Thanks for the reply.
I agree with you that the JS client is more starting from scratch than a C++
client. However, I think all I need to do is put together a very rough proof
of concept and then it would be easy for anybody to take the client and run
with it as a project. The nature of Javascript makes this a very good
project for a younger developer looking for an exciting project. The real
goal of this project is for there to one day be many clients, an iPhone
client, web client, a really good bot-interface, etc.
I do, however, reserve the right to give up and fall back on a native client
w/o shame! :)
-- Henry
On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 10:15 PM, Enne Walker <enne.wal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
>
>
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Beautiful is writing same markup. Internet Explorer 9 supports
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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
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