Author: JAMcNaughton

Cascading Feature Branches

As part of our work at Leighton we are always striving to find the best practices to follow as part of our software development process. Often, this involves creating or formalising a new process. This post details the formalisation of a process we have used in our source control strategy which allows for large sets of changes to undergo small, exclusive peer reviews without posing a threat to the trunk branch. Continue reading →

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SynergyMesh

Despite the multi-touch framework SynergyNet still being useful, it is starting to show its age. Its now time for a new framework to take its place which offers the same functionality but uses modern technologies. SynergyMesh is the spiritual successor to the SynergyNet framework. It offers most of the distinguishing features of SynergyNet, such as its multi-touch gesture support and advanced networking, as part of a web-based platform. This allows the framework to be used on a much wider range of devices without any complicated set-up.

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Resolving display shape dependence issues on tabletops

As part of my on-going efforts to publish some of my older research I have gotten round to producing a paper on my work to produce a simple dynamic method to adapt content to different tabletop display shapes. The paper details how the technique work, specifically how it resolves the initial issues encountered fitting the content to a new display shape then how it attempts to make the most of the new display. Also detailed in the paper is a study assessing how the technique performs with some tabletop apps and a discussion on where the technique could be useful in the future.

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Determining the Position of an Interface through Minimal User Input

I’ve recently taken the time to get a paper published on a technique I started development on as part of my final year undergraduate studies several years ago. The technique uses a small number of user inputs on a touch-screen which relate to the known position of landmarks in an environment to determine the position of an interface. The publication details a study investigating how big of an impact user’s accuracy has on the technique.

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SynergyNet Across the Divide

Earlier this year I was involved in supporting a study which investigated how technology could support collaboration between primary-school aged students in separate classrooms. As part of this study the SynergyNet software framework was used. This is the first time SynergyNet had been used in a study spanning multiple sites and required a few tweaks to get working.  

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Stop xscreensaver Interrupting Full Screen Videos on Multiple Monitors

Previously I posted a script for use on Linux systems which stops xscreensaver from kicking in when a full-screen window has focus. While useful for some setups this script isn’t well suited to multiple monitor configurations where the likelihood of a full-screen window not having focus is greater.  This post details a script which remedies this problem.

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