More Silverlight Clock

I could, I suppose, have implemented this project in JavaScript -- that language has all the tools to get the current URL query string and set a permalink to a custom URL, one that wouldn't need clicking, but could be right-clicked; and save the self-inflicted DLR download hit.

If I wanted to, I could put the permalink URL out to an element in the DOM with Silverlight, too, which negates one perceived advantage. And using Silverlight gives me something extra -- multithreading.

Yes, there are JavaScript clocks, like this annoying mouse-following one, but they have to fake such things because they are running full-time in the UI thread. By using a BackgroundWorker to prompt a redraw at intervals (and, later, perform updates on the positions of celestial bodies), with Silverlight, I can offload everything but the painting from the UI thread.

Syntax highlighting

Following on from Scott Hanselman's post about the SyntaxHighlighter script, here's the secret sauce I needed to get it to work.

The separate hosting is the easy bit -- the trick was getting the code I needed to run the repainting into a window.onload, and to keep Blogger from mutilating the code by use of a CDATA section.

Et voilà!

<link href='.../SyntaxHighlighter.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/>
<script src='.../shCore.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script src='.../shBrushPython.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script src='.../shBrushRuby.js' type='text/javascript'/>
...
<script type='text/javascript'>//<![CDATA[
window.onload = function () {
    dp.SyntaxHighlighter.ClipboardSwf = ".../clipboard.swf";
    dp.SyntaxHighlighter.BloggerMode();
    dp.SyntaxHighlighter.HighlightAll("code",true,false,false,1,false);
}
//]]></script>

There is also a Scala brush for this -- but F# or Erlang will need to be hand-cranked first.

Later: hand cranking done & linked.

Fun with JavaScript

“E”-ddress encoder script 1.0 — a utility based on the the old Hiveware “Enkoder”, only this time done entirely in JavaScript. Because you can.

Also the same thing for Acrete script 1.0

This sort of thing doesn't need heavyweight stuff like a Java applet; though Acrete currently uses the <canvas> element which isn't supported in IE (though I'm investigating alternatives for that). And, besides, I might as well do something useful, rather than just playing, with dynamic languages like JavaScript, Ruby and Python. Java projects (at least, those not for work) have probably reached the end of the road as a result.