WormNest; A website INSIDE your worms [Archive]

View Full Version : WormNest; A website INSIDE your worms

Evil Bunny

18 Oct 2007, 19:02

Hiya all. It sure has been a while since I've decended on this forum (and WA). Busy busy busy, sorry. Well anyway I got an idea stuck in my head today and i just had to work it out. Here it is:

Both W:A and WWP have an interesting little opening inside them called the sever lobby, which basicly is a single webpage that contains a list of servers to which you can connect. There aren't many of them anymore these days. Just the official wormnet 1 and wormnet 2 and maybe a few clan servers but I'm not sure if anyone still uses this.

Anyway. This interface actually pulls a webpage in through which it connects to servers. But it's not at all difficult to use this file to turn Worms into an interface through which you can browse the web. Now don't go uninstalling Firefox just yet because the interface is extremely limited. But it has a few possibilities which could still greatly add to our worming experience.

The way I figure it this could work 2 ways. You could add an extra link to the server lobby, which nobody would likely ever use, or you could automatically update the lobby when worms starts so you could pull Wormy news and links right in and be notified of all the neat things happening in wormland when you sign up to wnet.

I did a little test, setting up a local server and displaying a page from that in worms. I've attached the resulting page, you can try it yourself by putting it in WA\graphics\ServerLobby\. Don't forget to backup your old file. If someone could tell me how to make the screenshot, or if they could make one for me and post it here that'd be great.

I don't think I've got the time to manage such a project but I'd like to see what you guys think and possibly find a few people who would be willing to help create such a website.

Edit: Right, I've added a screenshot of what I think something like this could look like.

bonz

18 Oct 2007, 20:45

You can make screenshots in the menus with WA.

CyberShadow

18 Oct 2007, 21:55

...by pressing the Pause/Break button. Screenshots go to the User\Capture folder.

yakuza

18 Oct 2007, 22:06

Run

19 Oct 2007, 14:17

If you're going to make a new ServerLobby.htm (or whatever it is) don't forget to make a copy compatible with CS's DirectToAg thingamajig

AndrewTaylor

19 Oct 2007, 15:52

This could work with just a front page with a couple of news, like what tournaments are being hosted and where, if the new beta is available, and a couple of other things. And of course, the button to get into wormnet.

This is really just a glorified MOTD -- though that's not to say it's not useful. Aside from anything else, it'd be more prominent and not immediately scrolled away by a cavalcade of "sum1 host a shoppa plz".

Edit: You could link it to a special page of the worms2d.info wiki, that way there'd be a simple interface to edit it, and it'd handle all the editing permissions and what have you to boot.

yakuza

19 Oct 2007, 18:28

Another adition would be a random tip, like in some games in the loading screen.

bonz

19 Oct 2007, 18:35

This is really just a glorified MOTD -- though that's not to say it's not useful. Aside from anything else, it'd be more prominent and not immediately scrolled away by a cavalcade of "sum1 host a shoppa plz".

Edit: You could link it to a special page of the worms2d.info wiki, that way there'd be a simple interface to edit it, and it'd handle all the editing permissions and what have you to boot.
Good ideas!
DC & CS should really think about that.
Another adition would be a random tip, like in some games in the loading screen.
Like on the W4M loading screens?

Evil Bunny

19 Oct 2007, 20:05

Thanks for all the replies. I'm glad there's some interest in the idea. Personally I think it could be an interesting way to improve involvement in the game. The only way to really stay informed of all the goings on is either by surfing a lot of forums (which most people don't) or just to get lucky by bumping into the right topics of conversation with the right people. I figure with some way to unify some of the resource it's easier for initiatives to gain attention.

I've just downloaded CS his WormKit to see if a module can be made to add an auto-update of the lobby on launching W:A. Seems to me this is exactly what WormKit was made for and extending on an existing concept might help to get it going. I'm afraid I don't know any Delphi though so I might have to learn that a little first.

A goal of this would have to be to allow other sites to join in on the project. Like mentioned the worms wiki would be a great addition. However I should note that the interface is extremely limited and I don't think (although I haven't checked) it has any way to take user input as would be required for editing a wiki.

The leagues / clans / tourneys wouldn't be a part of the project either. It could simply be a portal to extend to other sites that had adabted to allow worms browsing.

