Visual Basic - Experiences

I have been working with Visual Basic (Express Edition, 2008 Beta, Orcas), and I have to say, it's nice.  It doesn't have the same low level gritty feeling of C, but that is alright.  I would still rather do console work in C and Perl (and console work is most of what I do), but for GUI stuff, this is great.

It's nice to be able to drag and drop your entire UI, and then just have to write the commands.  Anyone who has tried, say, Perl/Tk knows how much work goes into just making a very basic UI.  This is quite different.

I'm also happy with the binary size, I was thinking it would be large, but my current work is only ~50 kb.  Not bad.

Anyone looking to break into GUI programming, you may want to take a look at the Visual Studio Express editions.

Oh, and Visual Web Developer Express is quite nice too.

LC2PD - Visual Basic Edition

I have started learning some Visual Basic.  I've meant to for awhile, and have had the proper software (i'm using Express Edition, though I have a copy of VS Standard that I got at a Microsoft Presentation).  As per usual, the first thing I am converting is LC2PD, which is pretty much done.  It doesn't have safe guards in place, such as checking for proper input, but it does work.

I haven't uploaded it yet, because I may try to put in safe guards, but will post when it is up.

Database - Updates - Delete

Delete is now implemented.  I will start commenting and documenting the code when I have time, but it is usable now at least.

It is now up for download, both source and executable in a zip file.  You can find it on the project page here.

Database - Updates - Help and Set

The set routine has been modified to update entries rather then create duplicates now.  Also, some small bugs were fixed that likely would have caused trouble later.

A small help entry has been placed in as well, by using the -h switch alone at startup.

Work has started on the delete method, it is expected to be done today as well.

Current Projects - Database and USB-Menu

The projects currently at the top of the stack are now Database and USB-Menu (in that order).  Database requires heavy modification to support some new features.  These include:

• Key removal
• Key entry without causing duplicate keys
• Better documentation
• Help system

Some other features being tossed around include dynamic compression of databases, MD5 checksum use to rule out corruption, and remote database access via FTP.  The practicality of these features is being considered. 

Once the database is up, work will commence on the USB-Menu, since it relies on the database.

Website updates

I've done a bunch of work on the site yesterday and today.  I have been careful not to create any broken links, but please contact us if you find any.

I would say which areas have been updated, but at this point, I think it may be all of them.  Have a look around.

Not gone, just busy

You'll see if you refer to my personal blog here that I have been very busy working on a script for PoE2.  Being the first CGI I have ever done, it has proven itself to be rather difficult.

This doesn't mean we aren't available for other things, and it doesn't mean other things aren't being worked on.  It just means this is the primary concern pending anything else.

The journal script is coming along well though, and has taught me a fair amount about CGI.  I feel like parts of the site may be translated to CGI in the future.  For instance, I may write a CGI handler for the code repository.

Anyway, just wanted to update on why the site and this blog haven't seen much attention.  See how hard we work on things :-)