Aegir’s Rantings

So what have I been up to lately?

Converting all of my projects to NFO. Yeap. I’m making the migration to pure NFO. Although, with a twist.

It suddenly struck me as I was commenting the gigantic ae_nabs.nfo, that includes like what I use in php for my website would be fricking fantastic things to have. I could just rip out entire house definitions and put them in a seperate file. I could just 0 * 0 out each line on the NFO, and then let NFORenum patch it all back up. So I went and badgered DaleStan for some sort of include funtionality in either GRFCodec or NFORenum.

Instead the almighty Patchman jumps in and suggests using a C-style #include, and using “gcc -E < target > destination” to patch it all back together. After I toyed with that and got it working, he then suggested creating a makefile to automate the entire process.

Several days later I have finally achieved my goal. Manage an gigantic NFO project how you would a blob of source-code (Well, how I imagine you would, I’m no frickin’ programmer :P).

Makefile (The important part) is block-quoted here, read it, copy it, and bend it to your will. Feel free not to credit me or any of that crap, but if you run around treating it as your own invention, I’ll slap you. I spent a lot of time getting this going.

Bah, whocares, it’s a frickin’ plain-text file. Have fun with it:

# Evil monstorous HNFO compiling makefile of DOOM!
# Written by Richard ‘Aegir’ Eldred. Major kudos to Josef ‘Patchman’ Drexler for the suggestion.

# MINI README:

# What we’re doing here breaks away from NFO coding norms a bit by using C style includes in our NFO files. Our working NFO files we now give the extension “.hnfo”. I have no idea what the significance of the H is, blame Josef for that. So now, we can break up a large NFO into multiple parts.

# From there, we use GCC to preprocess our HNFO. Unfortunatly it strips // comments but leaves # comments intact, so our processed NFO needs some nforenum loving (Which really should be done anyway to fix up sprite numbers and pseudosprite sizes, trying to do those by hand is madness).

# Lastly, with our NFORENUM processed NFO, we can then run GRFCODEC over it as usual.

# Instant lovin’ for your large projects.

# Change the macro’s around to suit your local configuration. I’m a lazy twot who uses grfcodec and nforenum via WINE. This allows my same TTD setup and dev environment to be portable back and forth between Windows and my own Linux machines.

# This should all work on a Windows machine with GCC and MAKE, although you will have to possibly change your CC macro to suit your setup.

# Lastly, you will just need to change around the relevent portion of the macros that alias your particular project, and then you should be about right.

# Have fun.

# Our Steps:
# 1: gcc -E preprocess
# 2: nforenum process
# 3: grfcodec compile

# Macros:
# Paths for our tools
GRFCODEC = wine /media/shared/Games/TTWin95/Data/grfcodec.exe -e
NFORENUM = wine /media/shared/Games/TTWin95/Data/renum.exe -b +
GRFDIR = /media/shared/Games/TTWin95/Data/newgrf

# GCC Settings:
CC = gcc
PREPROCESS = -E - < # Aliases for the set:
NAME = ae_nabs

# Now, the fun stuff:

# Target for all:
all : $(NAME)w.grf $(NAME).grf

# Compile Windows GRF
$(NAME)w.grf : $(NAME)w.nfo
@echo "Compiling Windows GRF:"
$(GRFCODEC) $(NAME)w.nfo .
@echo

# NFORENUM process the Windows copy of the NFO
$(NAME)w.nfo : $(NAME)w.pnfo
@echo "NFORENUM Processing:"
-$(NFORENUM) $(NAME)w.nfo
@echo

# GCC Preprocess the HNFO into the Windows NFO copy
$(NAME)w.pnfo :
@echo "GCC Preprocessing HNFO:"
$(CC) $(PREPROCESS) $(NAME).hnfo > $(NAME)w.nfo
@echo

# Compile DOS GRF
$(NAME).grf : $(NAME).nfo
@echo “Compiling DOS GRF:”
$(GRFCODEC) -em 1 $(NAME).nfo .
@echo

# NFORENUM process the DOS copy of the NFO
$(NAME).nfo : $(NAME).pnfo
@echo “NFORENUM Processing:”
-$(NFORENUM) $(NAME).nfo
@echo

# GCC Preprocess the HNFO into the DOS NFO copy
$(NAME).pnfo :
@echo “GCC Preprocessing HNFO:”
$(CC) $(PREPROCESS) $(NAME).hnfo > $(NAME).nfo
@echo

