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Minut Made Software

Manga Reader v1.4.4 released

4/28/2011

32 Comments

 
There are some changes in the installed files, so I'd recommend uninstalling the previous version and reinstalling the new one.  I've done testing on the installs, so hopefully there won't be any startup issues from unregistered OCX's or anything.  Let me know if you run into issues.

Manga Reader v1.4.4 x32.msi
Manga Reader v1.4.4 Uprade.zip


Fixes:
+Fixed: Issue with archives within archives.  When the volume archive is opened, it is extracted to a temporary location.  Once an archive chapter had been read, the temp file was deleted from the hard drive and could not be reopened until the volume had been reopened.  Temp archives are no longer deleted in this situation and going back to chapters that had been previously read will now work as expected.  Just to be clear, the original files were never in danger of being deleted.

+Fixed: Excess combo box changes removed.

+Fixed: Overflow error when window was farther right than ~32k units.  This had been fixed before, but the fix had become undone at some point.  Behaves properly now.

+Fixed: Significantly improved speed of drag and drop chapters when there were a lot of manga items in the manga selection box.  This used to take several seconds, but now happens almost instantly.

Features:
+Added: New Logitech dll wrapper of my own making.  Supports color on Logitech G19 now.

+Added: F8 key creates a cover.jpg file for the manga from the current page.  Used on G19 display.

32 Comments

Logitech wrapper has been released. Huzzah!

4/27/2011

3 Comments

 
There's now a page for the dll at the top.  I've included example projects for VB6, VB.NET and VC# and released everything but the dll source code under the BSD license.  This makes it free for both commercial and non-commercial use.

G15, G19 and soft button support all made it into the final project.  There's a few more options I can add to the dll, but unless there's some sort of demand for it, I'm not sure I'll bother.  If there are any questions, bugs, suggestions or needs not addressed by the dll, let me know in the new forums.
3 Comments

Logitech LCD DLL for VB6 Part III Revenge of the DLL

4/24/2011

0 Comments

 
I'm pretty close to being finished with my DMcLgLCD Logitech Keyboard wrapper.  I've got the callback routines for the keyboard buttons working now.  I originally just passed a function address along directly to Logitech's DLL, but it tended to crash if someone clicked the buttons too fast.  I read up on threading and I now have a thread that can buffer the input a little so the Logitech callbacks aren't held up waiting.  It works a lot better, but it still crashes if you really hammer the buttons and your callback takes too long to address them :).  I'm going to leave it like that for now and write a warning in the documentation and samples.  If I keep the routines simple, it doesn't get hung up.

At this point, I've pretty much finished all of the functionality and I just need to refine the functions a little.  Currently, I have functions that pretty much mirror the original Logitech functions.  I'll keep those intact, but also write some simpler functions that work for what 99% of people will want to use it for.

I've currently got a small skeleton app written, but I need to split it up into two or three different examples.  Maybe an "easy" example using the new simplified functions and a more advanced example that uses the full wrapper.  I'll also need something to show how to handle color VS black and white.  After that, I'll try doing a quick C# example and if I can get that to work, a VB.NET example as well.
0 Comments

Logitech LCD DLL for VB6 Part II the DLL Strikes Back

4/22/2011

2 Comments

 
The DLL really started coming along last night.  I got color working, got VB talking to the DLL by just passing a Picturebox.Image to it. I then went on to test using a graphics library in VB that returned an HBITMAP and proceeded to throw different types of images at the LCD.  As a result, I got 1-Bit, 8-Bit, 24-Bit and 32-Bit images working both for the standard 160x43 screen as well as the 320x240 color screen.

I was pretty excited to have everything working on my dev machine, so I took the newly minted DLL and my updated Manga Reader downstairs to my gaming machine with the G19 keyboard... and it failed miserably.  It would have helped if the error made any sense, but Manga Reader kept insisting that it couldn't find the DLL at all.

Quick lesson for all you Visual C++ newbies (like me):  By default, VC++ requires that a runtime is installed.  Not so bad for a standalone program, but fatal to a distributable DLL.  After a whole lot of tail chasing, I finally came across the proper tidbit of information and set my project to compile the libraries statically.  Viola!  Working DLL.

I'll still need to test on XP as well as machines without a keyboard, but I should be able to get a new version of Manga Reader out fairly soon.  As a bonus, it no longer registers itself to start up when Windows starts :)  As for the DLL, I'll make a stab at creating a callback function for the soft buttons (I have no idea where to begin on this) and if I'm successful, I'll start writing a couple of sample apps and package it up.  I'll definitely make a VB6 sample, but I'll also try to create VB.NET and C# samples as well.
2 Comments

Logitech LCD DLL for VB6

4/21/2011

0 Comments

 
It's been slow going, but I've been working on my own dll Wrapper the Logitech G15 and G19 keyboards.  It should work with other languages, but I'm mostly targeting VB6 at the moment.  So far, I've managed to wrangle up something that can display the contents of a picturebox to a Black and White display.  It's been tough, but I did learn a lot more than I expected to while putting it together.

