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• Splashing Liquid Using Cocos2d

  - by Maverick

  I am new to game development in iOS. My problem is that I want to give a water splash effect on the screen as like someone has just randomly thrown water from any corner of the screen. I will be grateful to know any tutorials, or libraries that wil help me achieving this effect. Thanks in advance. Edit: Sample Liquid Simulation I wanted to simulate the behavior like this IMAGE. Like a liquid is poured in glass. I hope it clears what I asked. Thanks for your precious time.

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• how can I start developing games? [closed]

  - by miguelacho

  as you may know very well, every individual related with software development is somehow related to the science or the activity that the program was made for, I am currently working as a programmer for a company that is dedicated to build enterprise software for ensurance business, before this job, I was working with a travel agency developing extra modules for the CRM they use (VTiger), so I can say I am related to ERP/CRM, the fact is, I would like to change this to another activity, like developing video games. I'd like to start developing games, by getting a job or making my own project, but: 1) I have no experience developing video games, is that an obstacle if I want to get a job? if is that so, how can I solve it? 2) if I want to make my own project I will need more people, like a graphic disigner or some others, isn't there a way to make the whole game by my own?

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• Converting obj data to CSS3D

  - by Don Boots

  I found a ton of formulae and what not, but 3D isn't my forte so I'm at a loss of what specifically to use. My goal is to convert the data in an 3D .obj file (vertices, normals, faces) to CSS3D (width, height, rotateX,Y,Z and/or similar transforms). For example 2 simple planes g plane1 # simple along along Z axis v 0.0 0.0 0.0 v 0.0 0.0 1.0 v 0.0 1.0 1.0 v 0.0 1.0 0.0 g plane2 # plane rotated 90 degrees along Y-axis v 0.0 0.0 0.0 v 0.0 1.0 0.0 v 1.0 1.0 0.0 v 1.0 0.0 0.0 f 1 2 3 4 f 5 6 7 8 Could this data be converted to: #plane1 { width: X; height: Y; transform: rotateX(Xdeg) rotateY(Ydeg) rotateZ(Zdeg) translateZ(Zpx) } #plane2 { width: X; height: Y; transform: rotateX(Xdeg) rotateY(Ydeg) rotateZ(Zdeg) translateZ(Zpx) } /* Or something equivalent such as transform: matrix3d() */ In summary, while this may be too HTML/CSS-y for game development, the core question is how to get the X/Y/Z-rotation of a 4 point plane from it's matrix of x,y,z coordinates?

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• How to create a 2D map?

  - by Kaizer

  I'm new to game development and I want to try it out, like many others amongst us :) I need to create a gridmap. The map needs to be divided in squares. Each square represents a location. For example: x:10 - y:10 The width and height of the square should be able to be set. And offcourse also the amount of squared. I will develop in MVC .NET Can someone show me the right direction ? kind regards PS: Some nice tutorial links are always welcome :)

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• Key Handling mechanics

  - by Max

  I am new to game development and am working on my first game using OpenGL and C++. I have a game class which handles everything necessary in an update() function. Now i want to handle keyboard inputs. I use GLFW which supports key callbacks. However i wonder how to deal with inputs. Should i record the keys pressed and poll on it the next time my game updates or should the callback immediately perform the necessary actions? And why? Thanks :)

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• Port flash game to native android

  - by wirate

  Alright here is the problem: the creators of a quite popular flash-based game have asked me to port their game to Android. They are not interested in any other platforms so we don't need to be worrying about iOS or PC. They want the best performance on just Android (I guess that's the point of porting a flash-based game. They could have just went with it) They found Unity 'slow'. How would the performance (on android) of other engines compare? Are they expecting too much i.e. finding Unity slow? I am in favor of Unity since development is a little easier with more things being visual (I am not experienced as you might have guessed). This would be an example of the type of game I am to port Thanks!

