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Sunday, 03 November 2024 15:26

My Visual Studio Code Notes

These are my notes on setting up VSCode for my programming platform for now and the future. This software is always being imporved and is used by so many developers and with a vast array of extensions I cannot see this changing any time soon.

  • Overview
    • Visual Studio Code is a code editor redefined and optimized for building and debugging modern web and cloud applications. Visual Studio Code is free and available on your favourite platform - Linux, macOS, and Windows.
    • A standalone source code editor that runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. The top pick for JavaScript and web developers, with extensions to support just about any programming language.
    • Microsoft Visual Studio Code is a free, powerful, lightweight code editor for Windows, macOS and Linux. Based on open source, it is highly customizable with over 25,000 extensions, for every developer and every programming language.
    • Although VSCode is classed as a text editor, it is now more like an IDE but requires you to install extension for functionality you need.
  • All the names for Visual Studio Code
    • Visual Studio Code
    • VSCode
    • VS Code
  • Features of note
    • Integrates with Docker Desktop
    • Copilot built in
    • 25,000+ extensions
    • VSCode can be installed in the cloud
  • Misc
    • When on any GitHub repo, if you press the period "." then it will change the page to an online VSCode editor.
    • You can install extensions globally or in a workspace.
    • Command key on the Mac = Ctrl key on the PC
  • Visual Studio vs Visual Studio Code
    • Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition – Download Latest Free Version
      • Try our free, fully-featured, and extensible IDE for creating modern developer apps for Windows, Android, & iOS. Download Community for free today!
      • The download is a Stub-Installer, not a full offline package.
    • Visual Studio Code vs Visual Studio - YouTube
      • Deciding on Visual Studio or Visual Studio Code is not just a personal decision but based on the best option for the operating system and application type you are building.
      • There is a community editions or Visual Studio.
      • VSCode is a text editor which can be extended by plugins.
    • Visual Studio Ide vs Code: What's the difference between visual studio and vs code? - DEV Community
      • Visual Studio is a full IDE (integrated development environment) primarily used for .NET development. Debugger, refactor-er, compile, create packages, and more. The full version that supports .NET and .NET Core is not cross-platform. It is only on Windows. It also is used for other languages, but primarily for .NET C#/F#/etc development for and on Windows machines/servers. Working with .NET 4.x, WCF, WebAPI, building DLLs? Use Visual Studio probably. I do not use Visual Studio, but I am not a Windows/.NET dev.
      • Visual Studio Code is a text editor with lots of optional plugins -- it is more akin to Atom, SublimeText, and BBEdit. It has some features of Visual Studio, like syntax highlighting, some code sense, and other neat features. It is cross-platform and can be used for writing pretty any language. I use it on Mac and Linux for PHP, Python, HTML5, JavaScript, NodeJS, and more.

Official Websites

Glossary

  • The terms Folder, Root Folder, Project Folder and Workspace are all interchangeable and just mean the root folder of your project. It does not mean you can only have one folder with only files in it.
  • Use the term Workspace when referring to folder your project is in, most people will understand what you mean.
  • Workspaces / Folder / Root Folder
    • Workspaces in Visual Studio Code - Official Docs
      • You may see the terms "folder" and "workspace" used interchangeably in VS Code documentation, issues, and community discussions.
      • Think of a workspace as the root of a project that has extra VS Code knowledge and capabilities.
      • Single-folder workspaces: You don't have to do anything for a folder to become a VS Code workspace other than open the folder with VS Code. Once you open a folder, VS Code automatically keeps track of configuration, such as your open files or editor layout. When you reopen that folder in VS Code, the editor will be as you left it previously.
      • A "workspace" is just your project's single root folder.
    • How to Create a New Workspace in Visual Studio Code - YouTube | Codex Creator
      • File --> Add Folder to Workspace
  • Multi-root Workspaces
    • Multi-root Workspaces in Visual Studio Code
      • You can open and work on multiple project folders in Visual Studio Code with multi-root workspaces.
      • Unless you are explicitly creating a multi-root workspace, a "workspace" is just your project's single root folder.
      • A Visual Studio Code (VS Code) workspace is a collection of one or more folders that are opened in a VS Code window. This concept allows developers to manage settings, tasks, and configurations specific to their projects. Workspaces can be single-folder or multi-root, depending on the development workflow.
      • Single-folder Workspaces: In a single-folder workspace, you simply open a folder in VS Code, and it automatically tracks configurations such as open files and editor layout. This setup is straightforward and ideal for most projects. You can also add folder-specific configurations like workspace-specific settings, task definitions, and debugging launch files.
      • Multi-root Workspaces: Multi-root workspaces allow you to work with multiple distinct folders in the same workspace. This is useful when working on related projects simultaneously. You can create a multi-root workspace by opening a .code-workspace JSON file that lists all the folders in the workspace.
  • Command Palette
    • Search content, issue commands and do other things.
    • Very powerful
  • IntelliSense
    • Code completion with code explanations in a modal
  • Linting
    • Tells you of bugs or errors while you type your code
    • These errors can be highlighted by using a squiggly line under the faulty code.
  • Language Server Protocol (LSP)
    • VSCode `Language Packs` use this protocol as their standard.
    • Official page for Language Server Protocol
      • Language Server Protocol documentation and specification page.
      • The Language Server Protocol (LSP) defines the protocol used between an editor or IDE and a language server that provides language features like auto complete, go to definition, find all references etc. The goal of the Language Server Index Format (LSIF, pronounced like "else if") is to support rich code navigation in development tools or a Web UI without needing a local copy of the source code.

Settings

  • The settings file is located 
    c:\Users\<yourusername>\AppDataRoaming\Code\User\settings.json
    • Settings will not appear in this file if they are default.
  • Profiles
    • These can have different settings and extensions for different scenarios

Tutorials

Extensions you can use

This is a list of the plugins I use. The list was correct when I started and should be a god list for other people who do no now where to start. You don't need to install them all, just the ones that will be useful to you.

