Broeder Brad

Brad is een toffe gozer:
Hij kwijt zich van zijn plichten
En heeft kaas gegeten
Van Macs en van gedichten.

Programmeren kan hij ook:
Zie Kalender Twee punt Twee,
Al werkt dat ding alleen maar
With “Region” set to USA.

Maar wat kan mij dat schelen?
Daarheen juist wil ik emigreren!
Verdomd, ik laat de EU zitten
Met haar gebakken peren.
------------------------------------

That was an homage to the Calendar and its maker.

Let's fast forward to tomorrow:

BRAD: "Here's beta 612c!"

Oh god, I have to get groupee to fix that ftp account control panel.

I started putting crap in my calendar a few betas ago. So I've had to transfer my data or start fresh every time so as to be sure to have the latest. I've placed a moratorium on calendar entries. All I can do is put for today: "St. Patrick's Day for Sinners."

This is not the official CATHOLIC CHURCH celebration of the feast of St. Patrick, which was moved to this past SATURDAY because today is Holy Monday. They didn't want the jubilation of St. Patrick's Day conflicting with the more somber remembrance.

It's funny how most people, even catholics, don't know the holiday was moved. Everyone is still going ahead wearing green and plans on puking green beer tonight.

Okay, here is the next and improved version of "Broeder Brad." This one should work much better. feedback is appreciated.

Broeder Brad

Brad is een rare snuiter:
Hij kwijt zich van zijn plichten
En heeft kaas gegeten
Van Macs en van gedichten.

Programmeren kan hij ook:
Zie Kalender Twee punt Twee,
Al werkt dat ding alleen maar
With “Region” set to USA.

Verdomme, Brad, chop, chop!
Fluks aan de arbeid, makker;
Een “beta”? Dat klinkt heidens.
Remember Jan de Bakker.
------------------------------------

That was an homage to the Calendar and its maker.

LOL. Wonderful. And I'll take your words that it's an homage of an homage rather than...

God damn Calendar won't work
Thalo-dot-nettin' programmer jerk...

I've placed a moratorium on calendar entries.

Well, place that moratorium no more. It's not impossible that some new Data file format will be needed, but I'll try to keep that to a minimum and probably provide a utility to transfer all existing Calendar entries to any new Data file format if one is needed. Actually, that "CalendarData.sc45" hasn't changed since day 1. It's just been a matter of where it's put.

It's funny how most people, even catholics, don't know the holiday was moved. Everyone is still going ahead wearing green and plans on puking green beer tonight.

On this day I honor the Irish by not pretending to be one of them. Yeah, I know, I know. On this day supposedly everyone is Irish. Well, that's not true. I'm certainly not. I'm mostly German-French-English. And I honor that fact. I mean, do people wear blackface on Martin Luther King day? Then why should they dress up in green? But I do love the Irish. It's St. Patrick's Day (and Scottish Day) nearly every day in my mind. Around the office here we play a nearly unending stream of The Pogues, Irish Descendants, The Irish Rovers, Battlefield Band, Brobdingagian Bards, Celtic Connection, Drop Kick Murphys, Flogging Molly, Mahones, Andy Stewart, Blackmore's Night, Kilkenny Krew, Capercaillie, Kilt, Real Mckenzies, Tannahill Weavers, Slainte, The Dubliners, and even the Three Irish Tenors. And we do so not just on St. Patrick's day, but all throughout the year. My Irish credentials are impeccable...oh, except for that bit about not actually being Irish.

Here's a good one to sing with a pint of beer in your hand and your best mates at your side: All for Me Grog.

Let's fast forward to tomorrow:

BRAD: "Here's beta 612c!"

Smart ass. I'm only as high as 219.

And where is me Calendar? Me noggy noggin' Calendar? All gone for beer and tobacco...

Here's Beta 9b. The changes are small, but good ones, prompted by the eagle eye of brother Yabor.

I liked hello way better than jello. It was very Mac retro.

LOL. Well, just sort of screwing around. But I think I'll leave it "Hello." Some cosmetic issues cleared up in that latest one. I really need to make it clear (probably on the web site) that Calendar 2.2 requires the "Region" to be set to "United States" in the International pref pane. I tried to trap some sort of error message inside the program, but that didn't work. Brother Yabor, however, is doing just fine with that simple change of the Region and this creates only minor problems in the displaying of the dates in other things like the clock. But still, eventually I'd like to make it so that you don't have to change the Region. And that may eventually happen.

Okay, Here's Beta R9 of Calendar 2.2. The "R" means "resizable." Granted, the cosmetics of it all aren't perfect, but if I can improve it, I will. Let me know if you think it's better to have a resizable text field.

DIE, CRYSTAL SAUSAGES. DIE!!

Okay, Here's version 3 of "Broeder Brad." I've added four more lines, and overall I think this version is a big step forward.

Let me know what you think. For example, are these extra four lines really necessary? Do they help the reader? Or am I bloating the poem up instead of making it more reader-friendly? These doubts have prompted me to get to work on designing a resizable version, so readers can choose for themselves how many lines they want to see. But I'm having grave technical difficulties.

