Re: Interesting piecepack project -- want to help?

["porter235" <porter235@...>]

Wiki integration is a great idea. It shouldn't be a security issue as
the wiki could be modified on the server to include the hooks to load
only the javascript that you want. (Don't want to allow end users to
throw their own javascript at the page! There is where you get
security issues.) The javascript would automatically be included by
the wiki, and on page load javascript would search the DOM looking for
the required attribute and class. (This may require a little bit of
python work to allow the class tag to be specified for our hook.)

Then the images would be stored on the server somewhere and the
javascript would simply alter the DOM to hide the primitive ascii
version, and display a pretty version.

But... horse before cart at this point....

Order of operations
--------------------
1) a syntax to express dialogs.(ideally ascii, easy to write, and
descriptive in its own right so that it is relatively easy to read if
javascript is not available) Theoretically once this is defined, it
can be published and people can start expressing their diagrams using
this format even though there is nothing to convert it to a pretty
format yet!

Version 0.2 will support only a single layer of tiles set up in a
grid. Must allow you to express tiles offset by 1/2 a tile. Must allow
you to display either side of Tile, in one of the 4 cardinal
orientations. Must allow you to express placement of coins, pawns, and
dice on the grid of tiles in at least the following positions (center
of tile, each of the four quadrants) allow you to express the facing
of all of the coins, pawns, and dice as well as dice and coin face
showing. Should also allow adding comments to any given piece, that
could display on hover.

Going forward I will look at "layering" the grid (creating stacks of
tiles) as well as layering of coins and dice.

Heck at some point it may be possible to have a way to express a
series of moves ala chess notation and have a javascript widget that
would allow you to step through the moves.

2) a parser for the syntax. Javascript, probably using jquery. Takes
the syntax and converts the ascii version to a pretty diagram using
images stored on the server. Another possibility is having the
javascript create SVG, though browser support for that is still not
across the board. (Though it would produce a much nicer end result!
and it intrigues me enough I may end up doing this instead or as well
as the traditional images.)

3) Look at safely integrating the result with the wiki.


--- In piecepack@yahoogroups.com, "Ron Hale-Evans" <rwhe@...> wrote:
>
> Incorporating it into the wiki is an excellent idea. I wonder whether
> it might not be a security hole, however.
> 
> JCD, what about a Python module? That would integrate really well
with the wiki.
>
> Ron