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Here you'll find blog-like postings (most recent on top), regarding *any* progress made on the development of the final project.
March 26th 2007 (Monday)
Main graphic design algorithm
The main graphic design algorithm has been finished after a frustrating week of postscript and printer errors (groff was not willing to be tamed and the postscript language was a bit more complicated that estimated). This main algorithm creates the (most) basic version of the Graduation Catalogue. It does not involve the behaviour of the separate student-work related algorithms, this is the basic layer which makes sure that there will be printed something anyway, whatever happens as the result of the personal graphic design algorithms. The algorithm is based on a (way too) large shell script and some AppleScript to connect it more efficient to the workings of the GradCatGen application (size 1.4 MB).
March 20th 2007 (Tuesday)
Raw Postscript
In order to overcome the technical limitations (and therefore visual capacities) of the Groff application in relation to the production of postscript files (no capabilities to move, rotate, mirror textframes or -blocks), it was necessary to create raw postscript files “by hand”. Meaning: postscript is just like HTML a language that is build-up from lines of text, codes and descriptions. It has some advantages in comparison with groff, for instance: the files are not read from top to bottom when interpreted/translated to PDF. So, within the postscript source one doesn't have to build up the file “chronologically”...
March 19th 2007 (Monday)
Clash!
The (design of the) Graduation Catalogue becomes a clash between the ultra-conservative shape of the traditional exhibition/graduation catalogue and the algorithmic mess, created by the graphic design algorithms. Using the generic “beauty” of the traditional catalogue to criticise the idea that catalogues may only represent the end-result on a clean printed white sheet. The “quickprint” version of the catalogue will be as clean as possible and slowly but steady the design of the catalogue becomes less sterile during the days of production, using the graphic design algorithms.
March 14th 2007 (Wednesday)
Consults
This week, most of the consults with my fellow students will take place, or have taken place already. On the other hand, most of the work this week is devoted to the creation of the “quickprint” fast-to-print version of the catalogue. All done using Groff to determine typesetting and documensettings and using “psnup”, “psmerge”, “psresize” “psbook” and “pstopdf” (all postscript-tools) to create the pages with and to assemble those in order to create the catalogue.
March 9th 2007 (Friday)
Reshuffle
Due to the relative chaotic few weeks, I was forced to reshuffle my work plan and schedule. Some of the second years student were not able to really get started with projects, from next week on I'll try to pick-up the old schedule again. So the next weeks the emphasis will be more on the creative side of the process (creating proposals for the algorithms) instead of working mainly on technical issues, as it was until now...
March 5th 2007 (Monday)
Optimizing & enhancing
The GradCatGen application has been optimized technically speaking. The logging function is better integrated and more useful. Mail-function is renewed and more effective (all inserted e-mail addresses are also stored for later use). The label-printing function is optimized in terms of processing speed. The interface is updated, an extra toolbar is added to the main-view. Users of the GradCatGen application are able to view both generated and printed catalogues (the printed catalogues will differ from the generated, and not every generated version will be printed...). This option provides the possibility to view *all* graduation catalogue versions, delivered by the GradCatGen application.
March 2nd 2007 (Friday)
Log
Although this has been a quite ineffective week, in comparison with last week, a few software issues are solved though. The e-mail function of the GradCatGen-application has been improved significant, as well as the fullscreen mode and the transition speed between the normal view and the fullscreen view. New is a log-function, the application writes logfiles of all its operations and - of course - errors, failures, connection problems, et cetera.
February 24th 2007 (Saturday)
Toolbar
Finally the toolbar icons and functionality for the GradCatGen has been developed, designed and integrated. As soon as one changes the view-settings to “fullscreen”-mode, this toolbar disappears and the contents of the main window fills the whole screen. The size of the application has grown to 1.2 MB.
February 23rd 2007 (Friday)
GradCatGen.app
It has been a kind of technocratic approach this first week (it was absolutely necessary anyhow), but the main infrastructure of the GradCatGen-application is finished! It has its basic functionality attached to it and of course all of the shell scripts (controlling the groff-stuff) still have to be developed furthermore. But the main application-framework is stable and has a lot of health-check and repair functionality incorporated. To the “selfcheck-testpanel” another tab has been added, which provides the option to check whether all vital network conncetions function properly (or not: in both cases the software notifies the user gently).
