gradcatgen = graduation catalogue generator = universal binary cocoa .app = developed in Xcode (objective-c, shell-scripts and applescript)
Current status of development:
March 26th 2007 (Monday) as far as I'm concerned, this is the last version of GradCatGen (ever) created, it has been updated and adjusted to deal with the execution of the graphic design algorithms and the presentation of the results of those algorithms. From now on the emphasis of all my work will be on developing those (shell-script based) algorithms...
March 18th 2007 (Sunday) suddenly multiplied: second color laserprinter has been delivered, exclusively for the final project. Both with utp network connectivity and postscript support, and 128 onboard memory. Consuming 2.200 watt if both switched on.
March 9th 2007 (Friday) new view added to the GradCatGen application, including a new button in the toolbar and a new function in the menubar. Description: the “overview”-view loads the overview of all generated files in the “past”; a history of the process, a simple click on te “current”-button brings the user to the present status again. Clicking on one of the thumbnails in the overview, will enlarge the clicked picture and provide more information about the time of generation and a link to the “original” PDF-file of this version of graduation catalogue.
March 8th 2007 (Thursday) although not visible: dramatic speed performance boost and user experience improvement for - and better keyboard response to - mail function and printer system, due to using other programming method. Newly developed and implemented: random filtering system - through some basic questions (mock-questions at this point in time), related to the students' final projects - connected to printingsystem. The answers given by the visitors within this dialogue, will determine what will be printed (or not...).
March 7th 2007 (Wednesday) snapshot of first exhibition setup testing with two displays and one of the three planned printers attached to the computer. Using laptop screen as “backend” and the external display (now an old 17“ iiyama crt monitor) as the frontend for visitors of the exhibition.
March 6th 2007 (Tuesday) fluently integrated user interface, with subtle visual user feedback (using the popular growl tool) has been added to the GradCatGen application amongst other minor performance upgrades (related to logging function).
March 5th 2007 (Monday) optimizing (mail, print and logfunctions) & enhancing GradCatGen (interface, extra option bar added)
March 2nd 2007 (Friday) logfunction has been implemented into the application, through the admin-panel it is accessible and various options are provided, to read, erase, clean or whatever is further supposed to be useful.
February 25th 2007 (Sunday) e-mail request system integrated, as well as the basic user interaction related to the print process.
A dialog box asks for the name of the visitor, which will be printed on a label (amongst other information like: production cycle-number, date and time information, et cetera) on the catalogue itself.
February 24th 2007 (Saturday) finally the toolbar - for the normal (not “fullscreen”-mode) has been developed.
February 23rd 2007 (Friday) latest view of the GradCatGen-appliction, with the “testpanel”-window with an extra connetion check tab. The size of the application has grown, it is now 1.1 megabyte.
February 22nd 2007 (Thursday) another view of the application, with the admin print-area; performing a few printer tests. New “displays”-tabview implemented and “Help”-function is enabled, but does not contain anything... Next thing: icons in toolbar, quick and normal print-filtering procedure, ftp-transport, mail request system!
February 22nd 2007 (Thursday) an overview of the changes in the existing windows of the GradCatGen application, see the “process”-section for a more in-depth description of the added functionality.
February 21th 2007 (Wednesday) I do not have the equipment to show/test this feature of the software and to take a photograph of it, so I had to photoshop it...
GradCatGen running in fullscreen “Presentation”-mode, on two displays, as is planned for the exhibition in July. The interface for the mainscreen is “under development”.
February 21th 2007 (Wednesday) an overview of the application as it runs now, an extra settings-window has been added to the interface.
February 20th 2007 (Tuesday) more windows, the new “preferences” windows with tabs, user interaction dialogs and application launch health check routines.
Yes, it is all functional, no mock-up or what not... the only thing is that the scripts do not produce an interesting output, yet!
February 19th 2007 (Monday) part of the application interface, the fully functional “preferences”-window.
February 16th 2007 (Friday) project set-up in Apples Xcode, definition of target properties, et cetera.
