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[dismal_denizen]

Hello everyone.
Until recently I have been using jMonkeyEngine for my dose of 3Dness. However, having stuff everywhere drove me crazy, so I changed to Xith3D - everything in one download!
When I first came to the site I was glad to see XIN, as a guide is essential to learning new libraries (well, for me at least).
Anyway, to get to the point, I have two recommendations:
1. Create a Wiki
2. Give XIN a bit of an overhaul
I would be glad to help you guys by moving XIN over to LyX and editing it to make it look more professional. Since it's the first thing that people see, you may attract more users! If you're interested, I can start giving XIN a face-lift. No promises for speed, though.

[Marvin Fröhlich]

Hi dismal_denizen. Welcome to Xith3D .

About 1:
Please see here: http://www.xith.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Though there are not too many pages yet.

About 2:
Would be very cool, if XIN was moved to Latex. The only thing, I would want, is that the code blocks in the document should keep the same coloring. Is this possible in Latex/Lyx?

Marvin

[dismal_denizen]

I am pretty sure that it would be possible to keep the same colours for code. Is there a reason why you want that particular colour scheme?
And about my wiki question, I worded it rather badly. What I meant was to create a section on the wiki similar to XIN so that people can see at a glance what the structure of a Xith3D program looks like.
One more thing - do you have the "source" of XIN somewhere so that I can check the colours that you used?

[Marvin Fröhlich]

Is there a reason why you want that particular colour scheme?

It's not important, that all colors would remain the same. The syntax coloring is the same as in my Eclipse. It is the standard Eclipse Java coloring plus bold-blue for parameters, which I think is very helpful in the code. If the syntax coloring is the same as in Eclipse, it wil look familiar to many people, which improves readability of the code.

The additional coloring can be changed. But I would like to keep a maring color of the differences to previous code examples (currently marked with a yellow backgound). This helps people to track, what's important. But if the code blocks have a blue background or a pink one, is not that important. It should just look nice .

And about my wiki question, I worded it rather badly. What I meant was to create a section on the wiki similar to XIN so that people can see at a glance what the structure of a Xith3D program looks like.

If you're willing to maintain this section in the wiki, nobody would hold you . I always prefered to keep it a one place to get a better chance to keep it current.

One more thing - do you have the "source" of XIN somewhere so that I can check the colours that you used?

Sure. It is in xith-tk SVN. There's a doc folder. I hope, you've checked out xith3d and xith-tk SVN trunks, but not using the latest release, which unfortunately is pretty outdated. Though the release also contains the XIN source (outdated, too of course).

Marvin

[dismal_denizen]

I spent about an hour searching for a way to highlight blocks of code, but I think that the only way of doing it is to have multiple listings next to each other with different background colours.
I think that I might use Xith3D a bit more, build up my knowledge, then revisit this. I think that porting XIN to use LaTeX is still a good idea though.

By the way, Xith3D is a great project, keep up the good work!

[Marvin Fröhlich]

I spent about an hour searching for a way to highlight blocks of code, but I think that the only way of doing it is to have multiple listings next to each other with different background colours.
I think that I might use Xith3D a bit more, build up my knowledge, then revisit this. I think that porting XIN to use LaTeX is still a good idea though.

I totally agree, that porting XIN to LaTeX is a great idea. The only two reasons, why I didn't do that myself once ago, is that I don't have any expertise in LaTeX and it is quite difficult for beginners (and OpenOffice allowed me to simply copy/pasting the code from eclispe with all font-settings and coloring), and I wanted that kind of coloring and didn't know how to do that in LaTeX. So, if you get to know, how to do that, I would be very happy, if it got ported to LaTeX.

By the way, Xith3D is a great project, keep up the good work!

Thanks. Good to know .

Marvin

[dismal_denizen]

Hey Marvin,

I've been screwing around with LaTeX a bit and managed to (I think) satisfy your criteria. Heres a link to a sample PDF: http://www.box.net/shared/xglhd5nxyg. Tell me what you think .

I don't have any expertise in LaTeX and it is quite difficult for beginners

I worked this out in about 1 hour (but I do understand that you're a busy person - and to be honest, your current work is more important!)

[Marvin Fröhlich]

I've been screwing around with LaTeX a bit and managed to (I think) satisfy your criteria. Heres a link to a sample PDF: http://www.box.net/shared/xglhd5nxyg. Tell me what you think .

It looks very promising. I really like the page index, which is certainly autogenerated (which is a cool and useful feature). But unfortunately there seems to have gone something wrong with your PDF export. Please see the screenshot, I took from your sample. The syntax is not colored, not in monospaced font and the block-backgroundcolor doesn't cover the whole code snippet. But I guess, this is fixable and it looks as if it should principally work. What about marked code differences? (The parts of the code, that I marked with a yellow background. Single code chunks and full code subblocks) Is this possible, too?

What about the font? I guess, this is the default font. I like Verdana, since it is a nice and well readable font and it is available on both Linux and Windows. For the current XIN I used "Bitstream Vera Sans/12" though, which is quite the same as Verdana. And for the code blocks I used "DejaVu Sans Mono/9", but any Sans Serif Monospace font might be as well.

What about image descriptions? Is is possible to add an (italic) text line below the images?

The text should cover more of the page's width.

Please take this as constructive critics, but not as simple nagging. I'm sure, most of this is quite simple for you to achieve, but has to be said to get good results. And as I said, it really looks promising and I definitely want XIN to be converted to LaTeX, if possible.

Marvin

[dismal_denizen]

But unfortunately there seems to have gone something wrong with your PDF export. Please see the screenshot, I took from your sample. The syntax is not colored, not in monospaced font and the block-backgroundcolor doesn't cover the whole code snippet.

No, I think you misunderstand . Getting the background colouring like that took the most amount of time! That was supposed to be the "highlighting" you were speaking of. What probably confused you is that that part of the code is not meant to be highlighted (it's just a test).
The way that the source code is formatted (ie. not coloured) is just the default style. I don't mind the way it looks, but it can be changed. Again, this is just a test.

[Marvin Fröhlich]

So could you possibly add a highlighted code block to the example, so that I can see, how it looks?

Marvin

[dismal_denizen]

The bits with the blue background are meant to be "highlighted". 

[Marvin Fröhlich]

The bits with the blue background are meant to be "highlighted". 

Ah. ok. I think, I see. And what about single-phrase-highlights? Is this possible, too?

Marvin

[dismal_denizen]

And what about single-phrase-highlights? Is this possible, too?

Sorry, I can only highlight lines at a time. Even that is quite hackish to achieve.

I've updated the PDF, you can find the new version from the same link: http://www.box.net/shared/xglhd5nxyg.

[Marvin Fröhlich]

And what about single-phrase-highlights? Is this possible, too?

Sorry, I can only highlight lines at a time. Even that is quite hackish to achieve.

OK. I think, highlighting the whole line, if it has changed should be sufficient. But how about making the total code snippet blue backgrounded and the changed lines yellow. Whould that be possible?

Marvin

[dismal_denizen]

But how about making the total code snippet blue backgrounded and the changed lines yellow. Whould that be possible?

Yeah, that's possible. However, I'd rather not do it as when I printed XIN it took more ink to have blue backgrounds, and made the code harder to read.