Haddington was tied with Perth for being the happiest place to live in Scotland. I don't disagree, Haddington is a lovely place, and as someone who has lived in this area all my life and spent much of my youth in Haddington, I totally agree.
In the UK, Berwick-upon-Tweed was voted number one. Again, I don't disagree. I visit Berwick-Upon-Tweed once every few months because I love the town (and because it's such a nice drive to it). Other prominent places are York (which I love and visit once a year), Durham and Exeter.
Consistent DragonDocs auto-marking is finally here. And it's brilliant, even if I may so myself.
In late 2023, I added auto-marking, but it was on an assessment-by-assessment basis. So, it wouldn't be consistent and would vary slightly for each person.
The latest version I've built today now works consistently, but requires the teacher or administrator to tell the system to mark all of them simultaneously.
I'm seeking to create a free online system for creating your own DragonDocs in the next few months, and auto-marking would be part of this, too.
Ten years ago today, in May 2015, I rebuilt ZPE from the ground up, developing a parser that still powers it today. That parser, the Zenith Parsing Engine, completely changed ZPE and made it possible to create large programs that didn't experience slowdown. It also allowed me to develop more complex constructs and statements and build in backtracking, a once fundamental step in ZPE as a program.
It was also the day I introduced the YASS language (known back then as Zenlang).
ZPE 1.3 was the foundation of what ZPE is today. It completely changed ZPE. It's incredible to think how far it's come, and it's also amazing to believe that it's been a project for ten years!
I also intentionally timed it so that the next version of ZPE would be released today. So, ZPE 1.13.7 was also released today. This is an anniversary edition since it marks the ten-year anniversary.
You may also notice that I pushed a few more versions this year to try and get to 13.7 for this release, and that's because my birthday is 13-7-1991, so I wanted that to coincide with this release.
After 3,500 builds, the latest release of jbTAR, version 1.1.2, will be available on 1 May 2025. This version fixes a few bugs and improves compliance with the ACID properties of databases. It's also powered by a slightly more up-to-date version of ZPE.
jbTAR will not follow the release cycle that ZPE has followed for the past five or six years and will be released much more casually.
I am really excited for the launch of the next version.
Version 1.1.1 is a fully featured release, packed with powerful tools designed to make generating reports easier, faster, and more flexible than ever before.
jbTAR is perfect for anyone who needs to build professional reports using spreadsheet-style input. It provides:
- Fast Report Generation: Quickly create high-quality reports from table data.
- Highly Customisable Columns: Supports plain text, dropdown lists, and mapped values to make data entry easy and standardised.
- Flexible Output: Generate complete, personalised Word documents based on your data with automatic placeholder replacement.
- Easy-to-Use Interface: Simple spreadsheet-style editing with the ability to easily add, remove, and modify rows and columns.
- Smart Templates: Design your own Microsoft Word templates with simple placeholders — no technical knowledge required!
- Quick Actions Panel: Add or remove rows instantly and jump straight into a live preview of your report.
- Cross-Platform Support: Built with Java, jbTAR runs seamlessly on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Coming soon with version 2:
• Dark Mode: Work comfortably in dark environments with full dark mode support.
• Auto-Saving and Backup: Protect your work with built-in auto-save options and file backup prompts.
• Customisable Settings: Tweak fonts, colours, and more to suit your working style.
• Advanced Filtering: Filter multiple rows and columns to find and edit your data more easily.
Whether you’re building school reports, business summaries, client feedback forms, or anything else, jbTAR makes the process effortless.
Download version 1.1.1 today and start building better reports with less hassle!
Today is YouTube's birthday, and I remember watching the first video on YouTube ever! I remember going to my next-door neighbour's house and watching YouTube as it was a new service that they'd found out about prior to its launch. Before YouTube we all used to watch Stupid Videos (.com) and Weeble's Stuff.
What a wonderful memory that is!
After a week from hell, I have been working extremely hard to bring the next generation of my Java UI, known as JBUI (soon to be a part of BalfLaf) My new design language is all about lovely, sharp, and pointed edges, with very few inner borders and a clean look.
This all starts with my new BorderedRoot—the core of the interface. This defines the simple borders, removes the existing chrome, and lays out the shape. It also adds back resizing features.
Next, it's all about the header or titlebar. The title bar is simple and is designed to work with macOS and Windows, switching automatically. It also adds dragging and moving features as well as minimising. It adds handlers for the cross or maximise button being pressed. Unlike other programs such as Microsoft Word, my layout's central heading (the title) should never change. In my JBUI, the glowing text on the left should be the name of the activity taking place (or file name). Finally, the titlebar adds a layout zone on the right-hand side that users can use to add buttons for quick-access activities.
Finally, to complete the whole package, there is a simple footer. Currently, the footer doesn't do much, but I'm looking to expand it.
JBUI is free to download, and you can get it from my website.
jbTAR or JB Tracking and Reporting is my latest project. I needed a new project to work on, so I thought, why not dabble in reporting? Since Tuesday, I have developed a fully working Java-based reporting system that makes generating reports so fluid and seamless. I'm still working on it right now.
The latest project already has a new webpage on my website. As a result of adding all the new projects to my website, I've had to increase the size of my 'Projects' menu item and update BalfBar to accommodate this.
This week has been very tough on my mental health after feeling bullied by a doctor and feeling depressed as a result of it. I've needed something to take my mind off the whole situation.
Visit the jbTAR webpage to learn more about what it is.
I will launch modules for the YASS language in a very near future release. These modules will further compartmentalise the YASS language and add to its object-oriented paradigm.
Modules are the parents of structures, objects, and functions. Their primary purpose is to use static methods, like the library system currently does, but in a far more flexible manner. This will involve many underlying changes to the systems of the ZPE Programming Environment core. It's currently planned for a July release.
Dysphasia is a language disorder that comes from a variety of different sources, one of which is damage to the brain. As you'll know if you read my blog, I had cancer back when I was around 17/18 in my brain, which wreaked havoc across my entire body, ranging from the bottom of my spine to my frontal lobe and pituitary gland. The result for me was, of course, issues with the hormones in my body, damage to my nervous system and, of course, learning difficulties (at least for a while). My dysphasia came from a misdiagnosis (it was more my doctor messed things up by not looking at a second MRI, which showed there was nothing there, before choosing to do surgery) that led to part of me being seriously damaged for no reason.
One learning difficulty that comes and goes for me is dysphasia. When I say it comes and goes, I believe it's always there; it just worsens occasionally. It's gotten worse over the past 10 years, and a lot of the damage done was from radiotherapy more than anything else. It's been really bad this last two weeks mainly due to stress and anxiety.
Dysphasia is not just a disorder that affects speech; it also affects comprehension and understanding of what people mean. For example, sometimes I know what a word means and then, occasionally, when I see the same word and cannot understand it.
It leads to extreme frustration with myself, particularly what happened to me, and I feel useless. I feel people sometimes look at me and think I'm stupid or something, yet I know when I'm having a day where I'm in control of this, I can talk. You see, I'm typing this up without anyone else's help, so right now, you can see that right now I am not feeling the effects of dysphasia. Sadly, I have, in the past, considered committing suicide because this gets to me more than anything else in the world.
People aren't really aware of how difficult it can be to have dysphasia and don't think it's a real problem. Over the last few years, I have found it incredibly challenging, particularly when doing job interviews and public speaking (I usually blame stress for this as I don't want to come across as 'stupid').
