FutureWorld.

https://wiki.appcelerator.org/display/guides2/CommonJS+Modules+in+TitaniumlaNow that I’ve completed my Master’s program I finally have more time to put into personal projects. One of which will (hopefully) be a cross platform mobile app -- the easiest way I have found to do this so far is to utilize the appcelerator titanium studio IDE which takes an app written in Javascript and compiles it into a cross platform app!  Alloy also forces users to write their code in an MVC framework (really nice!)

This overall should save a lot of time, however the learning curve is pretty high.  This first post will address initial learning curves and how I got around them since documentation is sort of spread out between appcelerator.com and stack overflow and I had a lot of difficulty finding some workarounds.

The first learning curve to overcome was the idea of modules -- Titatnium specific APIs for interacting with hardware in a cross platform way.  There are a lot of free modules on the appcelerator store but many of them have not had work done on them in years, and use deprecated methods -- so far this is the biggest drawback of appcelerator so far me since if I cannot find a module in the store, I am forced to explore github modules until I find one that works.  Also the modules in the store that have consistent updates can be pretty expensive -- one barcode app from Scandit asks for $199/mo to use their module (pretty outrageous if you ask me, especially when I found a decent free module).  

Once  a module has been found the easiest way to install these is to copy the .zip link and paste it into help->install mobile module. If the module is compatible with your project it will appear in the tiapp.xml configuration menu options.

The next (and most frustrating) hurdle I had to overcome was how to call funcitons across .js files.  The documentation on this is not too clear so here’s exactly how I got it to work eventually.  

First I created a normal javascript file and wrote some functions I needed in it like I would normally do in Javascript.  To make the functions inside this script visible to the rest of the app, I first need to mark which functions in the script will be public using appcelerators ‘exports’ function call.  So for example I wanted to ensure camera permissions were granted through a function called camera -- to make it public I called: ‘exports.camera = camera;’ at the end of the file.  If I want more public methods then I need to add them all in this same way to the end of the file.  Note: you can also make the call via 'module.exports = camera’ -- however ONLY make your calls in either the way I did it, OR this way -- mixing can cause errors). This now makes this file what is called a CommonJS module.

Second this file must be placed in a new folder (the name doesn’t matter, but I called my folder ‘lib’) and this new folder MUST be under the ‘app’ folder -- so looking at the auto generated file system for an application, right click on ‘app’ and create your new folder and save your .js module there.

Third, in order to use this js module in say app.js, I now have to create a variable that refers to this module (sort of like creating a module object). This is done with: ‘var whatever = require('commonjs');’ (NOTE: do not append .js to the end of the js file name) where commonjs is the module I made earlier.  Now I can call functions that I made public like: whatever.camera();

It is important that commonjs modules get placed in their own folder under app -- the require call will start looking in app for modules -- if you want to make calls from other folders in app to the lib folder, you need to go up directories as needed. So say you also have a folder called ‘ui’ in the app folder and from ui you want to call lib-- then the call is var whatever = require(’../lib/commonjs’).

Useful resources:

https://wiki.appcelerator.org/display/guides2/CommonJS+Modules+in+Titanium

This is a demonstration of the OpenGL program I made using the ODE (Open Dynamics Engine).  If you are interested in the source code you can get it from here: https://github.com/BenedictRM/Final_Project

How to link ODE with an Eclipse project on a Windows system with MinGW installed:

Download ODE from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/opende/files/

For the most part, the installation instructions here work well, but it may not be the clearest with how to actually link a project to the new ODE header files:

 http://ode-wiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Manual:_Install_and_Use

Installation:

This description is just how to install ODE to a Windows system, so you have to make your newly downloaded ODE files with the premake4 command.  You have to navigate with the terminal, type ‘cmd’ into the ‘search programs and files’ search bar inside the Windows icon in the bottom left of your screen and use ‘cd’ to navigate to the directory to be able to make the files.

In my case, I have MinGW installed on my computer, so when I navigate to the ‘build’ file in my ode-0.13 from the terminal, I need to make the files into GNU compatible files so that a ‘make’ file is created.  Do this with ‘premake4 gmake’, personally I wanted the demos to work off of, to get the demos make with the command: ‘premake4 –with-demos gmake’. *Please note, the demos WILL NOT WORK without OpenGL installed.

