CakePHP new stable

I've played with CakePHP a month ago and is really good.
Now the new stable release look even more promising.
As soon as I manage to finish the java works I've got running it will be time to start a project with it.

Harptos in joda update

OK the work went on more quickly than expected.
Much of the classes are created and the things are starting to work.
Will have to fix all the date math operations (addition of instants etc) and week behaviour.
I decided to use the "degenerated month" approach so that some month have just 1 (or 2 in the case of Shieldmeet leap year)days this create a mess with the week calculation since also "Degenerated weeks" come out.
All this complicate math a bit.
The lib is really well done, even if quite complex.
There a really wanderful decoupling implementation so that adding a chronology has been easy and did not request adding a single line of code to base classes.
Would see more of these projects around.

joda_time for Harptos

OK task started! I'm implementing a custom Chronology for the Harptos calendar.
This will allow for programs like MapTool to use a calendar that can be a standard one or a fantasy one all with the same classes, methods and so on (just configure a different chronology and you are going).
It can be done, but lot of code so ... time to work.

Hacking macros in MapTool

I'm working on the really wanderful campaign file from Imarkus to hack some macros.
I always hated not being able to use all those rules in the books and not having at hand all the DC for all the possible actions you can do (yes I know as a master you RULE which IS the DC, but this means not using all the money spent on books).
I used to create tables to print and to consult when the need arised, but time has come short to update it and I end up loosing the table around.
Having something automatic was my dream.
The macro system of MapTool is really wanderful and powerful so took the existing macro for rolling skills checks and added the ability to list for the skill chosen all the actions possible and to show the DC and calculating success.
Here you can find the code.

Ethic and Government

I have red this, I had decided not to write about politics, but this is too good to be true.
We would need something similar here in Italy.

JFlashPanel

I've stumbled upon the DJ project a really nice tool.
I was looking for something to manage to place swf files inside a java application with the possibility to integrate the two worlds.
There is a lot of stuff well done in flash or flex around and many times is faster to get wanderful looking widgets using Flash than using Java.
The problem with mixing languages is that integration is not so easy.
The DJ project solve this with a nice approach: there is not only a JFlashPanel, but also a Video panel and browser panel (which is the base for the Flash one).
I'm experimenting it.
More in a few days.

Something really funny

Really really funny.

Output sheet for PCgen towards MapTool

The work is proceeding well.
Thanks to PCgen community managed to solve a REPLACEALL tag problem: it seems that the correct syntax is TEXT.REPLACEALL{\W+,_}.TAGNAME so that it replaces all non word characters with underscore.
This allows to create a property in the XML file used to import characters in MapTool with a list of SKILL.
Since is not possible to have a list with element name with whitespaces, the replacement was essential.
Now can go on with the output sheet creation.
I've used the campaign file from pathfinder3.5 and I'm going to hack the macros since much of the math is done in PCgen.
With this, the speed of managing characters in PCgen and using them in MapTools is greately increased and when you are a DM with a young child it can mean managing to prepare a session or not.
The stuff is published in the MapTool forum