How to compile 64bit version of boost and Qt for windows

I recently start building 64bit version of an application I've been working on for windows 7 64bit.
The first stone I hit was that all the third-party librares the application references need to be recompiled under 64bit mode. It took me some time to figure that out, and I wish sharing this info may save some troubled minds.

boost
> cd boost_1_41_0
> bootstrap
> bjam toolset=msvc-9.0 variant=debug,release architecture=x86 address-model=64

Qt
> C:\Programe Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\vcvars32all.bat amd64
> cd \Qt\4.6.0_amd64
> configure
> nmake

Still working on the compilation of 64 bit ffmpeg, mingw is really giving me headache.

iPhone AppStore Secrets - Pinch Media

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iPhone AppStore Secrets - Pinch Media

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Google Shutting Down Notebook Development

The news of google shutting down the development of google notebook saddened me, like it did to millions to other people. Although they say shutting down development is not the same as shutting down the service, I say it is a hint to move on and forget about it.

Bearing its humble and limited in features, I never gave up using google notebook for its ubiquitousness, hoping google would make it a even greater product some day. Now that the hope is gone, I have no choice but to look for alternatives.

There are two possible choices right now, zoho notebook and evernote. After analyzing pros and cons, I decided to switch to evernote, which provides desktop clients as well as a web interfaces. It turned out that they've built an iPhone client.

After half a day's work, all notes have been transferred to evernote. Moving on, and never look back.

An alternative way of using sio2 iPhone SDK

First we must thank the author of sio2 iPhone sdk, who have done a great deal of work to make our life easier. And better yet, it's free. If you are looking for a free iPhone game sdk, please find out more details on http://www.sio2interactive.com. Anyway, if you've reached this blog post, you probably already know of this sdk.

Now, we talk about the issues. It is very powerful and all that, the big issue I have is that the way of using the SDK is pretty primitive. I need to customize based on the template project, which i don't like because it take time to renamed the stuff.
Now if I don't want to follow that approach, I basically have to include all the source files in my project and compile very thing. That is not too bad, until I had to do clean-build frequently. A clean-build (clean first and then build) takes almost a minute on my 20 inch iMac, which is very counter productive.

My solution to this is to create a Cocoa Static Library project out of the sdk source, and reference that static library in my own game project.
Here is a step-by-step guide on how to do so:

1. Create a Cocoa Static Library project in Xcode. Xcode -> File -> New Project -> Static Library -> Cocoa Static Library, named sio2.
   
2. Download sio2 sdk, extract it. In the folder SIO2_SDK_v1.3.1, locate 'src' folder.
3. In Finder, copy that src (or move if you wish) into the project folder 'sio2'
4. In Xcode, add the 'src' folder to the newly created project. To do so:
1. Ctrl click on the project root, Add -> Existing Files -> Select the 'src' folder (note that this is the one in the sio2 folder)
2. In the confirmation dialog, make sure 'copy items to destination folder' is UNCHECKED
   
5. If you try to compile now, you get a few thousand errors, there are a few things you need to do in order make it compile
1. In Xcode, delete a file named 'sio2_wrap.c' from the 'lua' group. Since I don't know whether this file is going to be useful in the future or not, just choose 'Delete References' when Xcode asks.
2. Now, select the sio2 group, you will see a bunch of files named like 'sio2_xxxxx.h' or 'sio2_xxxxx.cc'. You need to select all of them (except README.txt) in the top-right view, hit the Get Info icon in the tool bar. In the General tab, change the file type to 'sourcecode.cpp.objcpp'.
3. In Other Resources, open sio2_Prefix.pch. Replace '#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>' with '#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>'
6. Now build. You get no error but a tiny warning. I assume that is not critical.
7. Change the configurations, make sure you build for all the following 4 combinations. (if you are targeting 2.1, change version number from 2.0 to 2.1 accordingly).
   
1. Device - 2.0 | Debug
2. Device - 2.0 | Release
3. Simulator - 2.0 | Debug
4. Simulator - 2.0 | Release
8. In Xcode, open your own game project
9. Ctrl click on game project root, Add -> Existing Files, choose the sio2.xcodeproj we've just created. In the confirmation dialog, make sure 'copy items to destination folder' is UNCHECKED
10. Once added, you will see a file name 'libsio2.a' under sio2.xcodeproj. Drag that file to Targets -> game_name -> Link Binary With Binaries.
1. Remember we have built 4 version of the static library?
2. Xcode is smart enough to know which one to link to, when you change the configuration in your own game project.
   
