@tyleruploads

I just added an all-new Help bar to MDEZ++, a lightweight Markdown editor written in C++ with the Qt framework. In the Help bar, the following sections are present:

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• About MDEZ++: Shows an about page for MDEZ++
• MDEZ++ License: Shows the full MDEZ++ MIT license
• Markdown Cheat Sheet: Shows the user a Markdown guide I made
• Keyboard Combinations: Shows the user keyboard combinations they can use in the app
• Report Issue: Opens a link for the user to open a GitHub Issue
• Check for Updates: Brings the user to the most recent GitHub Release

I just added complete file opening and saving capabilities to MDEZ++! This actually wasn’t that hard of an addition, but it now turns MDEZ++ into a true Markdown editor (if you forget it doesn’t have a logo other than the automatically generated W logo by Qt).

I just made the GitHub Actions workflow for MDEZ++! The workflow does 3 things that seem very simple. Here they are:
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• Make the Linux binary
• Make the Windows binary
• Publish to GitHub releases
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  It seems easy, right? While it really is NOT! I encountered so many numerous errors doing this! That is because what I am doing sits right at the intersection of many different extremely hard things to do, whether it be caused by the extremely large size of the Qt system, dynamic-linking that is unacceptable for users without Qt, and so many more things.

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The complexity of debugging this was further exacerbated by one mistake I kept making. I was amending to commits instead of making new ones during the most intense phase of debugging, and I was unaware that amending to commits does NOT update the code for GitHub Actions!

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My actions workflow is literally 105 lines long! 105 is not a mistype and is truly the length of the workflow. You can check it out here.

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I have like 50 tabs open of the Qt Documentation and am planning some exciting additions to the project!

This is my first devlog for MDEZ++! MDEZ++ is a lightweight Markdown editor written in C++, while using the Qt Graphical Framework.
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This project has already thrown me right back into C++ again, like I was some time ago. Some features I plan to add in the future include saving to and opening files, GitHub GFM Markdown support (right now it is slightly more basic in terms of styling), and much more.

This marks v1.0.0! This is my FINAL devlog for CodeWare (at least the first ship)! It has really been a great project that has significantly pushed what I think about my development capabilities. But I will explain that more in the ship message!

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The main change made over the time of this devlog was a complete revamp of the README! Here is a summary of the changes made to it:

• The following shields have been added: Play on GitHub Pages, Made with Godot, GitHub Release (version number), and GitHub Commit Activity
• The hero image near the top of the README, depicting the title screen, has been replaced with a gameplay video for the game, with a hero of minigame 6 (Unintelligent Arrows)
• The minigames section has been moved to near the bottom of the README to make the start of the README a better hook. And the minigame descriptions and hero images inside the section have been put inside a spoiler notice, so the game can not be easily spoiled for players. And the hero images in the minigame section have been converted from Markdown tags to HTML tags in order to enforce a specific width.

This will be one of my very last devlogs before I ship CodeWare! I just created the gameplay trailer, which is a huge accomplishment!
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This is my first time making any sort of video for anything I make in the computer world, and I think it actually turned out very well!
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The video shows potential players what the game will look like and gives a glimpse of its unexpected win-and-lose endings. I also put the video on the game’s Itch.io page, which will be made public very soon.
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You can view the video on YouTube here: CodeWare - Official Gameplay Video

I just created the twelfth mingame of CodeWare, “Catch the Falling Orbs!” In it, you have 45 seconds to catch 35 falling orbs by moving left and right with your keyboard.

In the Newspaper department at my summer sleepaway camp this year, they always said, “If the number is less than 11, spell it out.” CodeWare has officially surpassed this guideline in the number of its minigames.
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Minigame 11 of CodeWare is titled “Type the Strings,” and players must type 15 five-character strings provided to them in less than one minute. The string is generated from a pool of characters with lookalikes (i.e., Z and 2, S and 5, O and 0, I and l, etc.) removed to ensure it is completely fair for the user.
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This was definitely one of the easier minigames to code, but it wasn’t the easiest thing ever. I still ran into some issues, like the vertical alignment of a RichTextLabel being a bit too low when dynamically updating its content in GDScript to show a custom notice to the user (I fixed it by changing it to a normal Label, after troubleshooting for way too long).

I just did a lot of asset updating and linting!
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The part I think would be most interesting to you is obviously the asset updates. I changed the assets in Minigame 1, 3, 4, and 9! I also updated the gallery, accessible in the extras menu, to include new assets I’ve forgotten to put in there for a while now. I’ll just show you how minigame one looks now; no need for a detailed explanation of everything.
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Now, I have to address the boring part, which took most of the three and a half hours. That would be linting! It’s pretty self-explanatory: I went through and made the scenes and scripts adhere to style guidelines.

