Custom Character Generator

[Darrel Taylor]

That would definately be the fastest way, but by now, most people have learned not to just download executable code written by a nobody. Many of them/us, found out the hard way. Even if they're not an intentionaly malicious program, inexperienced programmers can cause just as many problems, if not more. So, from everyone else's perspective, I would NOT download an executable file from Darrel Taylor.

At least with Javascript, you don't have to worry about that (As long as you have your browser security set somewhere above "low"). And, hopefully, it will give easy access to more people.

I now know why this program is moving so slow. And because of the same reason it's getting slower with every additional post in this thread.

I'm sure I can make it quite a bit zippier.   Just a matter of getting it done. Although I don't know if it will ever be sufficient at 166mhz.

[mytekcontrols]

I sure hope you aren't using it with Win2000 or XP

My slowest machine is a 350Mhz AMD K2 with about 512 Megs of RAM onboard. It has Win2000 on it, and I barely find it tolerable for web surfing (plus it takes forever to fully boot-up, and this is a fresh install). In fact to tell you the truth, I rarely ever use it, and instead use my 2 Ghz Pentium 4 machine.

If I didn't have a faster machine already, I would probably look into buying either a new motherboard for the AMD box, or just buy a new Wintergreen (or similar) unit if I was on a tight budget. It is sad that computers go obsolete so fast, which I think is largely brought on by bloated operating systems. Heck even Linux which was once heralded as being so much faster then Windows, now also requires a pretty healthy machine if you want to run it with a full graphical interface, and the newest apps.

Back to the LCD character generator:

Would using some other web friendly language help improve the speed?

[Darrel Taylor]

OK, well it took almost a complete re-write, but I think it did the trick.

And, it works with FireFox now too.

It's almost instantaneous on my machine (3ghz), but I guess that doesn't mean much.
I don't have any slow computers to try it on.

Luciano, can you give me another Speed Test??

[Luciano]

Hi Darrel,

Pentium 166 MHz, 128MB, W98SE, IE6.0:
Test results: No delay, almost instantaneous.

Pentium II 300 MHz, 256MB, W2K SP4, IE6.0:
Test results: No delay, almost instantaneous.

Thank you!

Luciano

[Acetronics2]

Thanks a lot Darrel,

I saved the web page on my disk ... and it works perfecty at home.

No more speed problems !!!

Alain

[Darrel Taylor]

Thanks Luciano!

Wasn't expecting the results to be quite that good. But hey, I'll take it!

Best part is, it means that the next part of this project should work just as good, since it uses the same concepts in Javascript. (more on that later)

Alain

Thanks for the update on the off-line version. I'm glad I remembered to update that page.
I see some new features for the Cust Char gen script on the horizon. So you may need to download it again in the future.

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For one, I'd like it to do "Animated" characters too. Shouldn't be too hard right?

[T.Jackson]

That's excellent Darrel!

I know how time consuming Java can be. Not difficult, but time-consuming. To give everyone an idea of just how time consuming, I've spent about the past fortnight doing my final Java assignment for UNI. If I did it in Visual Basic, it would have taken a few days! The assignment is a complete application - Short Course Management System. It's graphically-based and utilizes many Swing components, this is the real time-consuming part - designing & programming the user interface (UI). A total of 20 classes make up the project. When I say it's object orientated I mean it's nothing but OOP. This is Java's ultimate strength!