  • Adding 2 or more extensions that doe the same thing (i.e. IntelliSense for PHP or Bracket Pair Colorisers) might cause issues with stability and certainly functionality as the extensions fight with each other.
  • If you have Visual Studio Code installed and opend, the easiest way to install these plugins is to click on the links below and then the install button on that page which will open the correct plugin in VC Code ready for you to click the install button there.
  • Not Sure where to put........
    • PHP Tools for Visual Studio Code (DEVSENSE)
      • PHP Tools turns Visual Studio and VS Code into a powerful PHP development environment. Edit, analyze, refactor, test & debug code in PHP.
      • Not available through the Microsoft Store.
      • Paid option only.
  • Extensions Packs
    • These sometimes are almost like their own piece of software but are usually an install list of different extensions from the store.
    • PHP
      • All-in-One PHP support - IntelliSense, Debug, Formatter, Code Lenses, Code Fixes, Linting, Refactoring, PHPUnit Tests, Web Server, and more.
      • PHP Tools for VS Code is a full development integration for the PHP language. The features are provided respecting conventions, stability, simple use, and performance. Please see the product page for more details on devsense.com.
      • This package extends VS Code with fast code completion, advanced editor features, code fixes, code lenses, code generators, debugger, built-in development web server, test explorer, tests debugger, and workspace-wide code analysis.
      • Free and Paid version.
  • Programming Languages
    • Many languages are already builtin
    • Python
      • Python language support with extension access points for IntelliSense (Pylance), Debugging (Python Debugger), linting, formatting, refactoring, unit tests, and more.
    • Language Server for Java by Apache NetBeans
      • Apache NetBeans Language Server Extension for Visual Studio Code
      • This is Apache NetBeans Language Server extension for VS Code. Use it to get all the goodies of NetBeans via the VS Code user interface! Runs on JDK11 and all newer versions.
      • Apache NetBeans Extension for Visual Studio Code | apache.org - VSNetBeans, the Apache NetBeans Extension for Visual Studio Code, is created as a promotional tool by the Apache NetBeans community for VS Code users.
    • json
      • This extension adds json support for Visual Studio Code.
    • YAML
  • Styling VSCode (Not Themes)
    • vscode-icons - Improved file icons for Visual Studio Code
    • vscode-styled-components
      • Syntax highlighting and IntelliSense for styled-components.
      • Not sure what this is for but it is popular.
    • Apc Customize UI++
      • Advanced VSCode user interface customizations. Very experimental.
    • Vibrancy Continued
      • Vibrancy Effect for Visual Studio Code.
      • This gives a glass look and feel to the editor., a semi-transparent effect.
      • This may cause an error message "Your Code Installation appears to be corrupt. Please reinstall". This is caused because the VSCode CSS is being altered.
      • Set the your theme back to the system default which is "Dark+"
    • Peacock
      • Subtly change the workspace color of your workspace. Ideal when you have multiple VS Code instances and you want to quickly identify which is which.
      • If you frequently have multiple VS Code instances open and struggle to tell them apart, Peacock might be worth taking a closer look at, the extension subtly changes the color theme of your workspace.
      • But it’s not only when working on multiple projects at once where Peacock shines. It also comes in handy when using VS Live Share or VS Code’s Remote features and you quickly want to identify your editor.
  • Data
  • Database
    • SQLite Viewer
      • A quick and easy SQLite viewer for VS Code, inspired by DB Browser for SQLite and Airtable.
  • System Integration
    • Docker
      • This Docker extension makes it easy to build, manage, and deploy containerized applications from Visual Studio Code. It also provides one-click debugging of Node.js, Python, and .NET inside a container.
  • File Integration
    • Draw.io Integration
      • This unofficial extension integrates Draw.io into VS Code.
      • View UML Diagrams.
      • When you create a new file, it needs to have the .drawio file extension to be recognised as a suitable Draw.io project.
      • You can export these diagrams easily.
    • Excel Viewer
      • Edit Excel spreadsheets and CSV files in Visual Studio Code and VS Code for the Web.
    • SVG Previewer
      • Show SVG preview to the side panel
    • SVG
      • SVG Coding, Minify, Pretty, Preview All-In-One
      • A Powerful SVG Language Support Extension. Almost all the features you need to handle SVG.
      • I have not seen this used yet, but it seems to be popular.
    • Image preview
      • Shows image preview in the gutter and on hover
  • File Handling
    • File Utils
      • A convenient way of creating, duplicating, moving, renaming and deleting files and directories.
    • FileOps
      • VS Code extension to import, group, bookmark, quick switch files, text transformations & keyboard shortcuts.
      • Look at the animation for better idea of the functionality.
    • advanced-new-file - Visual Studio Marketplace
      • Create files anywhere in your workspace from the keyboard
    • Duplicate action
      • Ability to duplicate files and directories in VS Code.
  • Media
    • Color Picker
      •  Helper with GUI to generate color codes such as CSS color notations.
    • Color Info
      • Provides quick information about css colors
    • Color Manager
      • color picker and color palette
      • Not sure if this is needed
  • AI Code Autocomplete / AI Testing / Coding Assitants
    • GitHub Copilot
      • GitHub Copilot is an AI pair programmer tool that helps you write code faster and smarter.
      • The service is not free.
    • Tabnine
      • AI Chat & Autocomplete for JavaScript, Python, Typescript, Java, PHP, Go, and more
      • Tabnine is the AI code assistant that accelerates and simplifies software development while keeping your code private, secure, and compliant. It provides accurate, highly personalized results for generating code, writing unit tests, creating documentation, explaining legacy code, fixing code, and mu
      • This is an alternative to Github Copilot.
    • Pieces
      • AI assisted code snippet manager.
      • An on-device storage agent and AI coding assistant integrated throughout your entire toolchain that helps developers capture, enrich, and reuse useful code, as well as debug, add comments, and solve complex problems through a contextual understanding of your unique workflow.
      • Pieces for Developers - Long term memory for developer workflows - Pieces is your AI companion that captures live context from browsers to IDEs and collaboration tools, manages snippets and supports multiple LLMs.
    • IntelliCode
      • The Visual Studio IntelliCode extension provides AI-assisted development features for Python, TypeScript/JavaScript and Java developers in Visual Studio Code, with insights based on understanding your code context combined with machine learning.
      • This is an AI assistant for Python, TypeScript, JavaScript and Java and IntelliCode is an AI boosted upgrade to the built-in IntelliSense code completion feature of VSCode. It uses AI to provide more accurate suggestions for code completion. It does this by analysing a developers code context to make these better suggestions.
      • It is not as powerful as GitHub Copilot but it is free.
    • Qodo Gen: AI Coding Assistant
      • AI Coding Assistant (Codium VS Code) - Code, Test and Review with Confidence, supporting Python, Javascript, Typescript, Java, PHP, Go, and more
      • Qodo Gen (formerly Codiumate) (formerly Codium) is a quality-first generative AI coding platform that offers busy developers a comprehensive AI code assistant for generating code, writing unit tests, and creating documentation. With Qodo Gen, developers can leverage the power of AI directly within their IDE and Git.
      • Will generate tests fr your code.
    • BLACKBOX AI Coding Agent
      • BLACKBOX AI is an AI coding assistant that helps developers by providing real-time code completion, documentation, and debugging suggestions. BLACKBOX AI is also integrated with a variety of developer tools, making it easy to use within your existing workflow.
      • Free and No Signup Required
  • Code Completion (IntelliSense)
    • VSCode might have in-built IntelliSense for PHP
    • PHP Intelephense
      • PHP code intelligence for Visual Studio Code
    • Path Intellisense
      • Visual Studio Code plugin that autocompletes filenames
    • npm Intellisense
      • Visual Studio Code plugin that autocompletes npm modules in import statements
    • :emojisense:
      • Adds suggestions and autocomplete for emoji
    • IntelliSense for CSS class names in HTML
      • CSS class name completion for the HTML class attribute based on the definitions found in your workspace.
      • A Visual Studio Code extension that provides CSS class name completion for the HTML class attribute based on the definitions found in your workspace or external files referenced through the link element.
    • HTML CSS Support
      • CSS Intellisense for HTML
      • HTML id and class attribute completion.
    • ?? PHP IntelliSense - Advanced Autocompletion and Refactoring support for PHP
  • Code Insertion (Manual)
    • IntelliCode API Usage Examples
      • See relevant code examples from GitHub for over 100K different APIs right in your editor.
    • Regex Snippets
      • Easily Insert Popular Regex Codes Without Memorising Anything!
      • A VS Code Extension with a list of 50+ hand picked Regex Code Snippets to make lives of many Developers much easier.
  • Code Correction (Linting)
    • ESLint
      • Integrates ESLint JavaScript into VS Code.
      • This is a linter for Javascript and Typescript
    • HTMLHint
      • VS Code integration for HTMLHint - A Static Code Analysis Tool for HTML
      • Integrates the HTMLHint static analysis tool into Visual Studio Code.
      • By HTMLHint
    • Stylelint
      • Official Stylelint extension for Visual Studio Code
      • Linter for CSS, LessCSS
      • ForrestKnight says the inbuilt CSS linter of VSCode is good enough for him but could be good for others
    • Code Spell Checker
      • A basic spell checker that works well with code and documents.
      • The goal of this spell checker is to help catch common spelling errors while keeping the number of false positives low.
    • PHP Sniffer & Beautifier
      • PHP Sniffer & Beautifier for Visual Studio Code
      • This linter plugin for Visual Studio Code provides an interface to phpcs & phpcbf. It will be used with files that have the “PHP” language mode.
      • This extension is designed to use auto configuration search mechanism to apply rulesets to files within a workspace. This is useful for developers who work with many different projects that have different coding standards.
    • PHP_CodeSniffer
      • Brings PHPCS support to VS Code.
      • This extension uses the version of PHPCS defined by the platform-specific executable setting. Through the use of custom reports we are able to generate diagnostics, code actions, and document formatting that fully utilizes VS Code's available features.
    • phpcs (PHP CodeSniffer) [Deprecated]
      • This linter plugin for Visual Studio Code provides an interface to phpcs. It will be used with files that have the “PHP” language mode.
    • markdownlint
      • Markdown linting and style checking for Visual Studio Code
    • Error Lens
      • Improve highlighting of errors, warnings and other language diagnostics.
      • i.e. it will highlight your code errors and what the errors are.
      • ErrorLens turbo-charges language diagnostic features by making diagnostics stand out more prominently, highlighting the entire line wherever a diagnostic is generated by the language and also prints the message inline.
    • Gremlins Tracker
      • Reveals some characters that can be harmful because they are invisible or looking like legitimate ones. Inspired by Sublime Gremlins.
      • I don't know if this is needed now because this might be part of modern linters.
  • Code Comments
    • Better Comments
      • Improve your code commenting by annotating with alert, informational, TODOs, and more!
      • The Better Comments extension will help you create more human-friendly comments in your code.
    • Document This
      • Automatically generates detailed JSDoc comments in TypeScript and JavaScript files.
      • This is a Visual Studio Code extension that automatically generates detailed JSDoc comments for both TypeScript and JavaScript files.
    • Doxygen Documentation Generator
      • This VS Code Extensions provides Doxygen Documentation generation on the fly by starting a Doxygen comment block and pressing enter.
      • C and C++
    • TODO Highlight
      • highlight TODOs, FIXMEs, and any keywords, annotations...
      • Sometimes you forget to review the TODOs you've added while coding before you publish the code to production. So I've been wanting an extension for a long time that highlights them and reminds me that there are notes or things not done yet.
    • Todo Tree
      • Show TODO, FIXME, etc. comment tags in a tree view.
      • This extension quickly searches (using ripgrep) your workspace for comment tags like TODO and FIXME, and displays them in a tree view in the activity bar. The view can be dragged out of the activity bar into the explorer pane (or anywhere else you would prefer it to be).
    • PHP DocBlocker
      • A simple, dependency free PHP specific DocBlocking package
  • Code Display / Information
    • Indent-Rainbow
      • Makes indentation easier to read
    • Bracket Pair Color DLW
      • A VS Code extension that gives you a simple command to quickly toggle the global “Bracket Pair Color DLW” setting added in VS Code v1.60.
      • Do I need this?
    • Bracket Pair Colorization Toggler
      • Quickly toggle 'Bracket Pair Colorization' setting with a simple command
      • Same as 'Bracket Pair Color DLW'
    • Bracket Pair Colorizer 2 [Deprecated]
      • A customizable extension for colorizing matching brackets
      • This project started on 3 Dec 2016. Now 5 years later, it has become a native feature in VSCode.
      • I'm glad so many people found it useful, however it no longer has a purpose entering 2022 so development will no longer continue.
      • This extension is deprecated as this functionality is now built-in to VS Code. Configure these settings to use this functionality.
    • Rainbow CSV - Visual Studio Marketplace
      • Highlights columns in comma (.csv), tab (.tsv), semicolon and pipe with different colors for easy of reading.
    • Auto-Open Markdown Preview
      • Open Markdown preview automatically when opening a Markdown file
      • This is old
    • Markdown All in One
      • All you need to write Markdown (keyboard shortcuts, table of contents, auto preview and more)
      • Note: VS Code has basic Markdown support out-of-the-box (e.g, Markdown preview), please see the official documentation for more information.
    • Markdown Preview Enhanced
      • Markdown Preview Enhanced ported to vscode
    • CSS Stacking Contexts
      • Highlights stacking contexts in CSS and ineffective z-index declarations.
      • This extension makes Stacking Contexts visible in CSS and SCSS, allowing you to write z-index declarations using small values with confidence.
      • What No One Told You About Z-Index, Philip Walton, Engineer @ Google
        • The problem with z-index is that very few people understand how it really works. It’s not complicated, but it if you’ve never taken the time to read its specification, there are almost certainly crucial aspects that you’re completely unaware of.
        • The key to avoid getting tripped up is being able to spot when new stacking contexts are formed. If you’re setting a z-index of a billion on an element and it’s not moving forward in the stacking order, take a look up its ancestor tree and see if any of its parents form stacking contexts. If they do, your z-index of a billion isn’t going to do you any good.
    • Version Lens
      • Shows the latest version for each package using code lens.
      • This extension shows version information when opening a package or project file in vscode.
      • It abides by semver rules and uses the Node Semver package to compare and sort versions.
      • Many languages supported.
    • Word Count
      • Markdown Word Count Example - a status bar contribution that reports out the number of works in a Markdown document as you interact with it.
      • It's pretty simple open up a Markdown file and the status bar will have an auto-updating wordcount in it.
    • Color Highlight
      • Highlight web colors in your editor.
      • This extension styles css/web colors found in your document.
    • DotENV
      • Support for dotenv file syntax
      • Enables syntax highlighting in your .env files.
  • Code Formatting
    • Prettier
      • Code formatter using Prettier
      • "editor.formatOnSave": true executes this extension on save formatting your code automatically.
    • Paste and Indent
      • This extension adds limited support for pasting and indenting code. Much like SublimeText's paste_and_indent.
      • This plugin will try and match the code you are pasting in with the current indentation level of your code.
    • Format HTML in PHP
      • Provides formatting for the HTML code in PHP files using JSbeautify - Works well paired with a PHP formatting extension.
      • This provides functionality that Prettier does not do. Things improve so this feature might get added but in the meantime.
  • Text Manipulation
    • Text Pastry
      • Extend the power of multiple selections in VS Code. Modify selections, insert numeric sequences, incremental numbers, generate uuids, date ranges, insert continuously from a word list and more.
    • change-case
      • Quickly change the case (camelCase, CONSTANT_CASE, snake_case, etc) of the current selection or current word.
    • Permute Lines
      • Lets you reverse or shuffle lines of code or filter for unique lines.
    • Sort lines
      • Sorts lines of text.
      • Many options.
    • Auto Rename Tag
      • Auto rename paired HTML/XML tag
      • This will change the start and end tag instead of just the one you edit, so basically you are editing the pair in one go.
      • VSCode setting Editor: Linked Editing only works for HTML files.
    • Multiple cursor case preserve
      • Preserves case when editing with multiple cursors.
      • Have you ever tried to change a single word in all variable names, but had your camelCase broken? This extension preserves selection case in these situations. It recognises CAPS, Uppercase and lowercase. Works for typing or pasting.
    • Indent 4-to-2
      • Convert indentation from tab or 4 spaces into 2 spaces.
  • Git Integration
    • GitLens
      • Visualize code authorship at a glance via Git blame annotations and CodeLens, seamlessly navigate and explore Git repositories, gain valuable insights via rich visualizations and powerful comparison commands, and so much more
      • Enhance your workflows with powerful Git functionality like in-editor blame annotations, hovers, CodeLens, and more—all fully customizable within VS Code. Try GitLens Pro's advanced workflows that accelerate PR reviews, provide rich interactive Git actions, and enhance collaboration for you and your team.
    • Git History
      • View git log, file history, compare branches or commit.
    • Git Graph
      • View a Git Graph of your repository, and perform Git actions from the graph. Configurable to look the way you want!
    • GitHub Pull Requests
      • Pull Request and Issue Provider for GitHub.
      • This extension allows you to review and manage GitHub pull requests and issues in Visual Studio Code.
  • Git / GitHub / Source Control / SCM Providers
  • Productivity 
    • Import Cost
      • Display import/require package size in the editor
      • This extension will display inline in the editor the size of the imported package. The extension utilizes webpack in order to detect the imported size.
      • Forces you to look at the size of your 3rd party Javascript packages straight in your editor.
      • This is for web designing and Javascript.
    • TypeScript Hero [Deprecated]
      • Additional toolings for typescript
      • TypeScript Hero is a vscode extension that makes your life easier. When you are coding a lot of TypeScript you may want vscode to organize your imports.
    • Codecrumbs
      • Allow you to jump back and forth between edits removing the need to manually scroll or search for previous sections.
      • Not updates since 2021 and only 1.3K downloads
      • Codecrumbs - Take code complexity under control | codecrumbs.io - Codecrumbs is the set of tooling to help developers fill the gap between code and application logic in large codebase.
    • Bookmarks
      • Mark lines and jump to them.
      • This extension is great when you are working with large files, you can jump with the command Pallet or use keyboard shortcuts.
    • Project Manager
      • Easily switch between projects.
      • This is needed because each VSCode instance only works on one Workspace/Project at a time.
      • This amongst other things adds a favourites pane so you can select other projects you have been working on almost like a recently opened menu.
      • VSCode extensions to maximise your productivity - YouTube | Dev tips by MoHo
        • In this video, I am going to talk about two VS Code extensions that are going to save your time if you are working on multiple projects.
        • also install Peacock for clarity on which window is for which app.
  • Remote Development Servers
    • Remote - SSH
      • Open any folder on a remote machine using SSH and take advantage of VS Code's full feature set.
      • This lets you use any remote machine with an SSH server as your development environment. 
  • Sharing / Collaboration / Digital Nomad
    • Live Share
      • Real-time collaborative development from the comfort of your favourite tools.
      • Visual Studio Live Share enables you to collaboratively edit and debug with others in real time, regardless what programming languages you're using or app types you're building. It allows you to instantly (and securely) share your current project, and then as needed, share debugging sessions, terminal instances, localhost web apps, and more!
    • Polacode
      • Polaroid for your code
      • Select the code you want a picture of for sharing, right click and Polacode will make a PNG image of the code for you to share as needed.
      • Makes a professional screenshot of your code. Looks great on twitter.
    • CodeTour
      • Allows you to record and playback guided tours of codebases, directly within the editor.
      • Excellent for making presentations for colleagues.
    • Settings Sync
      • Synchronize Settings, Snippets, Themes, File Icons, Launch, Keybindings, Workspaces and Extensions Across Multiple Machines Using GitHub Gist.
    • Project Jupyter
      • Official Sites
        • Project Jupyter | Home
          • The Jupyter Notebook is a web-based interactive computing platform. The notebook combines live code, equations, narrative text, visualizations, interactive dashboards and other media.
          • JupyterLab is the latest web-based interactive development environment for notebooks, code, and data. Its flexible interface allows users to configure and arrange workflows in data science, scientific computing, computational journalism, and machine learning. A modular design invites extensions to expand and enrich functionality.
          • Jupyter supports over 40 programming languages, including Python, R, Julia, and Scala.
          • Notebooks can be shared with others using email, Dropbox, GitHub and the Jupyter Notebook Viewer.
        • Project Jupyter · GitHub - Interactive Computing.
        • GitHub - jupyter/notebook
          • Jupyter Interactive Notebook.
          • The Jupyter notebook is a web-based notebook environment for interactive computing.
        • Project Jupyter | JupyterHub
          • JupyterHub brings the power of notebooks to groups of users. It gives users access to computational environments and resources without burdening the users with installation and maintenance tasks. Users - including students, researchers, and data scientists - can get their work done in their own workspaces on shared resources which can be managed efficiently by system administrators.
          • JupyterHub runs in the cloud or on your own hardware, and makes it possible to serve a pre-configured data science environment to any user in the world. It is customizable and scalable, and is suitable for small and large teams, academic courses, and large-scale infrastructure.
        • Project Jupyter | nbviewer
          • A simple way to share Jupyter Notebooks. You can use nbviewer on this website by entering the location of a Jupyter Notebook to have it rendered on this site.
          • nbviewer is a web application that lets you enter the URL of a Jupyter Notebook file, renders that notebook as a static HTML web page, and gives you a stable link to that page which you can share with others. nbviewer also supports browsing collections of notebooks (e.g., in a GitHub repository) and rendering notebooks in other formats (e.g., slides, scripts).
          • nbviewer is written in Python and JavaScript.
      • Documentation
        • Project Jupyter - Wikipedia
        • Jupyter Notebook Documentation — Jupyter Notebook 7.4.0 documentation
          • The Jupyter Notebook documentation site.
          • Jupyter Notebook is a simplified notebook authoring application, and is a part of Project Jupyter, a large umbrella project centered around the goal of providing tools (and standards) for interactive computing with computational notebooks.
          • A computational notebook is a shareable document that combines computer code, plain language descriptions, data, rich visualizations like 3D models, charts, graphs and figures, and interactive controls. A notebook, along with an editor like Jupyter Notebook, provides a fast interactive environment for prototyping and explaining code, exploring and visualizing data, and sharing ideas with others.
          • Jupyter Notebook is a sibling to other notebook authoring applications under the Project Jupyter umbrella, like JupyterLab and Jupyter Desktop. Jupyter Notebook offers a lightweight, simplified experience compared to JupyterLab.
      • VSCODE Plugins
        • Jupyter (Extension Pacl) - Jupyter notebook support, interactive programming and computing that supports Intellisense, debugging and more.
        • Jupyter Notebook Renderers - Renderers for Jupyter Notebooks (with plotly, vega, gif, png, svg, jpeg and other such outputs)
        • VS Code Jupyter Notebook Previewer
          • An easy to use extension for previewing Jupyter Notebooks within VS Code
          • An extension for supercharging your Data Science workflow by previewing Jupyter Notebook within VS Code.
          • View graphs and interact with Plotly visualizations from within VS Code.
        • Jupyter Keymap
          • Jupyter keymaps for notebooks
          • This extension provides keymaps for notebooks in Visual Studio Code to match the keybindings in Jupyter Notebook.
          • This extension comes with the Jupyter extension for Visual Studio Code and can be disabled or uninstalled.
      • My Notes
        • ...
  • API Development
    • Postman
      • Streamline API development and testing with the power of Postman, directly in your favorite IDE.
      • The Postman VS Code extension enables you to develop and test your APIs in Postman directly from Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio Code Insiders.
    • REST Client
      • REST Client allows you to send HTTP request and view the response in Visual Studio Code directly.
  • Debugging
    • Console.Log
      • Turbo Console Log
        • Automating the process of writing meaningful log messages.
        • Turbo Console Log extension makes debugging much easier by automating the operation of writing meaningful log message.
        • Makes console.log messages much easier to use
      • Console Ninja
        • JavaScript console.log output and runtime errors right next to your code.
        • Console Ninja is a VS Code extension that displays console.log output and runtime errors directly in your editor from your running browser or node application. It's like your browser dev tools console tab or terminal output from your node app, but instead of having to context switch, values are connected to your code and displayed ergonomically in your editor.
        • Free and Paid versions.
      • Wrap Console Log Simple
        • Wrap to console.log(or any function name) by word or selection
        • Click a variable and it will make a console.log() function for logging.
    • Browser Integration
    • PHP
    • Python
      • Python Debugger
        • Python Debugger extension using debugpy.
        • A Visual Studio Code extension that supports Python debugging with debugpy. Python Debugger provides a seamless debugging experience by allowing you to set breakpoints, step through code, inspect variables, and perform other essential debugging tasks. The debugpy extension offers debugging support for various types of Python applications including scripts, web applications, remote processes, and multi-threaded processes.
  • Unit Testing / Testing
    • Javascript
      • Jest
      • Jest Runner
        • Simple way to run or debug a single (or multiple) tests from context-menu.
        • vscode-jest-runner is focused on running or debugging a specific test or test-suite, while vscode-jest is running your current test-suite every time you change it.
      • Quokka.js
        • JavaScript and TypeScript playground in your editor.
        • Quokka.js is a developer productivity tool for rapid JavaScript / TypeScript prototyping. Runtime values are updated and displayed in your IDE next to your code, as you type.
        • Show you the result of your code directly in your editor
        • Free and Paid versions.
  • Tasks
    • Task Explorer
      • Tasks management for npm, vscode, yarn, ant, gradle, grunt, gulp, batch, bash,php composer, make, maven, python, perl, powershell, ruby, pipenv, nsis. Supports external task providers via API.
  • Running Code / Previewing
    • Code Runner
      • Run code snippet or code file for multiple languages: C, C++, Java, JavaScript, PHP, Python, Perl, Perl 6, Ruby, Go, Lua, Groovy, PowerShell, BAT/CMD, BASH/SH, F# Script, F# (.NET Core), C# Script, C# (.NET Core), VBScript, TypeScript, CoffeeScript, Scala, Swift, Julia, Crystal, OCaml Script, R, AppleScript, Elixir, Visual Basic .NET, Clojure, Haxe, Objective-C, Rust, Racket, Scheme, AutoHotkey, AutoIt, Kotlin, Dart, Free Pascal, Haskell, Nim, D, Lisp, Kit, V, SCSS, Sass, CUDA, Less, Fortran, Ring, Standard ML, Zig, Mojo, Erlang, SPWN, Pkl, Gleam, and custom command.
      • Run code snippets and files easily with just a highlight and a right click. It takes care of the compiling on the fly.
    • Live Preview (from Microsoft)
      • Hosts a local server in your workspace for you to preview your webpages on.
      • You cannot execute html in the VScode terminal so we can use this extension to open in a browser preview right in Visual Studio code right click on file and then `Show Preview`.
    • Live Server
      • Launch a development local Server with live reload feature for static & dynamic pages
      • Every time a bit of code is changed the lve HTML page is refreshed.
    • Test Explorer UI
      • Run your tests in the Sidebar of Visual Studio Code
    • Python Test Explorer
    • Live Sass Compiler (Extension Packs)
      • Compile Sass or Scss to CSS at realtime.
      • A VSCode Extension that help you to compile/transpile your SASS/SCSS files to CSS at real-time.
  • Other
    • ....
  • Misc
    • vscode-pets
      • Pets for your VS Code
      • Puts a small, bored cat, an enthusiastic dog, a feisty snake, a rubber duck, or Clippy in your code editor to boost productivity.
  • Themes
  • Package Managers
    • Composer - All-in-One composer integration, quick actions, commands, automatic installation, tasks, code lenses, diagnostics, and composer.json IntelliSense.

