Well,  I wanted to officially give an update on the status of my various projects.  First, Plugin Manager has been updated and works the same as before.  Second, I've started a project to redo the "engine" portion of NB2 in c#.  I'll be releasing this once it's stable as a profile-runner.  It won't have any edit functions, but at least you'll be able to use what you have.

I may continue this project as a replacement for NB2 in the future.  I haven't really decided yet how to progress on that particular matter.

Lastly for the developers, we've been working hard on getting a new and better HUD implementation, and I can honestly say we've made some progress.  Some of it more humorous than others (There should only be *3* images in the shot).

Well, after much pain and suffering, mostly on Haz's part, the new HUD system is finally making progress, and since I'm in a mood, I'm going to talk a bit about how it will work in the .NET Native Framework in an upcoming alpha release.

Firstly, creating a HUD:

// hudRect defines the area of the screen on which we draw
Rectangle hudRect = new Rectangle(10, 50, 300, 16);
Decal.Adapter.Wrappers.HUD hud = Host.Huds.CreateHUD(hudRect);

Now that we have a HUD, lets make it colorful!

Color myBGColor = Color.FromArgb(64, Color.Gray);
hud.Fill(myBGColor);

This gives us a nice, mostly transparent grey background.  Lastly, we'll render some text:

hud.BeginText("Times New Roman", 16);
hud.WriteText("SomeText", Color.White);
hud.EndText();

And that's IT!  Of course there are other neat features that need to be tweaked a bit, and some issues that need to be solved, but we'll have progress or kill someone trying!  Lastly I leave you with a potential outcome of the above code, of course with some additions.

I've often had trouble sleeping.  I've usually shrugged it off too.  Until recently it hasn't turned out to be that big of an issue, but I can honestly say I should have taken care of it ages ago.  My ability to focus is almost completely gone now, and I can barely get any work done.  Even after taking ambien to help me sleep, I'm still exhausted and unable to concentrate.

Oddly enough though, in the middle of this, I've never had more dreams (which I hear is a side effect of the ambien) or inspiration for stories.  I've penned a few paragraphs of a tale that really intrigues me, and I hope that I can do it justice while writing it.  As the stories, or even the chapters, find themselves whole, I'll be posting them for all to enjoy.  I'll probably post a teaser in a few days after I flesh out some of the direction better.

Since it's been quiet on most fronts with the alpha, our continued development, and the impending patch, I just wanted to let everyone know things are rolling along.  I've been having some trouble with my development setup the past few days that has hindered me, but I've mostly solved that as of a short while ago.  Tonight I'll be hitting the new rendering system hard, and may even have some good news or screenies by the end of the week.

Also, here's a quick overview of the status of the plugins/utilities that I maintain:

Zone Launcher -- Retired.  I did however hack up a quick version that works with the new launcher.  It apparently has a naming conflict with some other app that was announced a few days after I posted the update.  Oh well.

Plugin Manager -- Limbo.  I will be updating this as soon as I figure out how.

Mouse Wheel 2 -- Actually updated already.  It just needs to stay current with our changes.  It's also waiting on QueryKeyboardMap to work again.

AC AIM -- Planning.  I will not exactly be updating this;  I'll be completely rewriting it using the new .NET framework.  I'll also be using that time to write a series of articles detailing the development process using the new framework.

Nerfus Buffus 2 -- In Progress.  NB is broken.  Very broken.  I will be updating it, but I'm having to rewrite large chunks of it.  I don't really have an ETA other than to say it will NOT be ready when decal releases.  If time permits, I plan to do my best to have it out with in the month following decal.

Going further into how and why we're breaking things, I'd like to take a moment to cover our protocol system.  As many of you know, we keep a huge xml file that documents the known AC protocol.  Well, in the downtime, this file has seen MASSIVE reorganization.  Ken has been kind enough to do this work almost alone.  This has included updating all of the old packets that have changed with ToD and also some much needed upgrades to the file for clarity, new features, and ease of use.  Another point in this massive upgrade, was a change in the objects plugins use to access protocol information:  IMessage[2] and IMessageMember.

NB2 is a heavy user of protocol information.  Even though it uses filters, there is still quite a bit of parsing that occurs.  The usual method for updating a plugins protocol functions tends to only involve changing the packet type or renaming a few fields.  This time around however, many, many packets were renumbered, and with Ken's hard work, probably 3/4 of the fields have been renamed.  Then comes the kicker, with the changes to IMessage the Member method no longer exists.  This means NB2 won't even compile until I replace all of the calls to the proper replacements.  Then I have to go back to changing the numbers and field names.  One last fun bit is the inclusion of many new "types" in the protocol.  This means that anyone parsing data might have to add some extra calls in their code.  That may seem annoying at first, but it makes much more sense with the changes.

Another, but slightly less annoying, change keeping it down is the removal of several methods from IPluginSite.  Any function that in the past used a memloc in PluginSite has been removed and is now only found in ACHooks.  Well, NB2 is old enough that ACHooks was still rather young, and didn't get used much.  These changes are generally not very difficult.

Next time we'll cover either the new .NET Plugin Framework or what will eventually be Decal's new rendering engine (depending on how far into it I get).