Broeder Brad

Brad is een rare snuiter:
Hij kwijt zich van zijn plichten
En heeft kaas gegeten
Van Macs en van gedichten.

Programmeren kan hij ook:
Zie Kalender Twee punt Twee,
Al werkt dat ding alleen maar
With “Region” set to USA.

“Hé, wat een mooie Appel!”
Zoals Helen zei tot Paris,
“Maar die iCal vind ik niks.”
Als Brad’s Kalender klaar is,

Al gij kind’ren van Sol-drie
Will be there with bells on;
Give it up, o mensheid vroom,
For Bradley “Beta” Nelson.
------------------------------------

The Betanator.

quote:

The Betanator.

I like it. And I had no idea that I could be outdone by Yabor in the smart-alek department.

Here's Beta R10 of Calendar 2.2. The "Find Next" searching logic is slightly improved. But mainly this has been about making the resizable window play nicer with the "About..." box. I had to get rid of that nice dissolve effect because I needed to temporarily set the window to non-resizable. I couldn't find a way of locking that resize widget (which could cause major problems if you resized the About box), so I had to just temporarily change the window to non-resizable. And for whatever reason, that nixed the dissolve effect, although -- logically -- it shouldn't have.

Note that for this (and the last beta), the zoomed behavior is to toggle between the smallest size and the size you stretch the window out to be. This is how I prefer it to work. I'm not going to have it zoom the the maximum vertical length to fill the screen. It makes no sense to me to do so.

Also, I made several changes to the "About..." box content itself. I wrote-out the full link to the web site in case someone doesn't have Safari open. At least they can see where to go. Other minor changes are there as well.

Next? I'm not sure. How important is an "Undo" function for the text editing area? What I really want to do (and need to do) is improve the whole logic of the search function. And would you like a preference to set the font size for the text area?

The large thing for me to work on is to make it work with both the day/month/year and month/day/year formats, either automatically (best) or as a preference. But since I don't know how to test for the Region, I'll probably have to find a way to make it automatic because I can probably find a way to test how a person has the date format set (for Gregorian calendars only, of course).

And that I have an actually function to copy a file, I'll have to use that when using the "Reset Data" button in the "About..." box. Right now it goes through manually and deletes all the entries. But it would make much more sense (and be faster and safer) just to rename the existing "CalendarData.sc45" file to "Backup of CalendarData.sc45" and copy in a brand-spankin' new one.

quote:

How important is an "Undo" function for the text editing area?

You're kidding, right? I didn't realize undo wasn't there. It's a standard Mac editing command. Bedrock AHIG.

My feature set request: Font size and STYLE would be great for the text field. Being able to activate the Fonts palette. The ability to paste or drag pictures in, like stickies. Live URLS in the text field.

After that, screw month/day/year... what are we, europeans? LOL.

Being able to save current day as a text or RTF file might be helpful someday.

Since you are turning into a geek, here's your next intellectual everest: using the old-school unix command "fortune" (which used to give a proverb or saying in the terminal)... be able to put the result in the calendar window as an easter egg, by hitting some kooky key or button command (command-option-shift-click search button, for example). Then you will have arrived.

Fortune is available for download here but you need XCode Tools to install.

There are tools to make your own fortunes (or sayings), which I think would be very dangerous for you. But funny. Imagine a daily thalo-or-bradism...fridgers... silly... oh my lord, it's scary to even think where you could go with that.

Hang on, found a later version of fortune, for Leopard... but it's a "Darwinports" install, whatever the hell that is.

Here’s BroederBradb4. Minor changes. A few cosmetic improvements that your average chimp probably wouldn’t even notice.

Sorry, but I haven't yet got around to fully localizing BB.
BBb4 is at least an improvement until I can create a proper localized version.

broeder brad

brad is a funny fellow:
he fulfills his duties
and knows his way around
classic macs and cuties.

programmeren kan hij ook:
zie kalender twee punt twee,
al werkt dat ding alleen maar
with “region” set to usa.

“hé, wat een mooie appel!”
zoals helen zei tot paris,
“maar die ical vind ik niks.”
als brad’s kalender klaar is,

all ye children of sol-three
will be there with bells on;
give it up, o naked apes,
for bradley “beta” nelson.
------------------------------------

Sorry about that. Here’s BBb4-a. In BBb4 the Capitals had stopped working, God knows why.

Broeder Brad

Brad is a funny fellow:
He fulfills his duties
And knows his way around
Classic Macs and cuties.

Programmeren kan hij ook:
Zie Kalender Twee punt Twee,
Al werkt dat ding alleen maar
With “Region” set to USA.

