PoKéQuesT

The first step for enabling DataPortability concepts is finally complete.  That’s correct, PoKéQuesT will now officially support OpenID.

This goes for both logging in, and registering.  (That is also correct, we support the OpenID SReg Namespace)

What does this mean?  Well, if you have an OpenID provider that supports SReg, you can register on our website with most, if not all, of your settings perfectly in-tact.  (Amazing, no?)

However, if you don’t, you can still register using an OpenID, allowing you to login with only a URL or Screen Name.

The next hard part will be for the importation of an FOAF file (because it’s XML and I’m not yet proficient enough with code to parse an XML file).  However, we will get there eventually.

Just making sure to keep everyone up to date on how things are going.

Its been mentioned on the news and across the Internet, but for most people, it doesn’t mean too much.  However, we are going to include DataPortability standards on the PoKéQuesT website.  We’re sorry, but you are NOT going to be able to sign in to the game using an OpenID.

Now, what does this mean for you?

Well, for one (to make it simple for most of our end users).  If you already have an AOL, AIM, LiveJournal, WordPress, TypePad, Blogger, or some other type of account supporting OpenID, then you will be able to login without having to create another Username and Password.  Wonderful, isn’t it?

It also means, that if you are part of some service that allows you to export a FOAF file, then you will also be able to import any of your friends that are using our service already.

This also means that with any website that allows you to import an FOAF file, you will be able to import the friends you’ve made on PoKéQuesT into that service.  Giving you the ability to Synchronize your Friends List.  Cool, no?

And that’s just the start of it.  There will probably be a lot more as we continue development.

Anyone who has been around here long enough knows about the old new website layout over at Labs.  Recently though, because of a lot of problems I end up having with that layout, I’ve been working on constructing a new website layout that is a lot better.

Now, before I give you the link to this website, I recommend opening it in IE7, FireFox, Opera, or Safari as I have not yet been able to properly test and work out the bugs on Internet Explorer 6.

None of the links are working yet, and I’m still programming the backend.  The front end contains some place holder text and is definitely open to change, but It has reached the stage where I’m happy to show you the new website layout!

Enjoy, and don’t forget to tell me what you think of it!

As the years pass by, and only a little bit more work gets done towards our ultimate goal, we are forced to come to terms with how unlucky this project is.

We are meeting with yet another delay before the beta.  I am sorry to announce, that PlasmaFox, our main client/server developer, is having a rough time in school, and it will take a little longer to get the beta finished then we had hoped for.

However, we will continue working diligently.  I’m still writing up a major portable backend for the site and will continue work on the HTML part of it soon.

I would like to invite are members to our biggest friend and affiliates site while they wait, Eevee’s HQ.

We are sorry about these delays, we hope to be able to pick up speed soon.

If you’ve been anywhere else on the Internet, you’ve probably at least heard the term “Web 2.0″.  You may have even heard the terms “Web 3.0″, “POSH”, “Semantic HTML”, or “Microformats”.  Well, PoKéQuesT has a combination of a lot of it.

The new www.pkqst.net website uses what I like to call “Web 2.5″.  Its a combination of the AJAX-y features of Web 2.0 with the semantics, S.E.O., and Microformats of Web 3.0.

This allows our data to be super-organized and compatible with such things as “Operator” for FireFox.

Here is what we have and our thinking about right now:

• XHTML 1.1 Website (Valid)
• CSS 3.0 (Valid)
• X.F.N. (Microformat)
• S.E.O.
• hCard (Microformat)
• AJAX
• JavaScript

Yeah, this is probably very unorganized.  www.pkqst.net is available for public view, all of it does work, but we are having some slight design issues with IE6; or, in other words, we haven’t even touched the possibility of making the website compatible with IE6.

Known Issues:

• [safari 3] Blocks do not stay minimized
• [safari 3] Weird side comes out of nowhere on blocks
• [ie7] Slight Errors with overflow:hide;
• [all] Icons look horrible.  This is just bad art.
• [amaya] Don’t even get me started.

I’m back to working on the newest website.  None of which is currently visible to you right now.

Right now, I’m working hard on adding visual effects and making the layout.  So far, its 100% cross-browser compatible.  Including Opera, FireFox, Safari, and Internet Explorer (7).

