Hrmmm...Suggest ions, Ideas, Pointless Remarks?

[Onideus Mad Hatter]

Well in theory it was a good idea:
http://www.backwater-productions.net...ame/index.html

Press "4" to move left, press "6" to move right.

The question remains though...is there some way of limiting
onkeypress? Cause if you hold the key down, boy that's just all
shades of unhappy right there.

: char_l_img = 1;
: char_r_img = 1;
: start_pos = 300;
: nav4 = window.Event ? true : false;
:
: function move_left()
: {
: start_pos = start_pos - 5;
: char_l_img++;
: if ( start_pos == 25 ) { start_pos = 30; }
: if ( char_l_img == 5 )
: {
: char_l_img = "1";
: window.clearInt erval(farfoos);
: }
: document.getEle mentById("char_ div").style.lef t = start_pos + "px";
: document.getEle mentById("char_ img").src = "l" + char_l_img + ".gif";
: }
:
: function move_right()
: {
: start_pos = start_pos + 5;
: char_r_img++;
: if ( start_pos == 500 ) { start_pos = 495; }
: if ( char_r_img == 5 )
: {
: char_r_img = "1";
: window.clearInt erval(farfoos);
: }
: document.getEle mentById("char_ div").style.lef t = start_pos + "px";
: document.getEle mentById("char_ img").src = "r" + char_r_img + ".gif";
: }
:
: function move(e)
: {
: if (nav4) { whichCode = e.which; }
: else { whichCode = event.keyCode; }
: if( String.fromChar Code(whichCode) == 4 && char_l_img == 1 ) { farfoos = window.setInter val('move_left( )', 35); }
: if( String.fromChar Code(whichCode) == 6 && char_r_img == 1 ) { farfoos = window.setInter val('move_right ()', 35);}
: }
:
: document.onkeyp ress = move;
:
: document.write( "<div id='char_div' style='position :absolute; z-index:0; left:" + start_pos + "px; top:150px; width:32px height:64px'><i mg id='char_img' src='r1.gif'></div>");

I tried that && char_l_img == 1 thing, but that didn't seem to cut it.
Is there some way to detect when a key is NOT being pushed?
Hrmmm...I'm at a loss on this one at the moment, I think maybe I need
to get some sleep. -_-

I might need to rethink the whole way it actually functions...may be do
it in PHP...hrmmm...w onder if PHP has an onkeypress equivalent...

--

Onideus Mad Hatter
mhm ¹ x ¹
http://www.backwater-productions.net

[VK]

I guess you never programmed for ZX Spectrum... It puts your brains
under the right angle once and for a while :-)

The onkeydown starts the process of movement regulated by your internal
timer.

The onkeyup stops the process of the movement and clears the timer.

As the PC/Mac keyboard approach sucks from the very beginning, it's
impossible to reach a "PC Game" functionality w/o your own keyboard
driver (so say you could hold a key to keep moving forward and press
other keys to shoot/kick the enemies).

But a primitive movement is fairly simple:
....
var obj = null;
function init() {
obj = document.getEle mentById('Monke y');
obj.onkeydown = moveIt;
obj.onkeyup = stopIt;
}

function moveIt() {
/* Check what key is pressed
and setTimeout for the appropriate movement
function (left/right/up/down) */
}

function stopIt() {
/* clearTimeout */
}

windows.onload = init;
....

[RobG]

VK wrote:
[...]

windows.onload = init;

--------^

This runs when the OS loads? :-)

--
Rob

[VK]

>> windows.onload = init;

This runs when the OS loads? :-)

That would be cool... :-)

Sorry, just a typo. Of course:

window.onload = init;

[Lee]

Onideus Mad Hatter said:

I might need to rethink the whole way it actually functions...may be do
it in PHP...hrmmm...w onder if PHP has an onkeypress equivalent...

PHP runs on the server to generate pages to be sent to the client
browser. It's finished its job long before the first key is pressed.

[Onideus Mad Hatter]

On 3 Jul 2005 05:00:55 -0700, "VK" <sc**********@y ahoo.com> wrote:

I guess you never programmed for ZX Spectrum... It puts your brains
under the right angle once and for a while :-)

The onkeydown starts the process of movement regulated by your internal
timer.

The onkeyup stops the process of the movement and clears the timer.

As the PC/Mac keyboard approach sucks from the very beginning, it's
impossible to reach a "PC Game" functionality w/o your own keyboard
driver (so say you could hold a key to keep moving forward and press
other keys to shoot/kick the enemies).