After your files system makes the files, you need to navigate to the newly made gmake folder, and type ‘make’.  This may take a couple minutes to create all your files, but after this step ODE is now unpacked on your Windows system.  You can now close the terminal.

If you want to see the newly created demo executables they are in the ‘lib’ folder -> ‘DebugSingleDLL’ -> then you can just select which ones you want to see run.  The source code for these demos are in the ‘drawstuff’ folder, in the drawstuff.cpp.

Linking to Eclipse:

In my case, I have the project I want physics for in Eclipse, and I had some issues with linking my project to ode (mostly just inexperience issues), so here’s how I linked them.

First, decide where you want your ode-0.13 file to live, I put mine in my workspace so it’d be fairly obvious where to look for it.

The installation instructions at say to:

Add ode/include to your list of include file paths.

#include <ode/ode.h>

Look in ode/lib and add the appropriate library search path and file name, depending on which build configuration was used. For instance, ode/lib/DebugSingleDLL and ode_singled.lib.

Add one of the preprocessor symbols dSINGLE (single precision) or dDOUBLE (double precision), depending on how ODE was configured. If none is defined, single precision is assumed; if the wrong precision is enabled all floating-point data going in and out of ODE will be corrupt, producing all kinds of errors.

Here’s how to interpret all that for an Eclipse project,

      Add ode/include to your list of include file paths.

  Right click on your project, select ‘Properties’, select ‘C/C++ Build’, select ‘Settings’ . Now under ‘GCC C/C++ Compiler’ select ‘Includes’, then select the green file path adder under ‘Include paths…’, from here navigate to your ode-0.13 folder from the file system option and select the ‘include’ folder inside of your ode folder—do not select any of the sub-folders, Eclipse needs to see the parent folder ‘include’ only. 

#include <ode/ode.h>

Just add this line to your normal #includes list in your header file or top of your main if you don’t have a header file.

Look in ode/lib and add the appropriate library search path and file name, depending on which               build configuration was used. For instance, ode/lib/DebugSingleDLL and ode_singled.lib.

Now while still in the ‘C/C++ Build’ -> ‘Settings’ screen, select ‘Libraries’ under ‘MinGW C/C++ Linker’ and click the green file path adder under ‘library search path –L’ and again from the file system option navigate your way to the file ‘lib’ and select (in my case) ‘DebugSingleDLL’, you might see ‘ode_singled.lib’

Add one of the preprocessor symbols dSINGLE (single precision) or dDOUBLE (double precision), depending on how ODE was configured. If none is defined, single precision is assumed; if the wrong precision is enabled all floating-point data going in and out of ODE will be corrupt, producing all kinds of errors.

This is perhaps the most confusing part about the entire install and linking process. 

In your header file or top of your main if you don’t have a header, you need to write the defines for dDOUBLE or dSINGLE.  When ode was made, neither of these variables were defined so you also need to add a define in a header file (I’ll tell you which one shortly) inside ode.  If you try to compile at this point you’ll see something like 400+ error messages telling you dDOUBLE or dSINGLE isn’t defined and that a bunch of other variables need that define.

So in your header file, add

#ifdef dDOUBLE

typedef double dReal;

#endif

  If you want double precision or

  #ifdef dSINGLE

typedef float dReal;

#endif

  If you want single precision.

  Now you’ll still get errors since neither of these are actually defined yet.  Now go to your ode folder, and inside the ‘include’ folder find the odeconfig.h file and add the precision you want with:

  #define dDOUBLE or #define dSINGLE

  I recommend putting that define somewhere obvious in that file with a comment marking it in case you ever want to change it. 

  The very last thing you need to do is to copy and paste the ode_singled.dll or ode_singled.lib file into the same directory as your executable since Windows is dumb and won’t compile just because you told your program exactly where all the needed includes and libraries are.  That file is located in the lib folder -> DebugSingleDLL -> ode_singled.dll.   just copy and paste it, don’t cut and paste.

I was recently getting this error while developing a database for a game I'm working on-- I was a little surprised to find that most search results failed to just say what a couple issues might be (specifically the one's I was experiencing) so I'll just say them:

1) When you create a foreign key that references say a primary key, you can't have it update a value when the referenced value is not updated itself--if this happens it will throw error 1005

2) What else might cause this error to be thrown? Well if you accidentally made your foreign key with the constraint 'not null' MySQL will try to adhere to that constraint (i.e. updating that FK bypassing the referenced column) and thus throwing error 1005.  So go ahead and leave the not null constraint out and set the default value to be null.  

