Quick update regarding Ant TODO: there’s now a JAR available for download, so you can get it running even quicker!
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Ant Task for TODOs
December 31, 2009 – 3:58 pm
I often felt the need to scratch an itch when it comes to source code and a little fragment called //TODO. It’s scattered everywhere; I’m sure you’ve seen it. Yet no matter what codebase you’re looking at, there’s never any real exposure to them.
I therefore decided to implement an Ant Task for parsing TODOs in source code. You can read more about it over on the Google Code project. Please feel free to review code, suggest features or try it out and report a bug.
Happy new year to all; many happy returns.
See you in 2010!
Sky Songs and Linux
December 15, 2009 – 10:55 pm
If you want to use the Sky Songs download client in Linux (say Ubuntu or Debian), just paste the following into a file called skysongs in $HOME/bin and then chmod a+x it:
cd $SKY_SONGS_DIR; /usr/bin/java -cp . -jar downloader.jar $*
Note, $SKY_SONGS_DIR should be changed to your installation directory. If you used wine to install Sky Songs, have a look under /home/YOURUSERNAME/.wine/drive_c/windows/profiles/YOURUSERNAME/Local Settings/Application Data/Sky Songs/.
Sky Songs works by giving you “SKS” files that describe to its client (”Sky Songs MP3 Downloader“) what and how to download; i.e. your songs. Once you’ve downloaded one (say Renegades.sks; the “Renegades” album by Rage Against the Machine), just execute the skysongs script as follows:
alex@prometheus:~/Music$ skysongs Renegades.sks
Thankfully the Sky Songs download client is written in Java so it’s not only cross-platform but its structure is obvious.
Please note that these instructions are absolutely not intended for circumventing Sky’s download procedure, nor are they to be used to break the Terms of Service you’re most likely bound to by law. This information is purely for educational purposes and to assist those who are new to Linux get to grips with their everyday software in a new environment.
Ignorance
November 29, 2009 – 12:23 pm
The problem with ignorance is not only the laziness of the culprits, but the hatred expressed by those who are better informed.
Google Wave Extensions Python API - Annotation Documentation
October 19, 2009 – 6:57 am
Quick post documenting the much-sought-after structure of the Python API’s Annotation name/value pairing. If you want to annotate a blip’s content, you’ll need to utilise the values below:
- conv/title
- lang = en
- style/fontWeight = bold
- style/fontStyle = italic
- style/textDecoration = underline
- style/textDecoration = line-through
- style/fontSize = 2em
- style/color =r gb(229, 51, 51)
- style/backgroundColor = rgb(51, 127, 229)
- link/manual = http://example.com/
A Python example of using the above:
msg = "This is a message for you"
doc = wavelet.GetDocument()
doc.SetText(msg)
doc.SetAnnotation(Range(msg[-4:], len(msg) - 1), “style/fontStyle”, “italic”)
The above should italicise the word “you” in the variable “msg”.
According to Google employee ‘Pamela’, this isn’t set in stone “as we aren’t confident in their stability”. Thanks to Dave of the same Google Group thread for documenting and posting the styling annotation name and value pairs.
Hope that helps someone 
Google Wave Python API and Annotations
October 19, 2009 – 1:08 am
I spent a considerable amount of time this weekend hacking away at my Google Wave robot, Wave Toolkit. It’s a lot of fun and I’ve managed to write something that allows for quick implementation of ‘commands’ from initial idea to ‘live’.
One of the frustrating things about developing Google Wave extensions is the poor documentation. It starts out great: lovely overview documentation and tutorial, with plenty of insight and step-by-step instructions; and then nothing. It stops there. Apart from reading the API documentation which can be cumbersome, you’re left alone in the dark, weeping like a sad puppy after meeting its new owners.
An example of this is using Annotations within Google Wave; formatting text for bold or italics, providing nicely worded hyperlinks or embedding images is governed by inserting annotations that ‘explain’ how the text should look. If you try to find out how to use these objects within the Python API you’ll see it’s nearly impossible. I got my answer only from guessing and scouring the Google Group and reading and example in Java, then posting when that didn’t work and finally getting some helpful advice. Please Google, document this protocol more!
So, to save an further frustration, here’s how to use Annotations in the Google Wave python API for robots:
doc = wavelet.CreateBlip().GetDocument()
doc.SetText("THIS IS ANNOTATED TEXT")
doc.SetAnnotation(Range(2, 12), "link/manual", "http://www.google.com")
I hope to hell that helps someone and saves the pain I underwent to work it out! Buggered if I know how to bold text though…Happy hacking!
Google Wave Extensions - Wave Toolkit
October 17, 2009 – 10:38 pm
Update: You might find my latest posts on Google Wave helpful.
So I managed to join the select elite bandwagon that is the Google Wave preview, which entitled me to early access to Google’s new masterpiece and 8 invites to bribe friends with (although I only have a few, so the whole eight might not stretch too far…). I have to admit, I’m not sure what the fuss is about. It’s clever, really clever; but there’s not much to it yet. It is, for all intents and purposes, a well-marketed collaboration tool, or put simply: a clever chatroom. Time will tell though. Perhaps its usefulness is yet to be seen.
Being a devout geek, and a sucker for anything Google, I was led to explore the programming possibilities behind Wave. Rather brilliantly Google have created an API that will allow you to do one of two things: create a ‘Robot’ - an automated participant programmed by you - or embed your own ‘gadget’ in a wave (think a Google map, but your content). The API is rich, if its documentation can be a bit light in some respects (where the hell are the CreateBlip() and such methods documented?! All you get in the API docs are ‘Get*’ methods…pointless!).
Introducing Wave Toolkit
Having programmed plenty of bots for IRC and Eternal Lands over the years I had the experience and ideas behind creating an automated character that can be used to aid users, or simply provide a bit of light entertainment. So after plenty of reading and hacking, I managed to come up with Wave Toolkit; a simple Python robot for wave that provides features that are either lacking or a little tool that might aid your chatroom…err I mean collaborative-blue-sky-thinking…yeah.
To get a bot running you do need a Google App Engine account, which allowed me to explore this little world offered by Google. It’s cleverly done and nicely polished. Still think it’s just cleverly managed free-hosting though
The capabilities of robots within the Google Wave extension API are pretty much exactly what a human participant can do: edit, post, delete and edit ‘blips‘, create waves, see who’s participating and apparently manipulate playback. It’s very fun writing something that can do all this too; that wonderful satisfying feeling of achievement when you spam “hello world” to a wave…
Wave Toolkit’s in constant development so it might be a little ropey, but please feel free to add wave-toolkit@appspot.com as a contact and invite it to a wave, and feel free to suggest new things, report bugs or even tell me you love it.
So back to coding more lovely Python, and perhaps writing something useful for all the wavers out there. Right?