they.misled.us » Dark Room

Installing Adobe Air on 64bit Linux

Jeff — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 04:58:45 +0000

So, I recently installed Ubuntu 9.10 64bit on my pc. And, when I went to install Adobe Air so that I could test DarkRoomX it didn’t work. Or, rather the installer completed but it didn’t actually work. So, I had to dig up some instructions for getting it to work (you need to manually install some 32bit libs). Here’s the link if anyone else is trying to do the same thing:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/408/kb408084.html

Pre-Release Checklist

Jeff — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 07:16:21 +0000

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up on DR progress. I have closed out all my open issues, and I only have one, maybe two feature sI want to add before the launch. Then, I will be working on the site. After the site is ready to go I will make an official beta release of DRX, and DRW.

Pre-Release Checklist

Find / Replace
Welcome screen?
Launch getdarkroom.com

NativeMenu Glitch in Snow Leopard

Jeff — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 05:32:12 +0000

Is anyone using the preview release of DarkRoomX in Snow Leopard? I have a testing system setup, and when I ran it I noticed a weird issue with the menu. Apparently, I am getting a duplicate, useless apple menu. I am curious if this is an issue with Air and Snow Leopard, or just DarkRoomX, if anyone knows an Air app that uses OS X’s native menu I would like to know so I can test it out.

Distraction Free Writing in 2009

Jeff — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 05:56:01 +0000

While Dark Room has been mostly dormant, many things have changed. I originally got the idea for Dark Room from Jesse over at Hog Bay. WriteRoom was really the first in this modern era of retro text editors. Back then, WriteRoom was the only game in town, and it was, and still is, Mac only.

Unfortunately, around this time my powerbook passed into the after life. This meant that I had to switch to my windows laptop as my primary machine for a while. And, since I had gotten so used to WriteRoom, I needed something. After spending a couple of days searching, I was quite surprised not to find anything available for windows. This is when I decided to pick up the torch, and write Dark Room. However, it did not remain alone for long.

Now, there is a glut of this style of program. Here are just the few that I know of off my head:

Cross Platform:

Dark Room X
jDarkRoom

Windows:

Dark Room W
Q10
WriteMonkey

Mac:

WriteRoom

Linux:

PyRoom
RubyRoom

Web:

DarkCopy
Writer
MyTextFile

I would love to hear feedback on what you love or hate about these programs, as it will help me determine how best to shape future development of Dark Room.

An interesting factor here is that even though there are more programs, they are still pretty fragmented, as people are sort of just porting over functionality from applications exclusive on other OS’s.

jDarkRoom was the first cross platform implementation. However, I have not had much luck with it using an OS other than Windows. Which reminds me, I need to get with that developer to help him work out some kinks I experiences while using the app in OS X.

Dark Room X is my attempt to build an application that does everything you need, and nothing you don’t. I want users to be able to pick it up, love it, and be able to use it on anything. Be it their wife’s spyware loaded windows box, they’re sweet MacPro work station, or the linux box they keep as a guilty pleasure. It is just the first step in my ultimate goal: the ability to access, and work on your writing in the interface you love from anyplace at anytime.

Dark Room X – Preview Release

Jeff — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 06:22:58 +0000

Here it is, finally, that which you have been waiting way to long for: the preview release of Dark Room X.

Please go ahead and download those, and remember all the disclaimers (software provided as is, no guarantees that it will work, etc…).

If you run into any issues, don’t hesitate to let me know so I can get it first before the initial release. And, last but not least: enjoy!

Download Dark Room X (Preview)

Dark Room X Approaching Early Beta

Jeff — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 04:35:24 +0000

I am writing this post in Dark Room X, which is a very good sign. This means that the initial preview release of Dark Room X is impending. I have a couple of bugs to tweak. I plan on releasing the preview early this week, so be sure to keep an eye out for that.

On Dark Room W (the windows only version), I have some news as well. In getting this version ready for open source, I have upgraded it to .NET 3.5 (sorry to the .NET haters). I have also fixed a couple of the really nagging bugs I am ashamed took so long to address (DR development all but stopped when I stopped using a PC). I have not decided when I will release the next version of DRW, it will probably be at the same time I launch the new site (which means after I fix the bugs from the preview release of Dark Room X, and after I make the site).

Stay tuned.

Thwarted by Adobe

Jeff — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 07:13:30 +0000

As I have been approaching the initial release of Dark Room X, I hit a pretty major road block. Apparently, in air 1.5.2 adobe changed the way that escape works in full screen. Since there was no built in way to capture the escape key they added one. Unfortunately, this ruined the hack I instituted. So, I lost a day of development (I don’t get a lot of time to work on the project) rewriting my screen state toggling mechanism for the new system. But, that’s done now.

The next issue that I need to address is why the menu bar is not showing up on any platform other than OS X.

Oh, the joys of software development.

Dark Room 0.8b Download Link Fixed

Jeff — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 05:52:24 +0000

I uploaded my archive of Dark Room releases to the github project I plan on releasing the code on. I have updated the link on the Dark Room page to reflect this. The source code is not yet up there. I am going to do a release of Dark Room X, and then I need to add the license notice to the Dark Room W (formerly Dark Room). After that is all squared away the code will be released.

Dark Room Update

Jeff — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 08:09:34 +0000

Some people have noticed that the link to Dark Room is broken. Basically, I have been in the process of switching hosts, so the domain it was hosted on is currently not hosted. However, I am also in the process of setting up the new home for dark room, and working on getting the projects open sourced. I think that for the short term I will be putting up a temporary link in place of the broken link, and then replace it with a more permanently solution a little further down the road.

In order news, I am leaning towards calling the new version “Dark Room X” with the x for cross platform. I was originally calling it “Dark Room Air” but due to bad licensing policies by adobe that is not possible. I have also been putting in quite a bit of time on the application this week, and I expect to have an official initial release soon, so keep an eye out for that.

Dark Room Call for Developers

Jeff — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 05:33:33 +0000

I have decided that I will converting Dark Room into an open source project. Therefore, I will be looking for some developers to help facilitate development of the project. I will be setting up two projects on github, one for Dark Room Legacy, and one for Dark Room Air.

Dark Room Legacy is the existing version written in C#, I am looking for one developer to take stewardship of it and fix any existing bugs in the code base and make sure that it is working properly across different versions of Windows. This version is currently not intended for new features, but that may change.

Dark Room Air will become the primary version. The existing code is written in flex 3, and I would like to begin porting it to flex 4 immediately as it adds a number of critical features that will dramatically enhance the user experience.

While I wait to see if anyone is interest in working on the project, I will be creating new site dedicated to Dark Room, and will no longer host it as part of my personal site. Additionally, I will be working on a road map, and will likely setup a support forum.

Anyone interested in working on the project should comment on this post with relevant qualifications.

Also, I should note that if I can get a couple of people to focus on the application development, I will be working a paid web service to accompany the program (DR will always be free), so if that works out I will be able to share revenue with DR developers.