Entries by Max Howell

Amarok Blog

Monday, August 21. 2006

Inconsistent GUIs on Linux Posted by Max Howell in mxcl at 12:32

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Inconsistent GUIs on Linux

It’s a commonly repeated opinion, that on Linux all application GUIs look different, but on Windows all/most applications feel like Windows applications.


Now obviously people mean the difference between, for instance, KDE and Gnome apps, and they mostly also refer to even more horrible toolkits like whatever it is that xine-ui uses.


But if you actually looked closely at Windows applications, you’d notice that every major MS application uses different toolkits and “skins”, and so do all the other applications from other companies. In fact Win32 only offers a few basic controls, namely:



  • push-buttons
  • scrollbars
  • really basic menus
  • combo boxes

The menus that win32 offers are so basic that nobody uses them, they implement their own so they can add things like icons, and menu-separators.


In my opinion, the reasons that Windows applications are consistent are:



  • Consistent fonts
  • Consistent colours.

Absolutely the number one reason is fonts. Windows offers a default font that GUI controls like menus, buttons and text widgets use. Apparently, the API for drawing text is different on Windows compared to X11 in that it developers end up using the right font when they roll their own widgets. On Windows, all text looks consistent.


Colours are almost as important. On Windows the colorscheme is a globally accesible property, on Linux schemes are toolkit/desktop specific. If toolkits just used the same colours, people wouldn’t notice small, or even larger differences in the widget styling.


So in conclusion, if Linux just standardised fonts and colors I think applications would feel consistent, just like they do on Windows. If toolkits did just these two things, their other differences would not be nearly as noticeable in general use. Frankly I feel if Linux could do these things, we’d be more consistent, since if you use mostly KDE apps, they have far more internal consistency than the Microsoft port-folio.


Disclaimers

Of course there are other more subtle considerations, like one toolkit on linux has 4 pixel bevels. It just looks ugly, there’s no way to hide that. But if it had consistent fonts and colouring it’d look a lot better and would fit in with a KDE desktop more easily.


It is also true that Windows appliations copy whatever is the latest MS-app appearance. MS Office 2003 has a neat style that has rapidly been copied and emulated in all other major toolkits, ie check out the latest version of Delphi, it looks similar to Office 2003, but the similarity is subtely different, eg. menus are narrower and more compact. And this makes sense since MS didn’t release any API or DLL to allow you to use the Office 2003 style, so Borland implemented their own clone. Trolltech even claimed to considering emulating it when I attended their roadshow in Cambridge. My point in this paragraph is that Windows apps emulate a general “Windows” consensus that is defined by MS, so this helps somewhat.


And yes, I’m just ranting an opinion here, maybe someone who reads this would like to do something about it, as I’m not the man for that job.


Saturday, August 19. 2006

Filelight 1.0-rc1 Posted by Max Howell in mxcl at 22:30

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Filelight 1.0-rc1

Filelight creates an interactive map of concentric segmented-rings that represent the sizes of files and directories on your computer.


I fixed up all the bugs that I’ve been alerted to, and added some polish.


1.0 will follow provided I managed to fix the bug where non latin1 files/directories don’t get displayed properly for the label texts. Can someone please check this! Thanks :) 1.0 will be a few weeks away since I have to allow translation time, I had to change a few strings. Many thanks to the people at kde-i18n.


Downloads and more info here.


Saturday, August 19. 2006

Filelight 1.0-rc1 Posted by Max Howell in mxcl at 18:30

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Filelight 1.0-rc1

Filelight creates an interactive map of concentric segmented-rings that represent the sizes of files and directories on your computer.


I fixed up all the bugs that I’ve been alerted to, and added some polish.


1.0 will follow provided I managed to fix the bug where non latin1 files/directories don’t get displayed properly for the label texts. Can someone please check this! Thanks :) 1.0 will be a few weeks away since I have to allow translation time, I had to change a few strings. Many thanks to the people at kde-i18n.


Downloads and more info here.


Monday, July 24. 2006

TODO: Xbox 360 Streaming From Amarok Posted by Max Howell in mxcl at 14:24

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TODO: Xbox 360 Streaming From Amarok

I haven’t written this yet. But I’ve been googling for information, and I’m stuck. So here’s an appeal to the wider community.