But a primitive movement is fairly simple:
...
var obj = null;
function init() {
obj = document.getEle mentById('Monke y');
obj.onkeydown = moveIt;
obj.onkeyup = stopIt;
}

function moveIt() {
/* Check what key is pressed
and setTimeout for the appropriate movement
function (left/right/up/down) */
}

function stopIt() {
/* clearTimeout */
}

windows.onlo ad = init;
...

Ahhh, thank yas! I shall copy your code, test it, rip it all apart,
test it some more, rebuild it from scratch, poke it with the testing
stick again and hopefully I should have a new working version by this
evening. My gawd I love this shit...*shudder *...I think I have an
obsession with technology, I can't seem to get enough...graphi cs,
networking, video, web design, gaming, programming it WANTS to be
learned...ALL of it! o_O

Once I've got the game thing finished I'm gonna integrate it into my
new true liquid website:
http://www.backwater-productions.net...600/index.html

I might change the subject though, I originally made it for alt.2600,
but I've been thinking about turning it into a kind of retro Nintendo
esque site.

--

Onideus Mad Hatter
mhm ¹ x ¹
http://www.backwater-productions.net

[Onideus Mad Hatter]

On 3 Jul 2005 05:00:55 -0700, "VK" <sc**********@y ahoo.com> wrote:

I guess you never programmed for ZX Spectrum... It puts your brains
under the right angle once and for a while :-)
I prefer Mt. Dew to put my brain into the right angle.

I decide to try it my own way first and fix what I had, this is the
result:
http://www.backwater-productions.net...ame/index.html

: char_l_img = 1;
: char_r_img = 1;
: char_ar_img = 0;
: char_al_img = 0;
: start_pos = 300;
: nav4 = window.Event ? true : false;
: left = null;
: right = null;
: attack = null;
: pos = "rightface" ;
:
: function move_left()
: {
: start_pos = start_pos - 5;
: char_l_img++;
: if ( start_pos == 25 ) { start_pos = 30; }
: if ( char_l_img == 5 )
: {
: char_l_img = 1;
: window.clearInt erval(left);
: left = null;
: pos = "leftface";
: }
: document.getEle mentById("char_ div").style.lef t = start_pos + "px";
: document.getEle mentById("char_ img").src = "l" + char_l_img + ".gif";
: }
:
: function move_right()
: {
: start_pos = start_pos + 5;
: char_r_img++;
: if ( start_pos == 540 ) { start_pos = 535; }
: if ( char_r_img == 5 )
: {
: char_r_img = 1;
: window.clearInt erval(right);
: right = null;
: pos = "rightface" ;
: }
: document.getEle mentById("char_ div").style.lef t = start_pos + "px";
: document.getEle mentById("char_ img").src = "r" + char_r_img + ".gif";
: }
:
: function attack_right()
: {
: char_ar_img++;
: document.getEle mentById("char_ img").src = "ar" + char_ar_img + ".gif";
:
: if ( char_ar_img == 3 )
: {
: char_ar_img = 0;
: window.clearInt erval(attack);
: attack = null;
: }
: }
:
: function attack_left()
: {
: char_al_img++;
: document.getEle mentById("char_ img").src = "al" + char_al_img + ".gif";
:
: if ( char_al_img == 3 )
: {
: char_al_img = 0;
: window.clearInt erval(attack);
: attack = null;
: }
: }
:
: function move(e)
: {
: if (nav4) { whichCode = e.which; }
: else { whichCode = event.keyCode; }
: if( whichCode == 100 ) { if ( !left ) { left = window.setInter val('move_left( )', 35); } }
: if( whichCode == 102 ) { if ( !right ) { right = window.setInter val('move_right ()', 35);} }
: if( whichCode == 32 )
: {
: if ( !attack && pos == "leftface" ) { attack = window.setInter val('attack_lef t()', 75);}
: else if ( !attack && pos == "rightface" ) { attack = window.setInter val('attack_rig ht()', 75);}
: }
: }
:
: document.onkeyp ress = move;

The trick I found was to set the interval variables to null and then
only allow it to engage the function if they were. And then at the
end of each function it would reset the interval back to null so it
could engage again. Essentially the earlier way I had it was just
running dozens of the same interval every time the key was pressed.
The onkeydown starts the process of movement regulated by your internal
timer.

