ID:1776219
 
Keywords: tutorial, webclient

Poll: How much interest is there in a Webclient Tutorial?

I would give my life for it. (Yes) 93% (41)
What's a internet client? (No) 6% (3)

Login to vote.

As the title hints, how much interest is there in the development of a full tutorial for the webclient?

We've had the webclient now for us to play with for a few months, and there are quite a few people using it, but on the contrary there are very few people using the webclient to its fullest potential. That is, actually developing their own controls and client-side code for their game. I've wanted to write something similar to Lummox JR's BYOND 4.0 Skins tutorial for quite some time, but I always find myself questioning whether people would even care. Which is why I pose the question: do you care?

The tutorial I'd write would assume the following knowledge beforehand:

  • You know Javascript and you know it well. This includes things like basic JSON.
  • You're at least slightly familiar with jQuery.
  • You're familiar with the concept of AJAX.
  • You know HTML and CSS intimately.
  • You know how to work with BYOND 4.0 Skins (not that we're going to be using them)


I'd focus primarily on developing mostly-autonomous methods of communicating between the client and server, organizing an interface into virtual and visual controls, and implementing a bunch of eye-candy otherwise impossible with DreamSeeker.


This isn't a guaranteed thing, and I even I can't claim to be as much of an expert on this as perhaps Lummox himself. I do know that when there's only an honestly vague (but comprehensive! mostly..!) reference to work with, and no examples or tutorials, it can be discouraging to work with the webclient.
I'd like to see a newbie oriented tutorial first, however nonetheless any tutorial is greatly appreciated and will be of use to this community.
*Has very primitive understanding of Javascript*

But I'd damn sure be motivated to learn with a tutorial about the webclient requiring it.
You have a point, but I'd rather not write a javascript tutorial. A valid point, still.
I'm only really interested in what possibilities there are and where to look for references. After knowing that, I can do things myself. Nonetheless, this tutorial seems interesting if I ever needed a quick learning guide or refresher. It'd be useful.
Here is a place to start http://www.w3schools.com/.
In response to Mar big
Even if you know the whole web development suite of languages, you probably won't immediately understand how to make anything with the webclient.

I know I didn't.

I think I'll write the tutorial assuming very brief knowledge of JS/HTML/CSS instead of absolute knowledge.
In response to Doohl
That is true, I had found a link to your GitHub, and saw some work that you did and started to connect things together.
In response to Doohl
Doohl wrote:
I think I'll write the tutorial assuming very brief knowledge of JS/HTML/CSS instead of absolute knowledge.

This works. My JavaScript is terrible, I literally end up looking up everything I do with it. I'm not familiar with AJAX/JSON. I have a basic understanding of HTML, CSS, and JS.
Are there any examples out there right now that show some of the things you can do? My head isn't wrapped around the whole thing just yet. When I look at the WebClient help/reference file, it's confusing and provides no examples or starting points. From what I've gathered, they are automatically converting BYOND interface controls (in a basic and primitive way) so they work in the WebClient. Granted, I haven't dug in but I'm also wondering why I should. What makes it so special? I get it if we can design interfaces with the power of HTML 5 & CSS and then stick the map control in there somewhere. Anything else? Any games explicitly using a web based interface?
To put it simply, I am in the mindset where I simply say, "Why the hell would I do it that way when I can do it the old way?" I don't know of the benfits/possibilities therefore I don't know how to use it or construct my own scripts.
In response to Xirre
The benefit is that it saves the sever from having tons of objects to handle for each individual client (it saves resources).
In response to Mar big
Mar big wrote:
The benefit is that it saves the sever from having tons of objects to handle for each individual client (it saves resources).

Yeah, but if you're not using a lot of on-screen elements, then what other benefits are there?
It's all client side, so you end up with more intuitive and flashy UIs.

The best we got with WinClient is using animate on hud objects.

With javascript, the whole UI is client side and you can do a LOT more than you could before.
In response to Lavitiz
Yeah, we will also have access to popular frameworks, such as JQuery. Not to mention it will make your projects more scalable.
In response to Mar big
Mar big wrote:
Yeah, we will also have access to popular frameworks, such as JQuery. Not to mention it will make your projects more scalable.

True, plus more accessible.
Thanks for the feedback, guys!

I think I've made up my mind. You'll probably see some content in a few weeks or days. I'd need to run it through some other people before I publish it, get a peer-review ball rolling. But the process should be fairly swift.

It's going to be aiming to primarily dispel any confusions about the webclient, and showing you how to get some flashy but basic controls set up. The focus of the tutorial will be JavaScript, however! Be ye warned.
This is a great idea. Looking forward to it.
Sounds good.
I'm looking forward to this too. I'm at a loss for where to begin with anything more than basic styling of the default interface. (Mainly because I haven't been able to put much time into playing with the webclient.)

Could we perhaps get a glimpse of how the menus in these gifs of Severed World (1, 2) were implemented as well? How difficult is it to style elements with graphics like that?
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