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Heyo folks,
Just noting that as per last news post, I've finished setting up the new Raspberry Pi 3. So the website and Lacewing Server 2 are now hosted from Pi 3 Model B, instead of Pi 1 Model B.

Thanks for the support on Patreon! Next project is a huge DebugObject update, which is discussed in more detail on the Patreon site.

Cheers,
-Phi

Heyo folks,
Last week the website and Lacewing Server 2 went down. This wasn't a fault of the hoster; I self-host. Instead, the issue was with my Raspberry Pi. I'm not sure what fault it has, since when I went to plug in a screen to view it, it power cycled and after the restart worked perfectly.
However, I have a new Pi 3 Model B, I brought a while ago. I meant to lend it to a family member who was a budding developer, but he seems to have lost the faith in code.

So, here's the plan:
•  I'm moving my Raspberry Pi 1 Model B setup (which ran this webserver, and Lacewing Server II) to the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B.
•  Server I, my desktop PC, is having issues with some software and most attempts to reinstall require a reboot, so they'll be a lot of rebooting.
•  It was also noted that the rebooting program was a little broken, although it didn't really affect its use but more my convenience.


The servers will be under maintenance for the next week or so. Expect random service downtime and uptime.

Current state of play:
I've set up the OS, files, symlinks, perms, users, remote login, firewall, webserver, local dns server, pylacewing, and autostarting pylacewing.
I've set up the auto-rebooter with the new server's details, and made it behave better when I'm using the computer the auto-rebooter is run on.

Still to do:
Moving PhpMyAdmin and MySQL (or MariaDB now) to new server.
I will of course make sure that outside my LAN, no one can access PhpMyAdmin.

Thanks for the support on Patreon! Next project is a huge DebugObject update, which is discussed in more detail on the site.

Cheers,
-Phi

Heyo folks,
Lacewing Blue Client has hit build 77, lots of bugfixes.

Give it a whirl here (Windows only, for now). Link includes client, downloads, examples, Lacewing public server list, and source code links for the client.

Both server and client are on the CEM, if you use Clickteam Fusion 2.5.

Cheers,
-Phi

Heyo folks,
Lacewing Blue Server, a variant of Lacewing Relay Server, has just been released. And Lacewing Blue Client has hit build 70. So it's advanced rapidly. Due to the number of bugfixes and improvements in the client you should download it immediately.

Give it a whirl here (Windows only, for now). Link includes client, downloads, examples, Lacewing public server list, and source code links for the client.

Both server and client are on the CEM, if you use Clickteam Fusion 2.5.

Blue Server has shown promising statistics even in Fusion. It has handled 250 messages in and 12,250 messages out per second with a framerate of 170fps.

Regretfully, Bluewing HTML5 server and client was cancelled by the sponsor. The current server supports Relay and Blue Clients on all current client platforms (Windows, Flash, Android).

Cheers,
-Phi

Heyo folks,
Lacewing Blue Client, a variant of Lacewing Relay Client, has hit build 60. So basically about ten builds have been released. I'd thought I'd announce here since it's basically tested and complete now.
Give it a whirl here (Windows only, for now). Link includes Lacewing public server list, downloads, examples, and source code links.
In the event the bus factor comes into play Bluewing can continue under another dev.

I've also started work on Bluewing Server, and Bluewing Client for HTML5. As always Lacewing Relay and Lacewing Blue servers/clients are interchangeable; in the future you would be able to get a Lacewing Relay Client Android app to communicate with Lacewing Blue HTML5 Client using Lacewing Blue Server.

When Clickteam Fusion 3 comes out, Lacewing will be ported over. Clickteam is apparently making a new network protocol for Fusion 3 (and good for them too).
But if backwards compatibility is needed, which I highly suspect for a new with-new-bugs tool at the start, then the port is needed – I'll probably be doing that.

Cheers,
-Phi

Heyo folks,
StoryCraft has now hit alpha release. Give it a whirl here (Windows only).