# Clean the source tree
clean:
@echo “Cleaning source tree:”
@echo “Remove backups:”
-rm *.bak *~
@echo
@echo “Remove .nfo:”
-rm *.nfo
@echo
@echo “Remove compiled .grf:”
-rm *.grf

# Installation process
install:
@echo Installing .grf files to $(GRFDIR).
@echo “Windows GRF:”
-cp $(NAME)w.grf $(GRFDIR)/$(NAME)w.grf
@echo
@echo “DOS GRF:”
-cp $(NAME).grf $(GRFDIR)/$(NAME).grf

Oh, the blockquote screws the makefile up in places, get the real thing here:
http://www.aegir.bur.st/scraps/makefile

Edit: I’ve done a lot of development on this makefile lately, an update will come detailing the changes. :).

Right, okay. Optusnet are now both annoying the heck out of me, and are bloody legends at the same time.

For the last year or so, I’ve been paying AUD$69 per month for 512kbps/128kbps ADSL1 with 12GB of downloads per month with 24GB offpeak (Between 11pm and 11am). And now, reading up on the optus website they offer the following:

Fibre:
9mbps/256kbps, 20GB downloads, 40GB offpeak. $79 monthly, $69 monthly if bundled with their phone network (Which we’re already with).

ADSL2+:
24mbps/1gbps, 20GB downloads, 40GB offpeak, $69 monthly, only availible if bundled with their phone services.

ADSL1
1.5mbps/256kbps, 20GB downloads, 40GB offpeak, $79 monthly, $69 monthly if bundled with their phone network offerings.

So for the same bloody price as what I’ve been paying for the last year or so, they’ve been offering three far, far supperior connection plans.

Ohwell. When I have the $50 for the once-off speed upgrade charge, I’ll swap to the better ADSL1 plan, and when ADSL2 is availible in my area, swap to that.

Ofcourse, the Fibre sounds nice, but I doubt they’ve got glass strewn down my street.

The eventual plan is to get Porky (reldred.ath.cx:8080) replacing my bur.st account. Or atleast complementing it more.

Hoorah and many wootages.

Well, I’m doing well in IT Studies and Politics, it seems. Sitting on a B for both, I’m guessing. Also, Spanky, my laptop, is fixed now, so it appears that’s some money that I have saved. Aswell, I’m safe for handing in this cisco materials investigation some time this week.

All my bases are covered, I just need to sort out my mp3 playing situation.

Also, I’m thinking, what’s the worth in purchasing a seccond harddrive for this laptop (maybe an ultrabay type?) and a good chunk more ram (512mb would be nice) aswell as replacing the battery (3hours battery ftw! :D)? Would make me a very happy camper. I could dual-boot the laptop, and use the seccond hdd for stashing all manor of things on it. Might go for something considerably larger than 10gb though. I’ll have to have a looksies.

Now, note to self, don’t drop thinkpad on the ground, it doesn’t like it.

I finally got around to activating the aksimet plugin. Thus I also have a fourth blog (Needed to get the Wordpress API, which means getting another blog :roll:).

I think it’s something like aegyr.wordpress.com or something. Hopefully it will be completly ignored. Maintaining three is annoying enough as it is (GOD I WISH ALL MY FRIENDS ON VF WOULD SIGN UP TO A BETTER SERVICE! GRAAARGH! Ohwell).

Only two of them really have a purpose anyway. The third is just floating around with no particular purpose.

So yeah, Aksimet plugin. No more comment spam.

Fuck off Pharmaceuticals companies. Stop pimping your wares at me.

Today was productive

• Sat moping around and talking to Liz on MSN. (Really let’s you know who your friends are in life when you can open up to somone so totally, so completly. No secrets at all, even the ones you try to keep from yourself.)
• Contemplated more insane software options in Dapper Drake. Concluded that Linux is getting to a point where OSX and Windows should really start being afraid.
• Fiddled around using XGL and Compiz some more. If not for the bugs with the open source radeon driver, it would be almost flawless, albeit Compiz lacks a lot of features as a window manager.

That’s it today, folks. I’ll try and keep this updated more often.

I’d like to appologize for anyone I’ve cut loose at on MSN or on IRC, I’m largely a very frustrated person at the moment. I’ll figure myself, you don’t need to worry too much about me. I’m not a cutter/the suicide type.