Author Archives: sirreal - Page 2

LCDHost Alpha 29

Whats new in LCDHost 0.0.29:

  • Fixed degree symbols
  • Set Eos layout default application to HWiNFO

Note that monitoring needs to be customized per-machine, but the installed default layouts are read-only.
You’ll need to make a copy of the layouts/g19-eos directory and modify that. And keep backups of your layouts,
preferably outside of the LCDHost installation folder. I’m going to start having the default Eos layout customized for
my own machine simply so I can more easily spot things like that degree symbol bug.

I’m having problems reproducing the data linking failure from the “Extended Function Area/Output” in Eos.
If you can get it to happen, please let me know how. Also, if you used to see that bug and it’s now
gone, let me know that too.

LCDHost Alpha 28

Whats new in LCDHost 0.0.28:

  • Fixed –hidden startup bug
  • Fixed network bandwidth measurements
  • Include LH_DriveStats on Windows
  • Installer tries to clean out old .DLLs
  • Installer includes MS Visual C++ 10 runtimes

Remember to take a backup of your layouts before updating. The Windows installer for A28 tries to remove all old DLL’s and binaries from the LCDHost install directory – hopefully this will help people still stuck on A25.

LCDHost Alpha 27

Whats new in LCDHost 0.0.27:

  • Data linking bug fixed
  • Updated Qt to 5.0.2
  • Windows version now compiled with MSVC
  • Replaced libusb with libusbx
  • Fixed hidapi handle leak on Windows
  • Added standard layouts to google code repository
  • …and lots of bug fixes in general

The autoupdater will get it for you, or download it from the LCDHost homepage.

Qt 5 isn’t binary compatible with Qt 4, so it’s essential that A26 is completely uninstalled.
Take a backup of your layouts directory, uninstall, remove any remaining traces of A26 and install A27.
You will need the Visual C++ 2010 runtime installed (MSVCR100.DLL).
If alpha 27 doesn’t work for you, old versions of LCDHost are still available:

LCDHost Alpha 26

What’s new in LCDHost 0.0.26:

  • First Linux release (Ubuntu 12.10 64-bit, Qt 4.8.3)
  • Update to Qt 4.8.4 on Windows and OS/X
  • Update to openssl-0.9.8x
  • New centralized logger
  • Increase rate limit trigger to help LH_Monitoring
  • Exits on window close if no systray available
  • Distribute HID api as shared library to avoid resource contention
  • Lots of HID testing and workarounds for OS/X Mountain Lion
  • Support G13/G15/G19 output on Linux
  • Removed LH_Lua as it’s broken beyond repair
  • Fix week number formatting
  • Lots of fixes to allow compiling with msvs2010
  • Lots of fixes to be compatible with Qt5

The autoupdater will get it for you, or download it from the LCDHost homepage.

I’ll add a download link for the Linux version to the homepage ASAP. Please read the enclosed README.linux and if you find it confusing, please ask your local Linux guru for help rather than me.

The joys of programming

And six months later down the road, what has all my furious tapping at keyboards got me? I’ll get to that in a sec. First I want to tell you about my unhealthy desire to code things as good as I can – and even worse, re-invent other peoples wheels if I don’t think they’re round enough.

It always starts out reasonably enough. LCDHost needs some kind of repository to maintain metadata about itself, plugins, layouts, et cetera. Which in turns affects the software packaging. Which means I need to address security issues, both in the packaging and repositories. Ok, so far, not so bad. Except every wheel I look at has the wrong kind of spokes, or is too big, or not wide enough.

Then the insanity starts. You see, to have any sort of security, you have to design with it in mind from the start – and not many products are. Also if you want performance – design for it. As opposed to coding for it – that’s called optimization and is nowadays usually a waste of time. And above all else, stability and reliability.

I find plenty of solutions that are good enough. But my ego (he’s the giggling imp on my back, the one with red eyes rolling in random directions) won’t let me use them if I think I can do it substantially better. Which means I…

  • Learn to use Python since awk doesn’t cut it and Perl is not my style.
  • Hack up lbssh to let me launch my local editor to edit server-side docs (no more nano).
  • Got fed up with Pythons argparse and write my own self-documenting CLI package.
  • Write another chroot maintenance tool as I find existing ones lacking.
  • Learn the details of a lot of boring stuff, like upstart and IPv6 and what the blërgh else.
  • Evaluate existing PHP frameworks, contribute some bug fixes to them, and then start on my own. Of course.

I’m quite sure I left out more than half in that list, but it gives you the general idea. These tendencies of mine are good for software quality, but a supermassive black hole to time management. I hope to be recovering from obsessive recursive dependency coding soon.