The mailing list is still available below in a previous post, just scroll down. You'll be kept in the loop about new updates and you can mail the development folk. The app has an auto-update feature, so you'll get the new ones anyway.

Note this program is in "keep it simple" design phase. Please note the left sidebars for creating, and the right tabbed sidebar used for showing you currently-existing elements and searching through them. They are dockable windows, much like Visual Studio, or Photoshop, or windows like that - drag the sub-window titles to move them to a different part of the main window.
StoryCraft's save mechanic has been developed in a "save as much data as possible" manner. In the unlikely* event your app crashes or closes unexpectedly, the StoryCraft projects you have open will attempt to save all data they can. All elements you edited and closed will be saved normally; all elements you still had opened will be saved if possible, otherwise discarded.
(*= who are we kidding, it's an alpha build)
As much as possible your project data will automatically saved. This autosave mechanic won't overwrite the original project file, but it'll be placed beside the project file.

If any save fails, the old file will be restored back; in short, even if you use some feature that doesn't save properly, you're still good to go. Feel free to use a habit of saving the full file after every change, though. Can't hurt.

Here's the feature lists:
Current features:
• Attributes - eye colour, height - these can be applied to characters or groups, and you design their limits, what exceptions there are, etc.
• Characters
• Events
• Locations
• Documents - where your actual writing takes place, if you have any!
• Online support - hit F1 and pick a username and get signed onto a chatroom with the developers. If you want to reserve your username, type a password too.

Partly implemented features:
(note these may be disabled due to potential crashing)
• world attribute presets
• Event timings; timelines
• Smart tags in document editor - characters identified from writing style
• Auto-updater
• Custom time measurements - dates, times, timezones, etc
• what if your planet's orbit around the sun is shorter, so calls for a shorter year?
• what if your society has no concept of a year and just works by Month 1 plus?
• what if your society has a word for qualithrice, a three year period?
• Custom distances of length, weight, angles, areas, number of dimensions it occupies? If you're interested in metrology.
• Brainstorming - chuck up all the ideas you think of on a giant corkboard

Future features:
• Shinier UI appearance
• Saving UI arrangement
• Genetics - inheritable attributes, e.g. eye colours and the like
• Multiple planets
• More than one timestream e.g. timelines, parallel universes, alternate dimensions
• Travelling Salesman problem solver?
• Terrain design, including:
• Embedded images, if you've got an artist or an inspiring picture
• Tag any areas you like, select a building you want to design on ground detail.
• Zoom, rotation, etc
• Procedural-content-generated maps: a whole planet's map built from a single number. Oceans form, lands rise, mountains, volcanoes...
• Likewise, procedural cities. Place a city by simply clicking and dragging the boundaries.
Watch streets, buildings, police stations, everything come together; all while in the background some smart code analyses it to ensure the city doesn't lack significant buildings like hospitals, bus stops, museums...
• Want to go further? Design railroads, subways, water and gas pipes? Power lines? It's in there.
• You want a planet which has lava oceans alongside salt water? Acid oceans? Gas fields? All possible.
• You want a generator that can make those oddities with a click? Look no further.
• Building blueprint design, including:
• floors, stairs, elevators, lifts
• Embedded images,
• furniture, items of interest.

You don't want to describe a base then two stories later find you described it differently!

(It should be noted that ferro-omnipotence and architecture, while key to some stories, isn't the focus of StoryCraft. Don't expect a big 3D model system and vast selections of Serious Room tables. Think of this design part as more like a blueprint program.
You can always add pictures and related files if you DO have a more advanced designer program. StoryCraft will embed them in the project and run the 3D modeller at your call.)

Naturally, bug reports can be sent to [email protected]. Please state your build number, and if you can, what's messed up and how you triggered it. If we can't trigger it from what you report to us, our alternative is to inspect roughly 20 thousand lines of code to see if we can figure out the scenario that makes it occur, and that'll be... rather slow.

Enjoy creating your world!

Cheers,
-Phi

Heyo folks,
Sorry about the server dropouts over the last weekend. I was doing a hardware upgrade on my main server (Darkwire Server I), and the motherboard exploded.
Not literally, unlike my last PC, but it had to be replaced.