I just made the tenth minigame for CodeWare! It is named “RGB Skills.” In the minigame, there are two colors: one generated automatically by the code, and one controlled by manual RGB Sliders.
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It validates the user’s guess using the GDScript method Vector3.distance_to(). The method uses the 3D Pythagorean theorem to calculate the Euclidean Distance between the RGB values, as if they were plotted in a 3D space. This works because the red value represents the x-axis, the green value represents the y-axis, and the blue value represents the z-axis on a 3D graph. This was very interesting for me to discover, since I only learned the 2D Pythagorean theorem last year (in seventh grade).
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The game also starts the sliders at the furthest possible points from the target color, which makes the minigame harder. If the player clicks the submit button without making any changes, they will not pass. And yes, I know they could easily invert the colors to find the right one. The only thing is, they probably didn’t read this devlog. So, they’ll have no clue of the fact the sliders were placed at the inversion of the target color.

I just made the ninth minigame for CodeWare, “The Maze!” In the minigame, the user needs to get to the center of the maze in less than 18 seconds! They move a mini tyleruploads texture with arrow keys and WASD to eventually get to the bigger one in the middle!
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I had a lot of trouble with physics here, hence the 2 hours! And, I’ve never made any sort of maze before, so this is a first!

I just made version v0.14.0 of CodeWare! In this version, I added the eighth minigame, “Choose the Boxes!” The user has 30 seconds to choose 20 boxes by clicking on the one matching the color of the center box.

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I also went through and removed unnecessary log statements and unused variables.

I just released version v0.13.0 of CodeWare! In this version, I have completely changed the sound environment of the game! I will explain it with two basic pseudocode (or Python) logic statements!

prev_sound = sound in v0.12.0
curr_sound = sound in v0.13.0

print(prev_sound, curr_sound)  # False, True

What I’m trying to illustrate here is that there was absolutely no sound before, and now there is! There is a background ticking noise playing (forever) through an autoload and sound effects corresponding to in-minigame events.
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Feel free to test it at https://tyleruploads.itch.io/codeware?secret=CDZUB2MTxYCmNQ70VRagItDLSTg! Send any feedback in the comments!

I just made two new assets for CodeWare! They are the players in minigames 4 and 6. Here is a photo of one of them.

After receiving feedback from the Hack Club community, I have made these changes to CodeWare.

• The icon has been updated to increase contrast and to look better at small resolutions
• Minigame 6, “Unintelligent Arrows,” has been balanced to be easier for users to complete
• WASD Movement has been added to all games
• Support for held jumps has been added to the first minigame, “Orb Collection Platformer”
• An ambiguity in the README about the objective has been corrected

I just balanced minigame 6, “Unintelligent Arrows,” after feedback from Hack Club members. I made users have more time to react before getting hit by the arrows. I have not released this update yet; once I apply some other suggestions from the community, I will release it as v0.11.0.

I just created the sixth minigame, “Unintelligent Arrows,” in CodeWare! In the minigame, users have to dodge countless arrows that are described as unintelligent purely based on their inability to change paths once shot. If you weren’t already guessing, I am planning on making an intelligent-arrow-themed minigame in the future, possibly inspired by 1948 in some ways.
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This game is actually getting nice and long, way longer than I thought it would be at the start. When I shared it with people a while ago, it was very short. Now, it’s decently long! Once I add a lot more minigames, I will consider making them go in random order and giving them difficulty tags to determine when they should be shown.

I just completely refactored, everything!
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I made many new directories in order to organize the entire repository much better! This took an hour because of the debugging and other related changes to the code associated with a complete structural refactor. It definitely was not a calm, easy hour.

I just added two minigames to CodeWare!
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The first minigame I just added, minigame 4, titled “Dodge the Flying Balls,” has users dodge flying balls (referred to as meteors in the code) for 45 seconds. Each hit takes away 10% of the user’s health. It can actually be pretty hard. A good strategy to stay alive is moving from side to side and never stopping, because there are really fast ones that come before you can even react.
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The second minigame I just added, minigame 5, titled “Click Very Fast,” has the user click on a big circular button in the middle 100 times in less than 20 seconds. I have tested it many times, and it is just the right time (at least for now).
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You can play the game at https://tyleruploads.github.io/code-ware/