Yes, I am a glutton for punishment.



  • So this weekend I started a new project that I'm sure you guys will love.  It has a Visual Basic.net interface that runs a Perl script on the command line, which then uses OLE to control Photoshop.  It's actually going pretty well so far.



  • sounds enterprisey



  • @Cap'n Steve said:

    So this weekend I started a new project that I'm sure you guys will love. It has a Visual Basic.net interface that runs a Perl script on the command line, which then uses OLE to control Photoshop. It's actually going pretty well so far.

    No XML? No WebService? This is soooooooo yesterday. 



  • Let me guess what the end result in photoshop is...... a mock up of a photo taken of a printed screenshot placed on a wooden table?



  • No, unfortunately I don't have a web cam.  I suppose I could set up the Perl script as a server, though.



  • Why not use Photoshop's built-in Javascript implementation?



  • OLE ? Perl ? This is so pre-00's.

     Hey it's 2007, man. Emulate Photoshop in AJAX and add a "invite a friend to this filter" button to every dialog. Have a Layers>Add>Chat window in your menu that interfaces with google talk. You'll get nice features, like when in light/contrast dialog, a popup will show "your friends fatbeard and nerdishteen are currently using this filter too", so you'll never feel alone in any software anymore.



  • @aikii said:

    OLE ? Perl ? This is so pre-00's.

     Hey it's 2007, man. Emulate Photoshop in AJAX and add a "invite a friend to this filter" button to every dialog. Have a Layers>Add>Chat window in your menu that interfaces with google talk. You'll get nice features, like when in light/contrast dialog, a popup will show "your friends fatbeard and nerdishteen are currently using this filter too", so you'll never feel alone in any software anymore.

    I don't think I've laughed that hard in a long time.  It's so true. :/

    Pretty soon, EVERY application will have a friends list and a blog component so that when you're working in Visual Studio debugging code you can use a dropdown to say "Mark is debugging his module and listening to Linkin Park :(" and then a dialog will pop up to notify you when somebody else is using the same formatting style as you so that you can both chat together about how great K&R style is.  Then you can upload a snippet directly to your MySpace.



  • Yeah, I once wrote a reporting tool that had a VB 6 frontend and a Perl backend for the heavy lifting. It works very well until today. But it didn't use the command-line.

     

    Did you hear about the Script Control? With it you can drive every Scripting Host compliant language from a VB (or other) application without having to "shell out". That only works with ActivePerl/PerlScript though. But hey, who uses Vanilla Perl?



  • @Saladin said:

    Pretty soon, EVERY application will have a friends list and a blog component so that when you're working in Visual Studio debugging code you can use a dropdown to say "Mark is debugging his module and listening to Linkin Park :(" and then a dialog will pop up to notify you when somebody else is using the same formatting style as you so that you can both chat together about how great K&R style is.  Then you can upload a snippet directly to your MySpace.

     Ahahaha !

    Last time I checked my bank account online, I noticed a blinking envelope in some status bar. I clicked and got the message : your mailbox is full. WTF ? A mailbox in a bank application ? Yup, I've an internal mailbox in my web-banking interface. Filled with their own spam they ask me to clean up. Retarded as hell.

     Then I thought of a mock-up screen of the webbanking application, last.fm-like ; with your smiling bank employee telling you "hey what's up ? paid your loan already ?" in a chat popup whenever you log into the application. And with all your bookmarked bank accounts in a list named "friends". Okay, which friend you want to give your money to, now ? You beloved electric company ? Your dear phone operator ? Your pal Internet provider ?

     Be prepared, there's no way back. That's were we're going to.



  • @dhromed said:

    Why not use Photoshop's built-in Javascript implementation?


    I might still end up doing that, but I think I'll still need OLE to load it (the Perl script does a bunch of other stuff, too).  Depending how I end up organizing it, I might actually use the Perl to generate some Javascript.  I think I need a shower.