Everything's back up and running now. Enjoy your free service of Lacewing servers, a Multimedia Fusion 2.0 and Clickteam Fusion 2.5 extension list, and the rest of this website.

Cheers,
-Phi

Heyo folks,
Since I'm doing development on a Lacewing Client, Darkwire Server I, which is the one running on port 6121, will be inconsistently online, as during development of the new client, it will need to be taken offline.

Cheers,
-Phi

Heyo folks,
Just a note that I'm currently developing Bluewing, aka Lacewing Blue Client, for the HTML5 runtime. The server code will have to be changed significantly as well, but that will bring the platforms Lacewing supports to Windows, Flash, Android, and HTML5.

Cheers-o,
-Phi

Heyo folks,
You know how the RJ45 network cables have the clips break off? Meaning they can be unplugged by a passing nudge?
The Pi has a wire where both ends had missing clips. About a week or so ago, I recently did a re-crimp of the network cable near my Pi/webserver, but unfortunately, I did it badly and two of the cables were powered by each other.

This lead to connection dropouts - I couldn't update the site via file transfers due to connection drops but oddly enough, the HTTP worked fine.

Anyway, I've re-crimped it and confirmed that it's wired up fine now. File transfers are back to normal and Lacewing should be working fine as well. I rebooted the server to ensure everything's fresh.
The Raspberry Pi lacewing server is pylacewing, the port 6122 server that doesn't support Flash. My desktop Windows PC is normally wired up to the same place, but I switched it to WiFi. It's one of those fancy high-powered wifi so it seemed to work fine. Might switch it back later.

The project for designing stories is coming along fine. Currently I'm working on the event display; it's designed so the date/times things happen can be questionable and moved around, or fixed in place. That way, if you know a scene happens after another, you can set it like that, without manually having to change all the events later. The system will show you all the possible date ranges.
You can thus use it for fanfics as well... sometimes the authors give leeway about when something happened, and maybe you want to add a custom scene in - you can find out if it's possible to stick with the canon timeline.

It's a bit of a brain-squasher to go through, though. The finished product will support crazy stories like those with five genders, time-travel, cloning, body snatching, impersonating, universe hopping... it's pretty wild. I'm of course prioritising features by how often they'll be used, and it looks like I'll have a alpha out before August.

As always, suggestions and questions about functionality of the product can be sent to [email protected].

Catcha later, folks.
-Phi

So the server's been drifting recently...

Unfortunately my host let themselves be hacked. And then 'forgot' to notify about it. And then after that, their backups failed. Then after that, they suspended my account as the mail server had been compromised as well.

I've since switched hosters - I'm now hosting this website directly from home. On the Raspberry Pi, if you believe it! All this website's duties are either handled by my development machine, or by the Raspberry Pi, which is powered by a USB on my dev machine.

An Intel i7 8-core 3.4GHz/32GB RAM vs a beasty 700MHz processor/0.5GB RAM. Hmm.

The Darkwire website is also being maintained by CloudFlare, so it should never go offline, and it supports HTTPS as well.

I'm still hosting two Lacewing servers:
• Windows Lacewing Server, build #20. Port 6121.
• Linux & Python pylacewing server. Port 6122.
Flash support goes to the Windoze server; it can only go to one, as there's a fixed port for it (port 843), so I can only forward to one machine on the network.
As always, Lacewing/Bluewing details can be seen here.

I occasionally restart the Windows server program when I note no-one's using it, on the off chance there's bugs turning up. No one's reported any yet, though.
Both servers are wired up to the UPS I have, but unfortunately the router for the house is a good 20 metres away, so it's not. They'll last ~30 minutes without any power.

Next item of business:
I'm creating a project, upon request, that's designed for managing story worlds.
Essentially, you want to write a game, a book, or even a fanfic - you use this program to keep track of all the events, make sure two people from different backgrounds can produce a Water Affinity baby, ensure people aren't in multiple places at once, etc. It's very flexible, and very generic, so you can use it for pretty much anything.
I'm designing it for a woman who has 17,000 characters in a family tree format, scattered through a couple hundred stories.
I'm also a writer, so I know what I want! My most recent work is actually longer than Macbeth, and that's not including the author's notes.