Extension Research

  • Setups (Extensions and settings)
    • My Visual Studio Code Setup for Web Development - YouTube | ForrestKnight
      • My focus lately as a developer has been building websites & web apps, and VS Code is the main tool I use to get that done. It's the most popular IDE/code editor among developers, according to the 2022 Stack Overflow Developer Survey. So, I want to show you how I use VS Code, my preferred extensions, my current theme, and my favorite VS Code settings that I’ve been using for many different types of web development.
      • Extensions: vscode-icons, Prettier, ESLint, HTMLHint, Stylelint, Auto Rename Tag, Tabnine, Live Server, Document This, Doxygen Documentation Generator
      • Themes: Andromeda
    • How to set up VSCode like a PRO! - YouTube | Syntax  - this is a tutorial+ setup
      • Join Scott and Wes as they dish out the juiciest VSCode secrets for coding like a boss (or a Tolinski)! From speedy navigation to must-have extensions and the sickest themes, get ready to level up your coding game.
      • Extensions: Text Pastry, Better Comments, Auto Rename Tag, Change Case, Permute Lines, File Utils, Sort JSON objects, SQLite Viewer, Code Spell Checker, APC Customize U++
      • Themes: SyntaxFM, Cobalt2 Theme Official, Night Owl, Level Up
    • How to use VSCode Like a Pro (Senior Developer) - YouTube | CoderOne
      • We all love VSCode and work with it every day as developers, but do we actually use it as a Senior Developer? In this video, I'll show you Pro tips and tricks to unlock hiding and pro features of VSCode, from refactoring hundreds of lines of code in seconds to relaxing and doing YOGA using VSCode.
      • Check out a few themes to see which one you like best.
      • Make sure you use the command Pallet.
      • Profiles: These can have different settings and extensions for different scenarios
      • Extensions: Color Picker, Color Info, Color Manager, Docker, GitHub Copilot, GitLens, json, indent-rainbow, Prettier, TODO Highlight, vscode-styled-components, TypeScript Hero
      • Themes: Halcyon
    • How I Configure VS Code for Everything | by Aman Mittal | Better Programming - A Journey on sorting out what VSCode extensions to use.
      • This is the setup Aman now uses for his JavaScript, Node.js, React and React Native work. This has some nice setup steps with settings.
      • Extensions: :emojisense:, Bracket Pair Colorizer, Code Spell Checker, Code::Stats, ESLint, Indent 4-to-2, Express.js, markdownlint, GitHub Pull Requests, Import Costs, npm Intellisense, Path Intellisense, Pug, IntelliSense for CSS class names in HTML, React Native Tools, Todo Tree, Version Lens, Settings Sync, Word Count, Prettier
      • Themes: fairyFloss, Dracula Official, Night Owl, Material-Icon-Theme
  • Extensions Only
    • Visual Studio Code Extensions to Improve Your Productivity - YouTube | freeCodeCamp.org
      • Learn about 10 helpful VS Code extensions. These VSCode extensions could make you more productive as a developer.
      • Extensions: GitLens, LiveShare, Pieces, Better Comments, Turbo Console Log, Code Runner, Import Cost, Prettier, ESLint, Docker
    • VS Code extensions that I can't live without! - YouTube | Kevin Powell
      • I'm far from a VS Code power user, but that doesn't mean that I don't use a handful of extensions! As someone who writes primarily HTML and CSS, these are the ones that I find the most useful for my workflow.
      • Extensions: Bracket Pair Colourizer, Bracket Pair Colourizer 2, Live Server, Prettier, Auto Tag Rename, SVG Previewer
      • Themes: Atom One Dark, One Dark Pro
    • 26 Best VSCode Extensions for 2024 - YouTube | SkillCurb
      • In this comprehensive video we will go over the 26 best VSCode Extensions for 2024 . We have also broken down the extensions per category for you , so its easier to remember which one to use when.
      • Extensions: Prettier, Bracket Pair Colorization Toggler, Indent-Rainbow, Test Explorer UI, Jest Runner, Python Test Explorer, GitLens, Git History, Git Graph, Live Server, IntelliCode, Code Spell Checker, DevTools for Chrome App, Code Runner, Python Debugger, Peacock, Better Comments, ESLint, Polacode, Rainbow CSV, Codecrumbs, Tabnine, markdownlint
      • Themes: One Dark Pro, Material UI
    • 20 Essential VS Code Extensions In 2024 - YouTube | Traversy Media
      • 20 extensions for Visual Studio Code to increase your productivity.
      • Extensions: Prettier, Github Copilot, Live Server, Multiple Cursor Case Preserve, Git History, Git Lens, Code Runner, Markdown Preview Enhanced, Console Ninja, Regex Snippets, Polacode, Code Spell Checker, Document This, ChatGPT, Peacock, Postman, REST Client, Bookmarks, Codiumate/Codium AI, Quakka
    • 12 VS Code Extensions to INCREASE Productivity 2024 - YouTube | Devression
      • I made this video to help any newbies out there who are looking for some great VS Code extensions to help increase productivity and write cleaner code. I know there are PLENTY more extensions out there to try so if you guys have any suggestions, feel free to leave them in comments and I might make a video on them! In this video I cover the 12 best VS Code extensions that I use throughout my studies as a Computer Science student. I hope these tips and tricks help you!
      • Extensions: Code Runner, Tabnine, Live Server, Excel Viewer, CodeTour, TODO Highlight, Draw.io Integration, Polacode, Code Spell Checker, Prettier, Vibrancy Continued
      • Themes: Material Icon
    • The Best VSCode Extensions 2024 - YouTube | Coding With Adam
      • The best VSCode extensions. These are some of my favorite VSCode extensions that I use to increase my productivity. Checkout my video to learn more and see a demo of each extension.
      • Extensions: Prettier, Code Spell Checker, ESLint, Error Lens, Live Server, Auto Rename Tag, Peacock, Auto-Open Markdown Preview, Markdown All in One, Code Runner, Jest, Jest Runner, Simple React Snippets, GitHub CoPilot, InteliCode, YAML, GitLens, Git History, Git Graph, vscode-pets
      • Themes: Material Icon
    • My Visual Studio Code Setup: Extensions and Themes · Matthias Ott – User Experience Designer (en-US)
      • Matthias Ott is an independent user experience designer and developer from Stuttgart, Germany.
      • You can install extensions from the command line.
      • Extensions: Auto Close Tag, Better Comments, Bracket Pair Colorizer 2, Dash, EditorConfig for VS Code, ESLint, Git History, GitLens, Import Cost, Live Share, npm Intellisense, Path Intellisense, Permute Lines, PHP Intelephense, Prettier, Project Manager, SVG, Remote - SSH, Task Explorer, Twig Language 2, VS DocBlockr, Wrap Console Log Simple,
      • Themes: Night Owl (sarah.drasner)
    • Useful VS Code Extensions For Front-End Developers — Smashing Magazine
      • Meet useful Visual Studio Code extensions for web developers: little helpers to minimize slow-downs and frustrations, and boost developer’s workflow along the way.
      • There is awhole section snippets
      • This is an in-depth article and everything is well explained. Although some extensions are deprecated most of them are still valid today.
      • Extensions: Turbo Console Log, Import Cost, Prettier, --- loads of snippet plugins ---, Polacode, Better Comments, Debugger for Chrome, Microsoft Edge Tools for VS Code, File Utils, FileOps, vscode-icons, GitLens, Git History, Watermelon, TODO Highlight, Bracket Pair Colorizer, Gremlins Tracker, Indent-Rainbow, CSS Stacking Contexts, Peacock, IntelliCode, CodeTour, vscode-pets, Quokka, Remote - SSH, Live Sass Compiler
    • VS Code Extensions That'll Boost Your Development Productivity
      • Having a good text or code editor that fits into your workflow is crucial to productivity as a developer. VS Code comes stocked with a lot of features by default, but here are 7 extensions that will help take your workflow up another level.
      • Extensions: Sublime Text Keymap and Settings Importer, Import Cost, Indent-Rainbow, Rainbow Brackets, Settings Sync, Profile Switcher, Better Comments, Duplicate Action
    • How to configure Visual Studio Code right the first time - DEV Community
      • VS Code is a powerful tool but "batteries included" is not the expression this IDE is known for. Here's how to proceed to have the best developer experience.
      • Extensions: Auto Rename Tag, Bracket Pair Colorizer, Color Highlight, DotENV, ESLint, VS Code JavaScript (ES6) snippets, Prettier, Better Comments, Error Lens, GitLens, Live Server, npm Intellisense, Path Intellisense, Settings Sync, Code Spell Checker, Image preview, Kite Autocomplete for Python and JavaScript, Polacode, Sort lines
      • Themes: Night Owl, Cobalt2 Theme Official, Material Icon Theme
  • C/C++
    • CMake - CMake langage support for Visual Studio Code - is this needed becasue of cmake tools
    • CMake Tools
      • Extended CMake support in Visual Studio Code
      • This extension provides the native developer a full-featured, convenient, and powerful workflow for CMake-based projects in Visual Studio Code. It simplifies advanced configurations with support for CMake presets and enhances the development experience by supporting rich IntelliSense features, a built-in debugger for CMake scripts, and configurable CMake tasks. Its customizable interface allows for efficient tailored control of projects, while CTest integration ensures straightforward test execution and monitoring.
    • C/C++
      • is this a language support ??
      • C/C++ IntelliSense, debugging, and code browsing.
      • The C/C++ extension adds language support for C/C++ to Visual Studio Code, including editing (IntelliSense) and debugging features.
    • C/C++ Extension Pack - Popular extensions for C++ development in Visual Studio Code.
    • C/C++ Themes
      • UI Themes for C/C++ extension. These are themes???
      • We created C/C++ Extension UI Themes to closely match Visual Studio themes and include colors for many of the new scopes.

 

 

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Sunday, 03 November 2024 15:26

Which IDE or Text Editor should I use for my coding projects?

These are my notes I used to help me decide what IDE or Text Editor I should use for future project. Up until now I was using NetBeans so I though I would have look and see if this was still the best.

TL;DR = Use VSCode

  • Netbeans is great for Java and does PHP. Limit language support.
  • VSCode does all the languages, is far more popular, it can be a pain to setup everything using plugins but once that is done you have a powerful IDE.

IDE

These are the softwares you recognise that people use for programming, however it is not always the case.

  • WebStorm
    • The JavaScript and TypeScript IDE, by JetBrains
    • Make development more productive and enjoyable with WebStorm, the IDE for JavaScript and related technologies.
    • The JavaScript and TypeScript IDE
    • Goodbye VS Code - YouTube
  • PhpStorm
    • The PHP IDE by JetBrains
    • Explore the PhpStorm IDE for web projects. Get everything you need for PHP, JavaScript, and SQL coding out of the box
  • JetBrains Fleet
    • More Than a Code Editor
    • Built from scratch, based on 20 years of experience developing IDEs. Fleet uses the IntelliJ code-processing engine, with a distributed IDE architecture and a reimagined UI.
  • IntelliJ IDE
    • The Leading Java and Kotlin IDE by JetBrains
    • IntelliJ IDEA is undoubtedly the top-choice IDE for software developers. It makes Java and Kotlin development a more productive and enjoyable experience.
  • PyCharm
    • the Python IDE by JetBrains
    • The Python IDE for data science and web development with intelligent code completion, on-the-fly error checking, quick-fixes, and much more.
  • CLion
    • A Cross-Platform IDE for C and C++ by JetBrains
    • A powerful IDE from JetBrains helps you develop in C and C++ on Linux, macOS and Windows.
  • Apache NetBeans
    • Development Environment, Tooling Platform and Application Framework.
  • Visual Studio
    • IDE and Code Editor for Software Developers and Teams
    • The most comprehensive IDE for .NET and C++ developers on Windows. Fully packed with a sweet array of tools and features to elevate and enhance every stage of software development.
    • Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition – Download Latest Free Version - Try our free, fully-featured, and extensible IDE for creating modern developer apps for Windows, Android, & iOS. Download Community for free today!
  • Eclipse IDE
    • The Eclipse Foundation
    • The Leading Open Platform for Professional Developers.
  • Geany
    • The Flyweight IDE
    • Geany is a powerful, stable and lightweight programmer's text editor that provides tons of useful features without bogging down your workflow. It runs on Linux, Windows and macOS, is translated into over 40 languages, and has built-in support for more than 50 programming languages.
  • CodeLobster
    • Free portable cross-platform PHP IDE
    • Free portable cross-platform PHP IDE with support Drupal, Smarty, Twig, WordPress, Joomla, JQuery, CodeIgniter, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, TypeScript, AngularJS, CakePHP, Python, Laravel, Phalcon, Symfony, Yii
    • Free version is crippled

Text Editor

Just because they are called a Text Editor does not mean they do not offer the full gamut of features an IDE does but rather to add these features you need to use plugins. However text editors like Nano are not included in the list because that is all they do.

  • Visual Studio Code
    • Code Editing. Redefined
    • Visual Studio Code is a code editor redefined and optimized for building and debugging modern web and cloud applications. Visual Studio Code is free and available on your favourite platform - Linux, macOS, and Windows.
    • A standalone source code editor that runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. The top pick for JavaScript and web developers, with extensions to support just about any programming language.
    • My VSCode Notes | QuantumWarp
  • Cursor
    • The AI Code Editor
    • Fork of VSCode and instroduces AI with other fixes
  • Notepad++
    • Notepad++ is a free (as in “free speech” and also as in “free beer”) source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages.
  • VIM
  • NeoVIM
  • Zed
    • The editor for what's next
    • Zed is a high-performance, multiplayer code editor from the creators of Atom and Tree-sitter.
    • Zed is a next-generation code editor designed for high-performance collaboration with humans and AI.
    • Code with LLMs
    • Zed adds a uniquely powerful interface for AI-assisted programming.
  • Sublime Text
    • Text Editing, Done Right
    • Available on Mac, Windows and Linux
  • Brackets
    • A modern, open source code editor that understands web design.
    • Brackets is a lightweight, yet powerful, modern text editor. We blend visual tools into the editor so you get the right amount of help when you want it. With new features and extensions released every 3-4 weeks, it's like getting presents all year long.
    • A modern, open source code editor that understands web design.
  • Bluefish Editor
    • Home of the Bluefish Editor, a powerful editor targeted towards programmers and web designers. It supports working with local and remote files, syntax highlighting and a WYSIWYG interface.
    • Bluefish is a powerful editor for experienced web designers and programmers.
    • Bluefish supports many programming and markup languages, but it focuses on editing dynamic and interactive websites.