Thank [this space intentionally left blank] for that.

LCDHost Alpha 25

What’s new in LCDHost alpha 25:

  • Removed time limit since the autoupdater is working well
  • Use QNetworkProxyFactory::setUseSystemConfiguration()
  • Fixed welcome box centering on multimonitor setups
  • Refresh output device list on device removal
  • Only warn about old link styles on first occurence
  • Hopefully fixed the nonpropagation of linked items at initial load
  • LH_Lg160x43: Dont use HID path as persistent device ID
  • LH_Lg160x43: Refresh device list every 2 seconds
  • LH_Lg160x43: Fixed G13/G15 I/O with the new hidapi
  • LH_Lg320x240: Fixed G19 I/O with the new libusb
  • LH_DataViewer: Basic functionality available on OS/X
  • layouts/g19-eos/Eos.xml: Fixed TS3 monitoring links

Use the autoupdater or download manually from the homepage.

LCDHost Alpha 24

What’s new in LCDHost alpha 24:

  • Add LH_FLAG_NOSAVE_LINK when NOSAVE_DATA, READONLY and HIDDEN are set
  • Updated Qt to 4.8.1
  • Updated bundled libusb library
  • Updated bundled hidapi library
  • setLink() warns when old link syntax is used, sets NOSAVE for links
  • Removed workaround for QTBUG-17890
  • Removed workaround for QTBUG-6073
  • LH_Mailcount: Corrected include path for LH_Text.h
  • LH_Lg320x240: Thread joining reworked
  • LH_LgLcdMan: Thread joining reworked
  • LH_WebKit/WebKit_Server: Show message while waiting for worker thread to stop

If the autoupdater fails, you can get it from the LCDHost homepage

LCDHost Alpha 23

What’s new in LCDHost alpha 23:

  • Link UI has been reworked
  • Connect links on item creation
  • Debug dialog has been reworked
  • Don’t submit render ops for invisible items
  • Resize instance to image size when the layout and plugin both want default sizes
  • Accept layout to load as command line argument
  • Added systray context menu
  • Show welcome dialog centered and correctly sized
  • Switching an instance from invisible to visible triggers a new render
  • Added tooltip to data link button showing current subscription
  • Don’t pre-render text if state() isn’t available
  • LH_Weather: Moved to data linking for inter-object comms
  • LH_DataViewer: Minor fix for reading multi-step memory pointers
  • LH_Cursor: Fixed selection not applying on layout load. Added global favourite layout trigger
  • LH_Monitoring: Updated HWiNFO to API3, fixed bug in graph
  • LH_Monitoring: fix bug in monitoring graphs & Ymax/Ymin
  • LH_DataViewer: Added reading text values from memory, misc bug fixes
  • LH_DriveStats: Fixed minor units bug
  • LH_Dial: fixed tick marks, added tick colours
  • LH_NowPlaying: Added ability to disable certain players if desired
  • LH_Text: Added support for week numbers using ww or w for week number with & without a leading zero respectively.
  • LH_Monitoring: Afterburner code fixed for non-game fps being float max
  • LH_Weather: Fixed bug in day/night detection
Get it from the LCDHost homepage.

LCDHost Alpha 22

What’s new in LCDHost alpha 22:

  • DistPlugin won’t halt if the file is already uploaded to googlecode
  • Save and load data links properly
  • Data links UI now correctly reflects link state
  • LH_Backlight: Now updates device backlight color on link data change
  • LH_Weather: Translations are back, but they are manual now (Google Translate is now a paid service)
  • LH_NowPlaying: Several Fixes, Added Status Images & Ratings
  • LH_Monitoring: Major overhaul
  • LH_Logic: Added the LogicBox plugin
  • LH_Cursor: Major overhaul
  • LH_Dial: Multiple Fixes
  • LH_DriveStats: Text objects can now have fixed units
  • LH_LCoreReboot: Can now restart LCore if it has been closed already
Get it from the LCDHost homepage.

LCDHost Alpha 21

Alpha 21 is out for both Windows and OS/X. If you’re on the same side of the international date line as me, the autoupdater will handle things for you. If not, download it manually from the homepage.

  • Refix polling interval limit and warning
  • Update all objects lh_systemstate on device change
  • Rerender text on font style strategy change
  • LH_Cursor: Working on multiple cursor in one layout using linking (WIP)
  • LH_Dial: XML data files now don’t require a data map: they’re XML – the mappiest text there is.
  • LH_DataViewer: Added XML data support
  • LH_DataViewer: Added memory extraction code to support pulling data out of a game directly.
  • LH_DataViewer: Added attribute handling to the XML parser