The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.

[Ares Land]

They'll get to do the tech support themselves

(Which is something I plan to foist on them at some point anyway. Computer literacy is a useful skill.)

[Raphael]

Libreoffice question:

If, in Libreoffice Writer, you have a large table with lots of rows, and each row contains some text - is there, then, some way to get the text out of all those rows in that table and turn it into a nice big chunk of non-table text divided into paragraphs? Thank you in advance!

[Raphael]

Libreoffice question:

If, in Libreoffice Writer, you have a large table with lots of rows, and each row contains some text - is there, then, some way to get the text out of all those rows in that table and turn it into a nice big chunk of non-table text divided into paragraphs?

Turns out that the main drop-down menu for "table" has an entry for just that. I don't know what it's called in English, but in German it's called "umwandeln".

[Richard W]

Libreoffice question:

If, in Libreoffice Writer, you have a large table with lots of rows, and each row contains some text - is there, then, some way to get the text out of all those rows in that table and turn it into a nice big chunk of non-table text divided into paragraphs?

Turns out that the main drop-down menu for "table" has an entry for just that. I don't know what it's called in English, but in German it's called "umwandeln".

"Convert, table to text", though I'm annoyingly unsure about the punctuation between those two pickable items. I didn't answer because I thought your rows were split into cells, whose highest level of separation would be tabs.

[Raholeun]

I use Google Docs for my writing. Currently I have a poem stanza with its translation right beside it in the regular text. To format it, I just made a table with two columns, put the poems in the respective columns and made the lines of the table invisible. However, when I paste this into the footnotes, the lay out is different. Tables are not allowed in Google Docs footnotes, nor are images apparently.

Is there a way I can get text to appear in two columns in a footnote in Google Docs?

[Ryusenshi]

I've noticed that I haven't really used my laptop during the past few months. For years, I worked as a teacher, so I used a laptop to work both at home and at work, and a desktop computer for videos or gaming. Then I left to get a degree: for several years, my desktop was in my parents' attic, and I only used the laptop. But now... when I'm at home I use my desktop, and at work, I use the company's computers. I no longer have much use for a laptop.

[malloc]

It seems that whenever I overwrite a PNG file in GIMP, the file increases in size even when my edits shift or even remove elements. In the current case, my drawing of an apartment floor plan bloated from 2.7 KB to 16.4 KB simply by flipping one door around. The drawing is set to gray-scale so colors are not the problem. Obviously this doesn't pose a problem for modern computers, but the sheer inelegance of one small edit bloating a file six-fold really annoys me. Any ideas on how to optimize my editing going forward or perhaps an image format without the bullshit that PNG seems to entail?

[Man in Space]

Can anyone here recommend me a macOS or iOS app that will allow me to play a custom audio file or YouTube link at a set time, like an alarm clock? I just can’t seem to find one on the App Store that’ll let me do it.

EDIT: I found a workaround that involved turning my sound snippet into a ringtone. Fission mailed?

[Ryusenshi]

It seems that whenever I overwrite a PNG file in GIMP, the file increases in size even when my edits shift or even remove elements. In the current case, my drawing of an apartment floor plan bloated from 2.7 KB to 16.4 KB simply by flipping one door around. The drawing is set to gray-scale so colors are not the problem. Obviously this doesn't pose a problem for modern computers, but the sheer inelegance of one small edit bloating a file six-fold really annoys me. Any ideas on how to optimize my editing going forward or perhaps an image format without the bullshit that PNG seems to entail?

The thing is that PNG can be configured with different levels of details, levels of compression, etc. When you save a file, GIMP may not use the same settings: if it chooses to save the image with a higher level of detail, you will end up with a bigger file, even if you changed literally nothing. Try "Export as" if you want to choose the settings yourself. Now, why doesn't GIMP use the image's original settings as a default? I have no idea.

[Travis B.]

I have converted the "minidictionary", i.e. a hash table-based flash dictionary index in RAM, code for zeptoforth on the RP2040 (mostly) to assembly and made a new release, 0.46.4, including it, and I have started work on converting the zeptoforth multitasker to assembly in speed-critical code.

[Travis B.]