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• Where actually did they spend money? [on hold]

  - by WannabeProgrammer

  I am a total beginner in the field of game development. Every time I saw or read an interview session with any indie developer they mention about the amount of money they spend on developing a game. I want to know where exactly did they spend the money ? Just imagine that you are making a game for mobile devices from scratch , where and all will you be spending your money to make one ? Is it possible to make games for mobile devices without spending any ? If yes , then it makes more sense for a indie game developer who is talented but comes from a very weak financial background. Thank you.

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• Android best source codes [on hold]

  - by lynndragon

  1) I would like to know best and simple android source code sites or forum for game development.. Especially, animation, graphics are needed.. 2) By the way, I'm now learning Adobe Air for Android ... Is it useful? I mean Adobe Air do not need to know programming knowledge..but it's simple.. Weakness of Adobe Air apps are that AdobeAir.apk must be installed...If not, they cannot run.. So,how is yours suggestions? Please answer me....Regards

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• Open source clone for Starcraft

  - by sinekonata

  Two questions about a SC:Broodwar clone. Is there one yet? How likely is legal pursuit? Since almost all games I usually play now have an FOS alternative from alpha to way polished, I was wondering why can't I find one for SC, one of the biggest titans of the gaming community? So my first question is, is there a game that was made with the intention to emulate SC? Is it that I didn't look well enough? Could it really be that no one tackled what seems like a small effort compared to the creation of a game engine like Spring or games like Rigs of Rod or Minetest? And since SC is not being maintained at all shouldn't the incentive to see a bug free modable balanced version huge? What am I not getting here? In the event that there is none, is it a legal problem? Could it be that people expect Blizzard to release sources themselves? Or that developers don't see the point in having SC mechanics without the patented lore and aesthetics? And the trickier question, if I were to make SC an open source game, a total clone of it for the purposes of maintenance, modability, etc. Would Blizzard really sue a team of developer fans that just do them a favour knowing they don't lose any money from Korea broadcasts? Or would they do it not to set precedents. So thanks for reading all that, hope I'm not the only one to think it's weird that no one talks about it. See you.

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• Does concurrency inherently introduce "randomness" into a game?

  - by Jeff

  When a game is implemented with concurrency (as most games are), does this necessarily, by its very nature, introduce an element of randomness into the game that is outside of the players' control? Note that when I use the word "random", I'm not meaning to launch into a philosophical debate about the deterministic nature of the system. I understand that concurrency is deterministic in the sense that the operating system decides which processes to allow time on the CPU and in what order (or the JVM controls which Thread's turn it is to execute, etc). But my understanding of this is that there is no way to control or predict whether one thread's next command will execute before or after another. The reason I'm asking is because this seems like a fundamental difficulty for game development where a game is supposedly designed around a player's skill. Consider a game like League of Legends. Assume that two players are battling it out. It's a very close contest between the two and it's coming down to the wire -- so much so that whoever gets their last attack off will be the one to kill the other and win the game for their team. If the players are implemented using concurrency and the situation really was like this, is it essentially out of the players' hands at this point? Is the outcome of this match all up to whatever system is arbitrarily deciding which player's thread/process will execute next? If not, what am I misunderstanding about concurrency? If so, is there any way around this problem so that a game of skill can always be a game of skill, especially in those most crucial moments?

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• What is a currently a good game stack for simple Javascript 2D multiplatform game?

  - by JacobusR

  I'm looking for advice from someone can help me avoid common pitfalls in developing light weight, quick-to-market games. Yeah, I've heard of Google ;-), but a trip down Google lane does not beat solid experience from someone who has been down this path. I'm looking for advice from someone who works alone, or in a small team, and has developed some 2D games for mobile. My game ideas don't require intensive graphics, just simple arcade style glyphs and collision detection. My experience is mostly with Scala, Java and web technologies (Javascript, CSS, SVG, HTML, etc). My question is: Is there a nice stack that someone can suggest that will be a good fit for my skillset? I'm considering Javascript for simple 2D shooter games with simple multiplayer games being supported with a Scala server-side written on Spray. Is this silly? Should I rather look into things such as Unity 3D, and use it in 2D mode? For the actual game engine, something like the Sparrow Framework would be great, but it needs to be multiplatform.

