Bouncing Ball Games / News: Recent posts

To the /-\$$|-|013 who defaced our website. At any rate, other than restoring the website, there's no new news. Wish there were, but life, work, etc...

Another "pre-alpha" release of the resource management library. This release contains a few bug fixes only and no new features. Having now put the library into use in another project I'm discovering some features I'd certainly like to attempt to add in the future; these include: a) an intelligent means to remove resources from memory that are not in use and/or have a occurrence of use, b) a better (i.e. easier) way to write the handler code for each resource type that the resource manager can process from an XML doc, c) a pluggable memory model - something that would allow me to allocate memory how I want to allocate memory, not how malloc/free want to do it. Perhaps I'll have time to get to these at some point. Perhaps.

The CVS for the BBG_gui library is available, and actually has been for about a month now - I've just been delinquent in posting any news. Currently the library is still in development, but if anyone out there feels generous enough to take a look at the code for purposes of review, it would be greatly appreciated. Also, a DIA diagram of the class hierarchy of the system exists... I just need to get it out there.

Our fearless leader and head developer, Aaron, has informed me that a UML diagram is on the way for the BBG_GUI lib. I'll have it up as soon as I get my mitts on it!

Greetings everyone, I'll be your tour-guide for the day. Please, keep your hands and feet inside of the ride at all times. No eating, drinking or flash photography. Thank you.
Questions? Comments? email ullman@sf.net

I've taken some time to shuffle some things on the website around, add a few new features, fix a few broken links (like the email links - apologies to anyone who may tried to mail us via those links)., etc., etc. CSS2 drop down menus have been added for those with browsers capable of rendering such. It is now hoped that it is easier to find ones way around the site.

This pre-alpha release sees some more changes to the BBG_resource system. Documentation, via doxygen, has been added to the API. The original test programs have been removed and replaced with better programs, which will hopefully make things clearer on how the system is to be used. Enjoy!

Ok, this is the simple resource management library that has now, even before any great ellapse in the version numbering has occured, under gone three name changes. Well, it's not happening again, this is the final name. Documentation is woefully non-existant; I have commented the BBG_resources.h file as best I could and hopefully that will provide the user, along with the examples, some idea of how the system is used.

I've decided not to quickly re-release the resource management system as there are few issues I would like to first clear up. Most noteably, I wanted to extend the useability of the XML script to allow users to write objects in the script as opposed to loading them from a separate file. This has presented a new set of problems and issues, but hopefully I will have them resolved shortly and a file release available soon.

At the request of Mr. Sam Lantinga, after writing him to find out if the naming of my resource management library was acceptable, and subsequently discovering he'd prefer I use another name, the name SDL_resources is being shelved for the time being and the library is to be called BBG_resources. This may or may not be the permanent name of the library; if at a later date Mr. Lantinga gives his blessing it will most likely revert to SDL_resources. I do apologize to all four of the people who have thus far downloaded the library. File releases for the newly re-named library will be available shortly. Oh and just in case anyone was curious, this is my fault; I should have asked before I made these releases. You live, you learn... or stay stupid I guess.

I think I completely forgot to mention this anywhere in the recently released SDL_resources source. In order to compile the library you will need SDL (www.libsdl.org) and Expat (expat.sourceforge.net) installed. Additionally, the library is currently tested only on Linux (Fedora Core 1) and Win32 platforms.

If you don't feel like checking it out of cvs, then you can take a look at the alpha source release of this library here. There is a separate test data file as well as separate VC++ 6.0 workspace and project files. Currently the package is woefully lacking in documentation. Hopefully I will be able to rectify that in a little while.

The SDL_resources project is now available via cvs. An alpha of the library will be available shortly, along with a small test example file. In it's current form, there is nothing overly remarkable about the system; with a little time this will change. For the curious, this project was born from two forces: a) I wanted to learn how to make a resource management system, and b) we needed such a system for our project currently under the working title of 'punktown'.

A resource management system has been in development for the past month and is nearing completion for testing. The working title of the system was originally RMG, but has since been changed to SDL_resources. Originally the system was meant to be independent of any media API, and largely still is, but it now relies on some of the work done by Sam Lantinga's SDL library. The old RMG repository is currently available for anyone interested (comments welcome, flames suffered), and the SDL_resources respository will be going up shortly.

I have made some minor updates the website. The Punk Town project specification is up on the project page. A skeleton schedule has been added to the developers page. Things are still largely fresh and undeveloped as yet. Please bare with us.

Bouncing Ball Games is now officially opened for development. The project is meant to create simple games that are interesting and fun to play. The first project set for development is under the working title 'The Punk Town Project'. More details in the days to come, as there is much work still to be done in getting the project up and running.