  • Why not use ImageMagick - especially if you're playing with perl and use PerlMagick. I'm a photographer, and I wrote a perl script that will automatically resize photos, add a copyright caption, subtle image enhancements & such - works very well. Give it a look.



  • @Saladin said:

    @aikii said:
    OLE ? Perl ? This is so pre-00's.

     Hey it's 2007, man. Emulate Photoshop in AJAX and add a "invite a friend to this filter" button to every dialog. Have a Layers>Add>Chat window in your menu that interfaces with google talk. You'll get nice features, like when in light/contrast dialog, a popup will show "your friends fatbeard and nerdishteen are currently using this filter too", so you'll never feel alone in any software anymore.

    I don't think I've laughed that hard in a long time.  It's so true. :/

    Pretty soon, EVERY application will have a friends list and a blog component so that when you're working in Visual Studio debugging code you can use a dropdown to say "Mark is debugging his module and listening to Linkin Park :(" and then a dialog will pop up to notify you when somebody else is using the same formatting style as you so that you can both chat together about how great K&R style is.  Then you can upload a snippet directly to your MySpace.

    The scary thing is, i really like this idea. I don't know why. So global consciousness!



  • @GeneWitch said:

    The scary thing is, i really like this idea. I don't know why. So global consciousness!

    Sounds like cyberpunk. But cyberpunk is essentially dystopic. Real WTF happen because human beings support them. We like a bit of something, but forget about the whole picture, and before we realize it, we are in a mess. Acceptance of WTFs take many constancies, that's how kafkaïan situations happen. Like family problems we never talk about ( in french we say 'non dit', unsaid rules about things no one must talk about ).

    Many websites now involve a "friends" list. I've about 15 "friends" on last.fm, but I know only 3 of them ; I didn't even talk to the others. That's just because the "friends" list is useful as a bookmark, when you want to listen to someone's radio in the last.fm player. But by the time we get used by this new meaning of "friend", we're going to forget what it meant in the first place. Sounds scary, he ? Said in a lyrical manner, changing the meaning of the words changes the perception of the world.



  • @Jeremy D. Pavleck said:

    Why not use ImageMagick - especially if you're playing with perl and use PerlMagick. I'm a photographer, and I wrote a perl script that will automatically resize photos, add a copyright caption, subtle image enhancements & such - works very well. Give it a look.


    I thought about that, but I know Photoshop does a good job and if you have a program with a $600 price tag, why not use it?



  • @Cap'n Steve said:


    I thought about that, but I know Photoshop does a good job and if you have a program with a $600 price tag, why not use it?

     

    Same reason why I own Photoshop and still do it - it's a helluva lot more convenient  then even doing it in a PS batch job. Though I have yet to play with PS scripting at all - I should look up some examples.

    The vast majority of pictures I shoot end up in print, and not full page spreads either, so the requirements aren't exactly 'high' there - trim the size, correct the white balance, etc - so IM does great. I thought about using Irfanview too - since it's the same engine, but just haven't.  



  • Well, I decided to add some options in case I ever release this tool.  I can now choose between using Image Magick, Photoshop, or The GIMP.  Adobe finally granted me access to the SDK (kind of a WTF in itself) and it turns out that the included OLE example, along with the only other example ever created, doesn't work.  So it looks like dynamically generated Javascript passed to Photoshop on the command line is the only way to go.



  • @aikii said:

    @Saladin said:

    Pretty soon, EVERY
    application will have a friends list and a blog component so that when
    you're working in Visual Studio debugging code you can use a dropdown
    to say "Mark is debugging his module and listening to Linkin Park :("
    and then a dialog will pop up to notify you when somebody else is using
    the same formatting style as you so that you can both chat together
    about how great K&R style is.  Then you can upload a snippet
    directly to your MySpace.

     Ahahaha !