The onkeyup stops the process of the movement and clears the timer.
Hrmmm...timers. ..I'll try that later, see if it works any better than
my current methodology.
As the PC/Mac keyboard approach sucks from the very beginning, it's
impossible to reach a "PC Game" functionality w/o your own keyboard
driver (so say you could hold a key to keep moving forward and press
other keys to shoot/kick the enemies).
I find it works better if I alter my keyboards repeat delay settings
to the shortest setting. The major problem with my current ver is
that if a key is held down and you push another key once, then
everything just stops, so like you said, only one button at a time
essentially.
But a primitive movement is fairly simple:

<snip>
Will using onkeydown eliminate the prior problem I mentioned, or does
it function just like onkeypress?

And if it works no differently what about combining the two? For
example what if I used onkeydown for the movement, but then in the
move function could I include an onkeypress function that would handle
the sword movement. Or do the functions onkeydown and onkeypress
cancel one another out (or rather, take the place of one another)?

--

Onideus Mad Hatter
mhm ¹ x ¹
http://www.backwater-productions.net

[VK]

> Will using onkeydown eliminate the prior problem I mentioned,

or does it function just like onkeypress?
And if it works no differently what about combining the two? For
example what if I used onkeydown for the movement, but then in the
move function could I include an onkeypress function that would handle
the sword movement. Or do the functions onkeydown and onkeypress
cancel one another out (or rather, take the place of one another)?

Nothing will eliminate this problem because of the driver limitation I
just mentioned. It takes us rather far from JavaScript, but just to
make the picture clear:

ZX Spectrum and Atari (the great old) as well as Nintendo and Co (the
great new) have a keyboard driver based on so called "agressive
scanning". It means that from your program you may read the state of
*any key*. So user can hold 8 keys and hit the 9th one, and you can
still read it. So it doesn't have a keyboard IRQ (like PC). But you may
set up say "spacebar IRQ" (something very strange for PC terms).

PC's (back to IBM PC) decided to use much less convenient but more
resource effective scheme with passive listening of keyboard IRQ's. It
means that you cannot produce a new keyboard event until when the old
key is released. Well, no one thought about Doom or Halflife that time
:-)
To overpass the limitations of this approach, later they had to add
more and more modifiers on the keyboard (Ctrl, Alt, then divide them on
left and right control keys etc.)

Still this scheme is not usable for any more-or-less complex game. So
usually any game starts from installing its own keyboard driver. But
JavaScript doesn't let you this plesure. So I see two main options:

1) Use keys together with modifiers. Say RightArrow means go right,
Alt+RightArrow means go right and hit with the sword and so on.

2) Try to use Quake approach where the movement is regulated by keys,
and extra actions by mouse.

[Onideus Mad Hatter]

On 4 Jul 2005 01:15:16 -0700, "VK" <sc**********@y ahoo.com> wrote:

Will using onkeydown eliminate the prior problem I mentioned,
or does it function just like onkeypress?
And if it works no differently what about combining the two? For
example what if I used onkeydown for the movement, but then in the
move function could I include an onkeypress function that would handle
the sword movement. Or do the functions onkeydown and onkeypress
cancel one another out (or rather, take the place of one another)?

Nothing will eliminate this problem because of the driver limitation I
just mentioned. It takes us rather far from JavaScript, but just to
make the picture clear:<snip>

I gotcha, I found a way around the problem though, rather than rely on
the keyboard for movement I'm simply going to create graphical
controls on the screen, so you can move your mouse over them to
control the left, right and stop movement and then I'll just use the
keyboard for like the jumping and attack...essent ially that'll
simulate how old Nintendo controllers work (a and b buttons single
tap...unless you have turbo).

--

Onideus Mad Hatter
mhm ¹ x ¹
http://www.backwater-productions.net

[VK]

> I'm simply going to create graphical

controls on the screen, so you can
move your mouse over them to
control the left, right and stop movement
and then I'll just use the
keyboard for like the jumping and attack

It's your game (in all meanings of it), but I'm finding this approach
rather odd from the common gaming practice. Usially a primitive
<left/right/top/down> movement in arcades is always regulated by some
"physical" input device (keyboard keys in our case). Gamer needs a
continuos tactil sensations for the movement, otherwise you're forcing
him/her to continuosly switch the attention from the game field to the
navigation panel and back. I can tell in advance that your game will be
*very* irritating for the most of the users. They can rather easy to
forgive you to be "killed" because they could not get out the sword on
time. They get bazurk of "being killed" because they couldn't go to the
left on time because your interface was to fancy for it.
If you decided to be a game writer, remember The Rule One:
"The movement is the King, all other is after that".

You may also think of the WRML approach, where the cursor point defines
the point where the hero is trying to come to. Despite it already
prooved its questionability , "something is better than nothing".