It seems that whenever I overwrite a PNG file in GIMP, the file increases in size even when my edits shift or even remove elements. In the current case, my drawing of an apartment floor plan bloated from 2.7 KB to 16.4 KB simply by flipping one door around. The drawing is set to gray-scale so colors are not the problem. Obviously this doesn't pose a problem for modern computers, but the sheer inelegance of one small edit bloating a file six-fold really annoys me. Any ideas on how to optimize my editing going forward or perhaps an image format without the bullshit that PNG seems to entail?

The thing is that PNG can be configured with different levels of details, levels of compression, etc. When you save a file, GIMP may not use the same settings: if it chooses to save the image with a higher level of detail, you will end up with a bigger file, even if you changed literally nothing. Try "Export as" if you want to choose the settings yourself. Now, why doesn't GIMP use the image's original settings as a default? I have no idea.

Seconded. With "Export as" in GIMP you can configure the compression settings for saving PNG files as you see fit, so as to optimize the generated PNG files for maximum compression.

[foxcatdog]

If one was looking to program video games what would be the ideal coding language to learn? I figured today should be the day i start learning C++ and i want to know if there's anything better for what i am interested in doing with it.

[Ryusenshi]

C++ is certainly a decent choice: it has been used to program many tentpole games, and it's one of the most widely used languages in the software industry. Beware, though, that C++ is kind of a difficult language: it's complex (object-oriented with advanced features like iterators and templates) but, like C, it doesn't hold your hand at all (any error may make demons fly out of your nose). All programming languages allow you to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ puts a loaded gun in your hand and paints a target on your shoe.

I tried to program games myself during lockdown, and used C++; though it was really a way to learn the language in a fun way. I used the multi-platform SDL library, which is perfect for 2D sprite-based games. Here are my main resources.

• Official SDL wiki
• Lazy Foo': Beginning Game Programming

Unfortunately, I can't recommend you a general C++ tutorial, since I used French-language books. Though you can use cplusplus.com for reference.

So, really, it depends. If you want a playful way to learn C++ because it may be useful for your job, go ahead. If you want to really understand how games work on a low level, why not. If your goal is to make games, though, it may be easier to use an existing game engine, like Unity (or a free alternative like Godot).

[bradrn]

If one was looking to program video games what would be the ideal coding language to learn? I figured today should be the day i start learning C++ and i want to know if there's anything better for what i am interested in doing with it.

I second Ryusenshi’s comment: C++ is a very difficult language with many subtle and intricate ways to crash your program. I would not begin by writing games in C++ unless you are really determined and happy to write a lot of stuff from scratch yourself.

This being the case, here are some ‘nicer’ alternatives I can recommend:

• As the ‘native language’ of the web, JavaScript is widely used to make both simple and complex games. It should be trivial to find guides for JavaScript; for games, try e.g. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/doc ... JavaScript.
• For non-web-based games, the Lua programming language is also very popular. The language is simple, elegant and easy to learn — far more so than JavaScript — yet also expressive and powerful in many ways. For game frameworks, try Solar2D (formerly Corona) or LÖVE.
• If you’d prefer a more graphical environment, Unity is full-featured and very nice to use. It uses C# as its primary programming language; it has some similarities to C++, but in my experience is generally much nicer to use. An open-source alternative is Godot, which is rapidly catching up to Unity; its primary language is ‘GDScript’, which is similar to Python, but it also allows the use of C# or C++.

I tried to program games myself during lockdown, and used C++; though it was really a way to learn the language in a fun way. I used the multi-platform SDL library, which is perfect for 2D sprite-based games. Here are my main resources.

• Official SDL wiki
• Lazy Foo': Beginning Game Programming

Unfortunately, I can't recommend you a general C++ tutorial, since I used French-language books. Though you can use cplusplus.com for reference.

I really like https://www.learncpp.com/. (And as a testament to the complexity of C++, its table of contents alone is 20 pages printed!) Additionally, when I have needed to use C++, I’ve found https://en.cppreference.com/ to be invaluable.

[alice]

C++? Lua? Unity? For wimps, all of them. Real games programmers use hand-crafted assembler!

[Travis B.]

For writing games I would probably go with a base layer of C (using SDL2), combined with Lua for scripting. Lua is lightweight, fast, and very extensible, something you will want when using it as an extension layer for a C base. C++ to me is far too heavyweight, with the downsides of both higher-level languages and C, for beginning to learn to program. It just gives you far too much rope, while at the same time not even letting you use half of it... I would recommend Forth plus assembly... (disclaimer: I am the author of a Forth implementation written with an assembly kernel)... but then you wouldn't get to easily tie it to libraries such as SDL2.

