The 1.3.0.2918 build of CruiseControl.NET has an error in msbuild.xsl file which causes an XslLoadException to be thrown when trying to view the MSBuild output in the web dashboard. One of the users was nice enough to describe the changes to the file necessary to fix the problem. Unfortunately even the latest version of the file on the CruiseControl.NET Live site doesn't include the changes therefore I'm attaching the file to this post as convenience.

The whitepaper sample code doesn’t exactly follow the guidelines for web development therefore I wrote my own sample with clearly separated HTML structure, CSS styles and JavaScript code. I decided to make it publicly available in case anyone else finds it useful. A few things are worth mentioning.

• Empty XHTML tags. For some reason the XHTML style empty tags don’t work as expected when they are filled from JavaScript code. It seems as if the engine would parse them as opened tags without the corresponding closing tag. Therefore you should always use the long form <span id=”mySpan”></span> instead of the short one <span id=”mySpan” />. This problem seems to be specific for gadgets. The same code runs just fine in IE7.
• Localization. I haven’t managed to get the localization to work at all. I suppose the engine uses the files from the locale directory corresponding to the current display language not the locale settings. This does make sense but with only English language available in Vista there’s no way to check that the current file organization in my sample gadget is really ok. I kept it in the sample since I’m pretty convinced that it is.
• Deployment. If you double click a file with a .gadget extension in Vista, you will automatically start the gadget installation process. The file needs to be a zip or cab archive containing the actual gadget directory structure. Vista behaves as if an application setup was started. This means that you should sign the file to increase the end user trust. You can use the Sign Tool to do that but in this case you need to make a cab file since zip files can’t be signed with it. I tried to make the cab file using a CAB Project template in Visual Studio 2005 but I couldn’t make the correct directory structure. I ended up using Cabarc. After all, I only had to run the following line in the gadget directory to build the cab file correctly.
  cabarc –p –r N ..\HelloWorld.gadget *

This project demonstrates the use of machine learning methods (genetic algorithms and nearest neighbours algorithm in particular) in real time navigation in unknown environment with given constraints. Apart from complete implementation with Delphi sources included (detailed explanation below) the project also features lots of interesting ideas in regard to attributes collection needed for such a navigation.

For the needs of the project I have developed the simulation environment (simulating the movement of an agent in a 2D map) with a nice GUI and a built-in editor with map managment that could be of use even for other projects. More specific is a very flexible object oriented implementation of the genetic algorithms and a simple implementation of basic nearest neigbours algorithm. All the source code is nicely organized and layed out and as such suitable for reuse and extending.

The archive also contains some sample data which directly demonstrates the really impressive results that where achieved with these methods and a quite extensive technical report which is unfortunately written in Slovene as I had to submit it at university. The source code should be completely useable even without understanding this document but you'll of course miss some of the explanations.

As a part of the Artificial Intelligence and Symbolic Programming course at university me and a group of fellow students (in alphabetical order: Uros Cibej, Matija Jekovec, Gregor Leban, Mitja Lustrek, Martin Znidarsic) under the supervision of Aleks Jakulin got involved in a project which tried to achieve sensible tactical behavior of a group of soldiers controlled by a human player at a higher abstraction level.

Although the project was only meant as a learning polygon for different approaches to real time tactical artificial intelligence, we still achieved quite satisfactory results. A short presentation at the end of the course classes that was extremely well received got us an invitation to the Solomon seminar at Jozef Stefan Institute.

The complete project can be found in the downloads section of my site. It consists of the source codes which are due to the experimental nature of project pretty messy and need Simple DirectMedia Layer libraries and Visual C++ 6 to be compiled, a brief technical report which describes the used algorithms, a Power Point presentation for the Solomon seminar and a set of animations in DivX format which demonstrate the interesting behavior of the soldiers.

Unfortunately most of the above materials are in Slovenian language and will therefore be of limited use to the non-Slovenian speakers. The only exceptions to this are probably the source codes and the animations.

