Spacejock Software Blog

Follow Spacejock Software on Twitter

2010-02-09T22:10:00.001+11:00

Most of the news about Spacejock Software is short little snippets... e.g. program x released, program y updated. Mostly they're not worth posting a blog about, so I've decided to use Twitter instead.

You can follow http://www.twitter.com/SpacejockSoftw, and I promise I'll post a tweet whenever I update something on the site. If you don't have or use twitter you can still follow that URL, where you'll see all recent posts in reverse date order.

yBook2 Beta

2010-01-05T17:16:00.004+11:00

Just a quick post to announce the first public release of yBook2. I've rewritten the whole app in a new language, making speed and appearance improvements along the way:

You can read more about this release here

Lots of new beta versions

2008-09-12T12:35:00.002+08:00

Recently I've uploaded beta versions of Sonar 3, RMP 3, Hamtime 2, Trackaminute 2, yCopy 2, yLaunch 2, yMail 2 and yWriter 5

On the non-beta front, yGen 2 has now officially replaced yGen 1 and I recommend all users run yRead 3 instead of the original yRead 2 (Windows 98 users are stuck with yRead 1) RMP 3 is almost out of beta, and I recommend it to Vista users in particular because of the improved performance on that operating system.

Details and download links here

yEdit beta released

2008-07-20T13:07:00.002+08:00

During NanoWrimo 2007 I decided I needed a text editor which would do the following:

1. Allow me to set a word count target, and display the remaining words as I typed
2. Take sequentially numbered autobackups at five minute intervals.
3. Nothing else *

Yesterday I mentioned this app on the yWriter group, and it was only a few minutes before someone asked me to release it.

So, at midnight last night I put version 1.0.0 online, promptly followed by 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 since I'd forgotten to include certain essential files.

If this app sounds like something you could use, give it a try and let me know what you think.

* I will NOT be adding a spell checker, grammar checker, formatting, fonts or any other Word Processing gizmos. Those are EDITING features, and you'd do well not to distract yourself with such fripperies when you're trying to WRITE.

yWriter 5

2008-07-19T12:53:00.003+08:00

I'm plotting Hal Spacejock book 5 and working on yWriter 5 at the same time ... get fed up with one, switch to the other.

yWriter isn't anywhere near ready for public testing yet, since I'm still adding lots of missing features, but I'm very happy with what I have so far. I've spent enough time in VB2008 to really get to like it, barring a few issues which I've mostly been able to get around by tweaking the settings. (Ctrl+Shift F2 is still a mess, and don't talk to me about the search / search & replace system. Yuk.)

The more I see the more I like this new programming language, which is saying something because I've found every Microsoft version of Visual Basic completely unusable since the excellent VB6, released in 1998.

Back to yWriter 5: I've just added the code for drag/dropping chapters and scenes on the main screen, and it's working nicely. Last time around I tidied up the editor window, leaving only the essentials on the main page (text window, title, description, chapter/scene dropdowns & viewpoint char selector) and putting everything else on a couple of tabs (one for viewpoint character info and a drag/drop list of other characters in the scene, the other for the nitty-gritty details like notes, length of time for the scene, locations, items, etc)

It's a long, painstaking process converting a huge app like yWriter from one language to another, and one of the biggest problems is that I really can't do anything to yWriter 4 while yw5 is in progress. Otherwise I have to add every change to BOTH versions simultaneously, and of course the code is all different and changes are inevitably spread over a whole load of source files.

Part of me knows that I should be writing Hal Spacejock 5 instead of fiddling with the new version of yWriter, but procrastination is part of my character. Anyway, I want to write Hal 5 in yWriter 5, just like I've matched every Hal book to date with a new version of the software. It keeps things fresh & exciting!

yRead 3 beta

2008-03-22T21:22:00.002+08:00

The first beta of yRead 3 is now available from the Spacejock Software website. This free program will take a text or html file and read it aloud.

Download available here

Sonar 3 Beta

2008-02-04T15:17:00.001+08:00

Unfortunately I spent almost all of January immobilised due to lower back pain. However, thanks to my laptop and wifi connection I managed to use the time constructively, and I've not only converted the thousands and thousands of lines of code I use for all my software into VB2008, I also converted Sonar and added a bunch of new features.

