Recent Posts by Geertjan Wielenga

Most modern automation installations, such as controlers of machinery on factory assembly lines, amusement rides, or light fixtures, are driven by Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs). Low level programming languages that have been used for decades, such as Ladder Diagrams (LD), are still being used to develop new PLC software. Together with the ageing techniques inherent in such programming constructs, there are hidden  penalties, such as the fact thatPLC software is brand...

The Corona SDK lets you build rich mobile apps for iOS, Android, Kindle, and Nook. The Corona SDK uses Lua as its programming language. Lua Glider has been created by M.Y. Developers LLC on the NetBeans Platform and NetBeans IDE as an advanced IDE for Corona SDK professionals and beginners alike. Lua Glider's latest release is 1.9, released 11 May 2013. Its many features include an advanced debugger, variables explorer, call stack, adaptive auto-complete, built in...

The EPUB Open Toolbox (introduced in the last two blog entries) includes a WYSIWYG editor based on the Swing HTML Editor Framework (SHEF), but extended in small ways. For example, keyboard shortcuts can be used for bold, italics, etc. One of the holy grails of the Java desktop world, that is, WYSIWYG support, can thus be solved via SHEF. Here's the visual pane of SHEF embedded in a NetBeans TopComponent: And, when you switch to the Source view, the above is shown as follows in...

In the absence of a WYSIWYG editor in JavaFX WebView, the SHEF project provides a fine alternative. Click to enlarge the image below. Aside from being to generate to/from EPUB, project templates are provided for creating new EPUB 3.0 and EPUB 2.0 books: The structure of the app is modular and Mavenized: One thing I will do is replace all Matisse GUI Builder forms with plain Java classes, so that anyone can work on this application, i.e., in any IDE. The point is that thanks to...

The start of an open source EPUB editing tool in Java. Right now, you're able to open EPUB files, view their content (the JavaFX WebView is used to display the XHTML content), and even extract the content of EPUB files so that they can be edited in a new EPUB project type, prior to letting you recreate the EPUB file from the project. Click to enlarge the image below. The Java API used to inspect EPUB files is: http://www.siegmann.nl/epublib/ Ultimately, the aim is to replicate...

Jessiko is robot fish technology created by Robotswim in France. The technology was first exhibited at the French Pavilion at the 2012 World Expo in South Korea. It is currently marketed at events and for luxury decorations, such as at luxury hotels, restaurants, commercial centers, museums, and waiting rooms. The Robotswim management software, named Jessikommand, offers robotic research teams and teachers a unique development and learning platform with access to cutting edge...

The Joint Expeditionary Collective Protection (JECP) Program is part of the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense, which is the Joint Services single focal point for research, development, acquisition, fielding, and life-cycle support of chemical and biological defense equipment and medical countermeasures. In developing a family of transportable shelter systems, the JECP provides collective protection to joint expeditionary forces and their...

Serious Integrated provides hardware, software, and services for front panels. The company focuses on replacing buttons with graphic touch screens. The project is moving along very well. SHIPTide, the related GUI development toolsuite on the NetBeans Platform, was published publicly in beta on the website (at www.seriousintegrated.com/docs) in October 2012 and there are dozens of customers using it. You can layout your GUI, define events or actions, build your resource...

Let's imagine we're creating simulation software. In other words, we have some kind of XML file (such as a SubSim Simulation File) and we want to process that file, i.e., use it to simulate something. What are the requirements for software that has the above (admittedly vague) description? Well, first of all, we somehow need to open our file into the simulator or, at least, access it from the simulator in some way. Then, we need to be able to start the simulation and, once it...