11. Now you need to include a single header file 'sio2.h'. You can locate the header file by either add header search path to your project configuration, OR you may just place the sio2 project folder in parallel with your game folder and use a relative path like this: #import "../../sio2/src/sio2/sio2.h"
    
12. You are now good to go. Enjoy the power of sio2 sdk.

If anybody have trouble following the guide, just leave comments below. I will send out copies of the static lib project files

So what do you gain from this approach?

• Faster building time
• Cleaner project structure
• Reusability, use the same static library for multiple game projects is not an issue at all.
  
• You don't have to build a project from the 'tempate' project, which is kinda old-school. You get to name your project properly.
• If the sdk is updated, just replace the 'src' folder in your sio2 static libary project. And then build for the 4 configurations. You don't have to do anything to all your game projects referencing this static library (except for compatabilty check of couse).

---------- Update (15 Jan 2009) ------------
Make sue you select 'Cocoa Static Library' while creating the sio2 project. If 'Cocoa Dynamic Library' is choosen instead, you will get over 2000 compilation errors. That's because we have not link all the frameworks yet. I don't see the point of using a dynamic library yet, so stick to the static way. cheers!



---------- Update (18 Jan 2009) ------------
There are some concerns from sio2 forum about the loss of debug symbols. The answer is debug symbols are not lost.

You will still be able to step into all the sio2 functions and view the value of primitives and structure without any issue. This works for both simulator and device, as long as build config of your game project is set to Debug. Because by doing that, Xcode links the Debug sio2 static library which contains all the necessary debug symbols.

With all that said, it WILL be a bit troublesome if you need to actually modify sio2 static library itself (because you need to open up the sio2 static library project, do some modification and build for all 4 configs).

So i'd say that this way is better for game developers who are using sio2 sdk, but definitely not for sio2 developers.


---------- Update (23 Jan 2009) ------------
For developers who wish to frequently update the sio2 SDK to suit their needs. Remove the group "sio2" (the directly contains all the files start with 'sio2_') from the static lib project, and added it into your game project. Of course the file type must be changed to sourcecode.cpp.objcpp, before everything compiles.

The Birth of My First iPhone Game

Alio the Woodcutter has just hit the App Store with a price tag of US$2.99, after 4 months of hard work with two friends with amazing skills. We all have jobs to live on, night and weekends are all we've got to work on the game. The mere fact that the game have made its way to App Store is a huge achievement to us. Congratulations to all the three of us.
I hope some will find this game entertaining.

App Store, Android Market and "Zune Phone Application Shopping Mall"

A few months after Apple's App Store's huge success, Google has decided (or planned long ago) to open their Android Market for their mobile platform Android. The site did indeed excites for a while. As a developer, I can't help thinking about the possibility of developing for Android, now that all the essential resources are ready, an SDK, a real phone and the place to sell applications.

Microsoft has been lagging behind on this matter, which they are not ashamed of. However, they definately would like to take a bite from this giant pie. Rumor has been out saying that there will be some sort of Zune based phone, or Windows Mobile based Zune to be unveiled in the near future; and of couse the App Store concept will be copied (re-innovated, in MS term) too! As Microsoft has their fame of naming their product very creatively, I hereby predit that the name is possibly "Zune Phone Application Shopping Mall", beating Apple and Google at least by the length of store name.

User Interface Design

One has to admit the feature set of MS Office is the richest among all competitors in this area. Outlook I would say is the mother ship of all email clients. With that said, a rich feature set does not necessarily imply a good user interface. With outlook, it seems that its feature set has bloat the UI so badly that 90% of the features are out of reach for mortal beings.

The Oh-so-customizable email client gives you such a great amount of freedom for customization, that the options spread into dozens of menu items, 6 major tab in the option dialog, a few sections in each tab, and a few buttons/controls in each section, some of which lead all the way to a forth dialog. Experiments show that it takes 10 clicks at minimum and a lot of eye balls to be able to change the alert message duration (See screen shot below.) 6 clicks are to bring you up to the final config dialog, FOUR clicks on the 'OK' buttons to bring you back to main windows.

What a brilliant idea! Thumbs down for Outlook user interface designer, if there is one.