Versus

  • Free (Non-Commercial) JetBrains Rider vs. Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition -- Visual Studio Magazine - With JetBrains making its Rider and WebStorm IDEs freely available for non-commercial use, Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition has a new competitor, not to mention Visual Studio Code. So what's a (non-enterprise) .NET-centric developer to do now?
  • Vscode vs Webstorm - Which One Is Better? - YouTube
    • Learn the differences between Vscode and Webstorm and which one is better for you. We will go through most important differences and use cases which are important for development.
    • VSCode is a text editor, IDEA and Webstorm are full IDE
  • Visual Studio Code vs Visual Studio - YouTube
    • Deciding on Visual Studio or Visual Studio Code is not just a personal decision but based on the best option for the operating system and application type you are building.
    • There is a community editions or Visual Studio.
    • VSCode is a text editor which can be extended by plugins.
  • NetBeans IDE vs Visual Studio Code | What are the differences?
  • Why I switched from VSCode to Zed. - YouTube - VSCode can be really slow, especially with larger codebases. Luckily, there are some alternatives, and one of them is Zed.
  • VSCode vs NetBeans: A Comprehensive Comparison | vscode.io
    • Visual Studio Code (VSCode) and NetBeans are both popular integrated development environments (IDEs) used by developers worldwide. While they share some similarities, they also have distinct differences that make them suitable for different types of projects and developers. In this article, we’ll compare VSCode and NetBeans across several key areas to help you determine which IDE is best for your needs.
    • VSCode and NetBeans are both powerful IDEs, but they cater to different audiences and use cases.
    • VSCode is a modern, versatile editor that supports a wide range of languages and is highly customizable through its extensive marketplace. It’s ideal for developers who work with multiple languages or who need a lightweight, flexible tool that can be tailored to their workflow.
    • NetBeans, on the other hand, is a full-featured IDE with a strong focus on Java development. Its deep integration with Java and related technologies makes it an excellent choice for enterprise-level projects and developers who need a comprehensive environment tailored to Java. While NetBeans also supports other languages, its primary strength lies in its robust Java tools and features.
  • Apache NetBeans Extension for Visual Studio Code | apache.org - VSNetBeans, the Apache NetBeans Extension for Visual Studio Code, is created as a promotional tool by the Apache NetBeans community for VS Code users.
  • Talk about the main differences between netbeans and vscode? · apache/netbeans · Discussion #6924 · GitHub
    • What are the main differences between netbeans and vscode?
    • All my friends have switched to vscode. It is undeniable that vscode runs extremely fast, has many packages, and has a large community.
    • However, vscode cannot open multiple and multiple software projects like Netbeans. It can only open one project at a time.
    • I will be honest and maybe you will leave NetBeans then but this is not a secret, of course you can add more than one project to the workspace. Just right click on the projects tab and choose add folder to workspace. VS Code will recognice everything inside of it also that it is a git project.
  • Which Code Editor (IDE) should you be using for Python in 2022? - YouTube
    • So it has come to my attention, after reading thousands of comments, that a lot of you are having trouble with Python because of the code editor (or IDE) that you chose for your task. Both PyCharm and Vistual Studio Code are great. If you're a beginner, I highly recommend you start with PyCharm, otherwise Visual Studio Code shouldn't give you any trouble.
    • PyCharm for beginners, otherwise use VSCode
  • Best Code Editor for Python - My personal favorites - YouTube | Christian Lempa
    • Best Code Editor For Python? Here are my personal favourite code editors I've used for Python programming.
    • VSCode is his favourite editor
    • VSCode integrates with Docker Desktop
  • VS Code Wins Best PHP IDE/Editor for WordPress Development in 2021 - Find out the benefits & drawbacks to integrated development environments, code editors and text editors. Plus, we’ll recommend some specific tools for each.
  • NetBeans vs Visual Studio Code detailed comparison as of 2024 - Slant - When comparing NetBeans vs Visual Studio Code, the Slant community recommends Visual Studio Code for most people.
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Sunday, 13 October 2024 15:18

Force restricted content and SafeSearch on different platforms

Filtering content is an important thing to do nowadays if you have a family for all the major platforms such as YouTube, Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo and more. In this article I will outline the different methods to restrict content and show you how to apply them.

There are a few different ways to restrict content on the internet:

  • Use a DNS provider that implements the restricted content for you.
    • OpenDNS, CleanBrowsing, etc...
    • Some are paid and some are free.
  • Install control Apps on your device
    • This requires an installation on each device.
  • Override key domains for each of the platforms you want restricted content on.
    • This is done on your router or hosts file on your PC.
  • Each platform can usually have the content filters by the account. This does require you to login to get the filtered results.
  • When using the DNS options it is important to make sure you do full DNS Hijacking on your local network to ensure the DNS requests are all sent through your router.
  • You should always make the changes on your router/network level so you do not have to visit each device and you cannot change the DNS settings on every device as required such as a Firestick.

 YouTube

  • To test the restriction level, visit:
  • Tutorials
    • Control YouTube content available to users - Google Workspace Admin Help
      • As an administrator, you can set up your network or managed devices to restrict which YouTube videos are available to employees and students in your organization.
      • Not everyone's router can override CNAMEs such as pfSense. There is a workaround, see below.
    • How To Enable YouTube Restrict / Moderate Modes | cleanbrowsing.org
      • This articles shows a user what options YouTube offers with restrict and moderate mode for content on the YouTube platform.
      • YouTube Offers 2 modes:
        • restrict.youtube.com: More strict mode. It blocks access to videos with violence, language, sexuality or adult content. It is the closest to the YouTube Kids mode. Blocks comments. Recommended for kids under 12.
        • restrictmoderate.youtube.com: Less strict mode. It blocks access to videos with possible violence, sexuality or adult content. It also blocks comments.
    • Your YouTube content & Restricted Mode - YouTube Help
      • Restricted Mode is an optional setting that has been available since 2010. A small subset of users, such as libraries, schools, and public institutions, who choose to have a more limited viewing experience on YouTube use Restricted Mode.
      • Restricted Mode is turned off for viewers by default.

General Notes

  • Filters from different companies
    • Web Content Filtering and Security – OpenDNS - Introduction to Web Content Filtering and Security
    • Free DNS Filtering | Block Online Porn with CleanBrowsing - Free DNS Filters by CleanBrowsing allow you to filter adult, pornography, obscene and other similar content from your internet.
    • CleanBrowsing - Wikipedia
      • CleanBrowsing is a free public DNS resolver with content filtering, founded by Daniel B. Cid and Tony Perez. It supports DNS TLS over port 853 and DNS over HTTP over port 443 in addition to the standard DNS over port 53. CleanBrowsing filters can be used by parents to protect their children from adult and inappropriate content online.
      • There are several filter levels with their settings outlined here.
  • Tutorials
    • How to: Enforcing Google SafeSearch, YouTube, and Bing – OpenDNS
      • Currently, enforcing Google SafeSearch, YouTube, or Bing on your network without an HTTP proxy requires the ability to create a local Canonical Name (CNAME) record on your local DNS server or editing your Hosts file on your local computer.
      • The Global enforcement of Google SafeSearch previously was only possible with a local agent or firewall rules; however, Google has introduced a new way of enforcing SafeSearch with Google SafeSearch VIP.

Handling CNAMEs on pfSense

Instructions

  • Here we ping the CNAME, get the IP and use that instead of the CNAME.
  • The basic procedure below can be used for all of the platforms that use a SafeSearch VIP system (i.e. like below)

Notes

  • pfSense is configured as a forwarder and not a full authoritative resolver so cannot expand the CNAME records.
  • pfSense Force Safe Search Configuration - Virtualization Howto - pfSense Force Safe Search Configuration. A look at pfSense, pfBlockerNG, Unbound DNS, and other plugins that allow you to enable safesearch
    • Has safe search instructions for Google, Bing, YouTube
    • You can edit the Local Unbound Configuration Files (not recommended)
  • DNS CNAME records posible with unbound? | Netgate Forum
    • No, it's not going to work with Unbound because it's not an authoritative name server and can not expand the CNAMEs. You would need BIND or equivalent for that. Use the host overrides if that solves your problem as noted by dok above.
    • You can override MX, PTR, SRV and even SOA records with Unbound, no problem (not exposed trough the GUI in pfSense but you can use custom options).
    • What I wrote above is bit incorrect. The reason the CNAME records won't work as host overrides is because they have to be resolved with an additional query either to the upstream forwarder or the authoritative server. A resolver like Unbound won't look at its own host overrides to resolve a CNAME, they have to be set in the authoritative server.
  • Guide to force your clients to use Youtube in Restricted mode | Netgate Forum - The below example will show how to configure Unbound to force LAN clients to use Youtube in Restricted mode. This same process will work with safesearch for Google/Bing/etc.
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Saturday, 12 October 2024 14:00

My Xbox One Notes

There are some casting notes here: My Meta Quest 3 Notes | QuantumWarp

General

XBOX 360 Emulator

  • XBOX 360 Emulator - Keep asking for my Xbox password
    • XBOX 360 Games on XBOX One Keeps Asking For Password - Microsoft Community
      • ** Solution from Dan_774 ** ** works **
        • I had this problem on my xbox one x and accidentally solved it. Here's how:
          1. Launch the 360 game. While in the 360 game, open the 360 menu by pressing select and start at the same time. Log in to your account. Select "remember me".
          2. Once logged in, open the 360 menu again and log out WHILE STAYING IN THE GAME.
          3. Open the 360 menu again and log in again. This time it shouldn't ask for your password.
          4. Now you can fully exit the game, relaunch it, and it should automatically sign you in to your 360 account.
        • I did this for multiple accounts on my xbox one and it worked every time so I don't have to keep re-entering my password every time I want to play black ops 2 and any other 360 game. Hopefully it works for you, too.
    • 360 games on series x never reminds my password, everything else works - Microsoft Community
      • Dan_774 solution is on this page.
      • Another suggestion:
        • I figured it out! If you have multiple XBox Ones on your account, only the "HOME" Xbox will remember password and auto sign into xbox 360 games.
          1. You have to sign into your Microsoft Account on a trusted browser, then click on your profile on the top bar and go to settings to see all hardware associated with account.
          2. Click on your New XBox Device.
          3. This is good time to register with Microsoft with a click of a button BTW.
          4. There is no button to make a "HOME" device but there will be a button that states "This is not my Home Device" if it happens to be so.
        • I sold my last xbox one and did not remove my device from account.
        • Once I removed my older devices my new Xbox now remembers my XBox 360 Login and auto-sign ins. What a relief...
    • I keep getting logged out of Xbox Live playing backwards compatible games but only on the 360 not on the Xbox One. | Microsoft Community
      • Your password is longer than 16 characters. 360s including the emulator on the Ones do not like passwords longer than 16 characters if your password is longer than 16 characters then you would need to change it to something smaller.
      • You have two step verification turned on. Again the 360s including the emulator do not like two step verification so you would either need to turn it off or use your app password.
      • You changed your gamer tag since the last time you downloaded your profile to the 360 Emulator/360 console.
    • My password is too long to enter into my xbox 360 | Microsoft Community
      • Basically it is a limitation to the 360 including the emulator on the One for backwards compatible games that it does not like passwords longer then 16 characters so if you are wanting to play games on your 360 just make change your password to something that is less then 16 characters.
      • Enable 2Fa and generate an App password.
  • Passwords always incorrect
    • Password always incorrect when signing into Xbox live for 360 games on Series X console | Reddit
      • I found a fix. I turned off two step verification
      • Yeah somewhere on the xbox / microsoft website there is some button under a "security" tab that says "generate app password" and the password it generates is what you enter for the Xbox 360 download-profile password.
      • This thread also details steps including the password fix from Dan_774 but using an app password.
      • App passwords can only be used if 2FA is on.
      • In summary
        • If you are using 2FA you need to use an App password.
        • You can turn of 2FA.

Purchases and Xbox.com

  • Redeeming Codes
    • To redeem a Xbox One code, use on of the following options:
      1. Goto to https://www.xbox.com/redeemcode
      2. On the Xbox One dashboard: Click on Gamertag --> Three balls --> Redeem Code
    • If you get a code and it is for an Xbox 360 game, then you
      • need to redeem it from the https://www.xbox.com/redeemcode
      • you could maybe do it from a real Xbox 360.
      • I do not know if you can do it from the 360 emulator on the Xbox One
  • View Digital Purchases
    • Console: Settings --> Account Management --> Download History
    • Xbox.com: Gamertag --> My Microsoft Account --> Order History
    • Xbox.com: Gamertag --> Xbox Profile--> My Games ???

Controllers

Different Controller Models

Misc

Glossary

  • Wiper
    • This is the metal disc in a potentiometer that is rotated on the carbon track.
  • Hall Effect Potentiometer / Hall Effect Thumbsticks
    • These are potentiometers that are based on magnets rather than carbon tracks and a wiper. The benefit is that they do not have any moving parts that will wear out.
    • Can Hall Effect Sensors Stop Drift Forever? - iFixit - Hall effect sensors are ideal for joysticks. Find out how Hall effect sensors work, where to find them, and why they’re the perfect antidote to joystick drift!
    • Hall Effect Technology in Gaming Controllers - Learn how Hall Effect technology revolutionizes gaming controllers by providing precise control, reducing stick drift, and enhancing durability. Explore the future of gaming with advanced Hall Effect sensors.
    • Everything you need to know about Hall Effect Sensing Joysticks & Trig – EasySMX
      • In the world of interactive gaming, controllers are the crucial tools through which we enter and navigate virtual realms. Integral to these controllers are the joysticks and triggers, which have seen considerable evolution in their design and the technologies behind them. In this article, we delve into two significant technologies that power these components: Hall Effect sensing and potentiometer-based mechanisms, as seen in ALPS joysticks.
      • Hall effect sensors don't play well with metallic parts iirc, like installing metal thumbsticks in a Xbox One controller could mess with the hall sensor triggers.
    • Third party hall effect sensors replacement for xbox controller? | Microsoft Community
      • Can use more power
      • Xbox series controllers have a 10000Hz polling rate, but current Hall sensors are limited to 1000Hz.
    • Do Hall Sensors make a difference in gameplay? | Reddit
      • Hall sensors alone don't impact gameplay. They're simply a way to read the joystick. A more durable way than potentiometers, but alone they don't alter gameplay.
      • Yes it does affect all non Shooters or 3D games. ALPS is far superior for metroidvanias fighting, racing, platformers in which you need perfect inputs for competitive play. HALL wont register diagonal inputs correctly (or register them at all) and most of the time you going to regret having one.
      • Hall effect sensors do make a difference in gameplay. They have less of a chance to miss-input than potentiometers, and don't degrade. Having more reliable input will 100% make a difference in gameplay.
      • My layman's explanation is that hall effect sensors are better than traditional carbon potentiometers because they're immune to PODE aka they don't wear down and cause misinputs.
      • To keep it brief: carbon film potentiometers (the normal type found in GCCs) wear down over time, and they get less accurate. We call this "PODE" in the community. This has some positive gameplay effects, but if there is too much wear, it can have really really bad gameplay effects too.
      • Hall effects sensors don't wear the same way, so once you set up your controller, it should be good to go for a much longer time.
    • Jun Zeng's Hall Effect Sticks - PS5/Xbox Installation & Calibration - YouTube | VK's Channel
      • These have a special board that will correct the jitter and calibrate the circularity test.
      • @alexklaus2778
        • One question: I also installed Hall Sticks on a XBox controller and noticed afterwards that the LT/RT Buttons also work with hall sensors. After testing it, I could see how the hall sensor in the sticks gets disturbed by the magnets on the trigger. For my normal Xbox controller I bought clicky buttons from extremerate and want to remove the magnet. You seem to only built in the hall sticks. How did you work around that problem? I guess the scuff you have there will work with the same hall technology for the LT/RT buttons.
        • I do not see a proper solution there since installing the board and calibrating it with software means that it will be centered until I press the LT button (which has its hall sensor right under the sicks). That would cause the left stick to drift a little up or down.
    • New V2.0 Hall Effect Modules - Now without Jitter! - YouTube | VK's Channel - Orange Module V2.0 (I bought mine from this seller it is also cheaper here) the price is for 1 unit.
    • GuliKit - This company makes products with Hall Effect Sensors.

Thumbsticks: Potentiometers vs Hall Effect Sensors

Xbox controllers (most of them) come with thumbsticks that use potentiometers that change resistance so the controller knows how far you have moved the stick. This technology is well tested but the potentiometers wear out because the wiper is a piece of metal that is run against a carbon strip and because of the friction over time these will fail. Hall effect Sensors are a new technology that use magnets and as such there is no physical touching between surfaces so they do not wear out. Below I have done a table of the pros and cons of each of the technology whilst having my 1708 Xbox controller in mind, although most of the principles will be the same no matter what controller you use.