[Travis B.]

All that said, I personally would tend to use a C base with a Forth scripting layer on top of it. The reason for this arrangement is so I can take advantage of C libraries (SDL2, OpenGL/Vulkan, Freetype2, etc.), which is essential when doing modern game programming, while still getting to program in Forth (which I am personally a fan of). Note that I would most likely write my own Forth to do so from scratch, rather than reuse one of my current Forths. (Forth is a very easy language to implement, BTW).

Note I would also be partial to using a C base with a Scheme layer (e.g. Guile) on top of it; like Lua, one gets dynamic memory allocation and a garbage collector out of the box with it, but there is also the added expense associated with a garbage collector (e.g. garbage collectors are not well-suited to real-time programming).

[bradrn]

For writing games I would probably go with a base layer of C (using SDL2), combined with Lua for scripting. Lua is lightweight, fast, and very extensible, something you will want when using it as an extension layer for a C base. C++ to me is far too heavyweight, with the downsides of both higher-level languages and C, for beginning to learn to program. It just gives you far too much rope, while at the same time not even letting you use half of it... I would recommend Forth plus assembly... (disclaimer: I am the author of a Forth implementation written with an assembly kernel)... but then you wouldn't get to easily tie it to libraries such as SDL2.

I somehow don’t think that Forth is the best language for someone who’s just starting to learn gamew programming…

(For that matter, neither is C, really.)

[Travis B.]

For writing games I would probably go with a base layer of C (using SDL2), combined with Lua for scripting. Lua is lightweight, fast, and very extensible, something you will want when using it as an extension layer for a C base. C++ to me is far too heavyweight, with the downsides of both higher-level languages and C, for beginning to learn to program. It just gives you far too much rope, while at the same time not even letting you use half of it... I would recommend Forth plus assembly... (disclaimer: I am the author of a Forth implementation written with an assembly kernel)... but then you wouldn't get to easily tie it to libraries such as SDL2.

I somehow don’t think that Forth is the best language for someone who’s just starting to learn gamew programming…

I was not serious there by any means.

(For that matter, neither is C, really.)

The advantage to C is that it has low level library support such as SDL2, OpenGL, Vulkan, FreeType2, etc., as I mentioned, and it allows writing tight low-level code when needed, while being small enough that you can fit most of it in your head. (Forth has the disadvantage in this department of lacking library support.) Of course, C is not the greatest language to program non-trivial code in, especially for a beginner, so what I'd recommend doing is wrapping your code that directly interfaces with C libraries such that it can be called from Lua or Scheme, and doing most of your actual work in Lua or Scheme.

[Travis B.]

I have been implementing user-friendly commands (words in Forth parlance) in zeptoforth for accessing files and directories on FAT32 filesystems on SDHC/SDXC cards. These commands live in the fat32-tools module. Note that they are not in a build at the moment.

For an example of their use, take the following:

Code: Select all

oo import  ok
simple-fat32 import  ok
fat32-tools import  ok
  ok
<simple-fat32-fs> class-size buffer: my-fs  ok
2 3 4 5 0 <simple-fat32-fs> my-fs init-object  ok
my-fs current-fs!  ok
  ok
s" /FOO" create-dir  ok
s" foo" s" /FOO/BAR.TXT" create-file  ok
s" bar" s" /FOO/BAR.TXT" append-file  ok
s" /" list-dir
FOO  ok
s" /FOO" list-dir
.
..
BAR.TXT  ok
s" /FOO/BAR.TXT" dump-file foobar ok
s" quux" s" /FOO/BAR.TXT" write-file  ok
s" /FOO/BAR.TXT" dump-file quux ok
s" /FOO/BAR.TXT" s" BAZ.TXT" rename  ok
s" /FOO" list-dir
.
..
BAZ.TXT  ok
s" /FOO/BAZ.TXT" remove-file  ok
s" /FOO" list-dir
.
..  ok
s" /FOO" remove-dir  ok
s" /" list-dir  ok

These are not API-type calls for manipulating FAT32 filesystems but rather commands for user use or use in more script-like programs.