Hey guys,

it's been an awful long time since the last blog (can hardly believe this is my first entry this year). I've been slowly catching up on all things Fumbbl, 2015 has been awfully busy for me. My eldest daughter's been sufferring from (still is to some extend) some serious health problems, we've experienced several annoying disasters around our home (cellar flooded twice, broken water pipe in the bathroom etc.) and work has been demanding as well. You know, life happening in inconvenient ways...

So there hasn't been much opportunity to work on FFB. Just a little bit here and there. The goal still is to move the client completely over to Javascript and HTML5. The serverside will continue to use Java. There are some bits and pieces done, but it's still a way to go. I've been cleaning up the current code while going through everything the 100th time and will release a small bugfix update (shadowing and sidestep bug, anyone?) soon.

The main reason for this blog is something else, though. There has been some confusion in the forums mixing together 3 different topics concerning FFB. Those are separate concerns that I would like to clear up.

1) Moving the client from Java to JavaScript / HTML5

This is a necessary step as Java in the browser is slowly becoming ever more painful to use. Christer needs to sign the JARs (the code libraries used), which costs an annual fee. Players get asked security questions that they are unsure how to react to. Java needs to be updated continuously and recent versions aren't available on all platforms (e.g. older OS X versions). It would help the general usability of the game to turn it into a web application.

2) Scaleable client (larger pitch and icons)

The client currently uses bitmaps for displaying the pitch, player icons and player portraits. This means that as it is, it isn't scaleable. Scaled bitmaps quite simply look awful. The current client therefor cannot keep up with ever larger screens and higher resolutions. The simplest way to go around this would be to provide different resolutions to choose from, which would mean several different icon sets and pitches. Scaling down is better than scaling up, so having a larger icon set (and pitch) minimized might be workable. The better way to do it would be to have all icons vectorized so they scale without a loss in quality. Technically this is independent from the client being coded in Java or Javascript (one can do vector graphics on both platforms). And here is the main catch: I CANNOT DO IT. Just as with the current icon set I need help from graphically talented persons to handle this. I can put things together once I have something to use. And I need a full set (that is 2 teams with player icons, portraits and pitch) to be even able to start coding.

3) Using the client on a tablet

Implementing point 1 above (moving to Javascript) would theoretically enable the client to be used on a tablet (which has it's own browser). But only in theory. A touch interface is quite different from using the mouse. You don't use keyboard shortcuts on a tablet. Chatting will pop up the screen keyboard which covers part of the pitch. The automove path follows the mouse around, which you can't do with your finger on the screen, etc. The whole client design needs to change for that. Point 1 allows for point 3, eventually (using PhoneGap for instance). But moving FFB to the tablet is a lot of work in its own right.

I just wanted to clarify that those topics are separate concerns and doing one of them does not mean the other ones will be realized automatically. My personal plan would be to do them in order. IF I can find enough time, IF Christer continues to do his thing and IF there is still enough interest in FFB until I'm done.

Rant over. Go play!

Kalimar