The Essence of Full Screen Mode

What's the big deal? For what is mundane to game developers has become a great boon to desktop programmers. Full-screen mode brings your user to an exclusive dimension that provides a non-distracting journey around your application, it keeps your user glued within the context of what really matters most, the intended output in the shortest possible path.

Implementing the Full-Screen Mode

I've waited for years for Java to implement full screen mode, but until now, it's still flaky, cumbersome and not consistent in different platforms (so much talk about cross-platform). Some kiosk developers even go as far as "cheating" with the browser by enabling full screen mode in Internet Explorer via Javascript, Flash and other gazillion-of-html-code nonsense only to end up being locked in one operating system and limited possibilities.

The Qt Solution

MainWindow::MainWindow(QWidget *parent)
: QMainWindow(parent), ui(new Ui::MainWindow)
{
showFullScreen();
}

Is a very simple one-function call to solve the problem and let the developer focus on other important functions, allowing them to finish projects in a short period of time. Qt provides consistency across different platforms.

Mac? Linux? Windows? It's hard to tell!


Programming the rest of the widgets that are needed by a full screen application is no different to programming a typical Qt desktop application. There are no other tags to maintain, no screen size to worry about, just do the proper layout and everything will go into the "right" places. That's less code, create more.



So, want to try this on HTML?

Taking Back The Power To The Desktop (Revenge of the Fallen)

Alright, my day job is still with Java right now, but I had to admit lousy web development is really creeping up my neck already. It was never cool coding more for less, if you don't know what I mean, that's coding more lines of code for just rendering a simple web page regardless of what framework you're using, how many styles of configurations you have mastered and knows AJAX isn't for laundry anymore and no matter how hard you try you can't keep them all in your brains and reuse them on another project that is totally dependent on a different (but theoretically similar) framework. That's coding more for less.

The Power of the Desktop

In today's highly interactive apps, the Desktop has a broader role from just being a host to native applications serving unforgiving enterprise users. The Desktop can now provide stand-alone multimedia entertainment, entice users to play with its touchscreen, make marketing guys happy for doing more rather than take up user input all day. The Desktop is now portable and mobile, users can bring their favorite applications in a USB device and run it as if it was installed in a host PC. This is why web development always leave a bad taste in my tongue, because the power of The Desktop today is too hard to ignore.



Enter Qt

Why Qt? Why not Java Swing or Eclipse SWT? or even some other craps that M$ has to offer? Three words; Portable, Native and Fast. In all my research, only Qt provided answers to these three challenges. Besides, how hard it is to play a movie that even a label can render?


QLabel *label = new QLabel;
QMovie *movie = new QMovie("movies/transformers2.mov");

label->setMovie(movie);
movie->start();


That is "less code, creat more". Yes it's C++ and can be compiled on your favorite OS whether it's Mac, Linux or Windows; no code change, no behavioral change. Single source for different platform, that is a real-deal cross-platform technology, no JVMs!

Mac


Windows


It's 2009, and I'm still dumbfounded why some companies can't offer their desktop products in multiple platforms which is very easy to do! In fact, all it needs is to re-align proper mindsets to get started. Qt allows developers to create a lot of things for less, invent a lot for less, productivity for less. It allows developers to realized their dream killer apps in no time, get into the market in no time, impress customers without so much f*cking on web wonders. And now, the power of the Desktop is back!

IT Expo

After spending a few minutes on their website (http://www.itexpo.com.ph), I've already anticipated what to expect. I'd rather spend more time at ManilaCon 2008, I think that's the environment where our applications will be more useful. Besides, I need to brush up on industrial design skills.

We're Still in the Service Industry

From my last post, here's what mostly took shape in the industry that I'm in; We're still a service industry, we build software based on other people's ideas, not ours. We're lying when we say we "invented" things here because we don't hold patents for such claims. One company that is supposed to be a good shining example has postponed its bourse-level exaltation (IPO if you didn't get it) for a number of times with different lame excuses printed in the business newspaper, hopefully it can be done right next time, because the rap is already damaging.

Over the past few months the number of so-called Tech Startups increased but mostly are freeloaders, not really serious enough (no dates, no timelines) in releasing any serious products at any time, just some prototype of what can be done with this new touchy gadget but these are mostly ideas, not much actions. It's all nothing but what's new and what's cool, what can be shared, blah, blah, blah. It's good to know that there are new startups in the technology sector, but what technology? A dating technology? A mix-and-mashup technology? Is it a technology that passed the ultimate "Mom Test", Is it a technology that triggers "Wow!" from the consumer or just from another geek?

There's nothing, because the sad fact is, we're only doing somebody's idea. Why? Because first we failed to set our timeline and with that, somebody has set it for us. And most of us are under that whim. It's hard to deny it, specially when one is not self-funded, there's no such thing as free ride otherwise there is no rest. Second we love agreeing verbally but not really moving forward to the next level. Just merely storytelling and that's it.

I just wish someday, that someone will prove me wrong.

On Patents And Proprietary Software

Open Source is so 2000. Some people has to brace change and some has to brace change the radical way. 70% of open source projects today are based in Java and they are the more complicated versions today of their earlier predecessors. There really isn't much innovation and improvement happened looking from the turn of the century up to the present that has really made some difference in the lives of most developers around world that has made them more productive than before, more focused than before. The users' frustrations are just as high as before. Take for example AJAX, which is trying to be a rich client application now is starting to get bloated causing some serious slow down, crashes and security compromises on one's PC. These tools looks only sexy and cool in tutorials but that doesn't prove anything in the real world.

Web applications today has so many usability issues. Documentations are just de facto standard, and there's no definite standards of all sorts in the Open source paradigm. I'm not entirely against Open Source but some of these guys or most of these guys has to do hard thinking in order for them to be still relevant in the next 10 or 20 years in the software development industry.

Let's not make things complicated, it's very simple. A developer who open sources his works has no business whatsoever. I'm talking from the developer's standpoint not from Technical Support standpoint. It's like indie music, indie music does not help create jobs specially if the artists maintains Creative Commons license of their songs, but copyrighting them and making CDs out of them. When they copyright them, they can seal a recording contract, hire sound engineers, hire stage crews, hire event organizers, get a lot of corporate sponsors, and eventually make money with a copyrighted product. Same goes with software writing. Unfortunately, software is not like music. It doesn't make sense to patent a software anymore. Rather the software has to be in a patentable hardware in order for it to do business. For any startup software company today, there is no business in software alone. A real product means proprietary software running on a very sleek cool hardware or appliance. Patents does not necessarily stifle innovations, it actually promotes in the most obvious and traditional way that a developer must be very creative and innovative or die. Others can copy and pay and that is real business. With proprietary products developers/entrepreneurs can enter the market anytime they desire, they can compete anytime they desire. They create real jobs, real coding works. Because at the end of the day, that's only one workable for most of us. There's only one Googleplex, don't try to replicate it.