Not dead, more coming soon.

Iceutils isn't a dead project. While I haven't updated the code in a very long time I've been thinking about it a lot lately and am working on the project again.

Update 2009

I think I still have the source code for Iceutils 0.9 around. As some of you may have noticed the linux-games web site is gone along with Iceutils on freshmeat.net. I had in fact posted Iceutils 0.9 on another web site before it suffered from some database errors and had to be wiped out and completely reinstalled. I think I backed up Iceutils on a DVD, both v0.2 and 0.9. I do plan on reviving the project on a part time basis on this site.

moneygen continues to be a problem

Though it looks like it's quite complete, moneygen has turned into a royal pain. I'm not seeing an obvious solution. Going to have to put it away for a bit and try coming back to it when my head is cleared. I'm going to try to not leave it too long, especially since the number of releases seems to affect freshmeat.net's vitality rating (not the fact that the project has been around for 3 years).

It'll probably sit the day before I come back to it. Happy Father's Day all!

Moneygen development continues

Moneygen is a little further along. I'm still working on fixing up a few problems, but the GUI is almost done.

Many of the other tools will be simpler. While moneygen isn't the most complicated program, it's presented a bit of a challenge.

I'm not completely satisfied with the GUI, but there's space for changes in subsequent versions. The important part is making sure it works as intended.

Next on the plate will be finishing a few of the smaller tools. Once that's done I'm going to write a small GUI front end to the converted tools and do an 0.85 release as a mid-point to 0.9. At 1.0 I'm going to try to pump out a Windows version.

Moneygen gets a new face, development continues...

It's not pretty yet, nor is it done, but this is a quick glimpse at the beginning of the old moneygen.tcl tool. As you can see it works -- sort of. Of course I still have to implement a continue rolling button, but you can see that it works much like the old script.

I've also been thinking that the website at: http://www.linux-games.ca/iceutils/index.html might get a facelift. But all in time. I'd like to add tk versions of most of the tools before release 0.9, but I might do a few minor releases under the 0.8 branch so tools are available as I continue to develop them.

I think that the largest challenge is going to be the map generator. I'm not sure if this is something that just gets exported to one big .png file or whether it shows on the screen. I think it shows on the screen, but I need to do both and that may take more time that I want to invest with everything going on... so it may not make it until a 1.0 release.

IceUtils v0.8 out (New GUI tool)

It's been awhile since I updated the web log. I intended to do it on a regular basis, life just happened and got in the way. The good news is that IceUtils 0.8 is now out! It adds a new Graphical tool called gnames.tcl.

Yes, I used TCL/Tk. I just haven't been able to spend time properly learning a programming language. I've used Tk before and figured I could probably figure things out. gnames.tcl is a combination of the mnames and fnames tools in a compact graphical user interface. You click on either the male or female radio button, then click the Get Name button. You can generate as many names as you want and switch between generating male or female names just by choosing the other radio button and clicking Get Name.

The plan now is to continue converting the tools to Tcl/Tk one by one and eventually tying them together. Tcl/Tk is a glue language. I've glued graphical tools together before, so this shouldn't be too difficult once the other tools are complete. I've already began converting the money generator.

Once the tools are all converted and the main menu created I'll consider a Windows port. Presently I don't have a Windows machine at home, I'm not really a Windows guy, but I have done Tcl/Tk programming on Windows before, so converting the tools will probably be fairly smooth.

Check out the new release on the Iceutils main page:
http://www.linux-games.ca/iceutils/index.html

or on Freshmeat:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/iceutils/

25th Anniversary at The Working Centre & plan

Yesterday was the celebration of 25 years in the Kitchener/Waterloo community for The Working Centre. Well over 500 people passed through the three Working Centre buildings on Queen Street South. Groups of people toured through The Working Centre's various project and community services areas including the new apartments at 66 Queen Street, the new Computer Recycling, job counseling, Recycled Cyces, the Queen Street Commons cafe, and a number of other interesting projects.

Needless to say it was a busy day. By the time I got home I'd spent 12 hours walking around. It's funny the kind of energy an event like this requires, it makes you appreciate politicians more. Speaking of which, I had the opportunity to meet Carl Zehr, Mayor of Kitchener. I've seen Mayor Zehr at various events before, but this was the first chance I got to speak with him, and he's a really down to earth guy. I understand why he's been reelected.

But this is a web log about Iceutils development and I've rambled off topic (my excuse for not getting anything done). The plan is to try to finish a basic prototype of the next utility for the suite this weekend. I'm going to skip the Drupal conference in Toronto. I've already had a huge week with KWLUG and the 25th Anniversary Celebration. In version 1 or 2 of the software I had a pretty good tool that eventually got dropped. Unfortunately I can't simply go back to that tool and use the code because it was written in TCL, not C. I could change things, but it would take me almost as much time as it would to recode the tool in C, and I think I could do a better job.