Xbox 360 can accept streams from Windows Media Center Edition. But I don’t have that, does anyone? So I want to stream from Amarok. Can anyone recommend something that can do this already, or a whitepaper about it? Am I going to have to reverse engineer the MS protocol? Because that may put me off unless someone can give me some pointers.


If I made it I’d make it an independent app to Amarok and then interface it. Is there some general purpose streaming solution out there that I may be able to write a plugin or something for? As reinventing the wheel is not for me.


With this feature I could play geometry wars while listening to some of my collection, which would be nice as the GW theme gets a little repetitive after about 30 seconds.


Please don’t slate me for my 360 purchase! It rocks too much for me to not have one.


Real URL: http://www.methylblue.com/blog/?p=48

Monday, July 24. 2006

TODO: Xbox 360 Streaming From Amarok Posted by Max Howell in mxcl at 10:24

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TODO: Xbox 360 Streaming From Amarok

I haven’t written this yet. But I’ve been googling for information, and I’m stuck. So here’s an appeal to the wider community.


Xbox 360 can accept streams from Windows Media Center Edition. But I don’t have that, does anyone? So I want to stream from Amarok. Can anyone recommend something that can do this already, or a whitepaper about it? Am I going to have to reverse engineer the MS protocol? Because that may put me off unless someone can give me some pointers.


If I made it I’d make it an independent app to Amarok and then interface it. Is there some general purpose streaming solution out there that I may be able to write a plugin or something for? As reinventing the wheel is not for me.


With this feature I could play geometry wars while listening to some of my collection, which would be nice as the GW theme gets a little repetitive after about 30 seconds.


Please don’t slate me for my 360 purchase! It rocks too much for me to not have one.


Tuesday, June 27. 2006

Defeating Wordpress Trackback Spam Posted by Max Howell in mxcl at 16:31

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Defeating Wordpress Trackback Spam

Until yesterday I was getting 200 trackback spams a day.


Firstly I installed Trackback Validator, which works a treat at preventing trackback spam from going directly to your blog comments listing.


But you still get an email about the trackback, even though it is already classified as spam.


So I was looking through my referral logs and I noticed that I get a lot of visitors searching with the suspicious string “l3av3 a r3ply pr0udly p0w3r3d by w0rdpr3ss”. I used leet-speak so that google doesn’t flag up this site anew!


So I edited the wordpress code to change that string. You can find it in footer.php, and this is editable in the theme editor in wordpress admin. Hope this helps some people out there! (But not too many as then the spammers will catch on…)


I still wanted to attribute the blog to Wordpress, as it’s awesome, so the string now reads:


The Future Comes Second was formulated using teh awesome WordPress


Update [30-Jun-2006]


Actually, it turns out the www-redirect plugin I coincidentally activated on the same day as the above hack, had a bug that made it impossible to submit trackbacks and comments to this blog.. Although I still expect my measures to have some affect, I doubt it’ll be that much. Too good to be true eh? :)


Update [25-Jul-2006]


I changed the address for the site from http://methylblue.com/blog/ to http://www.methylblue.com/blog/, because I use the www-redirect plugin for Wordpress attacks by trackback spammers to the old address fail, as the POST is lost. Very little new trackback spam comes my way now and I’m hoping this is because I changed the string above.


Tuesday, June 27. 2006

Defeating Wordpress Trackback Spam Posted by Max Howell in mxcl at 12:31

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Defeating Wordpress Trackback Spam

Until yesterday I was getting 200 trackback spams a day.


Firstly I installed Trackback Validator, which works a treat at preventing trackback spam from going directly to your blog comments listing.


But you still get an email about the trackback, even though it is already classified as spam.


So I was looking through my referral logs and I noticed that I get a lot of visitors searching with the suspicious string “l3av3 a r3ply pr0udly p0w3r3d by w0rdpr3ss”. I used leet-speak so that google doesn’t flag up this site anew!


