Web-based version?

[YellowRex]

Have you guys considered releasing a version of Army Builder as an RIA (rich internet application) using a technology like the AJAX (possibly with the Google Web Toolkit), Adobe Flex, or Microsoft Silverlight?

Army Builder seems like a perfect candidate for a web application. It would also open up future development possibilities like collaboration and publishing tools for rosters or possibly even taking advantage of a Local AJAX development paradigm and entirely obsolete the desktop version.

Well, how about it?

 

[kuni_tetsu]

--- YellowRex <william.furr@gmail.com> wrote:
> Army Builder seems like a perfect candidate for a web application.

Actually, I would think it would be exactly the opposite. Hosting access to all
the data for every game might get Lonewolf into some copyright issues.


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[YellowRex]

Hmm, that's the rub, isn't it? Copyright issues with the various game systems. The rosters themselves wouldn't be an issue, it's the rulesets that cause the problem. I can't think of an easy solution to that off the top of my head, but there still might be a way.

When I say Army Builder is a good candidate for a web application, I was thinking of it solely in terms of user interface, data portability, collaboration, and sharing or publishing rosters. By those criteria, from a user's perspective, an RIA version of Army Builder just makes sense.

PS - What's up with the new reply notifications from these forums? The URL was all wonky.

 

[rob]

At 06:30 AM 5/3/2007, you wrote:

Actually, I would think it would be exactly the opposite. Hosting access to all
the data for every game might get Lonewolf into some copyright issues.

Very true. The other big factors are that we would need to re-write everything from scratch (surmountable) and users would have to have a live internet connection to use the product (much less so). I see lots of users running AB on laptops at tournaments or in the game room. Requiring a live internet connection would undermine this ability, and I think it would negatively impact the utility of AB to a large number of our users.

 

[YellowRex]

users would have to have a live internet connection to use the product (much less so). I see lots of users running AB on laptops at tournaments or in the game room. Requiring a live internet connection would undermine this ability, and I think it would negatively impact the utility of AB to a large number of our users.

It's called "The Synchronized Web" or Local AJAX and is a technique already in use with the Zimbra Collaboration Suite. It was one of the topics at last week's JavaOne conference. Essentially, you have a local datastore embedded in the browser (like an Apache Derby plugin) that mediates between the application and the server. When you're connected, you talk live to the server. When you're disconnected, the local datastore handles the interactions and then synchronizes the next time you connect.

The link in my original post illustrates the idea some. Here's a few more:

http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/2007/02/offline-zimbra-with-firefox.html
http://weblogs.java.net/blog/davidvc/archive/2006/05/the_synchronize.html


Really, the bigger issue is the licensing for the various game suites. Right now you guys get around that with user-created and maintained data files. There might be a way to maintain a framework-centric approach with a webapp, but all the ways I can think of to do it involve jumping through some hoops that wouldn't necessarily be convenient for users.

 

[YellowRex]

Check this out, Google Gears. It's Local AJAX done with the SQLite database instead:

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6187596.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=zdnn