PoKéQuesT

So, I have a couple of questions about what to do with PoKéQuesT.  You see, I’m only now learning Java, and am nowhere near C++ yet.  So, it is unlikely that I will be able to give you a full, working, lovely program anytime soon.  So, because of that, we have three options.  Please comment, anonymously or with a name, which one you would prefer.

1. I can continue slowly working on the website, learn programming languages, and wait for a new programmer to join the team [Slowest Option],
2. I can work on coding a MUD (Multi-User Dungeon)-like system which will be text-based but will pave way for a 2D or 3D program later down the line, or
3. I can start work on a browser-based AJAX-game while setting up the backend, paving way for a future game.

Two or Three is what I’m sure that you will probably choose.  I’ve already created some work with #3 (In school, when I couldn’t work on PoKéQuesT) and came up with an interesting Pacman-like game that showed the basics of what I had been programming.

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.

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, I’ve been working on Labs.  Not a lot, not too much; just enough, and I think I’m ready to tell you about some of the changes that are going into labs.

XML APIs for one, these APIs will hold various information about the going-ons for PoKéQuesT, and will all be placed into an XSLT.

Web 2.0 is another.  We’re incorporating JavaScript and AJAX technology to make the website more interactive; and more feature-rich.

XHTML 1.1, SVG 1.1 & CSS 3.  We’re adopting the newest standards to make our website work; updating to the latest technology.  We will of course continue to strive for backwards comparability with Mozilla, WebKit/KHTML, and IE; but if you want to use the best features; we recommend that you go ahead and grab the Opera Web Browser.