First (sort of) project decided upon

[PeeJay]

Okie dokie, I've been having a look around the place, and have decided that my first project needs to be something relatively simple to get my teeth back into coding. I also want to concentrate on what I do best - no, not breaking wind - writing self contained snippets of code that solve a problem (or do some of the donkey work out of game creation).

By first task is going to be to revisit my Bitmapped Font Library code. There are a few good reasons for tackling this project first:-

1) Many, many people seem to have found these routines useful
2) People have modified the code to add additional features, but some have managed to add a couple of minor bugs in the process (oops!)
3) Before RL happened, I had numerous features lined up to add, and numerous optimisations to make
4) It is a set of routines that will always be completely platform independent

With this in mind, may I humbly request that people do not continue to edit my original source further? This is largely because I may decide to make the final version of these routines (which the next one should be!) as "forced" donationware (ie you can have the source for a donation - how much is up to you.) Sorry if that sounds rather unlike me, as normally I am happy to share all my routines freely - but staggeringly, in the three or four years I have had a "Buy PeeJay a Beer" link on the website (in fact, I think that Paypal link is now broken since I changed email address about 2 months ago) I have had no less than TWO donations, one of which wouldn't have bought me a pint of milk, let alone a pint of Guinness! Don't get me wrong - this is not a whinge (well, not much), but with the number of people that have found my tutorials and routines useful, even invaluable, I would have expected a few beers bought for me, especially considering the time that was given up to create these things.

Whilst I am not particularly materialistic - believe me, on my salary, you learn not to be - it has made me feel rather despondent that people are making money selling apps on market place etc, but freely given donations are thin on the ground, to say the least

With that in mind, my whole philosophy and outlook has changed - possibly not for the better - but hopefully enough to help even out of the balance a little. If I am coding for me, that's one thing, but if I am coding for others (which I have done repeatedly in the past both with problem solving and code routines) then a donation for my time would be more than welcome

My very first task, though, it to completely overhaul the website - I kinda like the look of the website I have created for SADOS - www.sados.co.uk - so the new look website may well look remarkably similar

[Ian Price]

I like the look of your SADOS website - I think changing your old site to resemble that is a good idea. I really need to create a "friendly face" for all my fluff and stuff - most of my stuff is just linked to grab straight from the server.

I also think the idea of "Forced donation" is more than fair - an awful lot of work goes into creating these routines, and like you say we get very little thanks (if any) for them. I remember one guy asking for help - I suggested your site, and he returned but couldn't even get your name right. That's one of the reasons I've created commercial apps - to at least get a little recognition or something back (and I really do mean little). And nobody ever bought me a beer (or a bottle of milk), so consider yourself lucky!

Before you do anything drastic to your font routines, it might be worth you looking around the forums at Gernot's additions to fonts and drawing them - they're much better now than they were before.

[erico]

all i can say is..
get it going peejay,
no doubt you will do more the excellent work!

[Moru]

Sounds good, I had much fun adding to your bitmap library even though I never had use for it anywhere. (real life in the way here too :-)

Make sure you look into the new print routine by Gernot, it can print proportional text now without startup delay.

[PeeJay]

First new remake is complete ..... sort of - it's the facelift for my website! Yep, the old 90's look has gone, and a snazzy new modern look has replaced it. That should now leave me free to start getting my head back into coding in 2012

[erico]

Site is great, the title seems a little blocky here, more antialiase on so close assets.

[Ian Price]

Looking good