* Resizable forms
* Colour coded lines
* Single data file in XML format
* Load, use, save as many different databases as you want
* 'Stories' now called 'works', so non-fic writers can use the prog
* You can double-click entries in any list to view details
* Text fields now have unlimited length
* List subs by work AND by market (e.g. a list of everything sent to F&SF)
* All lists can be sorted
* Sortable date columns for dates

etc etc

Now, this is a BETA version, and it will probably crash and/or lose data. People who download it will be existing Sonar 2 users who are keen to see where the program is going, and who don't mind trying various menus and forms in order to let me know of any problems.

There's a Sonar2 data importer built in, and you can have both apps installed at the same time without any problems. Importing your Sonar 2 data won't change the original files.

Installing

Because Sonar3 is a .NET Version 2.0 application, you'll need to install the Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 if you don't already have it.

Best bet is to download and install Sonar3, then run it. If you get an error message about a missing runtime environment, you can grab the .NET Framework from the link below and install it.

Link to Sonar 3 install (about 800kb)

Link to .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package (x86)

(If you're running 64-bit windows there's a link to the x64 version on the same page.)

Sonar 3 has a 'check for updates' feature under the Utilities menu. I'd use it fairly often ...

Programmer for hire

2008-01-16T13:47:00.000+08:00

I've decided to offer my services as a programmer for hire, specifically with the idea of working on legacy Visual Basic projects (VB5 and VB6, although I've also used VB3, VB4 and VB Dos .. even QuickBasic 4.5)

I'm not after a job, just contract work. Full details on the link above.

yWriter future

2007-11-16T08:40:00.001+08:00

Just wanted to clarify the future direction for yWriter.

yWriter2 is in maintenance mode, and I won't be adding new features to this version.

yWriter3 is the current version. However, I'm working on yWriter 4 and so yWriter3 will shortly enter maintenance mode too. (This is where I just fix bugs.)

yWriter4 is only a few weeks away. It will import yWriter 2 AND 3 projects, and if you're still using yWriter 2 then this is the one to wait for.

Once yWriter 4 is in use, yWriter 2 will become unsupported software. (No more fixes, retired gracefully.) I'll also be recommending that everyone using yWriter 3 switch to yWriter 4. Right now they're identical except that v4 has a more efficient file layout and much faster load/save times.

yWriter 3 and FCharts updates

2006-12-10T17:13:00.000+08:00

yWriter 3 is coming along nicely - I used it to write my 50,000 word NanoWrimo 'half' novel in November, without any problems. I'm happy to report that yWriter2 made it onto the Pricelessware 2007 list of best software.

The latest FCharts test version includes a new zoom method (click and drag a ruler over the bars you want to see in the zoomed chart), and this is proving much easier than the old cntrl+shift+click twice method. As a bonus I'll shortly be including this zoom in the SE version.

yMail has a new, completely rewritten SMTP sending routine which is up to 100 times faster than before. It also works simultaneously with receiving, which is nice. This feature will be in the next release - I'd upload it now but I still have some testing to do with SMTP AUTH sessions.

yWriter nominated for an award

2006-11-09T11:27:00.000+08:00

yWriter has been nominated for the PricelessWare best free software award. Anyone with a Google login can vote here

If you've never heard of my yWriter software, see here for details.

Out of action - 24 hours

2006-08-02T23:21:00.000+08:00

Some time last night one of the three hard drives in my web server gave up the ghost. (Naturally, it was the one with the most files on. 80 gigs with 2% free space.)

I got up at 7am, took the kids to school, and then worked on the server from 9am until ... well, I'm still going at 11:20pm

This server runs the customer forum, downloads for issues of ASIM, all my email and various other bits and bobs, so it's been an awfully peaceful day.

In the end I put a 120gb drive in, partitioned it up and restored backups from internal and external drives. There was a 40 gig in the server with a noisy bearing so I pulled that while I was at it. Friday I'll bung in a new 160gb which will be a mirror for the others. Next time a drive fails I want to swap them over and reboot.

Throughout today I did run a temporary server, which was a linux setup running inside VMWare on Windows XP. Over the next few days I'll keep configuring it, because it makes a nice easy alternative for the next time things Go Wrong.

Second Post

2006-08-01T13:18:00.000+08:00

This is the second post to the Spacejock Software blog.

Just testing.

First Post

2006-07-24T12:44:00.000+08:00

I've set up the Spacejock Software blog to post announcements about my free software.

Cheers
Simon