This works in both IE and FF.

Cheers

Halo 3 is as good an FPS as I’ve played (although the controls take a little while to get used to) and Lips is a fantastic clone of Sing Star (from PS2/3).

But something I had not counted on when I got the XBOX was how easy it is to write games for it. All I needed to do was download the XNA Game Studio addon to Visual Studio and voila! I had an instant game development platform.

I have quite a few ideas, so watch this space!!

cd ~
mkdir .fonts
cp mynewfont.ttf ~/.fonts

NSTimer* timer = [NSTimer timerWithTimeInterval:1.0 target:self selector:@selector(timerTick:) userInfo:nil repeats:YES];
[[NSRunLoop currentRunLoop] addTimer:timer forMode:NSEventTrackingRunLoopMode];

So, what I am doing here is creating a new NSTimer which fires in 1 second intervals and sends the timerTick message to self every time it fires. On the 2nd line, I am attaching the NSTimer object to the current runloop. This all worked fine. Until…!

It turns out in UI applications, the NSRunLoop is responsible for getting input from all the input devices/timers that are attached to it. The timer would fire and the tickerTick message got sent as expected until the runloop got busy doing something else. For example if I pressed a button on the UI and kept it pressed, the runloop was busy reading the mouse down input and the timer ticks would get ignored completely.

So, the solution was to run the NSTimer in a separate thread so it can have a NSRunLoop dedicated to responding to it and nothing else.

Here is the code:

-(void) startTimer
{
NSThread* timerThread = [[NSThread alloc] initWithTarget:self selector:@selector(startTimerThread) object:nil]; //Create a new thread
[timerThread start]; //start the thread
}

//the thread starts by sending this message
-(void) startTimerThread
{
NSAutoreleasePool* pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
NSRunLoop* runLoop = [NSRunLoop currentRunLoop];
[[NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval: 1.0
target: self
selector: @selector(timerTick:)
userInfo: nil
repeats: YES] retain];

[runLoop run];
[pool release];
}


- (void)timerTick:(NSTimer *)timer
{
NSLog(@"Tick!");
}

The NSRunLoop for the new thread needs to be explicitly set to run. If this is not done, the thread will start the timer, and then duly exit the function (and therefore the thread) and no ticks will be received. Also, the NSAutoreleasePool object needs to be created to manage the objects that are created in the new thread.

Cheers

A recent event illustrating this is the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Pakistan by the military in 1999.

Function declaration:

function SayHelloTo(nameStr) {

document.write('Hello ' + nameStr);

}

Function with return statement:

function add(x, y) {

return x + y;

}

Variable declaration within a function:

function add(x, y) {

var z = x+y;

return z;

}

Classes in Javascript:

function car(makeStr, modelStr, colourStr) {

this.make = makeStr;

this.model = modelStr;

this.colour = colourStr;

}

Note how the declaration of a class is exactly the same as declaring a function with the salient keyword being this in the declaration of the variables within the function.

To create an instance of an object:

car1 = new car('Toyota', 'Camry', 'Red');

To access a property within the object:

car1.make = 'Ford';

Class methods:

function drive()

{

with (this) document.write(make+' is going for a drive');

}

Once again, note the this keyword.

Declaring class methods as above is however expensive on memory as each car object has a corresponding drive object.

Functions and constants can instead be declared in what is called the prototype for a class:

car.prototype.drive = drive;

Constants may also be defined in the prototype:

car.prototype.topSpeed = 100;

A class prototype can also be declared all at once with the function bodies:

car.prototype =

{

drive : function()

{

document.write(this.make+' is going for a drive');

},stop : function()

{

document.write(this.make+' is stopping');

}

}

Happy Javascripting

using System.Windows.Forms;

///
/// Contains methods to extend System.Windows.Forms.Form to have the ability to fade in and fade out
///
public static class FormExtensions
{
    ///
    /// Fade the form in
    ///
    ///
    public static void FadeIn(this Form form, int seconds)
    {

Fader fader = new Fader(form, seconds);
        fader.FadeIn();
    }

    ///
    /// Fade the form out
    ///
    ///
    public static void FadeOut(this Form form)
    {
        Fader fader = new Fader(form);
        fader.FadeOut();
    }
}

public class Fader
{
    public Fader(Form targetForm)
    {
        TargetForm = targetForm;
        FadeTimer = new Timer();
        FadeTimer.Interval = 40;
        FadeTimer.Tick += new EventHandler(FaderTimer_Tick);
        OpacityDelta = .05;
    }

    public Fader(Form targetForm, int seconds) : this(targetForm)
    {
        const int frameRate = 20;
        OpacityDelta = 1.0 / (frameRate * seconds);
        FadeTimer.Interval = 1000/frameRate;
    }

    void FaderTimer_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        TargetForm.Opacity += OpacityDelta;
        if ((OpacityDelta > 0 && TargetForm.Opacity >= 1))
        {
            FadeTimer.Enabled = false;
        }
        else if (OpacityDelta < 0 && TargetForm.Opacity <= 0)
        {
            FadeTimer.Enabled = false;
        }
    }

    public void FadeIn()
    {
        TargetForm.Opacity = 0;
        OpacityDelta= Math.Abs(OpacityDelta);
        FadeTimer.Enabled = true;
    }

    public void FadeOut()
    {
        OpacityDelta = -1.0*Math.Abs(OpacityDelta);
        FadeTimer.Enabled = true;
    }

    private Form TargetForm { get; set; }
    private Timer FadeTimer { get; set; }
    private Double OpacityDelta { get; set; }
}