    Last time
    I checked my bank account online, I noticed a blinking envelope in some
    status bar. I clicked and got the message : your mailbox is full. WTF ?
    A mailbox in a bank application ? Yup, I've an internal mailbox in my
    web-banking interface. Filled with their own spam they ask me to clean
    up. Retarded as hell.

      Nah, it isn't really,
    it's actually a very very sensible idea indeed.  Banks need a
    secure channel to talk to their customers and ordinary unencrypted
    email over smtp/pop doesn't cut it, as the existence of phishing
    demonstrates.  IMO it's a lot easier for Joe Public to get the
    concept "We'll only ever contact you through your online banking, any
    emails you get in your email are fake" than to teach them how to spot a
    dubious URL from a real one.




  • @DaveK said:

    Nah, it isn't really, it's actually a very very sensible idea indeed.  Banks need a secure channel to talk to their customers and ordinary unencrypted email over smtp/pop doesn't cut it, as the existence of phishing demonstrates.  IMO it's a lot easier for Joe Public to get the concept "We'll only ever contact you through your online banking, any emails you get in your email are fake" than to teach them how to spot a dubious URL from a real one.


    Yeah.. if mine has something really important to tell me, it sends an e-mail to the effect of "We have an important announcement. Please log onto your account and check your messages." Of course it doesn't include a link because that would defeat the purpose.



  • @DaveK said:

      Nah, it isn't really, it's actually a very very sensible idea indeed.  Banks need a secure channel to talk to their customers and ordinary unencrypted email over smtp/pop doesn't cut it, as the existence of phishing demonstrates.  IMO it's a lot easier for Joe Public to get the concept "We'll only ever contact you through your online banking, any emails you get in your email are fake" than to teach them how to spot a dubious URL from a real one.

    You're right, but really the only mails I got through this interface where purely automated promotional email. Like, checkout our new product, why not subscribing for our new insurance and stuff ... the real wtf is that I'm so used to it that I never thought one second they would use that webmail for personal, useful or critical information. Only ads ( I mean "informational marketing emails" ) from the very start. Using it as a secure e-mail would be a great idea indeed, but I see a bullet-in-their-own-foot pattern here.



  • @aikii said:

    @GeneWitch said:

    The scary thing is, i really like this idea. I don't know why. So global consciousness!

    Sounds like cyberpunk. But cyberpunk is essentially dystopic. Real WTF happen because human beings support them. We like a bit of something, but forget about the whole picture, and before we realize it, we are in a mess. Acceptance of WTFs take many constancies, that's how kafkaïan situations happen. Like family problems we never talk about ( in french we say 'non dit', unsaid rules about things no one must talk about ).

    Many websites now involve a "friends" list. I've about 15 "friends" on last.fm, but I know only 3 of them ; I didn't even talk to the others. That's just because the "friends" list is useful as a bookmark, when you want to listen to someone's radio in the last.fm player. But by the time we get used by this new meaning of "friend", we're going to forget what it meant in the first place. Sounds scary, he ? Said in a lyrical manner, changing the meaning of the words changes the perception of the world.

    Half-Life 2 EP1 has... (burp)  (scuse me)... a FRIENDS LIST.

    Just the thing you need when you're highly-strung walking through a dark corridor with only 5 bullets, low on flashlight -- and the angry squeaks of poison headcrabs and moans of a zombie echoing around you -- then: PIN PON HI WATS UP LOLZ and the crab attacks SQUEEE and the zombie strikes MWOOAARG SLAP and you die a horrible, horrible death because your heart exploded through your chest onto your expensive widescreen LCD.



  • In this case I'd say you're taking games a little too seriously :) I find nothing wrong with a friend list in an online game. I'd say in this context "friend" is not too disturbing, since there is some in-game social interaction. Oh, well, some lonely geek having his entire social life in an online game is another problem, but if a "friend list" in a online game is a problem, then the entire concept of online playing is a problem. Well, that's how I look at it.


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