Interested? Sign up for news below:

Obviously this mailing list will be kept secure and not be used for anything spammy, and it will not be shared with third-parties. Or second-parties, for that matter...

Catcha later, folkses.
-Phi

Alright!
I received a Raspberry Pi and figured I'd start pylacewing on it. It shows up as Server 1 in the web address, but the port goes to a different machine on the network. Obviously if the location for server 1 gets a power cut, and the UPS kicks the bucket, both servers go down. Although a Pi doesn't use much power.

Ideas for the future:
• Get liblacewing's latest bugfixes integrated into Bluewing. Currently, Lacewing Relay Object is using v0.3.0 of liblacewing, and Bluewing is using v0.4.3, fairly close to the current liblacewing version.
• Produce Bluewing as fully reliable and totally bug-free (despite no one having reported bugs, I did come across a couple of them during global-object testing).
• Bluewing server editions!
• Bluewing for Android and iOS. Funding is needed here, though - I don't have a Mac or an Android phone to test this on, and iOS development costs $100 per year or something daft. "Pay me to develop apps for me" was not a policy I found logical.
• Darknet is still being developed, but just the raw protocol, no specific application. So DCB1 and DSB1 may become a memory.
• Website updates. I'm scrapping some pages that are rather pointless and may be moving to a single-page layout - not sure about this News section. I'm not updating it enough, mostly due to how busy I am. Sadly enough, given the opportunity to work vs tell people I'm working, I choose the former. And I have a shedload of hobbies and projects (and siblings for that matter).

That should be all. Looking forward to updating the website. It'll probably get more minimal than it is now, if that's even possible.

See ya folks later.
-Phi

P.S.: A huge new project is underway. Suffice it to say she's eaten up a lot of my time. The project involves Darknet significantly, but I'm rethinking that network design - it's too complex to get any traction.

Rest assured, loyal Darkwire fans. We haven't been neglecting our work during the long delay. What was the last post, March 2012? Geez.
The main developer has been undergoing training to learn new coding languages and acquired funding for the Darkwire projects. Work had to stall on Operation Casrit due to a bug making the code un-modifiable (due to the coding environment, not due to our error), but we found a backup knocking about which we're now working back to the newer state.
With the extra experience and new languages, Dark3D development is highly probable and maybe, in the future, Operation Casrit will be 3D. The main developer is focused on this project as well as the funding, and the funded third-party projects also contribute to Operation Casrit directly, as the code being worked on is the same in both.
We're looking forward to the next year - coding aplenty and gaming will improve for all!
- Phi

First pre-release of DCB1 is now available! We've incorporated as much optimisation as possible even in this early release, and tested it successfully with the server. No more than 7 bits is wasted per message.
This client has a fixed server address, server.dark-wire.com, which will be running a DSB1 server (with commands).
The server has also been upgraded to version 1.0.0.5.
Demand for these products is already increasing, and we need your votes for the next operating systems to produce for! Send an email to [email protected] with your OS preferences. Don't make it an essay, if at all possible.
- Phi

Here's a simple extension for debugging a MMF2 application:
DebugObject

Meanwhile, work on Darknet is continuing, mainly into the Windows XP 32-bit version of DCB1 node (File Client). We're focusing on successful transfers between server and client before the release of the client, then client-to-client transfers.
Hosting of files is working as expected.

Here's the pre-release, folks, ready to test. I spent today designing a Darknet page. It's not going to be extremely sophisticated, but appreciate it took a while.
Here's the portal:
http://darknet.dark-wire.com/.
Browse through the page. If you have Windows XP 32-bit, you can test the pre-release by selecting DSB nodes, then clicking DSB1 link at the bottom of that entry.
Development into a file client will be occuring soon. This current pre-release does not have decentralisation programmed and requires a call to dark-wire.com to verify the version.
Feel free to test. If you are interested in the project, we still have room for testers and suggestions: drop a line to [email protected].