  Pros Cons
Potentiometer
(POT)
  • It is what your controller was designed to use.
  • Spares are easy to source
  • No Jitter
  • Fast response
  • Wears out over time. This is called PODE in the community.
  • Stick drift is a common fault
Hall Sensor
  • Do not wear out
  • Modern Technology
  • Once calibrated, you should never suffer stick drift again
  • Can adjust the calibration of the sensor on the actual unit.
  • Can be more accurate
  • Doesn't suffer from dead zones
  • No stick drift
  • Jitter - Some newer versions appear not to suffer from this.
  • Xbox controller: Hall sensors in the sticks gets disturbed by the magnets on the triggers. This might be true for other controllers.
  • Can use more power, higher battery drain
  • Xbox series controllers have a 10000Hz polling rate, but current Hall sensors are limited to 1000Hz.
  • Hall effect sensors don't play well with metallic parts such as metal thumbsticks.
  • Needs a module board to prevent interference, correct jitter and calibrate for the circularity test. These boards usually only come with premium upgrades.

Conclusion

So in conclusion hall effect sensors are a good thing if decent sensors that do no suffer from jitter and that they will not interfere with the rest of your controller (i.e. triggers on the xbox controller) or you could get ones that come with an additional circuit board that prevents interference and jittering.

Using the standard potentiometers are what your controller was designed for and just swapping like for like is not a bad thing. If you keep wearing out the sticks out frequently then you should use hall sensors.

Tutorials

Stick Drift

Testing

What Causes Stick Drift?

Tutorials

Fixes

  • Update controller firmware
    • This probably will not fix anything, but it certainly will not harm.
  • Software Calibration (Window Only)
  • Software Calibration (Xbox Accessories App)
    • You should try software calibration before any other method if it is available to you.
    • See section below.
  • Modified Software Calibration (Xbox Accessories App)
  • Blow out the thumbsticks with air
    • This only works some of the time but is worth a go.
  • Clean the potentiometers (Wiper and Carbon Track) with Isopropanol alcohol.
    • This worked for me and is my recommended method.
    • This should not need a recalibration as you are using the original parts.
  • Replace the affected potentiometer's Wiper
    • Sometime this can work if cleaning does not.
    • This method requires recalibration.
      • NB: You can try several wipers to see if you get one that does not require calibration because it is the correct value, but this could be time consuming and might not work.
  • Replace the affected potentiometer on the thumbstick
  • Replace the thumbstick with a new one
    • This method requires recalibration.
  • Hardware Calibration
    • If software calibration is not available there are several hardware methods avaliable to complete this process.
    • See section below.

Stick Calibration Methods

Over time the resistance values in a potentiometers change over time (unless you are using hall effect ones) and so re-calibration can fix the problem but also when you swap parts in your thumbsticks these might not have the perfect values and again calibration is required.

  • Xbox Accessories App (Windows and Xbox)
  • Hall Effect Sticks / Potentiometer
  • Manually altering the position of the potentiometers by using their pins
  • Drift Fix Adapter / Drift Repair Board
    • This is a tiny circuit board that you solder onto the back of the controller’s circuit board, behind the thumbstick. It has two potentiometers that allow you to compensate for the loss of resistance in the thumb stick’s own potentiometers.
    • These are used to add an easy calibration method but as such can also fix stick drift.
    • You can buy these on AliExpress
    • How to Fix Joystick Drift Permanently! - YouTube
      • FINALLY! PERMANENTLY FIX JOYSTICK DRIFT for PS4, PS5, XBOX One, and Series X Controllers! New mod from Helder Finally Fixes Joystick Drift!
      • One of the most frustrating issues with modern controllers is that they’ll eventually get joystick drift. This issue essentially makes the controller unusable. Up until now, there have only been ways to band-aid the problem but those are just temporary. We FINALLY have a permanent fix for Joystick Drift! Let’s take a closer look!
    • Drift Fix Analog Stick Fix PCB Mod | Acidmods
      • Has pictures
      • These are not drift proof like people want them to be.
      • These only meant for you to be able to re-calibrate the center.
      • If the carbon filter is too far gone on the stick pots then you're still going to have noticeable drift and only a replacement can fix.
      • I have the top ones but not using them because even slight calibration for example on right make analog not able to go fully left. Maybe other versions are better but that top one isn?t worth any money. I read somewhere that 10k ohm trimmers can be use for better results but never tried.
      • The higher the value used the less impact is has current wise on the circuit. Remember there are 4 POTs in there that all use the same power rail. So 4 x 10k in parallel is really a single 2.5k load on there, but you toss in 4 more 10k and now it's a 1.25k load and now it is using twice as much current. Using a higher value, like 1M, it will still change the voltages of it, which is what the MCU is measuring to 'see' where the stick is, but current wise you've changed it from a 2.5k load to a 2.475k load, not a big enough difference to really matter.
      • Placing it in series is far more work as you would have to place it on the correct side, or both sides and use twice as many parts, and it would really stuff up the divider. Unless you used some trimpots with more turns that you'd want to turn so you could dial in that very minute value, whereas tossing them on there in parallel is quick and easy, and unless the stick is really way off it's not noticeable, and if it is way off then trying another stick or POT should be done first before trying to dial it back in with a parallel one.

Notes

  • General
  • Xbox Accessories App
    • Can be found
      • Xbox: The Xbox Accessories app comes pre-installed on Xbox consoles. Press the Xbox button to open the guide, select My games & apps > See all > Apps, and then choose Xbox Accessories.
      • Windows: To open the Xbox Accessories app on Windows, press the Start button , type Xbox Accessories or choose it from the list, and then sign in. If the app isn’t installed on your PC, get it here.
    • Adjusting the controller stick settings in the Xbox Accessories app | Xbox Support - You can adjust sensitivity settings for the left and right sticks on your Xbox controller using the Xbox Accessories app to customize gameplay to your own personal need or style. This functionality is supported for the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 and analog joysticks connected to the left or right USB ports of Xbox Adaptive Controllers.
    • How to optimise your Xbox Elite Controller for better gaming | GamesRadar+ - Six tips and tricks to get the most accurate controller experience possible with Microsoft's luxury peripheral
    • The Xbox February Update is Starting to Roll Out  - Xbox Wire - Use touch controls in Xbox remote play, adjust thumbstick sensitivity for Xbox Wireless Controllers, and more with Xbox’s February Update. This also mentions New thumbstick recalibration tool for Xbox Wireless Controllers (Model 1914).

Controller Sensitivity

  • Controller is hypersensitive on Xbox Home Screen / Dashboard
    • This is caused by stick drift on your controller.
    • I would suggest plugging it into a PC and checking the feedback from the controller.
  • Problem with dashboard sensitivity | Reddit
    • OoomaThurman
      • i had this yesterday, i just unplugged the unit for a while and it resolved it. Reset / hard reboot did nothing to fix it. Unplugged for about 5 mins and came back to it. Might have just been a lucky reset though :-/
    • Misanthrope-X
      • You could check to see if your controller has a firmware update in the accessories app.
      • Your second issue sounds like stick drift but the right stick doesn't have any function on the home screen so that shouldn't impact it there.
      • The best you can do for stick drift is take the controller apart and clean the stick area with isopropyl alcohol but that would probably just be a temporary fix.
    • MistbornSynok
      • It’s caused by the stick drift, I had this issue before.
    • GEDROCKL33
      • Having this issue currently as well the right stick moving on its own. Which i have a friend that works with GS he put it on their controller tester for Trade ins and the Right stick was perfectly Zeroed.
      • I have done a unpair repair, Hard shut off with Xbox button and left on D-Pad until the controller shut off havent done a Clear Cache reset yet but will try that first.
      • Edit!!! Did a Reset Cache clear on the system and havent had any issues so far since. Link to what i did is here How to clear the cache on Xbox Series X | Digital Trends As a note i did the power cycle your xbox series X and the clear Blu Ray Cache. I did not do the reset console. Unsure if its a permanent fix but so far this has worked for me.
  • Can I adjust my Xbox Controller's sensitivity? - Quora
    • If we were talking about using an Xbox One Elite controller then the answer would be "yes!"[1] . Standard Xbox One controllers don't seem to have the ability to non-invasively adjust the Trigger range[2] — which is what you're really asking about.
    • All non-invasive customizations to Xbox One controllers require the Xbox Accessories app[3]. In your case, go to the Microsoft Store app on your PC and download Accessories app, then plug in your controller using a USB cable. Last time I checked this didn't work if you tried to do it using the Wireless Adapter. You'll see what you can configure and customize there.
    • Having said this, the whole reason why the Elite exists is because Microsoft wanted to give non-professional players the experience of using a highly customized controller. The implication there is that it is possible to invasively modify the controller to your heart's content. How to do that? As far as I know at minute this is the only way, while each game it's different and you would need different settings.
    • Each game in the settings options have the sensitivity options where you can work it out this.
    • No you can not change the sensitivity in xbox one settings. Maybe in a particular game but have not got any in which you can change. So there is not pretty much customization you can do about it.

Use an Xbox 360 Controller on Xbox One

  • How to Use an Xbox 360 Controller on Xbox One: 5 Steps
    • Do you wish you could use your old Xbox 360 controller on your Xbox One or Xbox One X and S?
    • While you can't directly connect an Xbox 360 controller to your Xbox One, it is possible to use an Xbox 360 controller with the Xbox One using a Windows computer.
    • This wikiHow teaches you how to connect your XBox 360 controller to your Windows 10 PC and stream your Xbox One games to the XBox app on Windows 10.
    • To do this, you will need an Xbox One, a Windows 10 PC, and a wired XBox 360 controller, or a wireless XBox 360 controller with a wireless adapter.
  • How To Use An Xbox 360 Controller On Xbox One | Yoodley - If your Xbox One controller is broken, or if you want to connect two controllers for multiplayer purposes, you have come to the right place. This guide explains how you can connect your wired or wireless Xbox 360 controller to Xbox one and play multiplayer or other split-screen games.
  • How to use a Xbox 360 controller on the Xbox One (5) - YouTube | My Mate VINCE
    • This quick video shows you how to use a wired and wireless Xbox 360 controller on the Xbox One.
    • This does require a 3rd party dongle.

Console Disassembly

Hard Drive upgrades and repairs

General

Formatting and partitioning of the new drive and optionally transferring your data

There are several steps to swapping your harddrive depending on whether you want to move your data across. some of these tutorials assume you have stripped your Xbox apart and can access both hard drvies.

DVD Drive not reading Discs

 

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Sunday, 29 September 2024 07:48

My Microscope Notes

This is list of my microscope kit and collection of my related notes.

Kit List

Notes

  • The Microscope Connections
    • The eyepiece:
      • C-Mount
    • The Barlow Lens end:
      • This is the screw thread and diameter standard for my microscope.
      • 1-3/4" (42mm) Mounting Thread
      • M48x0.75
  • C-Mount/ CS-Mount
    • C and CS share the same connection threads
      • Inner Diameter: 25.4mm / M28
    • K3PGP - Experimenters Corner - Difference between C and CS mount
      • The physical difference is the CS mount lens is designed to be mounted ~5mm closer to the image sensor than a C mount lens. (C-mount lenses are designed to be mounted 17.526mm in front of the image sensor vs. 12.5mm for CS-mount.)
      • You can always use a C mount lens on a CS mount camera by using a 5mm spacer ring (many cameras now have C/CS selectable adjustment screws or rings).
    • C-Mount | OptoWiki Knowledge Base - Standardized interface for the mounting of lenses, described in ISO 10935 (1996-12) Optics and optical instruments – Microscopes – Interface Type C
    • CS-Mount | OptoWiki Knowledge Base - Standardized interface for the mounting of lenses, described in ISO 10935 (1996-12) Optics and optical instruments – Microscopes – Interface Type CS
  • Barlow Lens
    • Barlow lens - Wikipedia
    • Barlow Lens - Microscope.com
      • A Barlow lens is a diverging lens that alters the focal length of a microscope and, therefore, the field of view.
      • The most common type of Barlow lens is the Reducing Barlow.
      • A Reducing Barlow reduces the magnification power of the microscope, but has the advantage of increasing the field of view and the working distance between the objective and the specimen.
      • Reducing Barlows are typically 0.3x, 0.5x and 0.75x although other powers are available.
      • 0.5x
        • Working Distance: Increases
        • Field of View: Doubles
        • Magnification: Halves
  • Buying Guides

 

misc

 

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Saturday, 21 September 2024 15:08

Washed out colours on my Dell U2414H monitor

I have written these instruction while trying to diagnose and fix washed out colours on my Dell U2414H monitor attached to my Dell E6540 laptop which uses the Intel HD Graphics 4600 GPU however the solutions and logic will apply to al lot of setups.

Solutions

Some of these options might not realise unless you restart your PC.

  • Calibration (settings can be changed at the monitor and through Windows)
    • Run the Windows calibration tool (in particular, increasing Gamma)
      Use an Online Gamma Calibration Tool
  • Windows
    • check the brightness in the Action Center (bottom right of screen where screen snip is)
      • This will only affect the inbuilt panel
    • Make sure `Night light` is not enabled.
    • Make sure no 3rd party screen brightness utilities are running.
    • Disable accessibility colour filters
    • Make sure the monitor is set to native resolution and the correct refresh rate.
  • Intel / nVidia / AMD Utility
    • Ccreate a custom resolution in 1080p
  • Hardware
    • Use HDMI and put to full colour range
    • Use external USB graphics card
    • Use another graphics card (not so easy in a laptop)
    • Try different cables. The HDMI signal is especially susceptible to cheap cables.
    • Laptop display panels have a hardware brightness control, look at this, but should be tied to action centre brightness setting.
    • Cehc the monitor is being correctly detected.
  • Graphics Card
    • use the `Intel HD Graphics Control Panel` to alter the colour and gamma (or the nVidia/AMD equivalent)
    • nVidia cards only: This can be rectified for both DisplayPort and HDMI by creating a custom resolution with a 59.999Hz refresh rate. This will be treated by any application* as 60Hz but uses the correct Full Range RGB 0-255 colour signal. The process for setting this up is shown in the video below.
  • Dell U2414H monitor
    • Make sure it's device driver is installed and does not display as "Generic PnP Monitor" in device manage
    • Install the ICC profile for the Dell U2414H monitor. You will find this in the driver package.
    • Check the monitor's viewing angle. Depending on how you look at it the picture can look bad.
    • Check the monitors physical settings (colour, gamma, brightness, contrast, etc...). There is no harm in having a play as you can always put them back.
    • If you have several monitors of the same model, there can be differences between the revisions.
    • Your monitor is old and failing. Get a new one.
    • Try all of the ports (miniDP, DP, HDMI) and see if you get a better picture through one over the others.
    • Daisy chaining the DP ports should not cause any issue, but no harm i trying a single monitor on its own.
    • Try Display Port v1.2
    • Try your monitor with a known good laptop or PC to test to rule out the computer.
    • Confgure the monitor via `EDID` which I assume will require `DDC/CI` to be enabled. This monitor might not be EDID capable.
    • Enable DisplayPort 1.2
      • This might not be compatible with your devices and can cause the monitor to no longer recognise an input (not permanently though)
      • It might make the picture better.

Dell U2414H monitor settings

These are a reference for my monitors but if you have a Dell U2414H you might as well use them.

