6 April 2011

I’ve been working on the new buttons and I’ve made a new design. Also, I have been trying to contribute some code. The new button looks like this:

11 April 2011

I’ve made some alternative buttons, wooden plank design.

(Same as the first button but darker)

(Light wood, edges can be worked out)

19 April 2011

I’ve made a gif text animation for the software. This is how it looks like:

The idea is to have an animated text, as if it’s just being written.

28 April 2011

I‘m trying to make sure that I contribute 10% of the code. I’m sticking to Jun’s kernel prototype version as the basis, it’s the most stable version of the software so far. I’m starting to work on the basic skills manual. There have been a few updates of the software uploaded and I’ll make it general enough because it’s not yet so clear which software version is going to prevail as they are all still in test stages.

5 May 2011

I’ve been trying to make an animation using the software, but it’s not working. Print screen doesn’t record the rope and the snapshots just record basic steps, which is “too fast” to make the text animation we desire.

9 May 2011

Tim sent me 3 wmv files that are to be merged into an animation. I’ll try to break them into individual stills and then merge them.

10 May 2011

Merging wmv files into a gif is a much bigger challenge than I thought. When opening the videos with Microsoft Movie Maker, the videos are not split into scenes as I had expected earlier. That complicates the matter a lot. I’ve downloaded a few freewares to convert wmv into gif, but they all leave a watermark. I asked Tim to help me get a still of the writing with rope and I could turn it into an animation by deleting the string from the end and creating new layers as I do that. Then I just have to set the time delay on each layer and it’s done.

 11 May 2011

Got the still image from Tim. The deleting doesn’t work when the rope comes to bends. We’d have to capture it properly, step-by-step. Resorting back to the wmv.

12 May 2011

I’ve used a free converter to turn the first wmv file into gif hoping that I’ll be able to remove the watermark. The file was layered nicely when I opened it and noticing that the watermark was only present in the first layer looked promising. However, it turned out that the text under the watermark was cut out making the gif completely useless. The only way to do the animation is to play the video and pause it every half a second or so while making screenshots each time. Those screenshot images would then be merged into a single image. Way too much hassle. I finalised my part of the user manual, leaving comments where the screenshots will be needed as the final version of the interface still has to be confirmed.

20 May 2011

For the last week I’ve been focusing on helping Tim with the documentation. I’ve worked with Tim on the website, mainly helping him with the graphics.

25 May 2011

The software is finalised and the installer has been made. I’ve downloaded the installer and tested it on Windows 7. Works perfectly. I was capturing the steps during my installation and I’ve added the screenshots to the user manual. I’ve expanded the Installation chapter of the User Manual based upon the installer. I’ve also done little cosmetic repairs on the User Manual.

3 March 2011

Remaining parts are the GUI and the database component. I’ve started going through code to gain some better understanding of it. We will have to build a test case scenario to begin the testing phase.

17 March 2011

The project cannot be compiled on Microsoft Visual C# 2010. Tried it, didn’t work. The next thing on my agenda is the buttons design. We were brainstorming on our group meeting today and the idea of the buttons interface is having a bunch of wooden planks hanging on a rope. It should look somewhat like this, of course in colours and with some texture:

I’m waiting for Jun to specify the resolution for the button, then I can proceed with the work.

23 March 2011

Trying out Gimp to create images. If the results aren’t impressive I’m going back to Photoshop.

24 March 2011

The button design is now complete. This is the first draft, and I need my fellow group members’ opinion on it before I can finalise it. It looks like this:

There is supposed to be a rope running through both sides. The basic design looks like this:

I reckon it looks pretty neat. Done with Gimp 2.6.11

5 April 2011

The buttons need to be changed into more wood-like design. I’m working on it currently and I’ll upload the buttons on Dropbox by tomorrow noon. That should be the final release and only minor adjustments may be taken. Also, the rope running through may reduce the space for button text, so I’ll upload the button with no holes as well and the group can decide which design to keep.

Activity Diagrams

We were discussing to do sequence diagrams, but since that requires to have most functions made, we decided to go with activity diagrams first to represent the approximate sequencing in the functions used by the users.

The diagrams were first hand drafted and then designed in Rational Rose, and are based on current GUI. Below are some of the diagrams; more to be posted shortly.

Above: create new file with the cancel button

Above: create new point (in a knot file)

Above: online database connectivity dialogue window; mind that upload and download are themselves composed activities

Above: 'save as'

Above: expand the view to fullscreen

 Above: help window diagram - rough draft only

Above: lock knot

Above: centre the view

Above: return to normal, 4 views mode

First entry

Due to some complications I enrolled for the project late, and I only joined the group on Tuesday, 31 August 2010. Therefore, my main focus so far has been to familiarise myself with the project and try to catch up with the rest of the group members as soon as possible. I've looked and their work on the group's blog and fellow group members' individual blogs. Since I'm not familiar with C#, I have started learning the syntax.

My first meeting with the entire group was today, on Friday 3 September 2010. The focus of our discussion was the user interface and Jun presented his design. We discussed what functionalities to include and the position of the task bar. The software should probably also support keyboard shortcuts which are preferred by power users. It was overall more of a brainstorming session and Jun asked us to consider which functionalities should be added.

Next due is the user manual and after that technical manual and we will have to dwell on the latter thoroughly. I should continue reading on C# and also familiarise myself with Microsoft XNA since that is required for the project. Until our next meeting on Monday, 6 September, I will focus on learning C# and XNA.