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• 2D animations frames vs 3D animation for small indie project: timing considerations

  - by mm24

  pretty lame question but was wondering.. I am developing a 2D game using Cocos2D for iOS. The art work till now is all 2D (is a shooter game) but some of the characters would benefit of complex animations (eg. 20 frames). I feel a bit stupid because I came across only now that there is the chance to do 3D to 2D frames exporting and then to use them in Cocos2D. The thing that put me off on 3D gaming at first was that it takes more than one person in a team to do so properly (Illustrator, 3D modeller, 3D animator and programmer). Now I feel a bit stupid because having a 3D model I could do and modify the poses whenever I wanted (I should ask to the 3D animator which I guess would be time expensive). Instead now is me and two illustrators (as I require many frames per character). Is my impression that it would have been much longer right or not? Are there any other project management considerations that can be done on this? Sorry if for some this might be trivial but is my first "indie game developer experience".

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• How to define type-specific scripts when using a 'type object' programming pattern?

  - by Erik

  I am in the process of creating a game engine written in C++, using the C/C++ SQLite interface to achieve a 'type object' pattern. The process is largely similar to what is outlined here (Thank you Bob Nystrom for the great resource!). I have a generally defined Entity class that when a new object is created, data is taken from a SQLite database and then is pushed back into a pointer vector, which is then iterated through, calling update() for each object. All the ints, floats, strings are loaded in fine, but the script() member of Entity is proving an issue. It's not much fun having a bunch of stationary objects laying around my gameworld. The only solutions I've come up with so far are: Create a monolithic EntityScript class with member functions encompassing all game AI and then calling the corresponding script when iterating through the Entity vector. (Not ideal) Create bindings between C++ and a scripting language. This would seem to get the job done, but it feels like implementing this (given the potential memory overhead) and learning a new language is overkill for a small team (2-3 people) that know the entirety of the existing game engine. Can you suggest any possible alternatives? My ideal situation would be that to add content to the game, one would simply add a script file to the appropriate directory and append the SQLite database with all the object data. All that is required is to have a variety of integers and floats passed between both the engine and the script file.

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• Entity Component System for HUD and GUI

  - by Jason L.

  This is a very rough sketch of how I currently have things designed. It should, at least, give an idea of how my ECS is currently designed. If you notice in that diagram, I have basically split the HUD out of the ECS. They have their own set of things (HudLayer, HudComponent, etc) and are handled differently. This is where I'm struggling, though. There are many different instances in which the HUD will need to know about entities. Not just data changing (I have an event dispatcher for that), but the actual entity and all it encompasses. There are also situations where entities will need to be able to query the HUD for data. Let's take a couple examples: First, my equipment screen. On here I can change the equipment on a character (Entity). In order for this to happen, I need to know about the entity. At least I think I do? How can I handle this? The second scenario involves my Systems needing to query a HudComponent for data. A specific example would be my battle system. Each "team" is given a 3x3 grid they can move around in. See here: Skills target these cells, and not the player, so I would need a way for my systems to determine which cells are occupied and which are not. Basically I need a way for two way communication between Systems and my HUD. I know it's recommended (by some people, anyways) to take your HUD out of the ECS. Is that appropriate in my case?

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• Handling early/late/dropped packets for interpolation in a 3D multiplayer game

  - by Ben Cracknell

  I'm working on a multiplayer game that for the purposes of this question, is most similar to Team Fortress. Each network data packet will contain the 3D position of the target moving object. (this object could be another player) The packets are sent on a fixed interval, and linear interpolation will be used to smooth the transition between packets. Under normal circumstances, interpolation will occur between the second-to-last packet, and the last packet received. The linear interpolation algorithm is the same as this post: Interpolating positions in a multiplayer game I have the same issue as in that post, but the answers don't seem like they will work in my situation. Consider the following scenario: Normal packet timing, everything is okay The next expected packet is late. That's okay, we'll just extrapolate based on previous positions The late packet eventually arrives with corrections to our extrapolation. Now what do we do with its information? The answers on the above post suggest we should just interpolate to this new packet's position, but that would not work at all. If we have already extrapolated past that point in time, moving back would cause rubber-banding. The issue is similar in the case of an early or dropped packet. So I believe what I am looking for is some way to smoothly deal with new information in an ongoing interpolation/extrapolation process. Since I might be moving on to quadratic or even cubic interpolation, it would be great if the same solutiuon could be applied to those as well.

