Week 7 Multitouch Development:<ul><li>Basic touch library started (more placeholders than functioning code)</li><li>Set up a follow up meeting with BlenderTUIO developers</li><li>Committing basic grammatical/formatting issues I notice while researching</li>
<ul><li>In both source code and Wiki</li><li>Going to let these build a little more in the future before committing.<br></li></ul><li>Realized that Python will play a larger part in this project that I originally foresaw</li>
<li>I realized that researching a couple issues distracted me from getting functional work accomplished</li><ul><li>Fixing this trend is rather simple now that I realize what I'm doing wrong (very similar to writer's block)</li>
</ul></ul><p>Big issues coming up:</p><ul><li>Possibly getting correct context information for touch points beyond the first finger</li><li>Registering relevant context information, e.g. area types, region types(?), via Python to the touch library<br>
</li></ul><br><a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:PrototypeNM1/Weekly_Report#Week_7">http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:PrototypeNM1/Weekly_Report#Week_7</a><br><h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Week_7">Week 7</span></h2>
<h3><span class="editsection"></span><span class="mw-headline" id="Friday_5">Friday</span></h3>
<p>This week, too much of my time was spent on reading/rereading
documentation and source code, not enough on actual coding. This is
leading to indecision and lack of real work getting done. As I step back
and reflect on it now, I realized this does not make sense as, working
on a library now, the information is abstracted enough to work on a
basis even if the specifics need to be rewritten later. With this
realization in mind, this evening I began writing the library code to
get my project heading in a better direction.
</p><p>Since I have been reading through a lot of code, I've been trying
to correct formatting and comment spelling as I go along. In
realization that these little commits might become obnoxious, I'm going
to start accumulating them before committing to trunk.
</p><p>After reviewing Python's usage in Blender, I am realizing it will
have a larger role to play in my project. since context information is
handled between C and Python. Creating expressions was already going to
be handled in Python for the UI, in addition I believe it would be best
to handle operators from and registering possible contexts to the touch
manager via the Python API. Handling Regex state logic and system input
will still occur in C++.
</p><p>Two main things kept me distracted from making real progress this
week.</p><p>1. I wanted to have established where Blender would register context
information, which is necessary for BGE and Blender to have unified
touch code. I now believe this should be via the Python API populating
known contexts in Blender with a startup script, and possibly populated
by the game designer in BGE. I am not sure how the embedded BGE in
Blender will handle this, but I believe it is as simple as
re-interpreting the touch events given it being provided from the Window
Manager into BGE readable form based on code I bumped into while
reading how the BGE and Window Manager relate.</p><p>2. I wanted to understand how to best integrate this library into
blender, which is still an open issue. I believe my existing code in the
Window Manager is probably the best place to look at this moment. This
is an issue that needs to be solved soon, since it could lead to
disconnect due to library code being untestable (NOT GOOD, BUG PRONE!).
Once this issue is worked through, any code I have working in the
library will just need GHOST related additions to work dependent on
platform.
</p><p>An issue I see looming on the horizon is that relates to the
multicursor nature of Blender. I believe Blender will only take the
first touch point into consideration when determining context. This is
an issue as interpreting touch based on context is quite important to
this project. I am set to talk with BlenderTUIO developers next week,
and will ask how they dealt with this.
</p>
<h3><span class="editsection"></span><span class="mw-headline" id="Next_Week_6">Next Week</span></h3>
<p>Continuing from my (late) work on library code this week, I will
start writing the basic functions I know I will need once I am able to
hook in my library, while figuring out a good way to implement problem
1. above. I believe I already know where to look for problem 2., so I
will also try to have that done as soon as possible, just to work it out
of the code I need focus on.
</p>Next week is also the beginning of midterm evaluations. I will set aside Wednesday afternoon to work on this.<br>