  • Custom Colour:
    • R:100,
    • G:98
    • B:990
  • Brightness: 100
  • Contrast: 75
  • DisplayPort: v1.2 (optional)

Research

  • Windows Calibration
  • Intel 4600 HD GPU / Intel  HD Graphics Control Panel Calibration
    • Best settings to fix washed out colors in Intel HD Graphics Control Panel? | Reddit
      • You need to set the quantization range to full range both under Display > General Settings or under Video > Color Enhancement > Input Range, where you have to click Use Driver Settings first.
      • HDMI tend to default to RGB limited mode, which is what non-HDR televisions use, but it's not suitable for computer displays.
    • Fix your laptop's color and brightness with Graphics Command Center | PCWorld - Fix Windows 10 auto-brightness and color problems with this hidden Intel app.
    • Potential fix for Intel graphics washed out colours (non native HDMI displays) | Reddit
      • When I tried to change the resolution of my monitor to something else I realised that my monitor was using the full colour range. It was only in the case of the default 1080p resolution that it would show washed out colours.
      • The solution was to create a custom resolution in 1080p
    • windows 10 - External monitor is washed out with Intel HD Graphics - Super User
      • This is what worked in my case. My monitor was being incorrectly detected as a HDTV with limited range and adding a custom resolution with "CVT-RB" timing fixed it.
      • How To Geek may have the answer! Essentially HDMI sometimes defaults to RGB Limited. You need to go into your graphics card control panel and change it to RGB Full. On Intel cards it's at the bottom of the General tab according to HTG's instructions.
      • The technical difference is that full range RGB uses full 8 bit range from integer value 0 to 255 where 0 is black and 255 is white. Limited range RGB transmits the image with 8 bit integers but all values 0-35 result in black and all values 235-255 result in white. As a result, the image is actually using only integer values 35-235 meaning you get better compability with old displays but lose about 22% of all possible colors due less effective bits available for the signal.
      • If GPU and display are both compatible, you always want full range RGB support.
      • Some technical information here.
    • How to Avoid Washed Out Colors When Using HDMI on Your PC - Black colors may look washed out and gray if you connect your PC to its display via an HDMI cable, and it's not your display's fault.
    • Quantization Range Option Is Not Visible in the Intel® Graphics
      • Describes expected behavior of the Quantization Range option that’s found on the Intel® Graphics Control Panel and the Intel® Graphics Command Center depending on video connection type.
      • With the most recent drivers (xx.xx.100.xxxx and newer), the Quantization Range option will only be visible if the video output on your computer is native HDMI. Using a DisplayPort (DP) video output or adapters such as DP-to-HDMI or USB Type-C to-HDMI will cause the option to disappear.
    • Quantization Range Option in the Intel® Graphics Control Panel or... - Expected behavior of the Quantization Range option that’s found on the Intel® Graphics Control Panel depending on video connection type.
  • 3rd Party Calibration add Tools
    • LCD monitor test images - Welcome to the Lagom LCD monitor test pages. With the test images on these pages, you can easily adjust the settings of your monitor to get the best possible picture quality.
    • Best free Monitor Calibration Tools for Windows 11/10 - Learn how to calibrate your monitor using these free Color or Monitor calibration tools for your Windows 11/10 PC. Good for Photographers or Gaming.
    • 10 Best Monitor Calibration Tools for Windows in 2022 - To calibrate your monitor, you’ll need calibration software, special calibration gadgets, or a combination of both. Let’s review software and hardware to find the ideal calibration tool for your monitor. 
    • Best Free Monitor Calibration Software Windows 10 - TechWiser - You can always buy a hardware colorimeter but, if you have zero dollars to spend, here is some free software that will get the job done. 
    • Gamma calibration - Lagom LCD test
      • This is a gamma calibration test image. The gamma defines how the luminance (the amount of light) on the screen depends on the 8-bit RGB values. As of 2007, computer monitors are supposed to adhere the sRGB standard, which is very similar to a gamma value of 2.2.
  • Screen Brightness Tools (ie night light)
  • Dell U241H Monitor
    • Dell U2414H Review | PC Monitors
      • A review of the Dell U2414H, a 23.8 inch AH-IPS member of the UltraSharp family with exceptionally thin bezels.
      • This can be rectified for both DisplayPort and HDMI by creating a custom resolution with a 59.999Hz refresh rate. This will be treated by any application* as 60Hz but uses the correct Full Range RGB 0-255 colour signal. The process for setting this up is shown in the video below.
    • Dell U2414H Review - TFTCentral - Dell's UltraSharp range always attracts quite a lot of attention and they always seem to do a good job of updating their screens to offer buyers something a bit new and different each time they do.
    • U2414H Banding using sRGB preset. | DELL Technologies
      • Q: My monitor is exhibiting banding with the sRGB preset. It doesn't do this on the Standard preset, but I would like to use the sRGB preset since that's the one that was factory calibrated. Is there anything I can do to correct this?
      • A:
        • Factory default does not over write calibrations. I would reset and check all modes.
        • Install the driver from the File Library. The driver includes the INF, ICM (ICC), CAT files.
    • Calibrating Dell U2410 and U2414H using Colormunki Display | DisplayCAL
      • Hi! I'm new to display calibration and bought and X-Rite Colormunki Display for calibration and profiling of my Dell U2410 and U2414h.
      • I followed an advice from some guys in the Dell forum and used the factory menu for OSD adjustment of the white point (because usually SRGB preset doesn’t offer RGB sliders).
  • Misc
    • If you turn all the brightness up full and a pure white page does not get any brighter then this is the maximum whiteness that the monitor will show white. If the white looks off colour at this point, then it is a limitation of the monitor.
    • sRGB - Wikipedia - sRGB is a standard RGB (red, green, blue) colour space that HP and Microsoft created cooperatively in 1996 to use on monitors, printers, and the World Wide Web.
    • DisplayPort - Wikipedia - DisplayPort (DP) is a proprietary[a] digital display interface developed by a consortium of PC and chip manufacturers and standardized by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA).
    • DISPLAYPORT 1.2, DISPLAYPORT 1.4, DISPLAYPORT 2.0 and DISPLAYPORT 2.1 - To help you understand the evolution and the differences between DP standards, today’s article will walk you through the differences between DisplayPort 1.2, DisplayPort 1.4, DisplayPort 2.0, and DisplayPort 2.1.
    • GitHub - dylanraga/win11hdr-srgb-to-gamma2.2-icm - Transform Windows 11's virtual SDR-in-HDR curve from piecewise sRGB to Gamma 2.2
Published in General
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Sunday, 15 September 2024 13:25

Transferring music from Sony MiniDiscs

There are a few ways to recover music from Sony Minidiscs and these will vary between devices:

  • Digital download
    • Digitally without loss.
    • This will be the actual audio file 'as-is' from the disk. (aea)
    • Tracks will be split into individual files.
  • Analogue
    • Output via the 3.5mm jack.
    • This is a universal method.
    • There will be no track data.
  • SPDIF / Optical / Coax
    • Digital with minimal loss
    • There will be no track data.

This article is dedicated towards digitally downloading tracks direct from the Walkman with no sound quality loss.

My Kit

  • Windows 11 Laptop
  • Edge browser (Google Chrome can be used)
  • Zadig
  • Sony Portable Minidisc Recorder MZ-N710 (NET MD Walkman)
  • USB cable (USB A to Mini-B)

My Instructions

This YouTube tutorial covers everything from grabbing tracks using Method 1 to converting the .aea files to a more useful format.

  • Connect device to the computer
    • Using the USB A to Mini-B cable.
  • Install Zadiag
    • Short instructions
      • Connect your MZ-N710 via the USB cable.
      • Download Zadig
      • Run the Zdiag installer
      • Click install
      • Reboot windows
    • GitHub - asivery/webminidisc
      • The Windows USB stack requires a driver to be installed to communicate with any USB device. The bad news is that there are no official Windows 10 drivers for NetMD devices. The good news is that we don't need it! We can just use a generic driver like WinUSB to access the device.
      • You can find installation instruction here, but the easiest way to install is to use Zadig.
  • In Edge
    • Open https://web.minidisc.wiki/
      • This is "Web MiniDisc Pro" and is a fork of the original but can also download tracks digitally.
    • Click connect
    • Select Netman MD
  • Safety
    • Make sure all your discs have write protect enabled to protect you from mistakes.
  • Insert your disc
    • Simply put your first disc into the MZ-N710
  • Download the tracks
    • Method 1 (use this)
      • Click on the 3 dots and select Enable Homebrew Mode Ripping in Main UI
      • Select all of the tracks you want
        • Clicking the top track, hold shit and then select the last track will select them all.
      • Click "Download"
        • We don't want to convert them here, we want the RAW data.
      • The track(s) will now download as .aea files labelled with their track number and name (if present).
    • Method 2 (old)
      • Enter Homebrew Mode
        • Click on the 3 dots and select Enter Homebrew Mode
      • Homebrew Mode explained
        • See: Homebrew mode [MiniDisc Wiki]
        • You will be now present with a some tables representing Tracks and the TOC
        • The "Track Junction Map" has one track per sector thing
        • Track 0 is not a track, it possibly is the TOC.
        • You can only download one track at a time.
        • Not all tracks are named
        • The unit must be power cycled between each disk (i think) to clear the TOC which also happens when you swap the disc.
        • If you press the Shift key the track names should be displayed but I never got this to work, maybe my tracks did not haven names on them.
      • Download the track
        • Click on a sector in "Track Junction Map"
        • Click on the download icon.
        • The track will now download as an .aea file labelled with their track number and name (if present).
  • Swapping Disc
    • Stop the disk spinning before ejecting
      • On my MZ-N710 if I hold the CANCEL/CHG button this will stop the disc spinning and allow you to swap the disc without restarting "Web MiniDisc Pro" but this does not always work.
    • You might need to restart "Web MiniDisc Pro".
    • Repeat the download method you choose.

Notes

  • General
  • Web MiniDisc / Web MiniDisc Pro
    • GitHub - asivery/webminidisc:
      • Upload your Music to NetMD and HiMD MiniDisc devices thanks to WebUSB and WASM
      • Differences between Web Minidisc and Web Minidisc Pro
      • Web MiniDisc Pro was forked from the original Web MiniDisc to provide a more advanced workflow for interacting with NetMD devices.
      • https://web.minidisc.wiki/is the new webapp. Web MiniDisc Pro = Brings NetMD Devices to the Web
    • Web MiniDisc Pro - Brings NetMD Devices to the Web
      • Bring back to life your old NetMD MiniDisc player. Upload music to MiniDisc from the Browser.
      • the new version of the webapp.
      • Web MiniDisc Pro - It is a complete replacement for Sony's SonicStage and Simple Burner software. It is considered the flagship NetMD software project.
    • Web MiniDisc - Brings NetMD Devices to the Web
      • Bring back to life your old NetMD MiniDisc player. Upload music to MiniDisc from the Browser.
      • This is the original version of the webapp.
    • The Web MiniDisc Application - Use your old NetMD device in the browser - Get control of your MiniDisc device thanks to WebUSB and WASM
      • Some of the last MiniDisc players, branded as NetMD units, were equipped with a USB port that allowed for recording music onto the device by using the infamously SonicStage software (Windows only, of course). When Sony abandoned the MiniDisc, that software was left unmaintained and, nowadays, it can’t run outside virtual machines or without using dangerously unsigned drivers.
      • I’ve been lucky enough to find my old MZ-N710
    • The Web MiniDisc Application - YouTube | Stefano Brilli - A short demo of how the Web MiniDisc application works.The GitHub project also contains a few instructions to make the app work fine if you're on Windows or Linux.
    • Web Minidisc Update: ToC Cloning and ATRAC download via USB on Type-S Sony NetMD portables | Reddit
      • I'm very happy to announce a new version of Web Minidisc Pro. It's now possible to transfer tracks via USB back to the computer from Sony Type-S portables.
      • To enable this new functionality, you must check the "Factory Mode Ripping In Main UI" switch in the ellipsis menu.
      • After enabling that functionality, the 'Record' button gets replaced by the 'Download' button. If a warning shows up, saying that the current version is not supported, please use the full factory mode to download the RAM and ROM, then contact me.
      • It can definitely rewrite the TOC of an errored disc, but if the disc itself is damaged, the data just won't persist, so it will go back to its old, errored self.
        • Has instructions on fixing a disc's TOC
      • Worked with my MZ-N710 today
      • You can convert them in vlc media player if you need to, under media /convert. Vlc also does batch conversion as well.
      • AEA files are supported by VLC you can convert them/batch convert them directly from vlc media player under Media/convert/save. (to mp3 should you want to).
      • It won't be possible with the MDS-S500. The button to enter the factory mode won't even be displayed. This works only on portables because of how they're built (the CPU and the USB controller are one chip, this is not the case in bookshelf systems / decks).
      • Sony made a tool to convert from ATRAC to MP3: https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/downloads/W0002971
    • Managing tracks [MiniDisc Wiki]
      • Web MiniDisc Pro has two ways to copy tracks on a MD back to the PC: recording and downloading. The Sony MZ-RH1 also allows downloads similar to the exploits method below.
      • If many options are disabled, the disc may be write-protected. Check the write-protect tab on the disc (open = writable; closed = protected).
    • Ignore vs Skip?
      • Bad Sector - Web Minidisc Pro | Reddit
        • asivery
          • Skip this sector discards this sector's data, and jumps to the next one.
          • Ignore writes the corrupted data to the output file you'll download.
        • NeoG_
          • Skip = Delete corrupted data , audio will jump slightly as part has been removed. Track length is slightly shortened.
          • Ignore = Keep corrupted data, audio will act unpredictably while going over the corrupted data such as making glitchy sounds, Track length is preserved.
    • Web Minidisc Pro - Atracdenc vs Remote Atrac encoder, which gives best quality ? | Reddit
      • This is for transferring music to the device
      • I also read this on the web minidisc pro guide page :
        • "SP mode does not need any encoder as the ATRAC processing is performed by the recorder. This also means SP mode records much slower than LP modes."
        • So I guess choosing the Remote Atrac Encoder, doesn't change anything quality wise, when you choose SP mode ?
      • The remote encoder uses Sony's propriety ATRAC3 encoder from the PSP SDK and has a much higher output quality when compared to atracdenc.
        • And indeed, the remote encoder does not impact SP (ATRAC1) audio.
  • Other Sites
  • Buying Guide
    • MiniDisc Buyer's Guide [MiniDisc Wiki] - MiniDisc Buyer's Guide This page is intended to be a compliment to the Getting Started guide, with more details about particular generations of machine, decks, and “gotchas” - for someone new to the MD format, please check the Getting Started guide first. What do you need?
    • All NetMD devices [MiniDisc Wiki] - All NetMD devices Page / USB Capable players
    • Sony MZ-RH1 / MZ-M200 [MiniDisc Wiki]
      • Sony MZ-RH1 / MZ-M200 The last portable MiniDisc recorder produced by Sony.
      • When originally released, it was the only device capable of transferring recordings made on standard MiniDiscs back to a computer. However, this functionality is now available to all USB-equipped HiMD portables as well as a number of NetMD portables thanks to the WebMiniDisc project. A list of the NetMD portables which support this feature can be found Here
    • Devices that support Homebrew features [MiniDisc Wiki]
      • This page lists Type-S and Type-R portables from Sony (as well as direct clones) that support the netmd-exploits as described on the Web Minidisc Pro guide.
      • The exploits for Type-S devices are older and more thoroughly tested. The exploits for Type-R devices currently operate slower and there may still be errors to work out, and not all functions are available.
      • As of this writing, ripping performance is roughly: - Type-R devices will rip at roughly half of real-time, for SP audio. - Type-S devices will rip at roughly 4x real-time, for SP audio.
  • Hardware
    • Write Protect
      • MINIDISC WRITE-PROTECT SWITCH - YouTube
      • Check the write-protect tab on the disc (open = writable; closed = protected)
        • Open mean the tab is there, closed the tab is pushed in so there is a gap/hole.
  • Sony MZ-N710
    • Buy a `Sony MZ-N710`
      • MZ-NF810 same as MZ-710 but with radio tuner.
      • The Italian programmer who originally wrote this software used his MZ-710.
    • Sony MZ-N710 [MiniDisc Wiki] - Sony MZ-N710 Compact and durable NetMD recorder, with its only significant downside being a reliance on gumsticks for internal power, not AA batteries. Works perfectly in both Web MiniDisc and SonicStage. Identical to the MZ-NF810, with the exception of lacking a TV tuner.
    • Sony RM-MC33EL [MiniDisc Wiki] - The remote.
  • Copying MiniDiscs to PC
    • Copying MiniDiscs to PC [MiniDisc Wiki]
      • This guide covers real time audio transfer from a MiniDisc to a PC for archival.
      • Be aware that the most common USB sound card with SPDIF input, the C-Media CM6206, does not accept inputs with a SCMS copy protection signal.
      • Optical and Coaxial digital signals can be converted with an inexpensive adapter.
  • Converting (ATTRAC / .aea) files
    • General
      • AEA files are supported by VLC you can convert them/batch convert them directly from vlc media player under Media/convert/save. (to mp3 should you want to).
    • File information
      • AEA File - What is a .aea file and how do I open it? - Learn about .AEA files and view a list of programs that open them.
        • An AEA file contains audio data encoded in the ATRAC1 format, which is a data compression format developed by Sony. It stores audio most likely dumped from a MiniDisc (MD), which is an optical disc similar to a compact disc (CD) that can be played with various MD players.
        • AEA files are not common, since MDs were introduced back in 1992 and overshadowed by CDs. You will most likely never encounter an AEA file unless you dump audio from an MD you own. You may also receive an AEA file from a friend sharing music dumped from one of his MDs.
        • The ATRAC1 format is a variation of the ATRAC format, which stands for Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding. Besides being used in MDs, the format was also utilized in the Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (SDDS) theater sound system in the 1990s.
    • CODEC information
      • ATRAC: Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding for MiniDisc | minidisc.org
        • Compression of 16-bit 44.1 kHz stereo audio into less than 1/5 of the original data rate with minimal reduction in sound quality.
        • 16-bit 44.1 kHz = (16/44.1)
      • .AEA File Codec Info Question... | Reddit
        • DCT based audio formats don't really have a bit depth, so VLC decodes them all to 32-bit PCM internally. Newer versions of VLC identify this as "decoded bit depth" and report the original bit depth if available, but I suspect for atrac files it is not available, and only the sample rate is.
        • I'm still looking for the most viable way of converting ".aea" files extracted with WebMiniDisc Pro, and although ffmpg is a good option I have the doubt about wich are the best settings for the conversion to WAV or FLAC, since in the VLC info about the ".aea" file, it says that the bit depth is 32 bits wich I find too high but altough the source is only 16 bit I don't want to convert to 16 bit as I would be cutting information from the original minidisc file... so is trully 32 bit the depth of the minidisc files (SP)?
        • VLC worked fine for converting multiple at once but otherwise I used Audacity. For some reason VLC wouldn't play some of the tracks but Audacity does. You can use a software called SPEK to see if information is lost during conversion.
        • The AEA files should be 16/44.1.
        • The decoding is happening with the open source ATRAC1 decoder in ffmpeg/VLC and is itself passable but still not quite as good as if you'd played the audio on a minidisc machine and recorded it onto your computer.
        • I haven't tested converting the AEAs to anything yet but I'd say if the result is any greater than 320 kilobits per second, something is lying along the way. The SP format is only 292kbit/sec and ATRAC isn't that miraculous.
        • An alternative ATRAC decoder (and encoder...) exists in the form of "atracdenc" here: https://github.com/dcherednik/atracdenc
        • I'd just go with converting to a very common lossy format once now (320 kbps MP3 if you want to overdo it, but 128/192 is probably "just fine", and if it's spoken word only - not music - even less than that should be plenty - YMMV) for everyday use and easy accessibility, and keep the AEA files for long-time archival (you can always turn the AEA files into WAV/FLAC using ffmpeg).
        • ffmpeg's source code won't go away that fast, so there will always be the possibility of converting later (assuming the AEA files are smaller than a corresponding FLAC file, so you can save storage space by hanging onto the AEA files + ffmpeg instead of just FLAC). Also, VLC will most likely "forever" be able to play back AEA files on the fly.
    • Guides
    • Tools
    • Other Audio Containers
  • Troubleshooting