On a side note I would ask CS if he would know if it would be possible to add some basic functionality through his framework like possibly allow for downloading maps / scemes through the interface.

For now this is just the shape it's in in my head so any ideas or any other kind of help would be greatly welcome. So just keep the feedback coming.

Muzer

19 Oct 2007, 20:47

Would it be possible to view wikis (not edit)?

Evil Bunny

19 Oct 2007, 21:24

Not in it's current form. At least most of the wiki would be an unendingly long single line of text. Since the few codes worms does accept aren't used in most wiki software. It would require editing the wiki's source to output code in a different format. Also there are no easy navigation mechanisme so all pages would need some extra links to join wnet and return to the home page.

Newnight

19 Oct 2007, 21:41

The idea would be nice, cuz I'm thinking about a WormsDatabase. It would have some schemes, maps, graves, all of worms. But It need a host, so I'll wait for you guys get the hoster to start working. WMDB suck a bit, so It would be nice to the HostingBuddy project, because people could host maps and schemes easy.

franpa

20 Oct 2007, 03:51

A goal of this would have to be to allow other sites to join in on the project. Like mentioned the worms wiki would be a great addition. However I should note that the interface is extremely limited and I don't think (although I haven't checked) it has any way to take user input as would be required for editing a wiki.

i don't think editing the wiki from W:A was meant, i think that the suggestion meant that it is easy for the page to get edited by knowledgeable people via a external web browser.

yakuza

20 Oct 2007, 11:28

The leagues / clans / tourneys wouldn't be a part of the project either. It could simply be a portal to extend to other sites that had adabted to allow worms browsing.

I don't get it. Why are tournaments not going to be part of the project? Don't they apply to:

Wormy news and links right in and be notified of all the neat things happening in wormland when you sign up to wnet.

?

bonz

20 Oct 2007, 14:14

Didn't DC add an additional HTML tag once? For centering the text?
If DC & CS would add more functionality and effectively turn WA into a very light browser (for viewing the www.worms2d.info Wiki at least), most of those viewing problems would be solved.

And yes, editing the Wiki should of course stay outside of WA.
It should merely be a place to show things of high importance, some news and probably Worms related stuff.

Maybe DC & CS could add support for external links, so if you click one inside WA it'll minimize properly and open the default browser.
That way you could really keep the content small with only the most important things and add links for everything else (maps, schemes, clans, leagues,...) to be viewed outside (on the Wiki).

I love this idea more and more although I voted against it at first. :D

Evil Bunny

20 Oct 2007, 15:00

@yakuza; Well uhmm, let me put it this way. I think the WormNest site should announce leagues and if they have a site accessible through W:A it should have a link to that site. But WormNest wouldn't actually be creating or hosting this site. (Although it could possibly provide assistence in making them. Considering the wiki question I think an XSLT can be writen to convert common web pages into something WA could read.)

@bonz; I'm glad I caught your interest then! Indeed some extra functionality would really be great, however considering the rate of progress on that end I don't think that's something to wait for. I'm going to need to do extra testing to figure out what the engine has support for.

I'm going to see if I can get something up and running within the next week or 2. Does anyone have a server with PHP 5 I might be allowed to use to run it online temporary? Because my dedicated one only runs 4 and the software I'm using needs version 5. Please PM me if you can/want to help.

Melon

20 Oct 2007, 15:05

I think being able to customise the WormNet front screen in this way is a great idea. The only thing I'm not so sure about is letting just about anybody change it.

Maybe we could make the editable wiki page restricted? I don't want to stay I don't trust the general public, but the truth is that I don't.

Wormetti

20 Oct 2007, 15:20

Adding to the original interface is a nice novelty but you could add a fully featured web browsing engine to an alternative interface/snooper.

AndrewTaylor

20 Oct 2007, 15:36

Adding to the original interface is a nice novelty but you could add a fully featured web browsing engine to an alternative interface/snooper.

You could but it would be a ridiculous thing to do.

yakuza

20 Oct 2007, 19:57

Evil Bunny

20 Oct 2007, 23:38

Ahh yes, that's a pretty good idea.

Muzer

21 Oct 2007, 11:46

Evil Bunny

21 Oct 2007, 15:30

Think that's a rather over coplicated way of doing it. It's probably easier to reinstall the wiki on a different subdomain, hook it to the same database. And use XSLT to transform the oringial output into a worms readable version of it. That would have to be done by CS though, or by someone with access to his server / database. Which brings me back to the portal concept of it all. WormNest wouldn't be using CS his wiki but it would link to an accessible version of that wiki.

