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Do-It-Yourself Layout Creator [open-source]

Posted: 14 Jan 2011, 14:34
by bancika
Hi everyone,

As you may or may not know, I've been working on the brand new DIYLC for quite a while. Other projects didn't leave enough free time, so it went slowly.
Anyways, I think it's ready to be shown to the world to get some feedback from you guys. The archive can be downloaded from this address http://diy-layout-creator.googlecode.co ... -0.0.0.zip
The main site is http://www.diylc.org and there is a semi-finished documentation that may be helpful. If you think that something should be added to explain some features better, please let me know. I made it, so everything seems easy to me, which may not be the case for the rest of the world :)
To run it, both windows and linux users should execute run.bat (the current dir must be set to the same location where that file is).

Have in mind that it's just an alpha version and most of the components aren't there yet. I want to build components that are different and use different bits of the API to make sure that everything works properly. When I'm done with that I'll add more components to fill the gap.

Let me know what you think.

Best regards,
Bane

Re: New DIYLC is soon to be finished!

Posted: 14 Jan 2011, 14:38
by IvIark
Awesome thanks Bane, I'll have a play with it.

Re: New DIYLC is soon to be finished!

Posted: 14 Jan 2011, 14:44
by fosnal1950
I'm looking forward to it . It's a fantastic tool.

Thanks a lot Bancika !

Re: New DIYLC is soon to be finished!

Posted: 14 Jan 2011, 14:53
by coldcraft
awesome! will there be a new mac version as well?

Re: New DIYLC is soon to be finished!

Posted: 14 Jan 2011, 15:07
by bancika
this one's multi-platform, so yes it works on mac.

cheers

Re: New DIYLC is soon to be finished!

Posted: 14 Jan 2011, 16:13
by coldcraft
sorry i must have missed that. thanks for all your hard work!

Re: New DIYLC is soon to be finished!

Posted: 14 Jan 2011, 16:49
by RnFR
awesome stuff! thanks a million bancika! looking forward to checking out the version.

Re: New DIYLC is soon to be finished!

Posted: 14 Jan 2011, 23:43
by DrNomis
I downloaded this file last night,going to check it out today,thanks Bancika.... :thumbsup

Re: New DIYLC is soon to be finished!

Posted: 15 Jan 2011, 09:51
by bancika
default component sizes are pretty random. Once it's closer to the real release, I'll investigate to get the most common component sizes and make those default.
you are right about the other thing, it does seem to jump to top left corner of the square you're in.
Thanks!

Re: New DIYLC is soon to be finished!

Posted: 15 Jan 2011, 11:31
by DrNomis
Hi Bancika,

I tried out the new install file,it unzipped fine,but when I go to launch it,I get an error message.... :)

If it is of any help,I'm running Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 32Bit...... :)


This is the error message I got:

Could not find the main class: com.diyfever.diylc.DIYLCStarter.
Program will exit.

Re: New DIYLC is soon to be finished!

Posted: 15 Jan 2011, 13:04
by bancika
are you using run.bat to start it?

Re: New DIYLC is soon to be finished!

Posted: 15 Jan 2011, 13:22
by DrNomis
Thanks ,I'll give that a go,I'm not used to cmd.exe windows,I'm more used to just clicking on an icon to launch a program,I guess I still have alot to learn about operating a computer,the funny thing is I can pull a computer apart,rebuild it,and get it running.... :lol: :thumbsup



Ah,I got it running,I found the .bat file,right-clicked it with the mouse,and clicked on "Open",it came up with a command window and the DIYLC Gui...thanks once again ..... :thumbsup

Re: New DIYLC is soon to be finished!

Posted: 15 Jan 2011, 13:45
by bancika
It will soon have a proper EXE and installer so you don't have to be a hacker to run it :)
cheers

Re: New DIYLC is soon to be finished!

Posted: 15 Jan 2011, 13:51
by DrNomis
bancika wrote:It will soon have a proper EXE and installer so you don't have to be a hacker to run it :)
cheers


No worries,so far it is looking good,can't wait to try out the finished version,much looking forward to it as this could solve my dilema of how to post clear and easy to read layouts,please keep up the good work Bancika.... :thumbsup

Re: New DIYLC is soon to be finished!

Posted: 16 Jan 2011, 13:52
by bancika
Alrighty, I put a fresh version with the following changes:

* improved speed, at least 2-3 times. I'll see if I can squeeze a few percent more but even now I believe it's very fast. I included test.diy file I use as a benchmark and it runs very smooth although there's a bunch of components
* improved open/save/save as options.
* ability to change paper size and grid spacing
* a bunch of smaller fixes

You can find it here http://code.google.com/p/diy-layout-cre ... loads/list

Now, what I'd like to find out is how do you like drag&drop mechanism? Is it intuitive or hard to understand? More precisely, how do you like the way components stick to each other, the way they are move together, the way control points work, etc. It's very hard to find a reasonable balance between sticking and not sticking, so I'd like to have more people chime in and find a compromise that works good for all.

Thanks,
Bane

Re: New DIYLC is soon to be finished!

Posted: 16 Jan 2011, 16:59
by bancika
hmm, ctrl+click should add/subtract components to selection. Did you try it?
There have been a few reports for file browser, I'll investigate.
Tnx

Re: New DIYLC is soon to be finished!

Posted: 16 Jan 2011, 23:09
by bancika
Cool. I fixed the browser issue, it will be out in the next release

Re: New DIYLC is soon to be finished!

Posted: 17 Jan 2011, 00:25
by DrNomis
Wicked..... :thumbsup

Re: New DIYLC is soon to be finished!

Posted: 17 Jan 2011, 07:20
by stringsthings
i've been using an older version of DIYLC for a while now and i think it's awesome ...

will the new version run standalone? ( without being connected to the internet? )

Re: New DIYLC is soon to be finished!

Posted: 17 Jan 2011, 09:14
by bancika
stringsthings wrote:i've been using an older version of DIYLC for a while now and i think it's awesome ...

will the new version run standalone? ( without being connected to the internet? )
yes