 

Published in Other Devices
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Thursday, 12 September 2024 08:53

Divi Contact form will not send if using a free email address

Background

This article is based on the server running cPanel/WHM, the website CMS is WordPress with Divi as it's template, but the logic will most likely apply to a lot of other platforms.

Issue

I have a contact form that will not send the emails when the submitted details contain a free email address even though the contact form says the message was sent.

The failed emails do not appear in "Track Delivery" in cPanel so I have nothing to inspect and figure out what is going on.

If you do not manage your emails locally then an emails that are sent but are bounced will be returned to the server defined in the MX entry.

Cause

  1. Outbound emails are being scanned for SPAM by SpamAssassan (spamd).
  2. The email in the `Email Address` field on a Divi contact form is used by default for the <reply-to> header.
  3. Emails with freemail addresses present in the header score extra SPAM points.
  4. Because of the extra points caused by having freemail addresses present, the emails are scored just above the SPAM score threshold and they become flagged as SPAM.
  5. Flagged emails are modified and then delivered to the system mailbox in cPanel, they are never passed to the MTA (Exim).
    • The modification and redirects are performed by spamd.
    • cPanel "Track Delivery" shows transactions by Exim, but because the email never gets to Exim, there will be no record of the delivery or transport of the email.
    • A modified email in the system mailbox might look something similar to this:
      ### Title ###

Mail failure - rejected by local scanning code

### Message Body ###

A message that you sent was rejected by the local scanning code that
checks incoming messages on this system. The following error was given:

  This message was classified as SPAM and may not be delivered

------ This is a copy of your message, including all the headers. ------

.....

Solutions

These are some solutions an workarounds, pick which ever best suits your needs, which ever you pick you should monitor the situation for a while to make sure the changes you implement are working as expected.

Use SMTP plugin for WordPress

  • Using this method reduces the outbound SPAM score massively
  • Requires you to setup an email account for every website. Do not use the cPanel system account for emails as this is a security risk.
  • Your server does not need to handle email for the domain for you to be able to create an email account locally and send from it as normal, however I do recommend you make sure the SPF record is correctly set and that DKIM is not going to be an issue.
  • My recommended plugin is: FluentSMTP | WordPress.org

Remove the Freemail address from the email header

  • When using Divi, the email address on a contact form is used by default as the reply address Moving the client's email address to the content only would most likely reduce the SPAM score below 5 and therefore all the email to be sent.
  • In Divi you would use Message Patterns to alter the content of the email.

Increase the outbound SPAM score threshold

  • This change would be global
  • WHM --> Exim Configuration Manager --> Basic Editor --> Apache SpamAssassin Options -->
    • Scan outgoing messages for spam and reject based on the Apache SpamAssassin™ internal spam_score setting: Off
    • Scan outgoing messages for spam and reject based on defined Apache SpamAssassin™ score: 8.5
    • Do not forward mail to external recipients if it matches the Apache SpamAssassin™ internal spam_score setting: Off
    • Do not forward mail to external recipients based on the defined Apache SpamAssassin™ score: 8.5

NB: 8.5 = Default Threshold + PHP_SCRIPT + KAM_COUK

Disable outbound SPAM scanning

  • This change would be global.
  • This is not the preferred method as there is not outbound SPAM checking which can allow abuse.
  • WHM --> Exim Configuration Manager --> Basic Editor --> Apache SpamAssassin Options -->
    • Scan outgoing messages for spam and reject based on the Apache SpamAssassin™ internal spam_score setting: Off
    • Scan outgoing messages for spam and reject based on defined Apache SpamAssassin™ score: Disabled
    • Do not forward mail to external recipients if it matches the Apache SpamAssassin™ internal spam_score setting: Off
    • Do not forward mail to external recipients based on the defined Apache SpamAssassin™ score: Disabled

Disable certain SpamAssassin tests

You can reduce the SPAM score by disabling or cancelling out certain tests, but this requires a lot more time to setup.

Notes

WordPress - Email subsystem

  • mail()
  • Email Logging
  • Code Walk through 
    ## wordpress/wp-includes/PHPMailer/PHPMailer.php

'instantiate' => 'Could not instantiate mail function.',

-->

mailPassthru($to, $subject, $body, $header, $params)

-->

$result = @mail($to, $subject, $body, $header, $params);

-->

mail()              # This is a wrapper for sendmail

-->

sendmail            # cpanel sendmail is blocking gmail addresses

-->

sendmail returns true or false

WHM - Settings

  • General
  • Tutorial
  • SpamAssassin’s internal spam_score
    • Is calculated by summing the scores of various matched rules.
    • This is not the SPAM threshold, but just the score that SpamAssassin assigns to the email after all of the tests.
    • How to Configure SpamAssassin in cPanel – PhilmoreHost
      • Configuring your internal SpamAssassin score threshold = Specify a score under Apache SpamAssassin bounce spam score threshold.  ?
  • cPanel Tutorial Series 6: using email - TransIP - This is the sixth part of our cPanel Tutorial Series.
    • Apache SpamAssassin ™ reject spam score threshold
      • Incoming messages that are designated as spam are stopped instead of subjects being rewritten (see Filters), or the mail is moved to your spam box. You will never see messages that meet these criteria in your mail. If you use this option, we advise you to use a fairly generous score so only messages that are definitely spam are stopped, for example with a score of 10-11.
    • Apache SpamAssassin ™ bounce spam score threshold
      • Sends a bounce email to the sender of spam when mail reaches the set score. This can work positively and negatively: a conscious spammer knows that you are using a filter and will try to find something to work around it, but someone with an infected computer / server will find out more quickly that he or she has an infected computer / server thanks to a bounce message.
    • Scan outgoing messages for spam and reject based on the Apache SpamAssassin ™ internal spam_score setting
      • Scans all outgoing messages from your VPS and stops all messages that reach the set spam score (default 5). 
        This is a very useful option that we highly recommend. For example, suppose you created cPanel accounts for your customers and they host their own sites but never update them, then there is a plausible chance that sooner or later a vulnerability will be found, and a domain will start sending spam. Thanks to this option, you get rid of that spam, so your VPS does not get a bad IP reputation.
    • Scan outgoing messages for spam and reject based on defined Apache SpamAssassin ™ score
      • This option does the same as the previous one, but this allows you to determine the spam score upon which SpamAssassin takes action when outgoing mail is recognized as spam.
    • Do not forward mail to external recipients if it matches the Apache SpamAssassin ™ internal spam_score setting
      • Mail that is addressed to your VPS and which is redirected is also scanned by SpamAssassin and stopped if it is marked as spam.
    • Do not forward mail to external recipients based on the defined Apache SpamAssassin ™ score
      • Same as the previous option but allows you to set a score yourself.
    • Score
      • By default, SpamAssassin marks mail as spam when it reaches a score of 5. This base value can only be adjusted via command line using the following commands: 
        sudo nano /etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf
      • The particular rule to alter is: 
        #   Set the threshold at which a message is considered spam (default: 5.0)
#
# required_score 5.0
  • acl_not_smtp and acl_smtp_data
    • Both acl_not_smtp and acl_smtp_data can count towards the Apache SpamAssassin™ internal spam_score setting, depending on how your Exim configuration is set up.
    • There is no proper documentation from cPanel for these options.
    • Ypu can expose the underlying code in the GUI by using the 'Advanced Editor'.
    • acl_not_smtp:
      • outgoing_spam_scan (Scan outgoing messages for spam and reject based on the Apache SpamAssassin™ internal spam_score setting)
      • This refers to Exim's Access Control Lists (ACLs) that apply to non-SMTP email submissions, such as mail sent from local scripts or PHP applications. This is often used to set rules for handling outbound mail generated by websites, contact forms, or local applications.
      • Purpose: To control and filter outgoing email messages that are not sent via SMTP, such as web apps or local daemons.
      • Advanced Settings (Under Advanced editor):
        warn
        condition   = ${if forany{<, $recipients}{!match_domain{${domain:$item}}{:+relay_domains}}}
        set acl_m_outbound_recipient = 1

warn
        condition   = $acl_m_outbound_recipient
        condition   = ${if <={$message_size}{1000K}}
        condition   = ${if !eq{$originator_uid}{0}}
        condition   = ${perl{spamd_is_available}}
        set acl_m_spam_scan_enabled  = 1

deny
        condition   = $acl_m_outbound_recipient
        condition   = $acl_m_spam_scan_enabled
        spam        = cpaneleximscanner/defer_ok
        message     = This message was classified as SPAM and may not be delivered
        log_message = "SpamAssassin as cpaneleximscanner detected OUTGOING not smtp message as spam ($spam_score)"

warn
        condition   = $acl_m_outbound_recipient
        condition   = $acl_m_spam_scan_enabled
        log_message = "S
    • acl_smtp_data:
      • outgoing_spam_scan (Scan outgoing messages for spam and reject based on the Apache SpamAssassin™ internal spam_score setting)
      • Purpose: The acl_smtp_data ACL is used to inspect the content of the email before it's accepted for delivery. It is commonly employed for tasks such as:
        • Spam Filtering: Checking the email content against spam filters (like SpamAssassin).
        • Virus Scanning: Scanning the email for malware or viruses.
        • Attachment Filtering: Restricting certain types of file attachments or scanning them.
        • Rate Limiting or Message Size Checking: Ensuring that message sizes adhere to server limits.
        • Custom Message Rejection: Applying custom rules to reject messages that contain specific content or violate policies.
      • Advanced Settings (Under Advanced editor):
        warn
        condition = $acl_m_outbound_recipient
        condition = ${if <={$message_size}{1000K}}
        condition = ${if !eq{$acl_c_authenticated_local_user}{root}}
        condition = ${if !match{$authenticated_id}{\N^__cpanel__service__auth__[^+%:@]+$\N}}
        condition = ${perl{spamd_is_available}}
        set acl_m_spam_scan_enabled = 1


deny
        condition   = $acl_m_outbound_recipient
        condition   = $acl_m_spam_scan_enabled
        spam        = ${if eq{$acl_m1}{}{cpaneleximscanner}{$acl_m1}}/defer_ok
        message     = This message was classified as SPAM and may not be delivered
        log_message = "SpamAssassin as ${if eq{$acl_m1}{}{cpaneleximscanner}{$acl_m1}} detected OUTGOING smtp message as spam ($spam_score)"

warn
        condition   = $acl_m_outbound_recipient
        condition   = $acl_m_spam_scan_enabled
        log_message = "SpamAssassin as ${if eq{$acl_m1}{}{cpaneleximscanner}{$acl_m1}} detected OUTGOING smtp message as NOT spam ($spam_score)"

 

WHM - Outbound Filtering

  • I am not sure if it uses the per user/cPanel custom rules (as appropriate) for calculating the spam_score when outbound filtering, I cant see why it doesn't though.
  • When an email has been forwarded after being scanned for SPAM it will have an additional header with it's score.
  • How to configure Spam Assassin to scan outgoing mail. – cPanel - This article covers configuring outgoing mail to be scanned by Spam Assassin.
  • Enable Outgoing Spam Filtering Using SpamAssassin - eukhost - This guide explains how to enable Outgoing Spam Filtering Using SpamAssassin.
  • Configure SpamAssassin to block outgoing form mail – cPanel
    • There are actually two assigned spam scores, one when you receive the email locally and one that is assigned to it when it's scanned outbound.
    • In this case Spam Score: X-Spam-Score: 100 refers to the score assigned on delivery to the server.
    • The score that is being assigned to the server when it is sent is the Outgoing Spam Score which in this case is below the threshold of 2: X-Outgoing-Spam-Status: No, score=1.7 So with a spam score of 1.7 SpamAssassin isn't seeing this email as spam and sends it.
  • How-To Prevent Exim From Forwarding Spam – cPanel - This article covers configuring Exim to not forward mail based on the message's Apache SpamAssassin™ Spam score.

SpamAssassin - Example rules that can be triggered

To find the rules, search for them in the following format: describe KAM_DMARC_STATUS

SpamAssassin - Managing rules

  • General
  • KAM Ruleset
    • This is not part of the Spamassassin base code.
    • The is a 3rd party ruleset that is included with cPanel/WHM and is on by default.
    • In cPanel/WHM: /etc/mail/spamassassin/KAM.cf
    • KAM Ruleset | The McGrail Foundation
      • The KAM Ruleset is a set of Apache SpamAssassin rules developed and used on our systems.
      • This ruleset has been in active use and development since May 2004 and provides a significant boost to the performance and efficacy of a stock installation of Apache SpamAssassin.
    • KAM Ruleset Channel | The McGrail Foundation - The McGrail Foundation Home Page

SpamAssassin - What rules caused an email to get flagged?