I think the portal only really should be a news portal, with links to externaly maintained websites, of which the wiki could be one.

bonz

21 Oct 2007, 16:03

WormNest wouldn't be using CS his wiki but it would link to an accessible version of that wiki.

I think the portal only really should be a news portal, with links to externaly maintained websites, of which the wiki could be one.
True.
But who is gonna maintain that accessible version then?
If you don't have a Wiki that can be edited by many, you would have a shortage of up-to-date information or you'd need someone dedicated to regularly collect info and put it up.
Although, if you just use the worms2d.info wiki, you could have the problem of people just posting crap, so you'd still need someone to have a look at it.

Another thing:
The name "WormNest" should be dropped.
If all this gets done, it simply is the new WormNet.

AndrewTaylor

21 Oct 2007, 16:08

For the wiki: Someone with the necessary skills could make a bot that scans the whole wiki page-by-page (I'm back on worms2d.info here) and converts it into plain HTML and uploads it onto another webspace (or, for that matter, the same one if cyber gives permission) twice a day or something, so you would be able to view a wiki up-to-date by at least 12 hours from WA.

You know, a far simpler solution would be to just make a PHP script that could sit on the same server as the wiki, and hardcode it to parse one specific page with minimal formatting in a way that WA could read. Like an RSS feed does. It'd be one database query and a preg_replace. A bot, indeed... Why don't we do it with a neural net, or some kind of mechanical contrivance?

bonz

21 Oct 2007, 17:45

some kind of mechanical contrivance?
Like Homer Simpson did?
http://www.shinyshack.com/uploads/images/l_drinking_bird1.jpg

Evil Bunny

24 Oct 2007, 10:52

Buh, sorry guys, I'm without internet for the moment so I can't get anything online. I've got a few things started on a local system so when I get my inet back I think I could get some tests online.

Evil Bunny

28 Oct 2007, 12:12

Here's a PM responce I wrote to OoO. It's of interest to this topic (and it was too long to PM) so I decided to post it here.

Who (person/group/community) would be in charge of updating the main (english) content?
I'm hoping to recrute a few admins. I think news should be submited by users and then posted by admins. Or by admins themselves if they come across anything.

If translated content is supposed to be submitted by users, what steps will they be going to take to do so?
Translations need to be submited outside worms. There are no form elements available inside worms. There will be a link posted with the article which they can copy to the browser and submit a translation from there

What type of content do you think is worth of/qualyfies as an update?
I'm thinking only 4 things should make it to the front page.
- New initiatives, like someone launching a site, hosting a tourney, creating a frontend. Stuff that doesn't happen dayly like a new map or soundbank.
- Software update like worms patches and updates on custom software like a new snooper version.
- Team 17 news, like the available trailer of Worms a space oddity
- WOrmNest announcements, like an added language support or a new feature

It will allow for some exceptions, things like if dogma were to come back and make a cityshoppa 2007, that would be news worthy I feel but those would be acceptions.

I think this should be kept strict because there is limited space on a 800x600 screen and I don't want the people who don't play dayly (most) to miss out on important events due to an update frequenty pushed by less important news.

Also, will there be "browseable sections"? If so, will there be fixed content? I.e. permanent sections with useful info that don't need to be actively updated (like perhaps info on some scheme).
Sort of. I think it's going to take a lot of time and convincing effort to get a few external sites on board. So in the mean time I'm thinking of providing some basic content myself. These would be user driven too. They would be limited to the portal purpose though. Liks say we take wmdb. The site would be listed as a good resource for map downloads. And would get it's own page in wa with some information and a link that can be copied to the browser. So websites that are not hooked to the network would have a page they could use to promote there html site instead. Links should be submited and we'll just have a page in the website's native language for promotion.

What would be the "chain of power" to mantain the links to external pages? I' mean, the people in charge of checking availability and/or prevent abuse.
To minimize the effort I'm going to promote user involvement. If something is wrong they can report it and an admin will look into solving it.

