I have a game of jeopardy that I made in PowerPoint and I was wondering if I could have a Silverlight application read the ppt file. Or is there a way to convert a .ppt file to a Silverlight readable format?
There are a few options available, none of them "great".
pptx2silverlight on CodePlex
Pros: Freely available code
Cons: Simplistic player, no animation/audio/video, conversion of slides to PNGs
Convexion by ElectricRain
Pros: Converts most animations/transitions
Cons: No audio/video support, converts shapes to PNGs (not XAML), creates "loose XAML" instead of compiled code
Powerlight by Conaito
Pros: Cheapest commercial solution, more customizable player
Cons: no animation/audio/video, conversion of slides to PNGs
If you can save the .ppt file as a .pptx file then it will be in a zipped XML format that you could read with Silverlight. But you don't want to read it (it's a very complex format).
You just want to convert it with something like this: http://www.codeplex.com/pptx2silverlight
There's a commercial app called Convexion from ElectricRain that converts to wpf and silverlight. It'll run ya $149 though, so not quite as good as a free tool such as pptx2silverlight, as Gabe mentioned.
However: it preserves things such as animations, which may or may not be important to you.
Related
I'm trying to create an application that converts STEP(stp) files to OBJ files. The OBJ format is quite simple and creating a reader/writer for that wont be any problem but the STEP format is more complicated. Is it possible to make it myself without too much problem or do you have any other suggestions to approaching this?
FreeCAD can convert STEP to OBJ.
I ended up using FreeCAD after all. It cant convert with materials and the meshes gets worse and the files are bigger than converting from 3DS Max. Converting the OBJ files from FreeCAD and then to FBX(which was the goal format) ended up with a pretty good mesh. It still has no material but that is not important for me
Nowadays you can use free tool CAD Assistant (which is also based on Open CASCADE Technology as FreeCAD) for converting STEP files into OBJ with color information preserved.
WP7 Mango is making it possible to save custom ringtones from apps. That's great and all, but not if your source material is too long in length (ringtones must be < 40 seconds or so).
I'm hoping it is possible to take an existing audio file (wma, lets say) and trim it by setting a start/end point, so you can export just a part of the audio for ringtone use.
I gather from other SO questions that audio encoding directly in silverlight is not really feasible. But I don't really want full encoding capabilities, just the ability to trim an existing already encoded file. Any pointers?
I was thinking about doing this as well (until I discovered that we have no access to the music already on the phone).
An mp3 should be pretty easy to do by checking the header (see here: http://www.mpgedit.org/mpgedit/mpeg_format/mpeghdr.htm) and then using the bit rate and frame size to calculate the number of bytes to copy using BinaryReader and BinaryWriter.
I haven't looked into wma but after glancing over the specifications it looks like it may be more complicated (specs: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=14995).
I wonder if it is possible to embed dynamic text into Keynote'09? I want to create a new presentation and run this presentation with different text messages (depending on the time of the day and day of the month).
You can insert formulas in tables. I don't have the english version of keynote open, so I can't tell you the exact names of the functions (guessing). You can do something like
=IF(MINUTE(NOW()) > 30; "> 30" ; "<= 30")
See the formula help. If you tell me what you want to achieve, I can give you further details.
I'm not aware of any direct or easy method to achieve what you are asking for.
However, with AppleScript you can access and change at least the title and the body boxes of the slides. This should be done prior to the presentation.
If the 'dynamic' text is to appear in a text box, you could use some scripting to modify the presentation's XML directly. An older Keynote's XML schema should be reasonably well (but not wholly) documented in the iWork Programming Guide, but as the '09 file format is not backwards compatible I don't know how much that would help.
You could try using an encapsulated post script image file. Postscript is a real programming language. I don't know if Keynote will accept it (or if it will cache a bitmap), but Cocoa loads EPS, and Keynote is cocoa.
On Mac OS X, an EPS file gets evaluated when it is opened and converted to a PDF in memory. This process can take a really long time, like 30 seconds, if this is the first time you've tried to open an EPS file since logging in.
Ah! Someone pointed out to me that you can embed Quartz Composer compositions into keynote. This is a good way to do it.
The new webcam stuff in Silverlight 4 is darned cool. By exposing it as a brush, it allows scenarios that are way beyond anything that Flash has.
At the same time, accessing the webcam locally seems like it's only half the story. Nobody buys a webcam so they can take pictures of themselves and make funny faces out of them. They buy a webcam because they want other people to see the resulting video stream, i.e., they want to stream that video out to the Internet, a lay Skype or any of the dozens of other video chat sites/applications. And so far, I haven't figured out how to do that with
It turns out that it's pretty simple to get a hold of the raw (Format32bppArgb formatted) bytestream, as demonstrated here.