Next step is to try sending bitmaps in memory and seeing how well my code handles 8-bit, 24-bit and 32-bit images.  I'll have to write some new code for 1-bit images, but it shouldn't be too hard.  After that is color for the G19 (which should be easy) and then maybe soft button handling.

I'll make up a sample app and create a new page for it when it's ready to distribute.  It was really frustrating just trying to find a good VB6 DLL that works only with the G15.  I haven't seen anything for the G19.
0 Comments

Minor issue with Logitech LCD keyboards and Manga Reader.

4/9/2011

2 Comments

 
So I had added support for Logitech gaming keyboards that include an LCD display, but I don't reboot my machines very often, so I didn't realize what Logitech's software does when you connect to it.  In short, it adds an entry to the Logitech LCD Manager and helpfully starts the program every time you start Windows.  Which can be rather confusing to the developer when he's searching through the registry and not finding any entries that would cause his program to run :-)

At any rate, the fix is to go into the Logitech LCD Manager, find the entry for Manga Reader, highlight it and untick the box that says "Automatically Start This Program" at the bottom.  You can leave the two check boxes to the left and right of Manga reader checked as they won't have any effect on Windows start up.

I've been meaning to write my own C++ stub program for handling the Logitech keyboards (mostly for color support), so maybe this will be enough of an incentive to actually do it :-P
2 Comments

Multi-Monitor Wallpaper Stitcher 1.0 now online

4/3/2011

4 Comments

 
I made a compromise and took out the .NET version check for Multi-Monitor Wallpaper Stitcher.  It will install just fine without any version of .NET installed, but you'll run into issues if you don't have version 4.0 or later.  There's a link to the latest version of .NET on the MMWS page, but if you've got Windows 7, I believe it's installed by default.
4 Comments

Manga Reader v1.4.3 upgrade online

4/3/2011

3 Comments

 
I couldn't duplicate the problem under Linux of the manga pages not centering in full screen, so I finished off some of the other fixes I've been working on and uploaded v1.4.3.  I'm missing a couple of files needed to rebuild the full installers, though, so it will be a day or two before I replace the v1.4.2 installers.  To upgrade, simply unzip the Manga_Reader.exe file to your installation directory, which is most likely c:\Program Files\Manga Reader or c:\Program Files (x86)\Manga Reader on 64 bit systems.  The same file upgrades both x32 and x64 versions.

Fixes included with v1.4.3:
  • Fixed: Starting a 2nd instance of the program no longer causes a Windows error when running as a normal user.
  • Fixed: Moved manga picturebox to front of display list so that it always sits in front of the split bar button.  Should help with running under Wine on Linux. Changed some other settings to help with this problem as well.
  • Fixed: Mangas list now properly selects bookmark instead of first page.  Corrected error with Manga selection appearing blank.
  • Fixed: Possible fix for overflow error when loading settngs.
  • Fixed: Under certain conditions, changing the background color didn't work right.  Should work properly now.

New features:
  • Added: F5 now refreshes manga list.
  • Changed: Default settings.  Lanczos3 now default renderer.  Preview page disabled.


3 Comments

Site is up, still lots of work to do.

4/3/2011

0 Comments

 
I'm still trying to get a handle on what this website editing software can do, but I've got most everything online  There's a quickie help page for Manga Reader available, though it only includes some basic info.  As soon as I figure a good way to get multiple sub pages going, I'll add some more details to it.  Of course, if you've installed the software, there's a full help file included.  It just doesn't work on Linux.

Speaking of Manga Reader on Linux, there's still one bug I'm trying to squash.  When in full screen, the page isn't centered in the display.  Not a huge deal for vertical pages, but it reduces horizontal ones a little, so I'd like to get it fixed.  When I do, I'll be uploading version 1.4.3 that also fixes some other minor issues that also appear in the Windows version.  Hopefully I'll get it nailed down in the next day or two.

Multi-Monitor Wallpaper Viewer works fine in the Visual Studio IDE, but for some reason gets errors when running it on it's own.  I think I know what's causing it, but I'll need to get it taken care of before I put it up on the site.  I'm also a bit torn on how to deploy it.  The installer Microsoft includes with the Express version of their software doesn't make a proper package.  I thought I could use their web based installer until I found that it doesn't actually copy the EXE to your hard drive, but instead runs it from the server.  The "CD-Rom" based installer isn't much better as it has a subdirectory with files making it difficult to make a self extracting zip installer.  I have found one slightly buggy install maker that seems to work, so not all hope is lost, but it has it's own problems as well.  Anyway, I'm just venting a little.  I'll get some sort of installer going even if I have to break down and write it myself. :)

Going forward, I'll be overhauling MMWV almost completely.  It is essentially my first C# project, so I made some bad choices when I was designing it.  Version 2 will be a bit more like Photoshop in that there will be a complete canvas that spreads across your entire monitor setup and layers where you can add pictures for wallpapers.  I've got a lot of ideas on how I can build it this way, so hopefully the work will progress quickly :)
0 Comments
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    Dan Minut

    He writes software.  And stuff.

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