“Hé, wat een mooie Appel!”
Zoals Helen zei tot Paris,
“Maar die iCal vind ik niks.”
Als Brad’s Kalender klaar is,

All ye children of Sol-three
Will be there with bells on;
Give it up, o naked apes,
For Bradley “Beta” Nelson.
------------------------------------

Okay, after a truly hellacious amount of work, here's BBb5. This is a version localized for the Englishe--except for one word in the title (“broeder”) where my efforts at localization won’t stick; God, again, knows why.

Broeder Brad

Brad is a funny fellow:
He fulfills his duties
And knows his way around
Classic Macs and cuties.

Though still far from finished
Brad’s Calendar kicks ass!
A pity ‘bout those scrollbars--
Those godverdomde e-fucking-normous sausages of glass.

“Melikes that shiny Apple;
Dear Paris, let’s go steady!”
Said Helen, dumping iCal.
Once The Calendar is ready,

All us children of Sol-three
Will be there with bells on;
Give it up, ye blue-robed geeks,
For Bradley “Beta” Nelson.
------------------------------------

This message has been edited. Last edited by: yabor,

Right now I'm struggling mightily with the find function. And it is a struggle. Unlike some of the other things that I tried to do that are hard, this one is not as "clean." The find function in SuperCard behaves quite a bit like it did in HyperCard. In short -- powerful but not easy to control. It's just not easy (or possible) to control it with the fine-grained precision that you can control other aspects.

Of course, I could be that I'm missing something basic. There are several new commands in SuperCard that didn't exist in HyperCard. But this one has really brought me to my knees. It's frustrating because it should be simple. I can see the command. I use them. They just don't do seem to work consistently or as expected.

The undo is certainly doable, although I won't do like Calendar 2.1 and make changing to a different date an undoable item. That just doesn't make sense to me. Maybe a "Go back" menu item, but not "Undo." So "Undo" would be implemented only for the text field.

Bedrock AHIG.

Oh, I fucking wish that were the case. As you know, the AHIG's have been spat on and shat on. So I think I'll go with the new "progressive" AHIG's which cut me a lot more slack. Hey, SuperCard doesn't even have an undo. Why should I? TextEdit doesn't gray-out the "Save" menu item if no save is needed. Why should I? And on and on. Bedrock AHIG, schmedrock AHIG. I'm just going to put some animated icons in there and hope nobody notices the lack of functionality and polish. Sheesh, thalo. Which manual have you been readin'?

It will be a while until font style comes to the Calendar, although the Font menu itself is trivial to implement. We'll see. But the ability to paste pictures into the calendar text field is never going to happen. As soon as you add that capability you have to handle all instances cleanly, including someone who wants to drop a 30 MB photoshop file in there, or maybe several of them. Ol' little interpretive-language SuperCard ain't gonna be able to easily handle that. Yeah, you could put these kinds of features in their, but it would likely just bog it down to a stand-still.

But adding hyperlinks seems appropriate and is surely doable (already done it to some extent in the About box). But that will take some time. I can do hyperlinks now. The problem is dealing with the Apple Events that it takes to open browsers. I'll have to search around and see who has an answer for that. A lot of shit is hidden in the commands. But the manual itself is a joke. It's certainly not a task-based manual that explains this kind of stuff. But for $130 bucks, what can one expect? The help system itself, however, is pretty thoroughly done. But it's hunt-and-peck, hit-or-miss. You have to hope you accidentally run into the command you're looking for.

As soon as I can make the calendar text field RTF, it should be an extremely trivial matter to save it as a text file. But the first thing must come first.

Funny you should mention fortune. I was thinking about having an option that would pop up random quotes. You know, quotes from Reagan, Ann Coulter, Thomas Jefferson, Hobbes, Dawkins, Thomas Merton, Nietzsche, Pinker, Sagan, Orwell, Feynman, Lincoln, etc. Hey, if somebody wants to put together the actually quotes, that would be great. But before you do, I would want to talk to you about how to list them in a text file. No use reinventing the wheel.

Yeah, screw the Europeans. But there's always a chance that what I need to do is not as hard as I thought. Basically the mechanism is in there now to do the American format. It's just a matter of transposing a couple numbers. But that will take time. I want to get Find working just the way I want it. And if I can't, I want to at least implement it in a logical and user-friendly way.

I'll stick a couple of brother Yabor's poems in there as Easter Eggs. But first I have to verify the translation. I want to make sure he's not saying something like:

Brad goes to Obama's church
Heil Hitler, the black man's perch
White power is so un-PeeCee
But black domination is "Oh, Whoopee!"

No, wait. Something like that would be more than okay. Truth is truth, even if it hurts.

Oh, I just meant text undo. That's all you need. The text editing commands are the bedrock AHIGs. Cut, Copy, Paste, Undo.

Then my priority would be making sure the search works... then bold, ital, colors in the text field. Then being able to change sizes and fonts in the text field. URLs we can do from services, so that can wait til the end. After that, what else do you need? Nothing, really.

Holy crap, I'm really growing to depend on that little Calendar 2.2. Notes I jotted down on it already saved my neck during a conference call today.

I nominate the app for the thalo.net awards "Best Mac Application" of 2008.