Files available for download:

• AITGanim.zip (11.28 MB) - Selected set of animations
• AITGdoc.zip (473.88 KB) - Brief technical report in Slovenian
• AITGppt.zip (668.73 KB) - Presentation in Slovenian
• AITGsrc.zip (758.34 KB) - Project source codes

After a fractal lecture as a part of the computer graphics course at uni a friend of mine wrote a program in Delphi which interactively demonstrated how easy it is to construct interesting images by adjusting the fractal parameters. I liked the idea and thought that it would be great to have such a program written in Java 1.1 so that it would work in every Java aware browser.

Tree Fractal applet is the result of this idea. The archive contains complete source code, a jar archive with compiled classes and a html page for viewing in a browser.

There probably isn't a computer user out there who hasn't heard of Java before. Well, people are certainly of different opinions about it but nobody can deny its (sort of) cross-platform nature and design for Internet.

The language is already shipped with many ready to use classes and every release has more of them. But still, there are some things which are needed often but programmers have to write them themselves. I have written classes for some of these tasks myself and you can download them from here for free.

CapturingCanvas3D (CapturingCanvas3D.zip (2.88 KB)): CapturingCanvas3D is an extension to the Canvas3D class which offers capabilities of JPEG image capturing in an easy way. The source is heavily based on the work of Peter Z. Kunszt from Dept of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore MD which can be found in the Java3D FAQ. I just made the API and class behavior more user friendly. Documentation is included in the source in javadoc format.

CLIArguments (CLIArguments.zip (1.54 KB)): CLIArguments performs the CLI arguments parsing for you. You just pass it the array of Strings with the arguments and use the provided methods to get the values the user entered. It's nothing fancy but it works fine for me. You can generate the documentation by using javadoc.

ImageLoader (ImageLoader.zip (1.36 KB)): Image loader transparently handles loading of images from the jar archives. You don't need to know about the Netscape incompatibilities and you don't have to take care of the image decoding yourself anymore. The class contains only the constructor and a method for obtaining the image, but that's all you really need. The documentation can be generated by using javadoc.

BallMaster is a puzzle game with a simple basic idea and (hopefully) addictive gameplay. It can be easily learned to play without long manuals and instructions.

It is based on an old game named Logical which works only on Amigas with 68000 processor and Kickstart 1.3. This game tries to bring its idea to newer Amiga hardware and also tries to extend the original game with some new ideas. To play it on Windows or other non-Amiga OS, an emulator is needed.

The game features are:

• OS friendly
• 256 colour AGA graphics
• 64 colour extra half bright ECS graphics
• 100 levels
• password access to every 5th level
• numerous game elements
• mouse controlled

I released the source code and all the developer material under the terms of GNU General Public Licence as I don't have time to work on the game any more. You are invited to download the source (written in Blitz Basic 2) and continue development yourself. Additional information can be found in the source archive.

Files available for download:

• BallMasterAGA.zip (1.41 MB) - BallMaster for AGA Amigas
• BallMasterECS.zip (934.27 KB) - BallMaster for ECS Amigas
• BallMasterSrc.zip (47.82 KB) - BallMaster GPL source code in Blitz Basic

Blitz Basic is a simple but powerful programming language for Amiga. At this time a version for Windows is also available but it unfortunately isn't be compatible on the source code level because of different libraries and design decisions. If you're still programming for Amiga in Blitz Basic, here are some routines and techniques which might be of use to you.

ActiveWindow (ActiveWindow.zip (12.32 KB)): This source code demonstrates how to open a window which automaticaly activates itself as long as its screen is the front one. The routine is particularily useful in cases where you open your own screen and a window on it which then receives all the events through IDCMP messages and also changes the pointer. By using this routine you can always know when your screen is the front one and you can activate the window without the user having to intervene.

BitmapPrint (BitmapPrint.zip (16.12 KB)): This is a function for printing text on any bitmap using standard intuition fonts. All font styles are supported and also the shadow and outline effects are available.

ScrollText (ScrollText.zip (45.56 KB)): This is a ready to use scrolling text routine. With it you can add a scrolling text to your program almost without any programming. The code can easily be modified to personal needs. A special font creator program along with an example is also included in the program.

ShapesFix (ShapesFix.zip (18.34 KB)): This archive contains two functions meant as a replacement for the buggy built-in commands CopyShape and Scale which trash the image when its size exceeds 32 KB. You can use these functions safely as long as the size of the single bitplane doesn't exceed 32 KB. In case it does you'll probably have to rewrite the blit functions, too.