Nuno Silva

Blog Update

I added recently a new section to my blog (on the right) named projects with the list of all projects that i am currently working in.

The projects aren’t all mine. Pedro and Tiago are also part of them. And, in some of them, we have persons who insert all the content in the website (like Astroligia and 4Pilares).

Currently there are only 7 projects (because the other are under development):

Orion’s Belt - a massive Multiplayer Browser based Game
ziYU - it’s like our virtual company, where all the ideas come from.
Sms - This website started has a prof of concept of a project we made. Here you can find Sms messages for all the occasions (Portuguese only).
Centro e Cópias - is the website of my mother’s print store (Portuguese only).
Bird Zone - This is a website where you can find a lot of information about birds.
Astrologia - Everything you need to know about astrology (Portuguese only).
4Pilares - A webSite with a lot of information about child education (Portuguese only).

Centro de Copias, Bird Zone, Astrologia and 4 Pilares are still under construction. A lot of content is being added at the moment. Soon they will be at 100%.

Sms will soon be upgraded with a new design and new features.

The 2nd Version of Orion’s Belt will begin it’s development in january 2008. If everything goes well, in july, all of you can test (if you want of course) a new and improved version. We promise not to disappoint!

29 Dec 07 | Orion's Belt, Personal Projects, Programming | Read on | Comment (1)

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas to you all!!!

Christmas

24 Dec 07 | General | Read on | Comments (0)

Playstation 3

It’s MINE! I finally bought a 60gb sony playstation 3!

It’s a petty i can’t find any compatibility information regarding naruto ultimate hero 2… so tomorrow i’m going to buy Naruto Ultimate Hero (for me, one of the best fighting games in the market).

21 Dec 07 | General | Read on | Comments (3)

Changes…

I finally had time to change the look and feel of my blog. I think now much clean, light and simpler. What do you think?

There are some things that i still need to add ( like links to all my projects ) and some CSS problems that i need to resolve (like the fact that the two right columns have some weird space in the top that i cannot remove…)

Still, i thing the new look is a great improvement

21 Dec 07 | General | Read on | Comments (0)

Bird Zone

My friend Tiago finally released his website about birds.

It has a Portuguese and an English version (I think the english version is still under construction…). It needs some content but i think it’ a good start.

You can check it at aves.zi-yu.com (I must change this name… is not international… )

PS: Isn’t the banner Cool? ( I made it :D! )

20 Dec 07 | ASP.NET, Design, Html and Css | Read on | Comment (1)

Transformers

Yesterday they finally arrived! The two Transformer books i ordered from amazon.com:

the difference between the euro and the dollar finally payed up! I saved almost 15€. In our days is more cheaper to buy books in the united sates then in our local book store. This is valid for any kind of book (it’s a petty I cannot buy a PS3 or a PSP at amazon).

Check this books at:

18 Dec 07 | Books, Fun | Read on | Comments (2)

Google Charts

Google Code
Another good idea by google! A very simple chart API. There is no posts, no complicated code. You just access a url, pass the correct parameters and voila. Your chart is ready.

e.g. the url http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chd=s:hW&chs=250×100&chl=Hello|World

Will return this image:

According to Steve Crossan, of the google API team, this is one of those technologies developed has a “20% time project” and is already used in applications such has Google Video and Google Finance.

Here are some useful resources:

12 Dec 07 | General | Read on | Comments (0)

Download Speed

I just downloaded the Visual Studio 2008 Trial in 30 minutes!

The file I download is an .iso and has 3.30GB!!!!

I download at an average speed o 1.75MB

My internet is very fast today ( of course the MS server upload also helps )

11 Dec 07 | General | Read on | Comments (0)

Moooo what?

The name is MooTools, a very cool Javascript Library with object oriented and Ajax support. It simplifies the way you write your scripts because it has a very simple syntax and a lot of features integrated (like effects, Drag and drops, scrolls, Tooltips, etc, etc).

To test the framework, I started yesterday an Star Rating control in ASP.NET. I Clearly needed 2 things

an css based rating system;
a framework that allowed me to do Ajax Posts

The first was easy. I made a little search and found 2 very simple that i recommend: Komodomedia and pmob.

For this example I used the second. Both are well done, so i just picked one of them.

The second: do some code using mootools (Also very easy like is expected of any javascript framework)).

First Step: The creation of the control

The first thing to do is to to create a control that renders the star rating. The method GetRating is something abstract because, according to your implementation (and context of usage) this information will come from a specific place.

