Notes about implementation choices (flash versus javascript, browser compatibility, etc)
Hey folks!
Given our recent discussion of html5 versus Flash, I thought it might be good for me to talk a bit about how I come to decisions regarding what browsers to support and whether to use Flash or Javascript.
First off, my absolute priority is that if you are running the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, or Opera with Flash installed (roughly 80% of our audience), absolutely everything will work, no matter what. Furthermore, support for the latest versions of IE and Safari will be good as well, although given Apple's choice not to be compatible with the WebM video codec, I can't 100% guarantee that audio (and video, if we set that up) will continue to work for Safari, although for the time being I'll probably be sticking with Flash. If you're one of the 3% total who are hitting this site with IE 6 or 7, I'm sorry, but I can't spend the time testing and coding for your browsers and still do all of the things that I need to do; however, if you'd like to volunteer to help me make the site work with your browser, I'd love the assistance.
So, what's my reasoning for all this?
First and foremost, I'm doing this pretty much on my own (with occasional help from some other people). I've got a ton of feature requests, and in order to implement them all, I need to pick whatever is going to be the quickest way to do them that the majority of the userbase (see above) will be able to see. This means that I unfortunately don't have time to set up alternate themes for browsers that can't handle the code, or spend hours (and trust me, it takes hours) tweaking stylesheets and javascript and HTML elements to make old browsers work (here's looking at you, IE 6).
Secondly, given the site's Free Software philosophy, all other things being equal, I'll prioritize people who are running standards-compliant browsers without Flash over non-standards-complient browsers with it. Plus, I know javascript and jquery, and I find them a lot easier than Flash to code for quickly (which goes back to my first point).
TL;DR -- My priorities are time and then open standards, in that order. :)
Comments, as always, are welcome. :)
Bart
You should just put up a note at the bottom/top stating best viewed with latest versions of all browsers (IE 8, FF 4.0 and whatever else comes to mind) and leave it at that. That makes it easy for you as well as others. People at some point or the other have to upgrade. You could also use sites such as http://iedeathmarch.org to put your point across.
Hey, sorry for a bit of grave digging, but I think this link might interest you:
http://github.com/bfirsh/dynamicaudio.js
I haven't tried it out myself, but you could have a look at it.
Cheers,
Lee
I like that the comments are html not crazy bbcode sh*t.
but: i think markdown would be even cooler :) is the source to opengameart.org open source? :)
OGA is built on Drupal. I haven't opened the OGA1 source because it's all just little bits of glue here and there -- nothing that would be useful to anyone. I've already opened up some of the OGA2 code in progress, and I'll be adding more to it as I go. It's forcing me to keep my code clean and maintainable this time around, and I'm a bit less timid now about coding up new Drupal modules. :)
Note: I'm unfamiliar with markdown. Drupal has a markdown filter module, so it may be doable. No promises, though. At the moment, I think the wysiwyg editor works fine, although if you can provide a compelling reason to add markdown support, I'll consider it.
i don't know how 'stable' or good the drupal markdown module is. do you have link so i can take a look?
regarding markdown. here is 'official' page: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/
The overriding design goal for Markdown’s formatting syntax is to make it as readable as possible. The idea is that a Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions.
the reasons are not too compelling to urge a switch. technical / code people like it because it is easy to write & read AND produces very good html (unlike most wysiwyg editors).
(i couldn't get the text to be visible via buttons... and i cant be bothered to fiddle with the html... to prove my point)
http://drupal.org/project/markdown
The Markdown module for Drupal 7 is in beta and hasn't been updated since November, so color me skeptical. :)
oi, not good :) well no biggie.
@smonos re: HTML vs. BBCode
I have mixed feelings about this. Yes, HTML is more powerful and easy to understand. But HTML is vulnerable to XSS and script injection and all that; I don't want bart to have to deal with having his site hacked. Plus people do all kinds of funny things with HTML that I don't want to see. I remember all of what happened on MySpace.
HTML5 Canvas Old School RPG
Drupal has a pretty good HTML filter that only lets certain tags though. XSS shouldn't really be doable.
any update of implementation schedule, game to the site after a long long time.