So I edited the wordpress code to change that string. You can find it in footer.php, and this is editable in the theme editor in wordpress admin. Hope this helps some people out there! (But not too many as then the spammers will catch on…)


I still wanted to attribute the blog to Wordpress, as it’s awesome, so the string now reads:


The Future Comes Second was formulated using teh awesome WordPress


Update [30-Jun-2006]


Actually, it turns out the www-redirect plugin I coincidentally activated on the same day as the above hack, had a bug that made it impossible to submit trackbacks and comments to this blog.. Although I still expect my measures to have some affect, I doubt it’ll be that much. Too good to be true eh? :)


Update [25-Jul-2006]


I changed the address for the site from http://methylblue.com/blog/ to http://www.methylblue.com/blog/, because I use the www-redirect plugin for Wordpress attacks by trackback spammers to the old address fail, as the POST is lost. Very little new trackback spam comes my way now and I’m hoping this is because I changed the string above.


Tuesday, May 30. 2006

K3M Posted by Max Howell in mxcl at 17:47

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K3M

I had a great time at the meeting, there’s nothing like the intensity of a hackathon, and actual face-to-face discussion to make you super productive. Many thanks to KDE NL for organising the event, especially since we offered such amazing disorganisation in return! ;)


For fun, here’s me, markey and muesli (left-to-right) in Amsterdam, and then at aKademy 2 years ago in Stutgart.


mxcl, markey, muesli


muesli, markey, mxcl


I picked on us three as there was the comparison shot. Overtime though we’ve been visited by more and more people, some submitted a patch or two then joined development more actively. Getting involved really is that easy. Send a patch, come to IRC, prove you cope with the sometimes obscure mxcl/oggb4mp3/sebr sense of humor and you’ll soon be being asked for your opinion on stuff.


Sebr mentioned that we have an excellent development team quite a few times at the meet, and it’s true. And may it long continue because we work well as a group and have each our own unique talents that when combined, keep the quality high.


That’s not to say we can’t improve, and we discussed among other things, what should be done to make code quality higher, while not lessening release rate, and how to keep exploring new features, without making amaroK unwelcoming to new (and old) users.


Tuesday, May 30. 2006

K3M Posted by Max Howell in mxcl at 13:47

K3M

I had a great time at the meeting, there’s nothing like the intensity of a hackathon, and actual face-to-face discussion to make you super productive. Many thanks to KDE NL for organising the event, especially since we offered such amazing disorganisation in return! ;)


For fun, here’s me, markey and muesli (left-to-right) in Amsterdam, and then at aKademy 2 years ago in Stutgart.


mxcl, markey, muesli


muesli, markey, mxcl


I picked on us three as there was the comparison shot. Overtime though we’ve been visited by more and more people, some submitted a patch or two then joined development more actively. Getting involved really is that easy. Send a patch, come to IRC, prove you cope with the sometimes obscure mxcl/oggb4mp3/sebr sense of humor and you’ll soon be being asked for your opinion on stuff.


Sebr mentioned that we have an excellent development team quite a few times at the meet, and it’s true. And may it long continue because we work well as a group and have each our own unique talents that when combined, keep the quality high.


That’s not to say we can’t improve, and we discussed among other things, what should be done to make code quality higher, while not lessening release rate, and how to keep exploring new features, without making amaroK unwelcoming to new (and old) users.


Friday, May 12. 2006

Codeine 1.0.1 Posted by Max Howell in mxcl at 01:04

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Codeine 1.0.1

I release Codeine 1.0.1, my simple, (hopefully) usable video player.


Codeine 1.0.1 Screenshot


I hope to release more frequently from now on. And also finally get Filelight 1.0 out. It’s nice to be releasing software on Linux again. :)


I confess I was partially motivated by me going to Florence for the weekend. I’ve developed an odd fear of flying over the last year. I hated the idea of something happening to me and Codeine still being stuck at 1.0. Dedication eh? ;)


Full changelog at the kde-apps entry.


Comments on Codeine, its design, etc. and requests for its future are welcome.



On an unrelated note, watch this. I’m so getting a Wii when they come out! But I also want a PS3 for Heavenly Sword, but who will be able to afford a PS3? I spose I could move to a smaller place..


Thursday, May 11. 2006

Codeine 1.0.1 Posted by Max Howell in mxcl at 21:04

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Codeine 1.0.1

I release Codeine 1.0.1, my simple, (hopefully) usable video player.


