It’s been awhile since the last Dev Blog post so I’ve decided to write up another. This time however it won’t be about an upcoming update or software release. Instead we’ll have a look at the tools behind maintaining the SwiftKit project. The two main tools that will be shown are the Control Panel and the new Database Editor.

Database Editor
This is a new tool that has been developed to allow SwiftKit staff members to access, modify, add and delete data within the SwiftKit00x.skd files. The SwiftKitData00x.skd files are used for the calculators, quest center, atlas, achievement diary center etc. The tool was written in .NET and connects to a MySQL database on the SwiftKit server. Currently the changes made are not live, in order for the changes to take effect the data needs to be exported, packed and then uploaded. The main benefit of the tool is that it allows other staff members to manage the data instead of just myself.

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Popularity: 24% [?]

In this update we see the addition of a very handy new feature, the Multi Uploader. With the addition of this new feature you are now able upload images directly from Windows Explorer. This means no more having to open a browser, navigate to Imageshack, browse for the image and finally upload it. A previous update that wasn’t posted included the Autosave option. If you plan on taking multiple screenshots you can automatically save them to a specified directory. To enable Autosave simply right click the SnagIMG system tray icon.

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Popularity: 30% [?]

It’s been a little while since the last Dev Blog so I thought I should make a post about the Screenshot Viewer I’ve been working on. In SwiftKit RS the Screenshot Viewer is pretty ordinary to say the least so in SwiftKit MS we wanted to give it more purpose. The idea was to have something that’s similar to Windows Explorer, but not as extensive. Here’s what we’ve come up with so far.

You can also check out the new Screenshot Viewer in the latest SwiftKit MS update. For instructions on how to download SwiftKit MS see here.

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Popularity: 50% [?]

SnagIMG has been updated to version 2. This update consists of mostly fixes and improvements but also a new screenshot option. Now when you press CTRL + PrintScreen you will be able to drag an area of the screen that you wish to screenshot.

A few other changes are you can pan screenshots in the Viewer, ‘Check For Updates’ menu added and an ‘Open in Browser’ button added to the Upload form. See full story for a complete list of changes. To update simply make sure SnagIMG is closed (right click > exit on Camera icon in system tray), download and install over the top of your existing installation.

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Popularity: 41% [?]

It’s been awhile since we announced that we would be developing a toolkit for MechScape so i thought it was about time for the first dev blog post regarding SwiftKit MS. Even though MechScape hasn’t been released, we’ve still been able to work on the non-MechScape related tools and functionality. We’ve also decided that the development of SwiftKit MS will be public, this means that you won’t have to wait till it’s finished to download it. You’ll be able to download ALPHA and BETA versions all the way throughout the development. For now though let’s get into the blog post, you’ll find out more about downloads in a week or two.

Docking Tool Windows:
The first feature I want to talk about, and probably the most important is the ability to dock tool windows. In SwiftKit RS you can sort of do this, by moving the tabs about. In SwiftKit MS though, we wanted to implement it properly. You will have the ability to dock, undock, add, remove, resize, autohide and detach all internal tool windows. You can see an example of this in the screenshots below, when you grab a tool and drag it you are presented with a number of placement options.

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Popularity: 100% [?]