Windows 10 - IE Work around

I tried out Windows 10 at the Microsoft store a few days ago and really loved it so I installed it first chance I got time over the weekend.  I do really like the interface fixes.  I've mostly liked Windows 8 and have gotten used to the split interfaces for metro (now tablet) applications and desktop.  I've gotten used to the various touch screen gestures on my Surface Pro 3 and absolutely love my surface. Probably one of the best machines I have ever owned, but that's not saying much because usually I buy two year old machines for cheap, max out the ram and put in an SSD and limp along for a few more years.  The surface was a gift, one of the best ever, but not something I would have bought for myself.

Anyway, after the Windows 10 install everything was working well except there is one site I use a lot that requires IE and an Active X control.  The windows 10 browser is called Edge (even though the icon, a big "e" looks exactly like IE) and it will not run the plugin.  I've been trying to get the plugin to work to no avail.  I though IE had been uninstalled, but just went to try and install it and sure enough it's still there.  The site I need still works in IE so all is well again and I'm really liking the new interface.

The biggest improvement I've seen in Windows 10 is a much closer integration between the (metro) tablet interface and the desktop interface.  They mostly just look like they are one interface (more desktop than metro) and it works much more smoothly.   Well worth the upgrade and a huge improvement.

If you are looking for IE on windows 10, just search for "Internet Explorer" and it's the top hit.  Sometimes the top of the menu looked like a "header" item to me and I was ignoring it.  The top part that looks like a header is actually the closest item you are looking for.

Happy Birthday IBM BlueMix

Happy Birthday Bluemix

I've written a few test applications with Bluemix over the past year and really liked the environment and capability it gives to rapidly build applications. I've also tried most of the competitive environments an this one is the best. What a great environment and year it has been. You should try it.

Datacap C# Smart Parameter parsing using MetaWord

I keep having to look up how to get a smart parameter in Datacap using both C# and VBScript. Figure it's time to leave myself a breadcrumb.

Here is the sample in C#, it comes directly from the vScanSample where I always look for it.

        public bool myact_set_folder(string sPath)      // set the folder to search for files
        {
            dcSmart.SmartNav localSmartObj = null;
            try
            {
                localSmartObj = new dcSmart.SmartNav(this);
                //If the parameter is a smart parameter, look up the actual path (returns the original path if it was not a smart parameter)
                mFolderPath = localSmartObj.MetaWord(sPath);
                RRLog.Write("Image source folder set to: " + mFolderPath);
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                RRLog.Write("myact_set_folder error: " + ex.ToString()); 
                return false;
            }
            finally
            {
                localSmartObj = null;
            }

            return true;
        }

Here is the VBScript Datacap custom action version to parse the smart parameter. This comes directly from one of my own custom actions I use for doing text searching.

   'Get the smart parameter for the FinderString
    sTmp = MetaWord(FinderString)
    If (sTmp = "") Then 'Field Value
        Set oChild = CurrentObj.FindChild(Right((FinderString), Len((FinderString))-1))
        If Not(oChild Is Nothing) Then
           WriteLog("Hostname from field")
           sTmp = oChild.Text
    Set oChild = Nothing
        End If
    End If
    ValueToSearch = sTmp
    WriteLog("ValueToSearch = " & ValueToSearch)

Hope I remember that I left myself this note here

c# getters and setters

I keep having to lookup the c# syntax for getters and setters.  Nothing to fancy, just figure I'll leave myself a bread crumb.

    private int iCurCell;
    public int CurCell
    {
        get { return iCurCell; }
        set { this.iCurCell = value; }
    }

Instantiate a prefab

I keep having to look up how to instantiate a prefab.  This is an easier place for me to look for it.

Put this as a method variable

// C# 

public Transform prefabMovePath;

Once you have that method variable in your Unity script, then you will see this.

Simply drag and drop the prefab you want to the script to instantiate to the PrefabMovePath in unity.

