General


Update

Beta 4.0 should be released in a few days. I finally finished separating the conversion code from the main form, and batch conversion is up and working in the cvs.


Update

I’m back and I’ll upload a new version to fix a couple of small bugs later today or tomorrow.

:siren: Please stop requesting batch conversions. :siren:
I’m gradually doing some internal things that need to be changed before I can do multiple images, but I will get around to it eventually. How I’ll fit it in the program is anyone’s guess.


New version soon

Automatic generation of ASCII ramps for the current font is in the CVS and working quite well. I need to try and optimize it a little more, but I don’t know if I can without using unsafe code (which I’m avoiding).

New version will either be 0.2.10 or 0.3.0, I’m not sure yet.


Update

The project has been kind of dead for the past month as I wasn’t getting anywhere with it, so I took a few weeks off to get some perspective. I also learnt php + sql (so easy!), tried out Visual Studio 2005 beta 2 (nice but not worth me changing until it’s at least out of beta), and played a lot of gunz (awesome game).

Anyway, I’m back and I’ve decided that the interface needs to be changed. It’s just a little too… blah? and there’s something not right. I’ve already altered it a little in the cvs, but there are still some changes needed. The brightness/contrast widgets need to be a lot smaller, and the bottom part of the text page needs to be removed all together. Ideally I’d also like to get rid of the tab control, but I haven’t been able to come up with anything better.

There are also a lot of internal things that need to be changed before I can do things like batch processing, running from the command line and saving/loading conversion settings.


Update

My plan was to update this blog with each new major feature (which would have a major version update, ie ?.x.?) but it’s taking too long so I’ll just update this randomly. If you just want to be told when new versions are released, Sourceforge has an rss feed here: https://sourceforge.net/export/rss2_project.php?group_id=133786 (under File Releases).

There are a lot of little changes since the first release, the main one being my floating control widget things. Plus, lots of bug fixes so check it out.

I started writing a way to select an area of the image and decided that it wasn’t possible at the speed my picturebox class was updating. I’ve spent a lot of time rewriting it basically from scratch and it’s now pretty slick, so Beta 1.6 will be out in a few days after I’ve finished testing it, and the I can start implementing the area selection stuff.

This blog has been upgraded to the latest version of WordPress and comments are activated again, now with a captcha check so hopefully the spam will go away. Feel free to leave a message!


Be ready

http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/downloads/framework1_1/

All Users: Check to See If You Have the .NET Framework Installed

You can check to see if you already have the .NET Framework 1.1 installed by clicking Start on your Windows desktop, selecting Control Panel, and then double-clicking the Add or Remove Programs icon. When that window appears, scroll through the list of applications. If you see Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 listed, the latest version is already installed and you do not need to install it again.

Note: Non-developers need to install the .NET Framework 1.1 to run applications developed using the .NET Framework 1.1.

In most cases, the creator of an application will alert you if you need to install the .NET Framework 1.1 Redistributable to run the application.

:siren: You need to install the .NET Framework 1.1 Redistributable to run the application. :siren:

However, with the number of .NET Framework-connected applications on the market growing rapidly, we encourage you to install the latest version of the .NET Framework 1.1 Redistributable if you haven’t already.

General Users: Install Through Windows Update

If you only want to run applications built using the .NET Framework 1.1, download the .NET Framework 1.1 from Microsoft Windows Update.


Update

You know how on the old site the example output for the program were all resized and processed in another program? Well, I’ll never have to do that again. Here’s some more samples, once again actual untouched output but this time the output image has first been resized to 75% by the program. Click:

I need to work out a nice interface to do it (possibly on a new dialog?), but it didn’t take much code and worked far better then I hoped.