- Phi

Hey folks,
We're happy to report Windows XP 32-bit Darknet File Server is being tested and soon will be ready for alpha testing. The protocol is in an unoptimised state at the moment, but is still very minimal.
Looks like Darknet will be ready for SOPA.
Unfortunately due to liblacewing 0.3.0's new beta IPv6 support, the program is encountering issues with the main tester's computer, so testing is proceeding slower than normal until that is rectified.
Other Windows versions will be coming out soon, and once the file server is under alpha testing, a file client will be released matching the platforms, so you have something to check the routines with other than any crash reports. We're using Code Analysis (Visual Studio 2010+) with all rule sets, so any security risks/buffer overruns/referencing null pointer possibility is nearly zero.
If anyone is interested in being a part of the testing, remember Darknet is for all operating systems and platforms, so drop a line to [email protected] with your name and the operating systems you have available. We'd prefer to use secure remote access software to improve the speed of testing, so please tell us if that is an option.

- Phi

Darknet Project has been created following two weeks of holiday by SortaCore. Apparently he had nothing better to do than to sit on a Welsh beach, lazing in the sun, tapping busily on his BlackBerry about this project.
So here it is: 6 server types and 5 client types, all designed to create a mainly artificial-intelligence-based network, based on 3 main principles. The following text is a quote from the official Darknet Principles document:

Darknet is a decentralised, mainly artificial intelligence based, neural network. Tasks may be shared among the whole network. Communications must be as fast as programmatically possible, using whatever programming language is the fastest and most suitable for the platform. Any disadvantages must be amended for utilising proxy clients (aliases) or proxy servers. For example, Adobe Flash Player does not support use of the rUDP and UDP communications. Therefore, a proxy may be used that will receive all rUDP or UDP communication and forward it to the Adobe Flash Player client as TCP. Clients will NOT make allowances for other clients' platforms. However, this is not a limitation to the disadvantaged platforms; rather, it is removing the slowdown that would be definitely given to the advantaged platforms; that which retains compatibility with all platforms requires more code and therefore increases the amount of processing needed to the adequate platforms.
Darknet has 3 principles, in order of importance:
1) Speed
2) Anonymity - implies Security
3) Decentralisation

And so you can gather from that quote that 'Speed' is the most important principle in Darknet. Secondly is Anonymity, which means you can get your data securely (hence implying Security), and finally you have Decentralisation, which means the network cannot be taken down once it's been fully fledged.
Darknet is a term which you can find on Wikipedia to be:

A darknet refers to any closed, private group of people communicating; however, since 2002, the term has evolved to more specifically refer to file sharing networks in general, whether that network is private or readily accessible to the public. The phrase "the darknet" is used to refer collectively to all covert communication networks.

The Darknet Project has file sharing as one of it's main goals, simply because that's the easiest way to measure speed of transfers: sending large amounts of data, which files are. Chat messages are quite a lot smaller by comparision.

However, this news post is becoming rather long, so I will finish it off for ye with a short description of the 6 servers and 5 clients.

SERVERS:
• Proxy server
Forwards communications.
• File server
Manages file transfers.
• Centre server
Holds lists of servers.
• Stream server
Manages data streams.
• Location server
Locates services-files.
• Storage server
Stores files in multiple file servers.

CLIENTS:
• File client
Basic client - allows file transfers.
• Proxy client
Forwards communications.
• Location client
Queries location servers.
• Stream client
Manages data streams.
• Main client
Acts as file & stream & location client.


Pre-Alpha releases will be coming soon!

As some people know, Darkwire has been developing an engine for 3D development in Multimedia Fusion 2. Currently, it supports moving around, collisions, and fall damage.

And of course it's multiplayer using the Lacewing protocol!
Development is continuing, but you can test the pre-alpha here.
Enjoy!

Darkwire Software has been hiding this site for a while, doing some fancy coding before we decide to release.
And now, it's the special day to mark the release of the website!

Feel free to browse around!