Thursday, January 19, 2012

Open Wonderland - Best View proposed changes

Best View is about the most useful capability ever! It works great with objects with an aspect ratio very similar to your screen, but it's not as good with wider objects such as a cardwall.

You can see what I mean in the following video:



So scratching an itch, I've been working on a patch to add functionality to the capability so that you can focus on certain parts of the object. The key modifiers I'm proposing are:

Mouse wheel = zoom in and out
alt + Mouse wheel = move left and right
alt + crtl + Mouse wheel = move up and down

UPDATE
The keys to be used now are:

Mouse wheel = zoom in and out
ctrl + Mouse wheel = move left and right
ctrl + shift + Mouse wheel = move up and down


The mouse wheel effect also works with trackpads and Mac mouse devices by just sliding a finger as if you had a real wheel.

The patch has not been reviewed yet but if you want to give it a go, I have sent it to the mailing list, and I would appreciate any testing and feedback. Just take into account that it might be rejected.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

New Year, New Wonderland Project

Another year begins and so does another Wonderland Wednesday Project. This time we have decided to improve the telepointer module that is already part of the wonderland-modules project.

The current telepointer has a bit of a weird shape and it's a 3D object. I personally cannot think of the benefits of a 3D pointer as compared to a 2D one… sounds the same to me!
The user name renders on top of the pointer in billboard mode, and that makes parts of the word disappear depending on the surface that the pointer is held against. So the first 2 tasks we will go for first are to change the appearance to a more regular 2D shape, and more importantly, to make it work when you take control of a 2D app.

This module is a good example of a Wonderland Component or Capability. In this case, instead of being available to attach to any object in world, it is programmatically attached to all avatars through a server plugin. A nice example if you want to see how to do such a thing.

We will be working on this again on Wednesday the 18th of January so feel free to pop along to the community server at 1p.m. EST or 6p.m. here in Dublin.

Saturday, December 31, 2011

bye 2011

it's the end of the year, an absolutely fantastic one, which in my case it's been focused on learning, especially with others.

I started the year attending more local meetups than ever, and it has proved a fantastic source of experience and learnings. I have enjoyed very much the local Irish and Dublin groups, and all the other stuff we have organised such as hacking evenings and code retreats.

Probably the most intense experience of the year were the code retreats. Participating, organising, or facilitating, it's an experience that I wouldn't let pass you given a chance if you have not experienced it yet.
I also have to mention the great time I had attending the TDD courses in Madrid for XPWeek. Carlos is a fantastic coach and the courses were really enjoyable.

It has also been a great year 'online' with all the projects we've done with Open Wonderland, and I'm hoping to have more time for it in the new year.

The most important event of the year, personally, was leaving work a couple of weeks ago. After four fantastic years working for TCD I have decided to take a break, focus on my PhD for a couple of months, and see what life has in store for me after that.

Hope you all have a fantastic 2012!

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Open Wonderland and Google Docs Proof of Concept

I have been very quiet for the last while but as my work load eases out I've had some time to mess about with Open Wonderland again.

This time I've spent a couple of hours putting together a proof of concept (POC) to send information to Google Docs from inworld. In the following video you can see how a word processor document is created from an in world HUD.



The module is very rough and has only been thought of as a proof but if you want to check it out feel free to do so. As usual my code is in github: Proof of Concept for Google Docs and Open Wonderland Integration.

I have to say that the Google Data API has its quirks, although I have only spent a couple of hours using it, but it seems to be solid enough to create powerful client applications.

Any feedback is very welcome as usual!

Friday, September 30, 2011

the busiest September in years!

This has certainly been the busiest September for me in many many years. I can even say the busiest in my life.

After finishing August in a high note with the Ruby Ireland Rails 3.1 launch party, September started with a Ruby Project night in amworks in which we were working a bit on Conway's Game of Life.

The following week two events took place, on the Tuesday the dublinjs meetup with a fantastic backbone.js presentation by David and a kata by Wiktor, and on the Saturday I had the privilege to co-organise and co-facilitate the first code retreat in Dublin (and in Ireland as far as I know!).

If that was not enough, on Sunday I took a flight to Madrid to attend XPWeek. The Monday was a full day of talks, and the rest of the week I attended the TDD courses by Carlos Ble.

I have posts coming about some of these events so won't go into details here, but all the events were absolutely fantastic!

We have also been pushing a new release of Open Wonderland for a while and I think there will be some juicy news out very soon, which is very exciting!

And tomorrow, 1st of October I will certainly not be missing the SocketStream session that the AOL Dublin guys are preparing. That is if this stupid cold I've been nursing since I'm back in Ireland allows me to get out of bed!

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

the summer of busy

So far this summer is being much busier than usual.

A couple of weeks ago I attended the html 5 hack-a-thon organised by the Dublin GTUG guys. It was real fun and got to meet some very interesting people and to hack on a browser multi-user whiteboard based on WebSockets and canvas. All the projects were really good, and the effort during the two days paid off big time.

Last week we were busy working on a rails mountable engine to add feedback forms to your web during the Ruby Project nights at amworks. Only a few hours there but it's great to be able to learn and share socially out of work hours, at least from time to time!

In the meantime all is good to go for the code retreat we are organising for September the 17th. Location and sponsorship is pretty much all we needed, and we are looking forward to the day. Tickets flew in less than 3 days, so hopefully people will turn up on the day. If you are reading this, have a ticket, and know for sure that you cannot attend, please let us know cause we have a growing waiting list.

And finally, all is ready for the dublinjs meet up tonight in which Wiktor will tell us all about CoffeScript and Dom has prepared a Kata for us to go through. Great fun ahead!!!

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Open Wonderland OurBricks module Preview 2

Another update on the OurBricks module to use within Open Wonderland. This time you can see the process end to end.





There are still a few glitches in the UI, not being very responsive, and the OurBricks API is likely to change in the near future as it is in active development, but the prototype is working now, as you can see in the video.

If you want to play with the sources you can find them in my github account.