Monthly Archives: January 2011

Got a Mac?

Good news. I just built my first fully working .dmg for LCDHost. I still need to get the Lua support libraries running on OS/X though. But hopefully alpha 15 will be a multiplatform release.

LCDHost Alpha 14

For anyone new to LCDHost, LCDHost is a compositing plugin manager for LCD’s. It’s primarily targeted towards the Logitech G19, but it will work with the G13 and G15 too.

The screenshot on the right is one of many user created layouts – this one is for the game X3: Terran Conflict and is designed by Triscopic. You can download that layout in the forum.

What’s new in LCDHost alpha 14:

  • Dev: LH_QtPlugin.(cpp|h) split up into LH_QtPlugin and LH_QtInstance, project file modification needed.
  • Dev: Setup item help added, recompile needed.
  • Dev: SignLibrary argument ordering changes; use ‘SignLibrary -?’ for usage.
  • Dev: Instance name gets passed to plugin – contructors need looking over.
  • Fix: Detect Logitech Gaming Software version 7.
  • Fix: Plugin verification via HTTP now uses the system proxy.
  • Fix: LH_Image now accepts UTF-8 paths that can be 8-bit encoded.
  • Fix: Setup item parameters changed during plugin loading would not be accepted.
  • Fix: Automatic layout class registration had a race condition.
  • Fix: When reparenting an item it’s width/height would get reset.
  • Fix: The instance preview no longer counts as “instance [1]” for automatic naming purposes.
  • LH_Lua: Lua console output is now shown in a fixed-width font in the log.
  • LH_Lua: Changed how the callback token and ‘self’ table are handled.
  • LH_Lua: Added setup items support.
  • LH_Lua: Added Win32 font creation support for Lua Cairo.
  • LH_Lua: Added __pairs metamethod calling.
  • LH_Lua: One may now iterate over lcdhost.state and other LCDHost pseudo-tables.
  • LH_Lua: Added print_r.lua which provides the useful print_r() function.
  • LH_Lua: Added Lua binding libraries for some Qt DLL’s.
  • …and lots of other small fixes as usual.

Download link on the LCDHost homepage.

A14 is getting closer

I’m pretty much done adding new features, and I’m now just fixing bugs in it. Once it’s reasonably stable, I’ll release it. This is the current list of changes:

  • Dev: LH_QtPlugin.(cpp|h) split up into LH_QtPlugin and LH_QtInstance, project file modification needed.
  • Dev: Setup item help added, recompile needed.
  • Dev: SignLibrary argument ordering changes; use ‘SignLibrary -?’ for usage.
  • Fix: Detect Logitech Gaming Software version 7.
  • LH_Lua: Lua console output is now shown in a fixed-width font in the log.
  • LH_Lua: Changed how the callback token and ‘self’ table are handled.
  • LH_Lua: Added setup items support.
  • LH_Lua: Added Win32 font creation support for Lua Cairo.
  • LH_Lua: Added __pairs metamethod calling.
  • LH_Lua: One may now iterate over lcdhost.state and other LCDHost pseudo-tables.
  • LH_Lua: Added print_r.lua which provides the useful print_r() function.
  • LH_Lua: Added Lua binding libraries for some Qt DLL’s.

The bugs have a home

I’m going to put the open source parts of LCDHost in a google code project. Along with that project comes a nice issue tracker, which we’ll use for tracking all issues. When you find a bug in LCDHost, use the Issue tracker link under Support and enter it into the database.

DNS problems.

My DNS provider is having some serious problems. Hopefully they’ll fix them soon. Or I’m switching providers. Again. Sigh…

Update: I’m switching DNS providers to Amazon’s Route 53. It’ll be a day before DNS propagation is complete though.

Dials galore

Introducing dials (or “speedometers” if you prefer) for LCDHost.

After a lot of time and effort, not to mention several massive trigonometry-based headaches and a large pile of paper covered in badly drawn circles and squares and liberal amounts of trig mnemonics,  I am pleased to announce LH_Dial, a plugin that renders data in the form of dials. For best effect I suggest you fire up a copy of your favourite graphics editing package and create your own custom dial backgrounds and/or needles, but the plugin can generate it’s own basic backgrounds & needles if required. I’ve also included a few I knocked up using Gimp for Windows.

To get the latest version of this plugin head over to the forum

Happy New Year!

(P.S. Thank you to Ender91 for the excellent dial-based layout shown above)