uguardian

[uguardian]

2024 is turning out to be an interesting year.

And I mean that in the "may you live in interesting times" Chinese curse sort of way.

Long story short, I ended up needing to move at the beginning of March. Most of the furniture is now in place, and I've been unpacking for the past few days. And that's why I suddenly stopped updating again after saying things were returning to "normal".

On a different note, I've had extra time to think about the future of the sprite editor. One of the major hurdles I've been trying to deal with is how to accommodate three different ways people may use it, and I don't feel like most solutions I've seen really work.

At some point in the future, I want users to be able to create animations, work with layers, or simply work with multiple related images within a single project. The latter is needed as several file formats store multiple images, and it only makes sense to support this feature.

Now, I've used programs that handle layers, animations, or some combination of both, and it feels like most approaches are so heavily geared to one approach that they hamper your workflow if you're trying something different.

I'm currently thinking that the best approach may be to use a floating "image manager" window to let the user micromanage their images and layers separately, much like how Lil' Vector uses the Shape Manager window to control the different shapes in an image.

One of the biggest issues with incorporating these features is that they brush up against what's known as Feature Creep - the sprite editor was originally intended to handle older style sprite sheets, not animations, so retooling it for animation work means changing the core focus mid-stream, and that's a seriously bad idea for any project.

In the meantime, I've figured out the goals for the 0.13.5 release of the project. In short, I'm going to iron out all of the bugs and annoyances that I'm aware of. This will make the project ready for the big 0.14 upgrade, which will include layers, multiple image support, additional filters, additional tools, additional file format support, and so on.

The 0.14 release will also involve major changes to the program's main menu, as it'll move towards "projects" rather than traditional images. However, unlike some editors that use a project system, I'm going to ensure that you can edit single images just like in MS Paint or whatever without any fancy stuff getting in the way.

It'll be a whole new ballgame when that upgrade drops, so it'll be a while before we get there.

[uguardian]

Basically, I'm thinking of getting back into Minecraft, and reviving my old blog, @cast-mine-thrive as well. The latter is up to y'all.

#minecraft #modded minecraft #testing the waters #just gauging interest

[uguardian]

Ya know how I said I expected to be posting pony by the 14th?

Well...

The short story is that I did NOT anticipate the first two weeks of February to be filled with errands, appointments, and a lot of computer trouble. XD

Thankfully that should be behind us now, so expect some pony by the end of this week. All of the assets I needed to make are ready, so it's mainly a matter of finding time to get things drawn now.

[uguardian]

Moving on ahead

As some of you are probably aware, the changes to my website went live several days ago (more or less as planned).

Since then I've either been focusing on some smaller side projects or been a little too busy off the computer to get much accomplished. But, the next step is to clean up my files a bit, make a few new assets that I need for @777winemaressong , start a new SourceForge project, and we're good to go.

The new project wasn't originally part of the plan; I just realized yesterday that it would make a lot of things simpler if I took parts of my sprite editor and my vector editor and combined them into a single coherent module, which in turn could then be released as a stand-alone product for any interested developer.

Basically, if you're going to reinvent the wheel, do it properly rather than piecemeal.

All in all, I doubt this will take terribly long - the complex part will be preparing documentation for the new module. So I expect to get back to ponies by Valentine's Day or thereabouts.

[uguardian]

Now what?

With the release of Lil' Vector v 0.8a, all of the important things that were left over from last year have been completed or squared away.

It's time to start the new year properly.

The current plan is to upgrade some of the scripts that manage my websites, and once that's done, I'll start attempting to create content for everything again. This upgrade is fairly simple, and it's mainly to future-proof some stuff, so unless something catastrophic happens, it should be done within the next few days.

One major thing I plan on doing in the near future is catch up on everyone's Ask Pony blogs - while I've been active on a side account, I haven't stopped to keep up with what everypony else is doing, and I miss that.

[uguardian]

Version 0.8a Released!

This program is still early in development, but the changes it has undergone in the past six months have greatly improved its functionality!

#programming #open source #vector graphics

[uguardian]

And so ends 2023

This was probably one of the rougher years I've had in recent memory. Making myself seriously sick in late April definitely played a large part in wearing me down, but to be honest, the writing was already on the wall.

Put simply, most of 2023 was spent trying to meet self-imposed deadlines of one sort or another. Missing a deadline meant I was falling behind, and that just led to being more hurried in an attempt to catch up and meet other deadlines.

By December I wasn't able to continue with this anymore, and decided to just put everything down for a few weeks. I needed time to sort some things out in my head, reevaluate how important things really are, and just recharge my batteries.

During this time I looked around at how things used to be - using the Wayback Machine, I revisited many of the old websites I used to frequent when I first started hanging out online ~20 years ago. Many of these sites went offline ages ago, but there are a few that are still around.