What should a community do in order to have their link submitted?
Aside from build a site that can be interfaced through worms? Not much. I'm going to encist on a default header and footer which would provide navigaiton to the portal home and to login functionality of wormnet. But that should be all. You need the navigation because there are no alternative mechanismes like in the browser with it's back button and address bar.

Do these external webpages have to be in a special file format?
They need to be accessible through W:A. One of the things that needs to be done is to create a knowledge base on what the WA user agent can handle. It's a simplified form of html really. You can push in any regular html page and it will process, but it's not going to look pretty, so some work might be required for that. I've got the knowhow to provide support on that matter if any is needed.

Will there be a "keep-your-content-fairly-updated-or-i'll-take-you-out-of-the-links" requirement for these pages? xD
Not realy, though we might need to have a talk if your site hasn't been updated in 8 years.

Do the limits of the interface still allow the user to interact with it? (Using forms, i.e. a search box of some sort)
Not that I know of. It might take some improvizing with anchors (<a />) to get interaction done. And that won't be of much satisfaction. Thankfully DC has provided a mechanisme to copy/paste in wormnet so you could always echo a URL and have the user copy it to the browser. That's what submitting user cotnent will involve on WormNest I'm afraid.

How long do you think this project would take to start beta-testing? (This implies another question: Have you become certain that you'll keep developing this project? I guess that you'll need some help in order to finish it?)
That one I can't really tell you. I moved less then a week ago and am still waiting for my internet. So it's hard to say how my situation will change. What I can tell you is that I want to do this. And so far I'm quite sure I can. I can probably get a beta going within a month. But there are no garantees this project will ever go beyond beta.

It's going to rely heavilly on user input. So the adabtion rate, direct input from users, and interest of others to make their websites accessible through the portal are factors that will weigh on if the project is worth continuing. If the input from any of these 3 is too low the project will fail it's purpose and I don't intend to drag the thing along if it doesn't reasonably contribute to the worms experience. Because that's my main goal here.

And, will you finally pick Plutonic's webserver? My offer will keep standing :D
That's all, i am sorry for taking your time :o
I haven't had a chance to talk to Plutonic. I'm going to need to catch 'm on msn and that won't happen untill I've got my internet. So we'll just have to wait and see.

OutofOrder

28 Oct 2007, 15:50

Now that made me look a bit silly :D
About the last question, that's because i had offered Evil Bunny a place to do some online tests of his project.

Well you know you have my support. :o I'm also going to introduce the idea to LW. We would deffinitely host a permanent section accesible from WormNest.

Another question i have that doesn't really depend on you, do you think it's possible that WormNest could become an official frontend? Even if optional.

franpa

29 Oct 2007, 01:05

I think this should be kept strict because there is limited space on a 800x600 screen and I don't want the people who don't play dayly (most) to miss out on important events due to an update frequenty pushed by less important news.

the frontend runs at 640x480.

Evil Bunny

29 Oct 2007, 13:04

Another question i have that doesn't really depend on you, do you think it's possible that WormNest could become an official frontend? Even if optional.
Official? Doubtful. Team17 has been very reluctent in letting anyone do anything official to W:A. But even so that question is far beyond what I want to get done for now. I'm gonna be glad if this gets enough user input to be worth building to completion.

the frontend runs at 640x480.
Hmm, not sure, yeah guess you're right. My mistake

bonz

29 Oct 2007, 17:27

I wonder whether Deadcode and/or CyberShadow have seen this thread and what their opinion is if they did so.

Evil Bunny

31 Oct 2007, 07:47

Lol, I'm pretty sure CS saw it, since he replied to it and all ;)

Th3_uN1Qu3

31 Oct 2007, 23:02

Hmm, looks like a nice idea. Dang, i can't believe there's still so much work done on this game!

Neither could i believe there are still active developers on windoze 98SE (the best piece of software micro**** has ever developed IMO) till i saw the win 98 section at the MSDN forum, i was literally like :o :o :o

Announcing tournaments and update news via this method would be really nice. Although i'm not much into tournaments myself, i just reinstalled WA yesterday, i last played it 6 years ago when i had no idea about the internet, but i'm sure i'll get into them as online play is great. But still, nothing beats a good ol' hotseat game with your best buddies. :D

As it's still in discussion stage i think you should keep it simple, as its purpose will be, like you said, to give last-minute news to wormers seeking an online game. I don't think we really need access to the wikis from the WA frontend.