But unless we want to transmit that raw bytestream to a server (which would chew up way too much bandwidth), we need to encode that in some fashion. And that's more complicated. MS has implemented several codecs in Silverlight, but so far as I can tell, they're all focused on decoding a video stream, not encoding it in the first place. And that's apart from the fact that I can't figure out how to get direct access to, say, the H.264 codec in the first place.
There are a ton of open-source codecs (for instance, in the ffmpeg project here), but they're all written in C, and they don't look easy to port to C#. Unless translating 10000+ lines of code that look like this is your idea of fun :-)
const int b_xy= h->mb2b_xy[left_xy[i]] + 3;
const int b8_xy= h->mb2b8_xy[left_xy[i]] + 1;
*(uint32_t*)h->mv_cache[list][cache_idx ]= *(uint32_t*)s->current_picture.motion_val[list][b_xy + h->b_stride*left_block[0+i*2]];
*(uint32_t*)h->mv_cache[list][cache_idx+8]= *(uint32_t*)s->current_picture.motion_val[list][b_xy + h->b_stride*left_block[1+i*2]];
h->ref_cache[list][cache_idx ]= s->current_picture.ref_index[list][b8_xy + h->b8_stride*(left_block[0+i*2]>>1)];
h->ref_cache[list][cache_idx+8]= s->current_picture.ref_index[list][b8_xy + h->b8_stride*(left_block[1+i*2]>>1)];
The mooncodecs folder within the Mono project (here) has several audio codecs in C# (ADPCM and Ogg Vorbis), and one video codec (Dirac), but they all seem to implement just the decode portion of their respective formats, as do the java implementations from which they were ported.
I found a C# codec for Ogg Theora (csTheora, http://www.wreckedgames.com/forum/index.php?topic=1053.0), but again, it's decode only, as is the jheora codec on which it's based.
Of course, it would presumably be easier to port a codec from Java than from C or C++, but the only java video codecs that I found were decode-only (such as jheora, or jirac).
So I'm kinda back at square one. It looks like our options for hooking up a webcam (or microphone) through Silverlight to the Internet are:
(1) Wait for Microsoft to provide some guidance on this;
(2) Spend the brain cycles porting one of the C or C++ codecs over to Silverlight-compatible C#;
(3) Send the raw, uncompressed bytestream up to a server (or perhaps compressed slightly with something like zlib), and then encode it server-side; or
(4) Wait for someone smarter than me to figure this out and provide a solution.
Does anybody else have any better guidance? Have I missed something that's just blindingly obvious to everyone else? (For instance, does Silverlight 4 somewhere have some classes I've missed that take care of this?)
I just received this response from Jason Clary on my blog:
Saw your post on Mike Taulty's blog about VideoSink/AudioSink in Silverlight 4 beta.
I thought I'd point out that VideoSink's OnSample gives you a single uncompressed 32bpp ARGB frame which can be copied straight into a WritableBitmap.
With that in hand grab FJCore, a jpeg codec in C#, and modify it to not output the JFIF header. Then just write them out one after the other and you've got yourself an Motion JPEG codec. RFC2435 explains how to stuff that into RTP packets for RTSP streaming.
Compressing PCM audio to ADPCM is fairly easy, as well, but I haven't found a ready-made implementation as yet. RFC3551 explains how to put either PCM or ADPCM into RTP packets.
It should also be reasonably easy to stuff MJPEG and PCM or ADPCM into an AVI file. MS has some decent docs on AVI's modified RIFF format and both MJPEG and ADPCM are widely supported codecs.
It's a start anyway.
Of course, once you've gone through all that trouble, the next Beta will probably come out with native support for compressing and streaming to WMS with the much better WMV codecs.
Thought I'd post it. It's the best suggestion I've seen so far.
I thought I'd let interested folks know the approach I actually took. I'm using CSpeex to encode the voice, but I wrote my own block-based video codec to encode the video. It divides each frame up into 16x16 blocks, determines which blocks have sufficiently changed to warrant transmitting, and then Jpeg-encodes the changed blocks using a heavily modified version of FJCore. (FJCore is generally well done, but it needed to be modified to not write the JFIF headers, and to speed up initialization of the various objects.) All of this is being passed up to a proprietary media server using a proprietary protocol roughly based on RTP.
With one stream up and four streams down at 144x176, I'm currently getting 5 frames per second, using a total of 474 Kbps (~82 Kbps / video stream + 32 Kbps / audio), and chewing up about 30% CPU on my dev box. The quality's not great, but it's acceptable for most video chat applications.
Since I posted my original question, there have been several attempts to implement a solution. Probably the best is at the SocketCoder website here (and here).
However, because the SocketCoder motion JPEG-style video codec translates the entirety of every frame rather than just the blocks that have changed, my assumption is that CPU and bandwidth requirements are going to be prohibitive for most applications.