Generally speaking: the main parts of the front-end for the project is finished, although the deadline was set to the 21st of April, this opens up the opportunity to focus on the core of the project: the graphic design algorithms. The latest screenshots of the GradCatGen.app are dumped in the GradCatGen-section!
February 22nd 2007 (Thursday)
Functionality
Today new functionality has been implemented or further developed. An extra mena bar item has been added: “View”. A rudimentary toolbar (still without small icons) is integrated and can be toggeld (show/hide). The roughly implemented “Fullscreen”-view has been further developed and is now connected to the toggling of the toolbar. The application writes a preference file and remembers the “last state” it was in when quitted. The “testpanel” has been developed further. The testpanel can control the application from a second monitor for instance, using the options under the “displays”-tab. A “monitor”-tab has been added to the “testpanel”, where one can monitor the printers from, stop jobs, et cetera.
February 21th 2007 (Wednesday)
Application
Today I implemented a printer-function within the GradCatGen-application, using both bash- and applescript. The preferences window has been developed even further, an extra “Selfcheck” window has been added to the application. Within this “testpanel” a few checks to the resources and processing instructions can be executed. An option to test all the connected printers, is implemented here as well (it checks whether the printer is connected and if so, it will spit out a special test-page. If not - obviously - it prompts an error message...). This printer-function can address printers and is able to add files to different waiting-queues... In the “GradCatGen”-section new screenshots are available. An extra picture is added there, which gives an impression of the “Full-screen” presentation mode which is now build-in (using SIMBL-plugins to support the application) into the .app, which makes it possible to run GradCatGen on two displays... The print function will be fully tested next week, just to check how it runs in practice.
February 20th 2007 (Tuesday)
Full throttle start!
My final project will run as an Universal Binary Cocoa-application (GradCatGen.app), build in Apples Xcode (and Interface Builder) using Objective-C and shell scripts. This application (which is working perfectly fine, although it is still a pre-beta version), will serve mainly exhibition-purposes. In my first prototypes I used the Safari web browser as the interface to the project, which is not quite ideal due to an overkill on unnecessary functionality (which can be abused by visitors, during the exhibition in WORM). More screenshots will be online by the end of this week, probably in the “GradCatGen”-section of this site.
What I do now is focussing on the “joints” between the various parts of the project. The first step was to “map” the joints, in the form of one the diagrams (number 2) in the “drawings”-section of this web site. Joints are for instance how to connect the shell scripts (the graphic design algorithms, still in rudimentary form) as the backend with the frontend/GUI. Another one is for instance connecting GUI with scripts to get the printing-system to work, et cetera.
February 19th 2007 (Monday)
Printer...
I do have a printer for the final show (already)! It is a Konica Minolta color laserprinter, with 128 megs of memory, postscript-support (3), an ethernet network-interface and an usb connection (also a parallel, but that is rubbish). Prints 18 pages per minute in B&W and 4 in full color (with support for Pantone Color tables), with PostScript support up to 9600 x 600 dpi-class. It sucks though 1000 Watts of power and is quite noisy with 54 DB of operating sounds (from specs). The only thing that is missing still, is the duplex module (costs are € 400). Something I didn't take into consideration are the printing costs, the toners (CMYK/B); four a high-capacity toners will cost estimated € 520,- (std.-cap 4 tnrs € 280,-). Oops...!
February 16th 2007 (Friday)
GradCatGen project website launched.
Web site for final project is launched. Although that may seem trivial, I consider it as an important step to keep the process organised and centralised. At this point in time, the web site contains only things as a time-line, a short project description, the work plan, a technical section and last but not least, a scheme for the physical set-up during the exhibition in July and a flow-chart information graphic of the projects (technical) processes. The time-line contains targets and a check-list, to show whether I reached the targets set for each week (or not).
pzi webspace of graphic designer jorrit sybesma