Revising the User Interface in enCore

Here is a "blast from the past". At least this one is in the current century.
This is a post I made to the enCore mailing list way back in 2005.
What is interesting to me is that many of my comments seem to still apply.  If anything they are more applicable now. Plus I know way more about how enCore works so it is actually feasible to do this myself.
So many projects so little time :-)
Thanks for reading.
KJ
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http://mirror.lardbucket.org/encore/0002.html
From: Kevin Jepson
Date: Wed Aug 17 2005 - 16:12:20 CDT

Good Afternoon Folks

Ok, here is one way I think we could easily change the interface to bring back some of the immersive qualities that we have been talking about.

Note: "easily" is relative, Daniel might not agree :)

The following is a crude cut and paste mock-up using my version 4 EnCore MOO.

You'll notice that it is pretty much a standard version 4 layout when set for horizontal.
This horizontal layout is important, IMHO, because it ties into the scrolling text structure, unlike the vertical one which forces the user to switch "back and forth". This layout does reduce the graphics space available for illustrations within the room description a bit without scrolling, though.

The list of users shown on the right hand side could also be a version of the "Who Frame" that Daniel has added to V5.
If a hidden frame was used for that a similar hidden frame could be used for the contents. While that would reduce the space for the description even more it would fix the layout. That way when moving, objects, people and exits could easily be updated and kept current without loosing them in the refresh or to the vagaries of the rooms decorations.

The "Exit Frame" lists the obvious exits of the room and makes them clickable. The key thing here is that the link is the DIRECTION of the exit. A user can also type that direction in the chat to move as well.  The exit frame would update only when the user moves and could be updated by the look cmd.

I would also make sure that exit messages were turned back on so that the users would get feedback on their movements and those of others.

This isn't really a big change but I do think it would drastically change a users perception of the "space" in which they are "moving".

Javascript, moo code and webpages Oh My!

It seems that sometimes a bad Internet connection is a good thing.

I've been on a sort of "Busman's Holiday" out to Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast over the last two weeks.  During that time we have generally had an Internet connection of some sort, but it has almost always been a bit intermittent.

Normally this state of affairs would be sub-optimal for me to be sure.
This time however, I took the opportunity to apply myself to learning the esoteric art of JavaScript coding... Don't laugh, I have never had to do anything with it before now!

What got me thinking about this was how well the Edit Area Javascript package worked when I integrated it into the Xpress Program Editor in V4 enCore.  You can see some screen shots of the editor here .  The Edit Area Javascript package was created by Christophe Dolivet and can be downloaded here .

The Edit Area system adds a lot of nice capabilities to the enCore editor without using much if any MOO code.  I figured "how hard could it be to do something like that?" Heh...

After two weeks of reading from one of those 2" thick 4lb dead tree chunks, that purports to be "everything you need to know", and lots of experimenting on a copy of my Ewebbed enCore package running in a Virtual Box copy of XP on my Ubuntu EEEpc Netbook (?!?), I managed to add a "debugger" to the program editor.