First, I think it would make sense to talk about the worlds in which I explore, and which technologies I use to explore them.   The greatest technology that I use has to be the internet.   The internet is the most powerful tool to convey information in the history of the human race, and I use it every single day.  When I explore my world with the internet, I focus in on key areas of my life; music and art, education and learning, and sharing my own work.   The primary technologies that I use to utilize the internet are my smart phone, the PC I built myself, and my laptop.

I use the internet to discover new ar

tists and musicians all the time.  There are several sites I visit frequently which provide hour long playlists of new musicians that I listen to on a daily basis.  This allows me to discover new talent from cities and countries I otherwise would have never heard of.   The internet also allows me to easily keep up to date with the news of my favorite artists, and often leads to me attending live performances, in other words this technology gives me opportunities to explore the real world in which to see and engage in person, live. 

The internet also provides me with limitless opportunities for lifelong learning.  Recently, I was able to take a course on a site called Coursera in which universities from across the nation provide free courses from their faculty online (much like what MIT does).  I constantly am researching tutorials and methods for my computer science coursework from sites like stackoverflow.com provide excellent assistance.  The internet makes all of this possible, and this is why more than any other technology I am grateful for the internet.

I don’t just use the internet to explore my world, I use it to share my world; my ideas, my art, my communications.  I created this blog to share my music projects and the projects of others who I admire.   It is a life goal of mine to enrich people’s lives in any way that I can, and this is but one way in which I feel I can do that successfully.   Most of the ideas I share are within internet based technologies like Google Drive, and BTSync in which I share mostly my programming ideas with potential teammates or people who are just generally interested.  This helps me to keep my projects and ideas well organized so that work gets done faster than ever before. 

Hiraeth is - Brett Anderson Brandon Richier Russell A Ault David Atkinson

We are currently working on two songs so hopefully a big update is coming, also we have the rap track coming in the summer sometime.  Brett is gearing up to go into the studio to record his side project with our old band mate Brandon which I am very excited about and will definitely share with all my friends.  

                                       So we finally finished our Western track that we've been working on for so long, despite a failed hard drive.  It contains elements of one of my favorite western themes growing up, Have Gun Will Travel (pictured above).  We set out to record this with the tones and feelings of the late 50's early 60's westerns that dominated airwaves for so long--and avoid as much of the heinous country elements that are so popular today.

I've been thinking that it might be interesting to show a bit of the writing process for a particular song.  We have been slowly but surely working on a rap song with a rapper out in Arizona (currently working on the vocals), since tumblr only lets me upload one track per day I'll have to spread this post out over several posts--so for the first post:

I've said for some time amongst my friends that a lot of modern electronica music  (specifically with exploring sustained synthesizer tones) would make for great soundtracks for movies.  This has recently been utilized with the Tron soundtrack having been produced by Daft Punk, and more recently with the Drive soundtrack featuring a lot of excellent electronica tracks from artists at the label Valerie Cherie, including the excellent Real Hero theme by College.  If you haven't heard of this label before, you can check out a lot of mix tapes their artists have uploaded on their site at http://www.valeriecollective.com.

One of the first major composers to embrace the power of synthesizers was of course Vangelis, having produced excellent soundtracks for Blade Runner, Carl Sagan's Cosmos, etc.  The breadth of what synths are capable of today has improved ten fold on what was possible back in the 70's and 80's when Vangelis was producing most of his work, and I would really like to continue seeing soundtracks (or parts of soundtracks) being produced with synths.

The track I attached to this blog is a track I produced with my long time writing partner Brett Anderson, it explores a lot of similar compositions to the Vangelis style, but with modern tones from the wonderful Togu Audio Line or TAL Synths.  Currently we are hoping to add a visual element to the music, but we are still working out the details for that.

As of today we are working on several different pet projects in the recording studio.  Our main recording program of choice at the moment is Ableton.  We have tried out the three main all three programs typically used for home recording (Logic, Ableton, and ProTools), all three of which have their various strengths and weaknesses, but Ableton has the greatest user friendly abilities, especially when it comes to editing and mixing. 

Currently on the table we have a rap track with a very intricate modern beat, with some old school throw backs (i.e. early 90's).  This track, at least as far as the beat is concerned, should be completed in the next week or so--then it's off to our friend to put lyrics to it.