Re: The debate over graphics

[Nick Waterman <nick-pbm@nilex.co.uk>]

Douglas Zander wrote:
> 1) Darse's option.
>   In the games, produce an option for the players to recieve a text format
>   that is readable by a java applet to produce any graphics the player may
>   wish.
> 2) Server side option.
>   In the games, produce an option for the players to recieve the boards
>   already formed into a high resolution graphic.

3) NoseyNick's option

Get PBMserv to return a text/html format email describing the board. The
RELATIVELY short html email can refer to pretty graphics which are
hosted either on PBMserv or elsewhere where there's cheap bandwidth. In
either case, they'll quickly be cached by a lot of people's web caches
anyway.

This would probably be FAIRLY easy for PBMserv to do, as it's still
returning a "text" board, just one that happens to contain a load of
<TABLE><TR><TD><IMG SRC="blah"></TD><TD><IMG
SRC="blah"></TD></TR></TABLE> stuff rather than loads of "------" and ".
. . . " and "\_/" and "O" and "X" and whatever.

Easy to do for chess, checkers, connect4, othello, trax, and most
variants

Not hard for backgammon and most variants

A few games like twixt, and some of the hexagonal and triangular games
are a little trickier, but certainly not impossible - hey, if they're
possible in ASCII-art they're possible (and probably prettier) in HTML
with a bundle of <IMG>s!

... so yes, FAIRLY easy to add as an option to PBMserv (easier than GD
producing PNG attachments, I'd have said), FAIRLY low-bandwidth emails,
though more bandwidth on the server that's serving the <IMG>s. Also has
the enormous advantage that ALMOST all popular email clients these days
will handle HTML by magic - the user won't have to fuss about with java
applets or even attached images. The server won't have to generate any
images, just a new "text" format board. Furthermore, if programmers
wanted to go to the effort, then in a few of the games you could get
REALLY clever and add in extra "play here" links like  <A
HREF="mailto:pbmserv@blah?subject=othello%20move%20whatever";><IMG
SRC="playhere.png"></A> or whatever.

... all this reminds me, I (FINALLY!) have a new version of WWWTrax
which I really must put online sometime soon.

-- 
Nick Waterman. Senior Systems Administrator, SO-NET, Sony UK
mailto:nick-sig@nilex.co.uk   http://www.nilex.co.uk/~nick/
AX25:G7RZQ@GB7DEO.#32.GBR.EU   #include <stddisclaimer>  Team *AMIGA*!