I’ve been playing around with Windows 8 Metro development the last months and one day I did a quick Wikipedia App that integrates into the Search. The first version took me – no joke – less than 20 minutes, cause it’s just so easy! All you have to do to integrate into the search is to add this method to your App.xaml.cs: protected override void OnSearchActivated(SearchActivatedEventArgs args) { base.OnSearchActivated(args); if (mainPage == null) mainPage = new MainPage(); Window.Current.Content = mainPage; mainPage.OpenWiki(args.QueryText); Window.Current.Activate(); } After that go into Package.appxmanifest, switch to the Declarations tab and add a ‘Search’ declaration. mainPage.OpenWiki() would be a method that composes a Wikipedia-Search-URL from the queryText and tells a WebView to navigate to it. (webView.Source = new Uri(“http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=” + “queryString”);) I won’t go into any more detail at this point, but that is all the magic you have to do. Today I added multiple-language support to…
Category: Software
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Software review
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KinDrive
Hey everyone, I’m happy to announce that I finally did the re-coding of KinDriver, now called KinDrive. The new version is made with the Beta 2 SDK, is a lot more stable, simpler and faster than the old one. It lacks of speech recognition and remote-controlability, but I splitted the two main features (tracking and keypressing) into separate assemblies, so it’s very easy to build a whole new application out of it! Here comes the code part: (if you aren’t interested in using coding, skip to the last paragraph) TCD.KinDrive.Tracking.dll In this assembly there are three classes: KinDriveTracker, Point3D and DriveInformation TCD.Mathematics.Point3D is just a helper class for 3D vectors/points with some useful calculation-methods (like calculating the distance etc.) DriveInformation exposes two properties, Throttle and Steer, as well as a constructor that takes a SkeletonFrame as a parameter. Tracking and steer/throttle calculations are done by this very same constructor….
Tool collection
Hey everyone out there, I just decided to share some tools I made with C# (Console or WPF) with you: 1. Batch4sqQR – A tool to create nice QR-Stickers for one or more Foursquare venues (download) 2. MergeTool – A tool to merge all *.gpx files in a folder into one new *.gpx (download) 3. AnonymizeTool – A tool to randomly shift the timestamps of all trackpoints & waypoints in all *.gpx files in a folder (download) These tools are very simple, but there aren’t any or many applications on the internet that do those things^^ Of course you can contact me if you have any questions or so x)
The KinDriver Sources
Hey there, As a result of some requests I got, I decided to share the KinDriver sources with you =) There are 3 important things to notice: 1. You can define how keypresses are generated: there are three different methods that may or may not work with different computer games. 2. There’s built-in speech recognition, but it’s currently deactivated, b/c I don’t really know how to define grammar… 3. There’s something called “KinDriverControllerService” – it’s a WCF service exposed at http://localhost:8001/connect (you probably have to allow it in your firewall). This service can be used to send commands (activate/deactivate/custom macros..) to KinDriver. I’ve made a client for WP7, but as it’s more like a proof-of-concept, I encourage you to write a new one (there are WCF libraries for Android and even iOS I think^) you can get the sources here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7813771/Blog/KinDriverSources.zip If you have any further questions comment on this…
Von unfertigen Apps und Aachen
Bisher habe ich ja eher nicht über private Dinge gebloggt. Ich starte jetzt mal einen Versuch, vielleicht ändert sich das ja 😉 Also machen wir es chronologisch. Im letzten Post (der leider schon eine ganze Weile in der Vergangenheit liegt) habe ich ja demonstriert wie man mit der Kinect Auto fährt… Leider gibt es einen gewaltigen long-tail von dummen und oder faulen Usern, die es als befriedigend empfinden unter die beiden Videos zu trollen… Es ist ärgerlich, aber wahrscheinlich muss man einfach Mitleid mit diesen.. Usern empfinden. Jedenfalls habe ich mich entschlossen, diesen Trollen etwas entgegenzusetzen. Die Rede ist von einem weiteren Demovideo mit mehr Background-Info. Ein großer Makel an KinDriver war bisher die nur mäß funktionierende Sprachsteuerung. In der jetzt aktuellen Version ist sie unverändert implementiert, wird jedoch ergänzt durch eine WCF-Fernsteuerung in Form einer Windows Phone 7 App. Programmiert ist es schon. Getestet im Emulator.. Man kann sagen…
Kinect tracking
UPDATE: The’re newer versions and posts about this software – if you want to test it please have a look at: http://blog.mosthege.net/tag/kindriver/ It’s been only 5 days since MS launched the Kinect for Windows SDK and in three of these days I coded KinDriver (and another small tool I’ll write about too). KinDriver is a dynamic Kinect tracker designed to be used with racing/driving games. We’ve seen Kinect trackers designed for the use w/ games already (talking of FAAST at this point), which may work nicely with ego-shooters or adventure games, but have a huge disadvantage when it comes to driving: They only know 1 or 0, just like the real keyboard. But while you can (an do) tip keys many times in a short period of time on your keyboard, doing so with you whole body is even more exhausting than you think! So I made a tracker that…
Simple Launcher 2
As some of you may know, I have done an application called ‘Simple Launcher’. It’s purpose is to provide an easy way to have a multitouch user interface to start other applications. By pressing a small button on one of the controls it switches between container and bar-mode. In container-mode the user can drag’n’drop an application to a different container (or bar) and in bar-mode he can scroll through or launch applications. Empty containers will be remove automatically and new ones can be created via a button on the top. The user may also change the background by selecting a .jpg file. (Backgrounds are stored in ./Backgrounds and the selection is saved.) Here is a video of the application running on a HP Touchsmart notebook: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsZMSKe9h2k&w=448&h=252&hd=1] Simple Launcher 2 Demo As all of the controls used in Simple Launcher are derived from MS Surface you need to install the…
Coming up next
I haven’t bee posting now for quite a while, but that does not mean there’s no progress.. The Touch-table had a successful appearance at the open day in my school and is now back in his place in the living room. The school has started a project to build a multitouch (LLP) wall. Sadly not as big as I would’ve done it, but still bigger than our TV-screen =P Yesterday we started to build the prototype. Besides that I have now a MS Kinect. I have not installed any Kinect-related software, so it only works with a modified CCV from the NUI-forum for now. As you may know Microsoft has announced to release a Kinect-SDK — I’m looking forward to work with that 😉 What else? Well there’s a couple of outstanding tasks such as re-coding sone of my self-made WPF-applications for the table (or the wall), a new ethernet…
Status Report: It’s done :)
After the last package arrived all work was done within less than 24 hours. Take some 24 hours more and even the software is working. (Trust me, making a .exe to a Windows service and run it with admin privileges automatically is not that simple…) The Multitouchvista HID-driver is running in background after automatic logon, started by the task-scheduler (taskschd.exe). The Reactivision software is started from the Autostart-folder, so –sadly- it’s always visible, but the user may toggle the frame equalizer. I got some other software installed as well, e.g.: Firefox 4 Beta, Internet Explorer 9 Beta, Winamp, Windows Live Essentials 2011, VLC, Windows Home Server Connector …and a x64 driver for a low-cost webcam (presently without infrared blocker) ..and some more, of course. Also I changed the Windows Logon-Screen-background with a tool called BackgroundChanger to some self-made image. Below is the table as seen by the webcam: While the…
Wave 4
Eine ‘kurze’ Preview zu Messenger, Mail, Bing Bar, Photo Gallery und Sync aus der Windows Live Essentials: Wave 4