There are some really cool technologies in this version (0.8), but I’m introducing some clutter in the development. The next version may just serve to clean up and design a better version of the classes and how they work together. The lead up is so that there is little to no need to have any HTML in the files. Each file will have its content separated in the hopes to edit and changing the code easier. That is the hope at least and to have cleaner code without any HTML.

It is taking more time to build the script where as I could have easily have created a lot of the core systems by now. Taking the time will allow the language to be changed, althrough I could do better by just creating a new HTML file for each one. It would be easier yes, but it would also have its disadvantages.

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The template needs to be well formed or it will spit out a bunch of errors, I need to create some way to catch those errors, suppress them, and log them. The research I have done, hasn’t led me to where I can catch the errors, but I could maybe try other methods I haven’t thought about.

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I was thinking about packaging what I have for version 0.7 and allowing people to preview what I have so far. The code isn’t that good, but will give people some idea on where I’m going.

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I’m working on a couple of designs, one that is mine and another that is free template that is totally cool. I think the main reason behind the lack of players is the crap design, which decreases the value of the actually game… which also sucks. I’ve tried buying a template, but none of them have really met my standards. Once the game makes enough money, I will spend more than 30 dollars for one and go for one that costs a few hundred.

I am going to have to edit the template to suit my coding and design needs. I don’t really need all of the what is given. It is good, my design is pretty damn crappy, simple, but it sucks.

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Buddy List

There needs to be a way to easily access the buddy lists to see if the player is on the member list, whether it be good or bad. It would also be cool if there was a way to get notifications when a friend or enemy comes on. So there will also be an component for AJAX and also another to shut it off. The option to shut it off would be both from the admin panel to do it globally and the other just for the user.

User Data

I wanted to create a class that managed both the updating of the user stats and managed the sessions and cookies. I was hoping that the class would add a little bit more security and speed to the game and minimize the mysql queries.

Template

I’ll need to add a few more tags, but the system is finished. I think in the next version all that is going to be needed to moving the tags to their own class and perhaps making an interface for the class. For now, all of the tags will inherit from the base class or I may just add the Object transformation function for loading classes and then transforming the page with that.

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I am quite proud of myself, because I was finally able to do something that I have been at for the past week. I have to do a few more things, like deleting the array item once it is used to keep from testing the same thing over and over again. The script could be optimized to decrease the time and increase the efficiency (like don’t test if it doesn’t exist). I will probably go over it again, once it all works. It should be pretty damn sweet once it is finished. There are quite a few other things I need to finally finish it up and get working on the modules, but once this base class is finished, everything else should fall into place.

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Template Class

I have finally thought it out and I think the template would be best served if the template class was the only class. The different tags will be split out into the same class, but separate from the main one. This way it would be easy to add support for new tags, once the supported tags gets above 10 or 15 and makes it somewhat difficult to tell the main class from the other functions.

Module Page Class

The template data could either be displayed once parsed or passed to the Module Page class, which will continue the parsing and add to the page, it is needs to be dynamic. This is easier to do than what is currently done. It will also separate a lot of the parts, so that it will (hopefully) be easier to change the template and have the content morph.

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I was looking at the PHP DOM extension, because I was going to use it in part to do the replacement of the XML tags in the HTML files. After going through what the DOM extension can do, I realized that a lot of what I want to do can be done within the DOM extension. I will have to revise my assessment of the Template class to either use only DOM and SimpleXML to create an easier Template class for replacement and such. If it works, then it would really create a better Template class system based off of faster and better code base than what I could have made.

Since it is something inside of PHP, then other people would be able to see what it is doing and add features. I’m nearing the deadline for the template class and I’m not even close to a workable template solution. I can’t continue until I get this right, since all of the systems will be built based on the Template factory. I will continue to do some tests and work my way up from the basic implementation to the one that will be used for the game engine.

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The template functions are to separate language and dynamic functionality from the web pages. They are only to be used to keep the PHP from the template pages. Any PHP should be added to the classes to support the XML tags. Once it is done, the Template classes should be fairly advanced and easy to use. It will take some time to build the inital set up, so that everything works.

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The template files should be so that the page loaded is only the presentation of the page and no real content on it. The content should be loaded through XML files, so that locale versions can be made and loaded. The way I’m going to solve this problem for this version is to create the base case for the Page class. I would also add an function for loading custom Tag Classes for custom changes. The Page class will still handle manual replacing of tags for those who can work or don’t want to work with classes.

Skin Predefined Tags

• module

There is an attribute for supplying the location of the file and the name. It would allow the designer move elements of the file elsewhere and then load them in afterwards.

• language

The language tag will load the default XML file for the language. If the user changes the language, then that file, if it exists, will load.

• user

The user tag will be for displaying the users stats in the template, like username.

Security

The template tags will be available only in the template pages and not in any user submitted variables. If anyone tries to use user submited tags, they should not and will not work.

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