Compiling Geany on Windows

Can't remember exactly how many times I've tried compiling Geany or even thought of trying to compile it on Windows.  But I remember that my last try was last 2011 -- about February or March.

It's been a while that I've been trying to find a stable and reliable free and open source (not to mention cross-platform) Source Code Editing software so I could strip it down to provide an IDE specifically functioning for my open source game creation project called KAGE.  Finally, -- finally! -- I successfully compiled it yesterday!

I know that Geany's project page has a how-to page for compiling it on Windows but I still had bumps along the way.  This tutorial is simply to compliment what seems to be missing in the official tutorial.

So, just a recap. You need to have this things done already:

• GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) , as your compiler, made available through MinGW project -- I used version 4.6.2
• MSYS, as your Shell Interface for Windows, also made available through MinGW
• GTK+, as the GUI library, available on GTK.org 
• And of course, the Geany source code

Not sure if we also need the GtkMM for Scintilla, but I did have that installed on my machine before I tried compiling Geany for the last time.

Before we proceed, let's make sure that you had the contents of GCC and GTK+ under C:\libs directory.  And that C:\libs\bin is added on your %PATH%, as well as C:\libs\msys\1.0\bin.

Now, for the `complimentary' part of my tutorial.

First, download the Manifest file from Geany's Git repo, which was not included in the downloadable zipped source code.

Rename win32-config.h to config.h then change the content of makefile.win32 from

all: config.h
 $(MAKE) -C tagmanager/ctags -f makefile.win32
 $(MAKE) -C tagmanager/mio -f makefile.win32
 $(MAKE) -C tagmanager/src -f makefile.win32
 $(MAKE) -C scintilla -f makefile.win32
 $(MAKE) -C plugins -f makefile.win32
 $(MAKE) -C src -f makefile.win32
config.h: win32-config.h
 $(CP) $< $@

to this

all: $(MAKE) -C tagmanager/ctags -f makefile.win32
 $(MAKE) -C tagmanager/mio -f makefile.win32
 $(MAKE) -C tagmanager/src -f makefile.win32
 $(MAKE) -C scintilla -f makefile.win32
 $(MAKE) -C plugins -f makefile.win32
 $(MAKE) -C src -f makefile.win32

The reason behind is that, there seems to be wrong with the makefile that the command COPY thinks config.h is supposed to be a directory.

Now, open a command line then run cd to the directory where you extracted Geany's source code.

Finally, type-in: make -f makefile.win32

Wait for it to compile and you'll then end up a very fresh build of Geany on Windows.

~creek23

Screencasting with Android

Well, if you are already using the Screencast Video Recorder, there's no use of reading this -- but I'm betting you're not because you stumbled onto this tutorial.

First of all, I am not related to the said screencasting app and I am in no way endorsing it.  I haven't even tried that app yet because 1.) it's not supported on my low-end Android device and 2.) it's a paid app -- yes, I'm cheap, sue me. :P

So this tutorial is about creating a screencast of your Android device using a free and open source tools called Android Screen Capture (or AShot) and FFmpeg.  I should warn you that this tutorial is not for the fainthearted -- it's gonna be messy through setting these tools up, and through creating of the screencast video itself.

I'm going to assume you know what we mean by screencast.  And I'm going to assume you are using Windows on your PC.

To start, download the tools:
AShot - http://sourceforge.net/projects/ashot/files/latest/download
FFmpeg - http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/win32/shared/ffmpeg-20120620-git-5a90e55-win32-shared.7z

Here's a very detailed tutorial of setting-up AShot, which I'm very glad not to write over again.  It talks about downloading Android SDK, which AShot uses to capture images from your Android device.  One quick note, however, is the copying of the three files, namely:

• adb.exe
• AdbWinApi.dll
• AdbWinUsbApi.dll

from this directory: C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools

to this directory: C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\tools

Again, simply COPY the three files and not MOVE from one to the other.

Lots of troubleshooting is also discussed on that page, so go thoroughly through that page if AShot won't seem to work.

At this stage, I'm assuming you already got AShot working and you're seeing the same image in your PC as what's on your Android device as shown in the photo above.  You might have also tried screencapturing, and saw a tiny little problem -- (aside from the low FPS which is already answered many times on that page mentioned) instead of a video output, AShot outputs a series of PNGs.  Here's where FFmpeg comes in.

The FFmpeg binary download is just a zip file that can easily be extracted by 7zip or WinRAR -- though, I prefer 7zip.

I'm going to assume you extracted it on the root of your computer in such a way that ffmpeg.exe will be in this path: C:\ffmpeg\bin

And I'm also going to assume that you set AShot to output screenshots on this path: C:\ashot\

Now, all you have to do is open a Command Prompt and type this:
cd c:\ashot\
c:\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg -f image2 -i screenshot_%05d.png screencast.avi

Then using any movie player -- I use VLC media player by the way -- you can now view your screencast.avi.

Lastly, if you want to adjust the FPS of your AVI, try adding -framerate X when executing ffmpeg, where X is your desired FPS.

Happy screencasting!

~creek23

BING Is Not Google

Ever wondered why Microsoft renamed Live Search to Bing? Sounds girly to me.

So I thought of some possible reason to why they picked such an odd name.

Google is one odd name but it got stuck to people that it became a verb. Instead of saying, "search it on the internet", people say, "google it up". And instead of saying, "I'm trying to look for this stuff on the internet", they say, "I'm googling this stuff" or "I googled this stuff".

So while I'm kept amused by how 'google' became a verb, it struck me, could it be that Bing is a recursive accronym for BING Is Not Google?

I also play with words when I name a new project. Like for my WRS project, ZINC Is Not CMS or my game engine project, KAGE Ain't Game Engine. Simply had it based on GNU -- GNU's Not Unix. :D

So I wondered, why BING? and not LING (Live Is Not Google) or MING (Microsoft Is Not Google)

Was it a tribute to Bill Gates?!?... maybe Bing could mean, Bill Is Not Gay -- or so they say. :D