And now you can view a tutorial on my new website CommentHow.com

I decided to write a little Groovified wrapper for Objectify (which already does most of the work) and turn it into a plugin for Gaelyk. It adds a little syntactic sugar, and although it doesn’t have everything, it is working nicely for me so far. Check out the Obgaektify site to learn more.

I’ve now used this to help me add text transcriptions to about 80 audio files in 4 languages (Beembe, Bekwel, Mbochi, and Teke). The default parameters have worked pretty well for me, but you may need to adjust them depending on your recording.

This is the Sound Finder dialog:

This is an example of the resulting labels. You can replace the labels with your own text. In my case, I will replace the numbers with a text transcription.

Finally, here’s the plugin file that you can download. Put it in the Plug-Ins folder inside your Audacity folder. After restarting Audacity, you should be able to access the plugin from the Analyze menu.

soundfinder.ny

import javax.imageio.*
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.image.*;

def startDir = new File(".")
def deleteOriginal = false
def thumbWidth = 200
def thumbHeight = 150

startDir.eachFileRecurse{file->
	if(file.name =~ /\.(JPG|jpg|PNG|png|GIF|gif|BMP|bmp)$/)
	{
		def imgType = file.name.replaceAll(/[^\.]*\.(JPG|jpg|PNG|png|GIF|gif|BMP|bmp)$/, "\$1")
		def imgPath = file.getCanonicalPath().replaceAll(/\.(JPG|jpg|PNG|png|GIF|gif|BMP|bmp)$/, "_Thumb.\$1")
		println("$imgType, $imgPath")

		//load each image
		img = ImageIO.read(file)
		println (file.name + " " + img.width + "x" + img.height)

		//output scaled thumbnail image
		width = thumbWidth
		height = thumbHeight
		if(img.width < img.height){width = thumbHeight; height = thumbWidth;}
		BufferedImage thumbImg = new BufferedImage(width, height, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);
		Graphics2D gThumbImg = thumbImg.createGraphics();
		gThumbImg.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_INTERPOLATION, RenderingHints.VALUE_INTERPOLATION_BILINEAR);
		gThumbImg.drawImage(img, 0, 0, width, height, null);
		ImageIO.write(thumbImg, "$imgType", new File(imgPath))

		if(deleteOriginal)
		{
			file.delete()
		}
	}
}

 /*
Given a file called test.txt that's filled with text in UTF-8 format,
here's how to use Groovy to read it in, preserve the encoding, and
output it to a file called testout.txt, also in UTF-8 formatting.
*/
def inF = new File("test.txt")
def reader = inF.newReader("UTF-8")
def outF = new File("testout.txt")
outF.withWriter("UTF-8"){writer->
    reader.eachLine{line->
        writer.write(line)
    }
}

//Groovy script that demonstrates dynamically adding and removing text fields from a Swing form

import groovy.swing.SwingBuilder

swing = new SwingBuilder()

addButton = swing.button(text: 'Add Field', actionPerformed: {addField()})
remButton = swing.button(text: 'Remove Field', actionPerformed: {removeField()})

frame = swing.frame(title:"Test Dynamic Fields", size: [200,400], defaultCloseOperation:javax.swing.WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE)
{
	panel = panel()
	{
		vbox = vbox(id:'vbox')
		{
			hbox()
			{
				widget(addButton)
				widget(remButton)
			}
		}
	}
}

fields = []
fields << swing.textField(text: fields.size())

vbox.add(fields[0])

//frame.pack()
frame.show()

def addField()
{
	field = swing.textField(text: fields.size())
	fields << field
	vbox.add(field)
	vbox.revalidate()
}

def removeField()
{
	if(fields.size() > 0)
	{
		field = fields[-1]
		vbox.remove(field)
		fields.remove(fields.size() - 1)
	}
	vbox.revalidate()
}

The chest was influenced by several elements from the immersing game Shadows of Angmar: The Lord of the Rings Online. One of the chests in the game had carved bird heads jutting out from the sides, and when I saw it, I was suddenly inspired to build one myself. I drew up plans for a simple square chest, capped by a triangular lid, with carved eagle heads for handles on the sides.

The lower front panel’s design is based on the design of Thorin’s Hall in Ered Luin, where dwarven characters start their lives in Middle Earth. The design was wood-burned onto the panel with a wood-burning tool, and then colored with colored pencils for wood, before being covered with a protective coat of spray paint.

The front lid panel bears a chart of stars and constellations. Each star has a pinprick hole in its center. When it’s dark and a light is placed within the chest you get a semi-accurate view of the night sky (star sizes and luminosities are not to scale).

I’m using Ryan Gordon’s ManyMouse library to allow players to each have their own mouse which controls their own cursor. Permissions set on each token will determine what operations a given player can perform - moving, rotating, flipping, etc.

So far, the basics are coming along well. You can load in tokens, change between token images, rotate tokens, move tokens, and use multiple cursors to affect the environment. I’ll post more details as I make progress.

I installed this nice WordPress theme Dark LiquidCard, created by the French artist and designer Jori Avlis. Thanks Jori! With a few tweaks to the code, I was able to enable WordPress widgets in the sidebar. Now the site is up and looking good.