my other apps kicking around before too long. The folder is called "corz".

;o)
(or

wire_v0.6.2

• Improved text handling throughout the±wire, adding stuff we like, like "select all" for the text input field and chat areas. This allows you, amongst other things, to easily throw a whole session onto the desktop as a text clipping. Also, we now strip the very last endofline character from drag-and-dropped text (have added a pref for this too, so you can switch it off if you mostly drag multiple chat clippings into say, a text document) so now it doesn't mess up the input box when dropped in there, neater for desktop clippings too. Text behaviour inside the input box is expanded and more intuitive also.

• you can now change your nick in the middle of a chat, simply open the login window and pick/type another. Your nick will only change if you click the "done" button. Closing the window by any other means will leave your nick as it is.

This can also be accomplished with a standard IRC nick change command..

/nick foo

would change your nickname to "foo".

This is the preferred method (I might even drop the other)

Note: for obvious reasons, you cannot use the same nick as the person you are chatting to! Don't even try!

;o)
(or

wire_v0.6.1

More bugfixing (and still many to go) It is now not possible to wait and connect at the same time. oops!

The sockets are much more robust and predictable now, for example; disconnections trigger the correct sequence of events, rather than just dropping off.

Fixed the chinese text (encoding) issue. At least, it looks fixed; we'll see what happens the first time somebody chinese tries to use the±wire ;o) Dragging text from either chatbox or log box will drop good old normal text with nice UTF-8 encoding. It's still not perfect yet though; in truth, I don't really understand the whole text encoding thing, I'll dig around and fix this proper when I get the time.

• we can now link a nickname to a buddy, so that when you recall a buddy from the buddylist, your linked nickname is inserted automatically. To link a nickname to a buddy, simply enter something into the nick field before you save the buddy entry, when you recall the buddy, the nick will be recalled too, but I just said that. As well as helping us to manage our multiple personalities, this reduces the whole connexion to a near one-click process (two if you click "connect" instead of just hitting [enter]). Just gotta hope someone hasn't already patented "communication this bloody easy^TM"

• improved metal window dragging (mac only). Now the window won't go outside the screen (erm). You can still use the standard dragging areas (title bar and very edges) to move windows outside the left/bottom/right edges, but clicking on the non-handle parts will snap the window fully back into your screen. pretty neat.

This has a bonus side effect: if you do a drag-move on the main window while you are waiting to connect (the gear is spinning) the main window will shoot off in that direction. Fool around with that, can be fun.

;o)
(or

wire_v0.6 (private beta release)

Fixed a few more bugs. (do I need to write that? there's always bugs!)

• Added a pop-up list to the nickname too, now the super-lazy can store commonly-used nicknames in a pop-up menu as well as their buddies!

• The new login window has a fairly dynamic approach. Say, for instance you connect to someone, and there is no response. If you open the login window and choose a new buddy, you will immediately (on your next connexion retry, whenever you have that set for) connect to the new buddy. This makes it easy for the extremely bored to run through their buddylist until they find someone available.

• We can now drag-and-drop text directly into the chat window to send it straight down the±wire. This is especially useful for dropping URL's to a remote copy of the±wire. (i.e using a copy of FlashGet, or iGetter (or some other downloader that monitors the clipboard) and a connected copy of the±wire; simply switch on autocopy™^TM at the other end and drag links into your chatbox! Hey presto! a fully automatic downloading station!)

This drag-and-drop stuff works on windoze too, dragging text from apps that support it, textpad does, and an increasing amount of other apps too. You can also drop Mac text clippings straight into the chatbox, even URL shortcut files, the sort you get if you drag a URL onto the desktop.

Note; only the first line of text is displayed, though in fact the entire clip is read and passed along the±wire, whatever you drop. Causes havoc with text encodings.

;o)
(or

wire_v0.5.9

I decided against a fixed length for the buddylist, instead I've coded a dynamic, infinite (in theory) buddylist. You can add as many buddies to the list as you like, and remove them too, of course. I've no idea what happens when you add more buddies than the screen height allow, i guess it'll scroll.

;o)
(or

wire_v0.5.8

buddylist is go! w00h00!

You can store up to nine buddies in the list, there's simple add/remove buttons to edit the list, too. it's mostly debugged, and raring to go! You got buddies!

;o)
(or

wire_v0.5.7:

Man! Now we really got prefs (and bugs!), even a real prefs dialog!

Windows will remember their size and positions (at least on a Mac they will), and the retry (hammer) rate is also configurable. More to come. All this info is stored in a good ole Mac .plist file (thanks to MacMage for the nice XML goodies).

Hey! we got IRC-style "/me" actions now! so you can gype about and trout-slap just like in #corz ;o)

fixed too many bugs to mention, introduced a few others. still working around realbasic's messy metal windows, can you spot the make-up? Carbon version will *always* open the logbox at startup. This is to work around a bug in the metal window drawing. When realsoftware fix it, I'll remove this limitation.

;o)
(or

wire_v0.5.6:

Loads! We got prefs, customisable logging, improved logbox, secure chat, and more. Most of which is still full of bugs.

The secure chat is still in its infancy, just some cute string-manipulations, which would certainly baffle the average snooper, but not much of a challenge for a cryptanalysis. Mainly I wanted the framework in place; future versions will have stronger algorhythms, once I work out the technical (and legal) issues involved.

Note, if either ends of the±wire have secure chat enabled, the other end will automatically switch to secure mode on connexion, this also happens if either switches it on or off during a chat. It's also a nice way to annoy someone, switching it on and off rapidly during a chat, which is why I removed the text notification!

;o)
(or

wire_v0.5.5b:

Got the cute login box to do lots of intuitive things; like focusing properly, and tabbing between fields. The <ENTER> key will also wait/connect/close, depending on what fields are filled; the button changing to reflect what action will be performed at any given time - clicking is always "done", neither waiting nor connecting.

The layout changes in the main window are fixed up too. looks good.

The±wire is now more aggressive in its connexions, and will keep trying for you if there is no response. Will do a pref for the retry rate (hammer) soon.

There still a unicode issue with dragging text, which I suspect is part of the IDE (which is supposed to handle everything internally as UTF-8, but doesn't).

It's effin Chinese!

;o)
(or

the±wire

here we go again..

I got some puter time, at last. Feels like weeks since I got to really sit down in my "throne". And this is one job I've been putting off for long enough. A major new version of the±wire! Let's begin..

0.5.5:
Got a new layout, gonna use a drawer for the logbox on OS X. nice. Pity there's no drawers in Windoze. This version number neatly coincides with the new and improved IDE (RealBasic 5.5ß) and is just a wee notch up from the old (2nd) version. That's right! we are on the third incarnation of the±wire now! And it get's better all the time! I'm gonna write a new protocol too, old wires won't be compatible. I've had it with that effin code!

;o)
(or