Unfortunately, my own solution is going to have to remain proprietary for the foreseeable future :-(.
Edit 7/3/10: I just got permissions to share my modifications to the FJCore library. I've posted the project (without any sample code, unfortunately) here:
http://www.alanta.com/Alanta.Client.Media.Jpeg.zip
A (very rough) example of how to use it:
public void EncodeAsJpeg()
{
byte[][,] raster = GetSubsampledRaster();
var image = new Alanta.Client.Media.Jpeg.Image(colorModel, raster);
EncodedStream = new MemoryStream();
var encoder = new JpegFrameEncoder(image, MediaConstants.JpegQuality, EncodedStream);
encoder.Encode();
}
public void DecodeFromJpeg()
{
EncodedStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
var decoder = new JpegFrameDecoder(EncodedStream, height, width, MediaConstants.JpegQuality);
var raster = decoder.Decode();
}
Most of my changes are around the two new classes JpegFrameEncoder (instead of JpegEncoder) and JpegFrameDecoder (instead of JpegDecoder). Basically, the JpegFrameEncoder writes the encoded frame without any JFIF headers, and the JpegFrameDecoder decodes the frame without expecting any JFIF headers to tell it what values to use (it assumes you'll share the values in some other, out-of-band manner). It also instantiates whatever objects it needs just once (as "static"), so that you can instantiate the JpegFrameEncoder and JpegFrameDecoder quickly, with minimal overhead. The pre-existing JpegEncoder and JpegDecoder classes should work pretty much the same as they always have, though I've only done a very little bit of testing to confirm that.
There are lots of things I'd like to improve about it (I don't like the static objects -- they should be instantiated and passed in separately), but it works well enough for our purposes at the moment. Hopefully it's helpful for someone else. I'll see if I can improve the code/documentation/sample code/etc. if I have time.
I'll add one other comment. I just heard today from a Microsoft contact that Microsoft is not planning to add any support for upstream audio and video encoding/streaming to Silverlight, so option #1 appears to be off the table, at least for right now. My guess is that figuring out support for this will be the community's responsibility, i.e., up to you and me.
Stop-Gap?
Would it be possible to use the Windows Media Encoder as a compression method for the raw video Silverlight provides? After capture to ISO Storage, encode w/ WME and send to the server via the WebClient. Two big issues are:
Requires a user to install the encoder
WME will no longer be supported
It seems like that might be a stop-gap solution until something better comes along. I haven't worked w/ WME before though so I don't know how feasible this would be. Thoughts?
Have you tried the new Expression 4 Encoders?
http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/EncoderPro_Overview.aspx
So we are sure that we will be taking our product internationally and will eventually need to internationalize it. How much internationalizing would you recommend we do as we go along?
I guess in other words, is there any internationalization that is easy now but can be much worse if we let the code base mature and that won't slow us down very much if we choose to start doing it now?
Tech used: C#, WPF, WinForms
Prepare it now, before you write all the strings in the codebase itself.
Everything after now will be too late. It's now or never!
It's true that it is a bit of extra effort to prepare well now, but not doing it will end up being a lot more expensive.
If you won't follow all the guidelines in the links below, at least heed points 1,2 and 7 of the summary which are very cheap to do now and which cause the most pain afterwards in my experience.
Check these guidelines and see for yourself why it's better to start now and get everything prepared.
Developing world ready applications
Best practices for developing world ready applications
Little extract:
Move all localizable resources to separate resource-only DLLs. Localizable resources include user interface elements such as strings, error messages, dialog boxes, menus, and embedded object resources. (Moving the resources to a DLL afterwards will be a pain)
Do not hardcode strings or user interface resources. (If you don't prepare, you know you will hardcode strings)
Do not put nonlocalizable resources into the resource-only DLLs. This causes confusion for translators.
Do not use composite strings that are built at run time from concatenated phrases. Composite strings are difficult to localize because they often assume an English grammatical order that does not apply to all languages. (After the interface design, changing phrases gets harder)
Avoid ambiguous constructs such as "Empty Folder" where the strings can be translated differently depending on the grammatical roles of the strings' components. For example, "empty" can be either a verb or an adjective, and this can lead to different translations in languages such as Italian or French. (Same issue)
Avoid using images and icons that contain text in your application. They are expensive to localize. (Use text rendered over the image)
Allow plenty of room for the length of strings to expand in the user interface. In some languages, phrases can require 50-75 percent more space. (Same issue, if you don't plan for it now, redesign is more expensive)
Use the System.Resources.ResourceManager class to retrieve resources based on culture.
Use Microsoft Visual Studio .NET to create Windows Forms dialog boxes, so they can be localized using the Windows Forms Resource Editor (Winres.exe). Do not code Windows Forms dialog boxes by hand.
