Back under development

After a (rather lengthy) hiatus the Dev group appears to be back on track with 3 new Beta versions in the last week. There have been a few bug fixes and some changes to DLL structures. Only one script I tested failed and as it turned out the problem was not with the Beta per se, The beta did however break one of someone elses UDFs that I was using. I think it's probably related to the way DLL Structs are now handled but I will let the person who wrote it figure that one out.
All I can say right now is it's nice to be rolling again even if it means the odd broken script.

If you run into any bugs using the Beta version; be sure to report them since that is the only way they can be fixed.

More ranting

It appears that Admin is getting some of the new forum problems fixed, that was to be expected.  The preview thread feature is nice if it was implemented in another way.  It still causes an annoying distraction when you run the mouse up and down the page and I like many others use the mouse to follow what we are reading (one of the reasons I don't like [autoit] tags) so it causes the images to pop on and off as well as a very slight difference in the style for the affected thread.

The one I object most to is the Share This "feature" (read as "crap").  None of the forums seem to be immune from that issue so that means in theory that even material in the private forums could be shared on very public Social networking sites.  I'm in favor of eliminating all those sites never mind sharing anything on them and yet some idiot can come along and share my posts with the world on a whim, yes even though some of the material was classed as private.  At this point the thought has even crossed my mind to just remove all my posts and pack it in for good.  For now I'm settling for perhaps reading a bit but not posting anything and that's the way it is going to stay as long as Share This remains.  I'm going to be too busy to participate for a while anyway and this just frees up a bit of time so in the end it will work out at my end.

Forum upgrade?

Well it happened again, the forums get performing almost smoothly and we get another upgrade to break them again.  Okay, Admin spotted the problem with code tags and put a temporary fix in place.  That was good because without at least the text code the forums are of little value.  But a quick scan through the forums reveals other problems (not associated with Admins efforts) brought on by the new upgrade.  as far as I can tell at this point all it does is add more crap to the forum pages, some of which is broken, and all of it is crap that I for one, don't need and more importantly don't want.  I see absolutely no value in the social network sites and even less value in the forums having links to share on said social network sites.  That boils down to more clutter on the forums.  There seems to be some king of an image which is supposed to appear at each post as you move the cursor up and down the page.  Who knows what that image should be because it doesn't appear but having something follow my mouse up and down the screen is just too distracting.  I've made a post asking that someone inform me by Instant Message when the problems are rectified.  That brings it down to a very limited few who know how to contact me, and I indicated that I will be back when the forums are fixed or even rolled back.  I certainly hope there is no costs associated with these upgrades because the last couple have been more trouble than they are worth at any price.  For now, I'm gone.  I've had enough of this over the years, and as much as I enjoy being active in the forums, I see no reason to spend time in a site that is just going to annoy me.  Thanks to all who have supported me over the years and I hope to someday meet up with you again, and a special thanks to the AutoIt developers, past and present, for their efforts.

I will continue to blog here periodically and I will continue development of the PCRE Toolkit but there will be no notification on the forums about any updates.  They will be announced here as soon as the download file is changed on my site.
Goodbye all, at least temporarily.

Update for PCRE Toolkit ia available

There is an update now available for the toolkit.
Download v3.0.0.24 here

There are a few new features and several bug fixes.

Sorry but the help file is still not available, hopefully I will have time to get that done soon.

Time to set some projects aside.

As I mentioned in a recent post, I'm considering that it's time to stop writing code.  Now I know I'll never be away from it 100% but I do need a rest away from it for a while.  Whether or not I will stay with writing in AutoIt is also up in the air.  I will continue to update and patch current released software, however I am retiring several projects that were on the drawing board, even a couple that were near release.

If I start any new projects they will be very small  and in all likelihood will not be written in AutoIt3.  I think the future of AutoIt is up in the air and it may have already reached it's maximum stage of development using the current core.  I can't get the feeling out of my mind that we may have seen the last release of AI with version 3.3.6.1.  In my mind, that's a shame but sooner or later any software will reach a dead-end after which all that's left is simple eye-candy and not more functionality.

I have an offer of help to add some functionality to that I've wanted to the PCRE Toolkit and I am going to take that person up on his kind offer.  If I don't get those additions done then I will never be satisfied with that app and several people know what those additions are and have been looking forward to them.  I would hate to disappint them and myself so that is one project that will stay active.

I also don't think I'm going to be dedicating as much time to the forums, although I will still at least be checking for messages on a daily basis.

To all those that I've been "over the river" with for the last few yers, it's been a slice and keep at it as long as you can or until the fun goes out of it.

Next on the horizon

The release of the PCRE Toolkit now puts that project into maintenance mode until it's time for a major update.  That means it's now time to get on to another project  Which at this point I think will be another Toolkit but this time for SQLite.  Before I get started on that I want to finish up a personal SVN / Bug Tracking project I've been working at.  And of course there is always more work to get done on my latest version of Project Express.

Maybe I'll just take a couple of days off and rethink all this.  As a matter of fact I might just take a few days and rethink AutoIt , after all these years using it, maybe it's time to move on.

PCRE Toolkit for AutoIt RELEASED

At long last the first release version of the PCRE Toolkit for AutoIt is available for public download.

If you are planning on working with regular expressions then this may be the only tool you need.

Download it now.

The help file is not yet ready but since you are a developer you should be able to figure it out.
Please post any comments you may have or suggestions for improvement.  I'm also looking for comments about whether the help file should be included with the install or a separate download.

I hope you enjoy using it more than I've enjoyed creating it.

Update:  Gone now are most of the control tool tips in favor of displaying the information in the status bar.

PCRE Toolkit updated again

See this post
This is mainly a cosmetic update but a couple of minor bugs were also fixed.

Notice to Fennek

You must be joking when you say that you are going to flood members of the AutoIt forums with spam.  That isn't even good for a laugh and I'm really getting sick and tired of idiots like you, with an IQ smaller than their shoe size, starting this kind of crap.

You're a 16 year old punk who seems to forget thet the people who taught you to write AutoIt code certainly didn't teach you everything they know or even anywhere near what they know.  That list is only a very small percentage of the total members of the forum.  Of those on the list there are several who have been writing code and hacking longer than you have been breathing, and do you think for a second , when you start flooding them with spam, that they won't retaliate?  It would take very few lines of code to write a script capable of messing up your site to the point of it being totally un-usable.  Script kiddies like you annoy us at the best of times so don't push your luck with this kind of nonsense.  On top of that I already have good mail protection but if I so desired I could let yours through long enough to not only get your ip but to get the address where we should report it and then that address gets flooded with abuse reports.  Do yourself a favor and pull it now before some fool actually follows up on what you started.  When that happens, it won't matter who actually sent the spam, it will be you that takes the fall for it.

You might not care about the reputaion that AutoIt gets from garbage coders like yourself but we do and we will put a stop to it.

Malicious code

There is a trend that seems to come and go in waves and right now it's at a high point again.  That is people asking for help with code which is meant to be used for either malicious reasons or to bypass some security feature like a Captcha or the biggie, cheating at a multi-player game when the TOS explicitly states it is against the rules.

Just a note for those people.  Stay away from the AutoIt forums, we don't need you nor do we want you there and you must be wise enough to know you shouldn't go where you are not wanted.  That would just make you subject to a lot of abuse.

We are also aware that such abuse will (in your mind) be our fault but we are all willing to live with that as long as you just go away.