Since I'll probably forget that too, the way you create a prefab is pretty simple, build it up in the hierarchy/scene, then drag it from the hierarchy to the project.  It will have a blue cube icon.

Use this Instantiate code to create an instance of that prefab.

private Transform curMove;
void Start() 
{
    curMove = (Transform)Instantiate(prefabMovePath, new Vector3(0, 0, 0), Quaternion.identity);
}

Then, since that prefab has a script I need access to, use this when wanting to call code in the script that prefab is attached to.

        MovePath mp = curMove.GetComponent();
        mp.rotateLeft();

Using Unity Instantiate to create child objects

I'm building a tetris like board and was using Instantiate to create a group of tiles that were a move piece and when I moved the parent object, non of them moved.  It wasn't hard to fix, simply set the parent of the instantiated object.

            Transform ttmp = (Transform)Instantiate(goal_tile, goal_tile.position, goal_tile.rotation);
            tile.transform.position = new Vector2(
                (cellToCol(i) * tile_plain.rect.width) / tile_plain.pixelsPerUnit,
                (cellToRow(i) * tile_plain.rect.width) / tile_plain.pixelsPerUnit);
            ttmp.parent = transform;

Then in the update method, I can move the entire group of tiles like this

       Transform t2 = GetComponent();
       t2.position = new Vector3(t2.position.x + 0.005f, t2.position.y, t2.position.z);

In this case I'm getting the Transform associated with myself and adding a small amount to the x position. It doesn't do much because it just moves of the screen, but the game is getting closer bit by bit.

Unity2D script to programatcally add a sprite

I'm create a grid of tiles. The tiles are sprites and I'm laying them out programmatically. Here is the code to generate one of the tiles.

public Sprite tile_plain;  // assign this in unity by dragging a sprite to it

void Start()
{
  GameObject tile = new GameObject();
  tile.AddComponent();
  tile.GetComponent().sprite = tile_plain;
  tile.transform.position = new Vector2((i * tile_plain.rect.width)/tile_plain.pixelsPerUnit, 5f);
}

Unity2D Screen size

Still messing with Unity 2D and wanted to make a note on now to find the screen size and the upper left coordinate. This will be something I need for every game.

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class ScreenSize : MonoBehaviour 
{
  void Start()
    {
    float ScreenHeight = Camera.main.orthographicSize*2;
    float SceenWidth = Camera.main.aspect * camHalfHeight; 

    // Set a new vector to the top left of the scene 
    Vector3 topLeftPosition = new Vector3(-ScreenWidth/2, ScreenHeight/2, 0) + Camera.main.transform.position;
    }
}

Unity 2D Units

I'm building a tile system to display a grid of sprits in my game. I'm old school and used to just using pixels so a 32 pixel wide sprite is 32 pixels wide. so when I do this to create a strip of sprites

        (a public method variable)public Sprite tile_plain;
        int i;
        for (i=0;i<25;i++)
        {
            GameObject tile = new GameObject();
            tile.AddComponent();
            tile.GetComponent().sprite = tile_plain;
            tile.transform.position = new Vector2((i * tile_plain.rect.width), 5f);

Then only one sprite element shows up on the screen and the others, while they are there are off the screen. To do this, you have to divide by the pixels per unit identified in the sprite.

  
        (a public method variable)public Sprite tile_plain;      
        int i;
        for (i=0;i<25;i++)
        {
            GameObject tile = new GameObject();
            tile.AddComponent();
            tile.GetComponent().sprite = tile_plain;
            tile.transform.position = new Vector2((i * tile_plain.rect.width)/tile_plain.pixelsPerUnit, 5f);

This was a good Stackoverflow post (Unity 4.3 - understanding positions and screen resolution, how to properly set position of object?) on the topic.