If you are still running IE6, please, do us a favor and upgrade to IE7.  PoKéQuesT’s website may never be useable for you if you don’t.

Those running FireFox or Opera, stay the course.  Both are great browsers.

Those running Safari.. yeah, it’ll work for now.  I don’t know about later though.  The WebKit engine is not a big priority for me.

As for development on PoKéQuesT itself, I haven’t heard from our new developer in awhile.  I’m going to query Inaki about what’s going on server-side.  It is school time for pretty much everybody on the team though.  Yuki hasn’t even been online in forever, and our graphics designer’s Zayn and Seffy have been busy.

We’re in a little bit of a slum, but, I think we’re still doing good.  We’re advancing a little bit with the website; whereas P:DoA is not doing anything, and POL’s website doesn’t even work.

We’re going to try to keep up the hard work.  Our team really needs to get their act together.

For those of you who remember the “Dead Pikachu Incident of 2007″ and the pkqst.com domain name, we may be getting that back when it expires, which ironically enough is the same day as my 2 year anniversary with my girlfriend, Carla.  She’s pretty supportive of the project.

Well, I’ve been working on the registration backend some more.  This time adding much better support for Countries and for Time zones.

The new support I’m working on now will allow a user to select their country and then select from time zones in that country.

This will allow the website to show the appropriate time for the user viewing the website, without the user needing to mess around with Daylight Savings settings or anything else.

This is harder for us in the backend, but will be better for the user.

Quickly changing:

body { }

to:

html,body { }

Solved our problem!

We’ve also put in some nifty JavaScript that allows Light Boxes to work if JavaScript is enabled, and the normal pages to work if its disabled!

If you don’t know what Light Boxes are; then you’ll find out soon enough ^.~

We’ve been making some real progress with the layout for the new PoKéQuesT Website.

The new layout will leave the navigation, header, and footer in place while the actual page content scrolls.

This of course; currently has one possible “problem”.  The layout is fixed-with at 788 pixels.

This won’t really be a problem for most people; seeing as how most of what will be viewed is text and small images.  If CSS3 was out though; I’d be able to make it a bit more flexible (minimum width of 800 pixels with a maximum width at 90%).  But, its not, so, we’re not doing that.

The layout has shown problems in Mozilla FireFox and WebKit’s Safari when the Content-Type header is set to “application/xhtml+xml;charset=utf-8″.  The background image/color for the <body> tag does not show up.  I’m not sure whether to attribute this to XHTML specifications or if its a rendering error for Mozilla and Safari.  Either way; the layout works for Opera and IE7.  (IE7 has text/html transmitted to it automatically because it does not accept application/xhtml+xml).

If anyone knows any more about this; please let me know.  I’m not exactly sure what to attribute to this.. so.. yeah.

I never thought I’d see the day where FireFox was hindering my development.

Well, it seems that there has been a steady decline of activity for all Pokémon MMOs, not just ours, making me feel a heck of a lot better if I may say so myself.

The main programmer of Pokémon Online has lost his computer to a storm (poor dude) and I’ve been (unofficially) told by a team member that they are not releasing updates often because people get upset for the lack of things in the updates.

Shame, they really should write a blog or something to keep those who care up to date constantly.

PlasmaFox has not been working on the client for awhile; all work there is constantly on hold as we try to get a good Windows Development Environment so that he can work on the client for Windows and not just Linux/Macintosh (that way we don’t need to work all the way back from the beginning of the client).

As for the website; I have most definitely not been working on it lately.  I’m sorry; but school is coming up soon for me as well, and there is currently a lot on my plate (family stuff).

We are still no closer to getting a dedicated server (other than the $5 that are thanks to that very special person.), but we hope to continue to raise up enough possibly with the advertisements, and a possible job (that I may or may not get) to pay for a server.

As for users; we are losing the amount of members that are paying attention constantly.  Probably a large amount saw the website set up by our old domain name’s owner and said “screw it” without even googling PoKéQuesT to double check.

So, this is where we currently are.  Maybe we will be able to get some more work done soon.  I’ll try to work on the website as soon as I can.