IMHO, to claim something is going to happens "in a few years" literally translates to "we hope one day" which really means "never". Although I would still skim over various tutorials to make sure you don't make any horrendous mistakes. Doing correct internationalization support now will mean less work in the future, and once you get use to it, it won't have any real affect on today's productivity. But if you can measure the goal in years, maybe it's not worth doing at all right now.
I have worked on two projects that did internationalization: a C# ASP.NET (existed before I joined the project) app and a PHP app (homebrewed my own method using a free Internationalization control and my own management app).
You should store all the text (labels, button text, etc etc) as data inside a database. Reference these with keys (I prefer to use the first 4 words, made uppercase, spaces converted to underscores and non alpha-numerics stripped out) and when you have a duplicate, append a number to the end. The benefit of this key method is the programmer has a pretty strong understanding of the content of the text just by looking at the key.
Write a utility to extract the data and build .NET resource files that you add into your project for compile. Create a separate resource file for each language. In your code, use the key to point to the proper entry.
I would skim over the MS documents on the subject:
http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/getwr/dotneti18n.mspx
Some basic things to avoid:
never ever ever use translation software, hire a pro or an intern taking that language at a local college
never try to create text by appending two existing entries, because grammar differs greately in each language, this will never work. So if you have a string that says "Click" and want one that says "Click Now", do not try to create a setup that merges two entries, or during translation, copy the word for click and translate the word now. Treat every string as a totally new translation from scratch
I will add to store and manipulate string data as Unicode (NVARCHAR in MS SQL).
Some questions to think about…
How match can you afford to delay the shipment of the English version of your application to save a bit of cost internationalize later?
Will you still be trading if you don’t get the cash flow from shipping the English version quickly?
How will you get the UI right, if you don’t get feedback quickly from some customers about it?
How often will you rewrite the UI before you have to internationalize it?
Do you English customers wish to be able to customize strings in the UI, e.g. not everyone calls a “shipping note” the same think.
As a large part of the pain of internationalize is making sure you don’t break the English version, is automated system testing of the UI a better investment?
The only thing I think I will always do is: “Do not use composite strings that are built at run time from concatenated phrases” and if you do so, don’t spread the code that builds up the a single string over lots of methods.
Having your UI automatically resize (and layout) to cope with length of labels etc will save you lots of time over the years if you can do it cheaply. There a lots of 3rd party control sets for Windows Forms that lets you label text boxes etc without having to put the labels on as separate controls.
I just starting to internationalize a WinForms application, we hope to mostly be able to use the “name” of each control as the lookup key, without having to move lots into resource files etc. It is not always as hard as you think at first….
You could use NGettext.Wpf (it can be installed from NuGet, and yes I am the author, but I made it out of the frustrations listed in the other answers).
It is hosted this github repository, and here is the getting started section at the time of writing:
NGettext.Wpf is intended to work with dependency injection. You need to call the following at the entry point of your application:
NGettext.Wpf.CompositionRoot.Compose("ExampleDomainName");
The "ExampleDomainName" string is the domain name. This means that when the current culture is set to "da-DK" translations will be loaded from "Locale\da-DK\LC_MESSAGES\ExampleDomainName.mo" relative to where your WPF app is running (You must include the .mo files in your application and make sure they are copied to the output directory).
Now you can do something like this in XAML:
<Button CommandParameter="en-US"
Command="{StaticResource ChangeCultureCommand}"
Content="{wpf:Gettext English}" />
Which demonstrates two features of this library. The most important is the Gettext markup extension which will make sure the Content is set to the translation of "English" with respect to the current culture, and update it when the current culture is changed. The other feature it demonstrates is the ChangeCultureCommand which changes the current culture to the given culture, in this case "en-US".
I also highly recommend reading Preparing Strings from the gettext utilities manual.
Internationalization will let your product be usable in other countries, it's easy and should be done from the start (this way English speaking people all over the world can use your software), those 3 rules will get you most of the way there:
Support international characters - use only Unicode data types in files and databases.
Support international date, time and number formats - use CultureInfo.InvariantCulture when storing data to file or computer readable storage, use CultureInfo.CurrentCulture when displaying data or parsing user input, never do your own parsing, never use any other culture objects.
textual data entered by the user should be considered a black box, don't try to break it up into words or letters, especially when displaying it to the user - different languages have diffract rules and the OS knows how to display left-to-right text, you don't.
Localization is translating the software into different languages, this is difficult and expensive, a good start is to never hard code strings and never build sentences out of smaller strings.
If you use test data, use non-English (e.g.: Russian, Polish, Norwegian etc) strings.
Encoding peeks it's little ugly head at every corner. If not in your own libraries, then in external ones.
I personally favor Russian because although I don't speak a word Russian (despite my name's origin) it has foreign chars in it and it takes way more space then English and therefor tests your spacing too.
Don't know if that is something language specific, or just because our Russian translator likes verbose strings.