Surface Pro 3 and Visual Studio network conflict

I've recently been using a surface pro 3 for my development.  I love it as it works great on planes and when I travel.  I had been having one issue with the network on sleep, it never returned and I had to continually reset it.  I also found that sleep had been replaced by hibernate and it took 20 seconds to come back to life every time I left it alone for a few minutes.  It turned out that Visual Studio 2013 installs Hyper-V.

This was a great explanation of the problem.
http://winsupersite.com/mobile-devices/surface-pro-3-tip-hyper-v-vs-connected-standby

I don't plan on using Hyper-V so I can turn it off. Basically I just ran a command prompt as administrator and used this command.
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off

as this blog is mostly for my own note taking purposes, I'm going to return here if I need to run it again or I need to turn it back on

Here is how I'm going to turn it back on.
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto

Kids name printing

I now it's not software development, but my three toddlers are learning how to write and I found this really cool name tracing site.

http://www.printactivities.com/Tracing.html

Board games for programmers

If you have a group of programmers, RoboRally is a really really fund game.  You create little five card instructuctions for your robot and send him off. Invariably, people put in bugs or run into other robots and cause hilarious effects.  I've played this many times with developer teams and everyone has fun.

Theory of fun

I've been revisiting this book on game design and really enjoying it. It will really help you understand what makes fun games fun.

 

Also, this book does a good job of talking about violence in video games and what it actually means. I don't know if it was in the book or not, but I remember reading this and coming up with a defense of violence in video games. Not that I condone violence, I like peaceful people, but the fact is that you can only complain about game violence if you've never played this children's classic.

hangman

.

How to configure a Unity project to use VisualStudio

I started a new 2D project to try and see if I could port an old game I did in Java called EmPathMe (http://www.woodsgoods.com/gaw, Good luck getting it to run).

When I went to launch a script in VisualStudio it complained there wasn't a .sln file so I had to figure it out again. I'm leaving myself this post so I don't have to figure it out again.

You select Assets/Import Package/Custom Package...

 

Then you navigate to the location where the VisualStudio Tools for Unity were installed (http://unityvs.com/). I installed them in the default location C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Unity\2013. The debug only works well with VisualStudioPro and I have no idea how I'm going to pay for the pro version once my  That's one reason I'm setting this up so I can get the touch code working well before my trial license expires

 

Choose all the package assets.

 

Now you will have the Visual Studio Tools menu and you can generate the project files so you don't see the error about not having a .sln file when launching the Unity editor.

Unity 2D Tutorials

These tutorials on the new Unity 2D features have been very helpful.

http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/beginner/2d/2d-overview

Bing rewards

I've recently switched to Bing as my search engine.  I tried it because they have a rewards program and after a few months I really don't see any difference.

Try Bing rewards, it makes search just a little more fun.

Bing rewards is running a 1,000,000 reward points give away. Sign up here.

Unity script referencing

I wanted my keyboard input script to retrieve a value from a grid generator script so it knew how far to move one of my game objects. It took me a while to figure it out even though it's simple so I figure it's best to leave myself a bread crumb so I don't have to search so much next time.

//this is how you get a reference and value out of another script
scriptholder = GameObject.Find("EmptyScriptHolder");
GridManager script = scriptholder.GetComponent<GridManager>();
print("Grid gap =" + script.stepsize);

This shows how to get a reference to the actual script, in this case it's my EmptyObject I use to hold scripts that are not associated with actual GameObjects.  I call it EmptyScriptHolder.  I then get the reference to the GridManager script.  This is the actual type name of the script.  Within that script is a method variable called stepsize.  Overall it's very simple to get a value out of another script once you know how to do it.

This site was very helpful even though it's documentation from a few versions back.
http://docs.unity3d.com/412/Documentation/ScriptReference/index.Accessing_Other_Game_Objects.html

Hexagon grids

I'm not building a game that uses a hexagond grid right now, but have done it before and thinking about what it takes and found this great hexagon algorithm resource.

http://www.redblobgames.com/grids/hexagons/