Revisiting these ancient parts of the web reminded me about how much better things were before "the internet" became limited to just a few corporate-owned sites. I also discovered that although those old websites always seemed to have something new to see, the reality was that they only updated once a month or so. This is a far cry from the algorithm-hungry content streams we have now, and it's clear that things were better when people took the time they needed to get things done right.

And that brings me back to how I floundered in 2023. A large portion of my time last year was spent trying to take giant steps forward in many directions, which repeatedly resulted in me having to undo or throw out months worth of effort.

My goal for 2024 is to leave the concept of deadlines alone - I'll still try to keep my blogs, programs, and websites running, but updates will only be posted when the new content is ready.

At the same time, I'm going to take smaller steps for most of my projects. In other words, I'm going to aim at releasing updates like a trickle rather than a stream. Each milestone will be clearly defined, so updates can be predictable and I'll be able to pace myself better.

Hopefully this will lead to a better year - and better health in general.

[uguardian]

Version 0.13.4 released!

This is another bugfix release, but it's worth upgrading since it makes the scrollbars on the preview windows work again (among other things)

#programming #open source #mike's sprite editor

[uguardian]

I've been going back over MLP:FIM lately and it's just weird how everything actually happened.

For example, Surfing Armor and Princess CantDance show up in season TWO, and Twilight got her wings at the end of season THREE.

OUT OF NINE SEASONS.

As someone who was already part of the herd by mid-2010, this makes the way everyone reacted just seem... bizarre.

These were Equestria shaking events back then, but they're also THAT early in the show's run?!

[uguardian]

And the new project is live!

Called Lil' Vector, this is a vector graphics tool designed primarily to help me continue working on things while using my laptop. The laptop's screen resolution is unusually small, which makes it unwieldly or impossible to use programs like Inkscape - there just isn't room to display the toolbars and controls along with the image you're working on.

So, I created a simplistic and "dummied down" vector editor that makes better use of the limited screen real estate and favors simple, mouse-based controls.

This first release is definitely limited and unpolished, as the goal was mainly to get it working. Later releases will improve on what's there and be more usable.

#programming #open source #software #vector graphics

[uguardian]

Did I call it or what?

Earlier I remarked that my new project would be done by the end of June. I literally put the finishing touches on its code yesterday.

Now I just need to assemble the project's website (not a complicated task) and it'll be ready to launch.

[uguardian]

A brief word 'bout things

I haven't said much about this publicly, but back in late April I ended up making myself quite sick, and I've had to make some rather drastic changes to my lifestyle and diet as a result.

This really killed my creativity, and I've been more or less coasting since. This is also why I stopped updating blogs - there was barely any energy for it, and some of the work I did try to do ended up getting screwed up in the process.

Things have started to settle down and get back on track, but there's also one little thing I'd like to mention: on June 7th I started up a new programming project, as I discovered a problem and figured I'd code up a solution for it.

This new project has been moving remarkably quickly - disturbingly quickly, in fact - and at this rate it's likely that I'll be able to release it by the end of the month.

[uguardian]

It's sometimes pretty weird how two vastly different mediums conflict with each other. Take an old DOS game I used to play incessantly and several Warner Brothers cartoons. Neither had anything to do with each other, but they do have something in common: a very specific made up word. This leads to a silly situation when you compare how this word is used in both works.

In The Magic Candle II: The Four and Forty, the player regularly needs to interact with people and monsters outside of combat. Since this was an old computer game, the player needs to actually type in what they want their character to say, and you could talk to almost anyone about anything. Whether that was useful or not varied greatly, but there's one thing players really should be aware of.

In this game, "narf" is an obscene swear word in Black Speech. Never use it around high class people, and only use it around monsters if the consequences are worth it. Hot tempered monsters might draw weapons and attack, though others will just call you a narfing narfer and refuse to deal with you for a while.

The fun thing is, this means the show Pinky and the Brain deserves to be rated R for the amount of explicit language Pinky uses per episode.

#obscure games #narf #black speech #pinky and the brain

[uguardian]

Source

#happy 4/20 #funny

[uguardian]

I was spending a few minutes chilling on TV Tropes just now, and spotted this glorious paragraph from here that I needed to share:

This also means that there is not one single, unified My Little Pony fandom. There are two distinct fandoms, the collectors and the bronies, that have got almost nothing to do with each other. That isn't to say that there isn’t anyone who’s a fan of everything, but it’s not as common as taking sides. All they have in common are some conventions which are for both and a deep hatred for G3.5.

#my little pony #tv tropes

[uguardian]

I was thinking about the storyline in @777winemaressong earlier, and I realized it might be important to highlight three key details about it:

Delilah isn't very knowledgeable about medical stuff, and tends to worry too much about it.

Atjour Cervix isn't known for having a great bedside manner (to put it mildly), though she has been making an effort to handle Delilah with kid gloves.

That blog takes heavy inspiration from Call the Midwife, not CTRL ALT DEL. In other words, the baby will be fine.

[uguardian]

Interesting bit of trivia:

I've never actually drawn a Changedling before.