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"Sockratease" wrote:
>
>    OK, so I got my hands on Visual Basic for Free!!
>    As pointed out by others here, it's just not a good
>    idea to even try to make a Fractal Generator with it.

Actually, there have been quite a few fractal rendering programs written over the decades using various forms of Basic compliers and language code.  It is just that there are some people who become a bit snobbish if you do not use a programming language they prefer.

>
>    But I want to try to create something that may be
>    found useful by others.

Then I say go for it !!   
It will be a good learning situation for you, especially if you downloaded the Microsoft Visual Basic .Net 2005 edition.  And if you need any assistance (and I have the available time), I will do what I can to help your endeavor.

>
>    I downloaded Dentaku's Color Maps on his Sourceforge Page (with Endlos!).
>    WOW!    So Many Maps!!!

Actually, it appears that is one of my older collections which has had a folder path added and the Date/Time Stamp modified for each file.  I say this because it only has 1,618 .MAP files within it, making it probably 2 or 3 years old.  The most updated copy may be found at the following location, and it still has the original Date/Time Stamps for when each of the .MAP files were created (some going back two or more decades):
                   http://www.nahee.com/Fractals/FractInt/

This current collection has about 1,742 .MAP files within it.

>
>    It gave me the idea to scrap the clunky Fractaldactyl program
>    and just write a simple little program that would take a folder
>    of ".map" files and display the whole folder as Thumbnails (gradients)!
>    Does this sound like an application that anyone would care about?

I am sure that there would be people that would download it and give it a try.  And there may be some that will use it on a regular basis if you can get it working with a nice interface and make it fast enough to view hundreds of .MAP files.

Give it a try !!   

this can be a quite useful proggy

why not multi platform ?

i use c++ and wxwidgets, as ide you could use code::blocks

http://www.codeblocks.org/
http://wxwidgets.org/downloads/

The load time, and my decades away from programming, are what made me decide that this would make a nifty little stand-alone application!

I am still having ridiculous trouble getting my java crap working right...

I know this computer has serious issues and I may need to "Nuke" it (uninstall and reinstall the operating system)  (ug...)  (I know it's the 'puter because whole sections of my flash -imitator program vanished and are still gone on a clean re-install from the disc...  and I installed it on another 'puter and the program works normally...  so Something got "Intercoursed" in the registry or somewhere..)  (Probably why Endlos wont work properly for me)  (I Like Paranthesis!)

But if you work this feature into Endlos, I would use the program Just For That even if it didn't work for fractals on my system!!

Due to the load time I would suggest having the gradients open in a pop-up window or something to keep it seperate and resizable.  I really like the way many programs let you stretch or shrink the width of the displayed gradient with the window.  (Chaoscope and Chaos Pro do this nicely)

This weekend is my scheduled time to pick a programming language for whatever I choose to do.  It will probably be this viewer.  It has so much room for growth. It could evolve to display other pallette formats too.  Maybe even become an editor in it's old age...

And I am just not able to compete with the Fractal Generators I see being made by folks here...  I just  don't have all the Math ... Yet!

I still have a lot of acronyms to learn!  Everywhere I look nobody writes for those of us who took 25 years off!!  I don't even know what IDE Stands for!!!  Everyone uses it, but nobody defines it!!

Does nobody remember that when writing technical stuffs one should NEVER use an Acronym without First using the entire phrase??

It's Grammatically Incorrect I tells Ya!

Hmmm...

Gotta stop posting during this morning coffee fix!

a number of people, myself included, would really really appreciate a 2d environment editor.

soon after i wrote my article on 2d lighting some years back, someone emailed me about a visual basic implementation he had done. it didn't have so many material features and was quite slow, but what really made it cool to play with was the environment editor. you just place circles (usually as lights), lines and possibly other interesting shapes down in 2d, then hit the render button and it bounces a lot of light around your little lightmaze (tm).

two friends of mine are currently writing such renderers and we're all starved for good scenes to play with!

i'm happy to help out with any programming questions you have; the file format should be a really simple xml-like thing:

<circle>
<centre>0.0 10.0</centre>
<radius>10.0</radius>
<emit>10.0 10.0 10.0</emit>
</circle>

etc.

would you consider it?