  •  Exim Mail Log - Example Entry 
    Sep  1 13:56:08 srv spamd[414141]: spamd: connection from localhost [127.0.0.1]:43490 to port 783, fd 6
Sep  1 13:56:08 srv spamd[414141]: spamd: setuid to cpaneleximscanner succeeded
Sep  1 13:56:08 srv spamd[414141]: generic: trusted_networks doesn't contain internal_networks entry '0/0'
Sep  1 13:56:08 srv spamd[414141]: spamd: checking message <XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXZldVRrQX6dyBuRHk9yR9jnJNGRM@www.example.co.uk> for cpaneleximscanner:992
Sep  1 13:56:18 srv spamd[414141]: spamd: identified spam (5.9/5.0) for cpaneleximscanner:992 in 10.3 seconds, 3794 bytes.
Sep  1 13:56:18 srv spamd[414141]: spamd: result: Y 5 - FREEMAIL_FORGED_REPLYTO,KAM_COUK,KAM_DMARC_STATUS,PHP_SCRIPT,T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE,URIBL_BLOCKED scantime=10.3,size=3794,user=cpaneleximscanner,uid=992,required_score=5.0,rhost=localhost,raddr=127.0.0.1,rport=43490,mid=<XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXZldVRrQX6dyBuRHk9yR9jnJNGRM@www.example.co.uk>,autolearn=no autolearn_force=no,shortcircuit=no
  • spam - Where can i find explanation of a SpamAssasin scores like SPOOFED_FREEMAIL? - Server Fault 
    ## This adds the score
/var/lib/spamassassin/3.004006/updates_spamassassin_org/20_freemail.cf

## This is the list of the Freemail domains
/var/lib/spamassassin/3.004006/updates_spamassassin_org/20_freemail_domains.cf

## An old list
/var/lib/spamassassin/3.004006/updates_spamassassin_org/20_freemail_mailcom_domains.cf
  • How to find the descriptions of SpamAssassin rules to help understand why a message was marked as spam – cPanel - If you find that SpamAssassin is marking messages as Spam when it should not be, or that SpamAssassin is not marking messages as spam when it should be, you can use the following procedure to find out what rules were applied to a message and review the description of the applied rules for additional context.
  • How can I check why SpamAssassin applied a particular score? – cPanel - Some email messages are flagged or rejected as spam, but I'm not sure why. Can I check how SpamAssassin is applying this score?
  • How to find SpamAssassin scan results – cPanel -When SpamAssassin scans an email the results are saved to the /var/log/maillog file. This can be used to determine what rules are being triggered by the message. 
    /usr/local/cpanel/logs/spamd_error_log

SpamAssassin - Here’s a breakdown of how this score is calculated:

I got this from my VPS provider:

SpamAssassin’s internal spam score is calculated by summing the scores of various matched rules.

  1. Rule-Based System
    • SpamAssassin uses a large set of predefined rules to analyze various parts of an email, including:
      • Email headers (e.g., suspicious sender domains, mismatched or forged headers).
      • Message body content (e.g., words commonly associated with spam, HTML content, or embedded links).
      • Attachments (e.g., dangerous file types, large attachment sizes).
      • Blacklists (e.g., checking if the sender's IP address or domain is on a spam blacklist).
    • Each rule is assigned a specific score, positive or negative, depending on how indicative it is of spam. These scores are predefined, but you can customize them in SpamAssassin’s configuration files.
      • Positive score: Increases the likelihood that the message is spam.
      • Negative score: Decreases the likelihood that the message is spam (e.g., messages from trusted sources might get a negative score).
  2. Cumulative Scoring
    • When SpamAssassin scans an email, it applies multiple rules. The total spam score is the sum of all the individual rule scores that match the email.
    • Example: 
      Rule    Description    Score
HTML_MESSAGE    Email contains HTML    1.0
BAYES_99    Bayesian filter suggests 99% spam probability    3.5
RCVD_IN_SPAMHAUS    Sender's IP is in the Spamhaus blacklist    2.0
DKIM_VALID    Email has a valid DKIM signature    -1.0
Total Score        5.5
      • In this example, the email’s total spam score is 5.5.
  3. Spam Threshold
    • The total score is compared to the spam threshold configured in cPanel/WHM. The default threshold is usually 5.0. If the total score exceeds this threshold, the message is flagged as spam.
      • Spam Threshold of 5.0: If an email’s score exceeds 5.0, it is considered spam.
      • Spam Threshold of 7.0: If the threshold is set to 7.0, only messages with a spam score higher than 7.0 will be flagged as spam.
    • You can adjust the spam threshold score in the SpamAssassin configuration settings to make the filter more or less aggressive.
  4. Bayesian Filtering (Adaptive Learning)
    • SpamAssassin also uses a Bayesian filter, which is a machine-learning technique that adapts to the types of emails received over time. When trained with both spam and non-spam emails, this filter becomes more accurate in determining whether an email is spam by calculating the probability based on previously learned patterns.
      • The Bayesian filter assigns probabilities to words or phrases, which contribute to the overall spam score.
      • SpamAssassin rules like BAYES_50 (50% spam probability) or BAYES_99 (99% spam probability) are examples of how this filter impacts the overall score.
  5. Custom Rules and Scoring
    • You can also create custom rules and assign them specific scores. This allows you to adapt SpamAssassin to your organization’s needs by:
      • Increasing the score of certain patterns (e.g., emails with specific attachments).
      • Decreasing the score for emails from trusted domains or senders.
  6. Adjusting the Spam Score Multiplier
    • In cPanel and WHM, the spam score is multiplied by 10 for internal use. For example, if you set a spam score threshold of 5.0 in WHM, it will show up as 50 in log files and email headers.
    • For instance, if you see the following in an email header, It corresponds to a score of 4.0 (since 40 divided by 10 is 4.0), which is below the default spam threshold of 5.0, so the email wouldn’t be flagged as spam.
      X-Spam-Score: 40

 

Published in General
Read more...
Thursday, 01 August 2024 10:23

My Meta Quest 3 Notes

These are a collection of my notes for the Meta Quest 3

General

  • Official Sites
  • Other Sites
  • Specs
  • Performance
  • Equipment
    • VR Treadmills
    • Controller Stocks
  • Maintenance / Looking after your Quest
  • Legal / Warranty
    • Meta might be trying to get around EU 2 year warranty with Quest 3 or they already did | Reddit
      • Consider Duration from the T&Cs: 1 year from the date of purchase or delivery of the Product, whichever is later (the “Warranty Period”). If you are a consumer, this does not affect your statutory rights which may provide for longer warranty coverage.
      • You're mixing the legal guarantee (2 years in the EU, regarding the seller of the product) with the commercial warranty (1 year, in most cases regarding the manufacturer). A lot of companies only offer 1 year of commerical warranty (like Apple for example).  
      • this. also important to know: the one year warranty that apple and meta offer are voluntary. but as nightkrwlr said: it's different from the two-year consumer law rule.
      • = 2 Years warranty
    • Meta Quest EU/EEA/UK consumer right of withdrawal information | Meta Quest - Under applicable law, consumers in the European Union (EU), the European Economic Area (EEA) and the UK have a right to withdraw from or cancel certain purchases for a refund.
    • Meta Horizon Store Terms | Meta Quest - No meta description
  • Sign up issues
    • The signup form will only accept UK postcodes in this format SW1 1LF and not SW11LF
  • Meta keep trying to charge £59.99 for my free subscription
    • I could not get the 6 months free to work, my bank kept on wanting to charge me £59.99 even thought it said the due amount today was £0.00
      By ticking this box and clicking the Confirm button, you agree that the content will immediately begin downloading onto your device, and you acknowledge that you will thereby lose any statutory right of withdrawal (EU/EEA) or cancellation (UK). Learn more
You will be charged £59.99, including tax, when this free trial ends on 26 Feb 2025 and every year when this subscription is automatically renewed until you cancel. Cancel at any time in your account settings at least 24 hours before the end of this free trial or the next billing date to avoid future charges.By selecting Confirm, you agree to the Meta Quest Store Terms.
    • So this is what I did to fix it:
      • Created a virtual card with £10 on it to prevent my account from getting charged.
      • Using the phone APP I signed up using my information and the virtual card
      • When I get to the point it wants to test my card is valid, the amount being charged to my account is £59.99
      • A 2FA notice appeared in a browser thing, I clicked cancel on it ignoring any messages on my phone to accept or deny the transaction through my banking App.
        • This is not the link that is sent to your phone's banking app asking you to approve.
        • Never approve it and don't cancel it either.
        • I let the request in my banking app expire. It should only take 10 mins.
      • Bingo, it works
    • Research
  • Cloud Backup
    • About cloud backup | Meta Store
      • When cloud backup is turned on, Meta backs up your device's app data, such as app progress or app settings, to the cloud. This allows you to easily pick up where you left off in a game if you reinstall an app, factory reset your device or set up a new device.
      • To keep your cloud backup data safe, your app data is encrypted on the device and remains encrypted on our servers.

Q&A

Apps

  • System
  • YouTubeVR
    • Experience your favourite YouTube channels, videos and creators in virtual reality.
    • The YouTube VR app turns every video on the platform into your own virtual reality experience and reimagines YouTube as a 3D world you can explore from the inside.
    • Cannot load the app, keeps on crapping out
      • 5 Ways to Fix YouTube VR if It’s Not Working on Oculus Quest - To fix Oculus Quest YouTube VR not working issue, you will need to tweak some settings and follow additional steps shown in this article.
      • Solution
        • Setup you boundary area before you start YouTubeVR
        • You must share boundary information when asked otherwise the app will just crap out with no message.

Casting and Inputting

Remote Desktop / Productivity

Casting from Quest to (Phone|Computer)

Play PCVR Games on Quest

HDMI Input (Xbox One / SteamDeck / Playstation)

Xbox One

Play Xbox games on Quest (General)

You can pair your Xbox controller on your Quest for using with games.

  • Methods
    • Xbox One HDMI Output --> HDMI USB capture dongle --> quest
    • Xbox Gamepass
      • is natively supported on Quest 3
      • A.k.a Xbox Cloud Gaming (beta) / Xbox App
      • No Xbox needed
    • Xbox --> PC --> Quest
      • Uses Virtual Desktop App on the Quest and PC.
    • As PC VR Headset (needs a decent PC)
  • 4 Ways to Play Xbox Games On Oculus Quest / Quest 2 – Smart Glasses Hub
    • Can you also use the Oculus Quest and Quest 2 VR headsets to enjoy some Xbox gaming?
    • The short answer is that you can play Xbox games on both the Oculus Quest and Quest 2 headsets.
    • It is possible to stream the Xbox console to your headset or alternatively play Xbox games without the console by using the Xbox Cloud gaming service.

Play Xbox games on Quest (via Xbox App)

  • Playing Xbox on Oculus Quest 3 | OculusQuest | Reddit
    • I got the Xbox app running on the Oculus Quest 3. For anyone wanting to know how it's done, follow the steps below.
      1. Enable developer mode on Oculus. The requires a developer account which anyone can set up. It's super easy. This give you access to the library folder for unknown sources, more on this later.
      2. Install Side Quest on a PC
      3. Download File Manager APK from https://flashlight-clock-file-manager.en.uptodown.com/android
      4. Follow Side Quest steps to connect your Oculus
      5. Upload file manager to Oculus via side quest
      6. Get on your Oculus and use the web browser to search for the Xbox app APK and download from uptown.
      7. Go to your library, click the search bar, use the drop down to go to "unknown sources"
      8. use the file manager to install the Xbox APK
      9. connect an Xbox controller to the headset via Bluetooth setting
      10. log into Microsoft account and enjoy!
      11. It seems like a lot of steps but it only took me about 20 minutes altogether.
    • Other Comments
      • For some reason the xbox app uses low resolution (I'm using quest pro), still playable but sometimes annoying
      • Surprisingly low in my experience, but it looks like they use a low bitrate to achieve that so it doesn’t look great. There’s a custom Xbox remote play app someone made that lets you adjust the bitrate so that may help.
      • I know Xbox Cloud Gaming is officially coming to the Quest in December and I've seen some people assume that means you'd be able to remote play as well, but I'm not actually sure that'll be the case since I don't think they've specifically mentioned remote play.
      • For those wondering about the screen resize, open this menu on the oculus and hit "switch view". After that you should be able to resize windows.
      • Also, if anyone has any issues where the Xbox controller uses head tracking, press the start and back button on the controller at the same time and it will switch the controls.
      • Sidequest (advanced) can install apks directly to the oculus headset
      • FYI, there is a way easier way to do this. Just download Fluid on App Lab. Works out of the box.
  • How to play Xbox games on the Meta Quest 3 | Trusted Reviews - You can stream Xbox games directly to your Meta Quest 3, as well as the Quest 2 and the Quest Pro. Here's how.

Casting to a Xbox One

Casting from a Xbox One

  • How to Stream Xbox One to Your PC
    • You can stream Xbox One to any PC as long as they're both running Windows and are connected to the same network. Here's how to do it.
    • Page is faulty, click on the TOC links on the left hand side to navigate.

Play Xbox games on your PC

Purchases

random thing to look at later, I have not made a descicion and do not know the quality of the brands, this is more an idea holders

Troubleshooting

  • Solved: Meta Quest app - stuck on the "Pair a new device" ... - Meta Community Forums - 1153444
    • Q:
      • I'm stuck on the "Pair your headset with the Meta Quest app to continue." step during the Meta Quest 3 setup. The smartphone app tells me to "Allow permissions", which I have already done. I have "Use precise location" enabled as well. Pressing the blue "Continue" button does nothing. The Meta Quest 3 button is greyed out. I have a code displayed in the headset that I'm supposed to input somewhere in this app. What do I do?
      • My Meta Quest app is up to date. I have already installed all system updates on my smartphone. My smartphone and Meta Quest 3 are on the same WiFi network.
    • A:

      • I had the same problem. Make sure your location is turned on from the swipe down panel.
  • Solved: Passthrough turns on - can't use menu button - Meta Community Forums - 1078491
    • Q: My Oculus would not load the menu screen without passthrough on. With passthrough on the oculus would not load apps/games. The app on my phone says the apps are open on the device. 
    • A:
      Hey there! Thank you for letting us know the experience you're having with your device as this is not what we want. We do have a few users having the menu button disappear and a Factory Reset has gotten them back on track. However, I am not seeing some users not having the button load overall even when factory resetting. 
  • Stuck on Passthrough with Menus not working - Meta Community Forums - 1173053
    • Q: I'm stuck in pass through but the home music cuts in and out and I can't open any menus or nothing
    • A: With the device being stuck viewing your play area, we'd like to hard reboot the headset by holding the power button down for 30 seconds. 
  • Hand tracking not working
  • Cannot login to the Meta Quest community forum

    This call accesses the User ID platform feature, which requires certifying through the Oculus Data Use Checkup program. Please visit this page for more detail: https://developer.oculus.com/distribute/publish-data-use/. If you have already completed a Data Use Checkup, please ensure that all compliance issues are resolved by visiting the Compliance Dashboard: https://developer.oculus.com/resources/publish-compliance-dashboard/.
    • If you get this error below when you try and login to the Meta Quest community forum then you should know:
      • this is nothing you have done but is the garbage infrastructure and support team from Quest. A billion dollar corporation cannot keep their own API key updated and then when it needs swapping takes nearly 2 weeks to fix. Meta need to change their support team from wherever they have outsourced it to.
      • This is a common occurrence
    • Solved: Login to user forum problems | Meta Community Forum
    • Developer account data use checkup. | Overclockers UK Forums - Has anyone with a dev account had this pop up when trying to log into the meta forums
  •  not authorized to relay messages to the server that reported this error
  • Meta Quest app - stuck on the "Pair a new device" screen - Meta Community Forums - 1153444
    • Q:
      • I'm stuck on the "Pair your headset with the Meta Quest app to continue." step during the Meta Quest 3 setup.
      • The smartphone app tells me to "Allow permissions", which I have already done.
      • I have "Use precise location" enabled as well.
      • Pressing the blue "Continue" button does nothing.
      • The Meta Quest 3 button is greyed out.
      • I have a code displayed in the headset that I'm supposed to input somewhere in this app.
      • What do I do?
    • A:
      • Make sure your location is turned on from the swipe down panel.

 

Published in Other Devices
Read more...
Tuesday, 16 July 2024 12:02

My Pond Notes

These are my notes on rebuilding my pond

Purchasing

Tutorials

 

 

Published in House
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