2010/10/28 Adam Borowski <kilob...@angband.pl>: > On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 12:29:16AM -0400, Henry Cipolla wrote: >> There is currently a document outlining how to get there: >> https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php?id=dcss:brainstorm:internal:clientserver >> >> However, my impression is this plan has been around for a while but hasn't >> actually gained much traction. If that is incorrect, I apologize. > > It's not that -- there is consensus that this is the way to go forward, it's > just that people doing that (Luca and to some point by) are inactive due to > RL duties. If someone like you could carry on, it would be wonderful.
This is an extremely belated reply, but I'll second that. Having a better net tiles implementation would be quite awesome. >> 5) Update that client to actually parse the JSON and draw the map and info >> based on the values in the JSON. > > I think the only operations that Crawl uses are: > * drawing text into a panel/tooltip; these panels contain nothing elseC > * drawing a rectangular part of a big texture, with alpha, over blackness or > underlying things (also parts of that big texture) > * the minimap > > Even in plain HTML the two first are easy, it'd be just a matter of checking > what works best: a big table, 80x70+ divs, or SVG. The minimap is trickier, > but even if done completely server-side it won't cause unacceptable delays > as it's a small image. This is a minor point, but canvas might be a better option for both the map and the minimap. Most browsers will have this hardware accelerated by the time you need it, especially the "draw a subimage to the canvas" bit. >> For example, after the refactoring in the second milestone is complete the >> JSON blobs could become updates instead of full refreshes of the game. > > Because of the way map_knowledge works, I see no benefit in sending the > whole table every time instead of just updates. If you are only sending map updates, you're more or less going to need to reimplement 90% of tile*.cc in Javascript. The advantage to a C++ tiles client is that the code already exists, you just have to abstract the client from the server. In Javascript, you'll have to do the Crawl type -> tile indices -> texture coordinate lookup yourself in Javascript, which may not be so speedy. To be performant you'll likely need to rewrite the drawing routines to redraw less. Also, if you want the on-screen inventory, spells, monster list, &c you'll need to implement all of that in Javascript as well. Don't get me wrong, I'd *love* to see a Javascript-based Crawl client. I think it'd be awesome and it'd do a lot of good towards sucking in new players. Maybe this is all less work than I'm thinking, but it looks like quite a bit from my perspective and also quite a bit more than a pure C++ client. -enne ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Beautiful is writing same markup. Internet Explorer 9 supports standards for HTML5, CSS3, SVG 1.1, ECMAScript5, and DOM L2 & L3. Spend less time writing and rewriting code and more time creating great experiences on the web. Be a part of the beta today http://p.sf.net/sfu/msIE9-sfdev2dev _______________________________________________ Crawl-ref-discuss mailing list Crawl-ref-discuss@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crawl-ref-discuss