Codeine 1.0.1 Screenshot


I hope to release more frequently from now on. And also finally get Filelight 1.0 out. It’s nice to be releasing software on Linux again. :)


I confess I was partially motivated by me going to Florence for the weekend. I’ve developed an odd fear of flying over the last year. I hated the idea of something happening to me and Codeine still being stuck at 1.0. Dedication eh? ;)


Full changelog at the kde-apps entry.


Comments on Codeine, its design, etc. and requests for its future are welcome.



On an unrelated note, watch this. I’m so getting a Wii when they come out! But I also want a PS3 for Heavenly Sword, but who will be able to afford a PS3? I spose I could move to a smaller place..


Thursday, May 11. 2006

XMMS vs. Amarok Posted by Max Howell in mxcl at 14:51

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XMMS vs. Amarok

Interesting, no?



XMMS   Amarok


Please post other interesting comparisons or graphs in the comments! :)


Thursday, May 11. 2006

XMMS vs. Amarok Posted by Max Howell in mxcl at 10:51

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XMMS vs. Amarok

Interesting, no?



XMMS   Amarok


Please post other interesting comparisons or graphs in the comments! :)


Saturday, January 14. 2006

Microsoft Office 12 Posted by Max Howell in mxcl at 01:34

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Microsoft Office 12

When I first saw screenshots of Office 12, I thought "Wow, they've really thought about it this time." Recently, I discovered this blog, and this transcript of a talk by the blog author (some important Office 12 UI guy).

Now I'm sure Office 12 is going to be impressive. I just hope they haven't done quite so well with Vista, because although I'm (mostly) certain KDE 4 will be well researched, designed and implemented, I think it's hard competing against the amount of money MS and Apple can afford to put into design.

The blog is good. The author is obviously experienced and has led the UI development well. The entries are well written and very interesting! As someone interested predominantly in UI-design, I gained a lot of insight. I was a little thrilled to see ideas in there I'd been thinking on myself, which is also annoying as now people will just assume I copied if I ever implement any of them. And for sure KDE 4 should involve as many new widget-ideas and usage-concepts as possible IMHO.

Thursday, December 1. 2005

Still Alive! Posted by Max Howell at 13:49

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Still Alive!

As madpenguin will confirm, everytime I move house I vanish for months at a time. I do apologise for this, I'm not sure why it happens. Most likely it's just I find it hard to adjust to new places and new routines.

Things are going well for me now, in that I'm now being paid fulltime to write code in Qt 4 by an interesting upwards-going company (computer forensics), and I quite enjoy doing it too. But I miss KDE devlopment, and since I'm a Qt 4 master now, really want to do some KDE 4 stuff. But my Linux box is offline because my 19in monitor fizzled and broke a while ago, so all I've had for quite a while is my company laptop (which is pretty rocking, but runs only Windows XP).

Anyone got any monitor recommendations? I want one 1600x1200, or a widescreen LCD, or two 17in LCDs. The sooner I can get the monitors the sooner I can do stuff again. I have time, or I'll make time, and at the very least I'll stay logged into #amarok.

Qt 4

I write better code with Qt 4 I think. But often it takes more code, but the code is easier to read. The Qt foreach macro is wonderful. I love code like:

foreach( QString bah, QStringList() << "foo" << "bar" )

    qDebug()  << bah;

    o->addItem( bah );

}

The view delegate system is complicated, and the Qt3-esque QListView (QTreeWidget in Qt 4) is slow and has a poor (relative to the rest of Qt 4) and different (relative to Qt 3 QListView) interface. But amaroK 2 playlist will rock with model/view/delegates, if we even have a playlist in amaroK 2 (I assume we will! heh).

Codeine

I haven't forgotten Codeine, I'll be working on it fresh again as soon as I've got my new monitor(s).

Filelight

I think on Filelight often, I'll release 1.0 hopefully soon. Because I want to make a version for Windows too you see, so I have fresh motivation.

amaroK

First thing I'll do is make a volume element psuedo-plugin for xine-engine, and hopefully that will get me back into regular development. This feature is needed for better fade in/out in the bottom 5% of the volume range. Currently xine only offers volume adjustment at integer values from 0 to 100, and since people hear things on a logarithmic scale, the lowest volume fade section sounds bad. Also I noticed Winamp copied ;-) our fade-out on exit feature, and they do it better, and I can’t have that because Winamp is teh suckz0r.

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