Let's just suppose that the we are in a context of an blog and the rating goes to a database and get's the average rating of the current post.

NOTE: for test proposes the method can return the value '3' (just to see some stars).

PLAIN TEXT

C#:

public class RatingControl : Control {
#region Fields
private static string[] styles = { "nostar", "onestar", "twostar", "threestar", "fourstar", "fivestar" };
#endregion
#region Private
private static int GetRating() {
//Get the rating from the item here
return 3;
}
/// <summary></summary>
/// Renders the CSS rating
///
private void RenderStars( HtmlTextWriter writer, int rating ) {
writer.Write("
<ul id="rating" class="rating {0}">", styles[rating]);
writer.Write("
<li class="one"><a href="#" title="1 Star" class="star">1</a></li>
");
writer.Write("
<li class="two"><a href="#" title="2 Stars" class="star">2</a></li>
");
writer.Write("
<li class="three"><a href="#" title="3 Stars" class="star">3</a></li>
");
writer.Write("
<li class="four"><a href="#" title="4 Stars" class="star">4</a></li>
");
writer.Write("
<li class="five"><a href="#" title="5 Stars" class="star">5</a></li>
</ul>
");
//Render a div to write a message
writer.Write("
");
}
#endregion
#region Overriden methods
protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer) {
int rating = GetRating();
RenderStars(writer, rating);
}
#endregion BaseFieldControl Implementation
}

After create this control, create and aspx and insert insert the control into an ASPX test page. Don't forget to add the css of the star rating to the aspx. This css is available at http://www.pmob.co.uk/temp/star-rating.htm ( or simply download the zip at the end of the page ).

PLAIN TEXT

C#:

<%-- register the control --%>
<%@ Register TagPrefix="tst" Namespace="Test" Assembly="Test" %>
<%-- call the control --%>
<tst:ratingcontrol runat="server"></tst:ratingcontrol>

then compile and run the project. You should see something like this:

Rating Control

Second Step: The javascript

Now that we have the control running, we need to add to each star and event onclick so we can handle the user rating. To do this, we will the following script:

PLAIN TEXT

C#:

var styles = ['nostar', 'onestar', 'twostar', 'threestar', 'fourstar', 'fivestar'];
var Site = {
rating: function(){
//Get all the elements below the element with id
//"rating" that have the class star
var stars = $$('#rating .star');
//for each one of those elements
stars.each( function(star, i) {
//Add an onclick event
star.addEvent('click', function(e) {
e = new Event(e).stop();
//Build the url of the ajax request
var idx = i+1;
var url = "Formatter.aspx?rating="+idx;
//Creates an Ajax Request for the page Formatter.aspx
//this page will receive the parameter rating by QueryString
//and do something with it
new Ajax(url, {
method: 'get',
update: $('ratingMessage')
}).request();
});
});
}
};
window.addEvent('load', Site.rating);

The Ajax type has an event named "update". This is very useful because you can simply put the html element you want there (In the example above I inserted the element "ratingMessage') and the response of the request will simply be inserted into the element.

After this step you will not be able to see anything moving (yet!) because the page that handles the ajax request, Formatter.aspx, isn't created.

Third Step: Process the Ajax request

Finally the page responsible for receiving the ajax request, the Formatter.aspx (to make the example simple, I used an aspx page but you can also any type of file).

The page only receives the value of rating (to simplify the example) and returns a text indicating which rating we choose.

PLAIN TEXT

C#:

public class Formatter : Page {
protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e) {
string r = Request.QueryString["rating"];
HttpContext.Current.Response.Write( string.Format("Rating '{0}' received!", r));
}
}

You can download this example here

10 Dec 07 | ASP.NET, Design, Programming | Read on | Comments (4)

Finally I was printed…

After several months reading the blogs of PrintScreen, I sent and application to be added to the community. Guess what, they accepted me!

Hello to you all.

Note: the 3 musketeers are finally together in a single community: me, Pedro Santos and Tiago Sousa, the 3 persons responsible for the project Orion's Belt.

08 Dec 07 | General | Read on | Comment (1)

The Guy

My name is Nuno Silva and I am the author of this blog. I am a Computer Engineer and have a passion for game development.

So, in this blog you find especially things about the web, game development, software, my personal projects (Orion's belt for instance) and, sometimes, just crazy things that pass through my head.

Blog Update

Happy Christmas

Playstation 3

Changes…

Bird Zone

Transformers

Google Charts

Download Speed

Moooo what?

Finally I was printed…

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