Sooo, I received a query about whether it would be possible to have a DynaBar plugin show information from a ShoutCast server.
A bit of investigation on the issue revealed it is indeed quite easy to query a ShoutCast server. As a result, a new DynaBar popped into existence:
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Just dump it into the “plugins” directory, and you’re ready to go.
Just for random phun, if you have an AniDB profile, you can now show your stats off in a DynaBar dynamic userbar.
Something like these (output is completely customisable):
Since the XBox Live “GamerCards” are so nicely exposed, there’s really no reason not to have a DynaBar plugin for it, now is there.
I’ve noticed a few GamerCards claiming to be in “userbar” format, however they do not follow userbar standards in layout, dimensions, or fonts. So, soon you too can have a lovely dynamic standards-compliant GamerScore userbar such as this:
Alrighty, time to release DynaBar 2.
I’ve thrown together a page for it, check it out. Download and a lot more information on features and plugins are available on the new page.
To see what’s new, take a look at the README in the docs/ directory.
Have fun :).
Hmmmmm, long time no update. That’s not to say I haven’t been busy recently.
Last month, we released “UnWheel R5”, which seems to have become the (hopefully) final release. I’m pretty happy with it at the moment, all the major bugs are gone, multiplayer is working wonderfully and the online record system is churning records around at a mean rate (and those records still need a monthly rotation system applied, so still some work to be done there). I still haven’t decided if I want to do this all again in Unreal Torunament 2007 or not :).
Elsewhere, I’ve been playing around with DynaBar, and it’s grown a lot. The plugin system has been tweaked to allow better customisation options from the developer side, as well as having options added to improve the user interaction side of things. There are a whole crapload of other options available as well, multiple layers (supporting PNG graphics with alpha transparency), different scanline styles, text prefixes and suffixes, better caching options, etc. In addition, you can choose to have the background be a gradient blending between any two colours, horizontal or vertical, and you can create “groups”, which is a bunch of userbars animated (with fading/blending between bars), and they all remain fully dynamic. Speaking of dynamic, I’ve also added a whole load of plugins, from XFire, to more Last.FM options, to Battlefield 2 and TrackMania, and even RSS headlines and live game server status via Qstat.
I’ve put up a test system here as a sort of sandbox, so feel free to try out all the options and plugins, and if you have any suggestions or ideas for plugins, please let me know. In addition to the designer, there’s a browser available, which lets you easily build the animated groups mentioned above. Also, it all works with Internet Explorer now, which I didn’t bother fixing with the previous version (wasn’t meant to be such a “big” project :)). Source code package will be available as soon as some more testing is done.
In addition, I’ve been re-writing my online Dosage-powered comic viewer - Injector
Aside from all that, I’ve also been slowly building a new UnrealZA site, using the Python-powered Django framework. It really is a wonderful thing. Please excuse me for a minute while I run away from a horde of crazy, twisted, Nevow fans (among others). Anyway, I’ll happily recommend Django any day of the week to anyone looking for a Python web framework.
I’ve also decided I don’t like the look of this site anymore, so I guess that’s another thing to go on my to-do list for the near future.
ShoutCast DynaBar plugin
14 Apr 2007