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• Which Open Source Licenses can address concerns for an Open Source Game Engine?

  - by Chris

  I am on a team that is looking to open source an engine we are building. It's intended as an engine for Online RPG style games. We're writing it to work on both desktops and android platforms. I've been over to the OSI http://opensource.org/licenses/category to check out the most common licenses. However, this will be my first time going into an open source project and I wanted to know if the community had some insight into which licenses might be best suited. Key licensing concerns: Removing or limiting our liability (most already seem to cover this, but stating for completeness). We want other developers to be able to take part or all of our project and use it in their own projects with proper accreditation to our project. Licensing should not hinder someone's ability to quickly use the engine. They should be able to download a release and start using it without needing to wait on licensing issues. Game content (gfx, sound, etc.) that is not part of the engine should be allowed to be licensed separately. If someone is using our engine, they can retain full copy right of their content, including engine generated data. Our primary goal is exposure, which is why we're going open source to start with. Both for the project and for the individuals developing it. Are there any licenses that can require accreditation visible to players? While I'd put our primary goal as exposure, for licensing the accreditation is less of a concern. From what I've read through (and have been able to understand) it doesn't seem like any of the licenses cover anything that is produced by the licensed software. Are there any that state this specifically, or does simply not mentioning it leave it open for other licensing? Are there any other concerns that we should consider? Has anyone had any issues using any of these licenses?

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• How to manage Areas/Levels in an RPG?

  - by Hexlan

  I'm working on an RPG and I'm trying to figure out how to manage the different levels/areas in the game. Currently I create a new state (source file) for every area, defining its unique aspects. My concern is that as the game grows the number of class files will become unmanageable with all the towns, houses, shops, dungeons, etc. that I need to keep track of. I would also prefer to separate my levels from the source code because non-programmer members of the team will be creating levels, and I would like the engine to be as free from game specific code as possible. I'm thinking of creating a class that provides all the functions that will be the same between all the levels/areas with a unique member variable that can be used to look up level specifics from data. This way I only need to define level/area once in the code, but can create multiple instances each with its own unique aspects provided by data. Is this a good way to go about solving the issue? Is there a better way to handle a growing number of levels?

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• How to implement "bullet time" in a multiplayer game?

  - by Tom

  I have never seen such a feature before, but it should provide an interesting gameplay opportunity. So yes, in a multiplayer/real-time environment (imagine FPS), how could I implement a slow motion/bullet time effect? Something like an illusion for the player that's currently slo-mo'ed. So everybody sees him "real-time", but he sees everything slowed down. Update A sidenote: keep in mind that a FPS game has to be balanced in order for it to be fun. So yes, this bullet time feature has to be solid, giving a small advantage to the "player", while not taking away from other players. Plus, there is a possibility that two players could activate their bullet time at the same time. Furthermore: I'm going to implement this in the future no matter what it takes. And, the idea is to build a whole new game engine for all this. If that gives new options, I'm more then interested in hearing the ideas. Meanwhile, here with my team we're thinking about this too, when our theory will be crafted, I'm going to share it here. Is this even possible? So, the question on "is this even possible" has been answered, now it's time to find the best solution. I'm keeping the "answer" until something exceptionally good comes up, like a prototype theory with something close to working pseudo code.

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• Indie devs working with publishers

  - by MrDatabase

  I'm an independent game developer considering working with a publisher. This question is very informative however I have more questions. Please give feedback on the following issues... I think this can be helpful to many indie devs in the same situation. Source code: is it common for developers to give the publisher the source code? Code quality: does this matter when working with a publisher any more so than when just working on your own (or in a small team)? Just wondering if developers working for the publisher might scoff at the code quality and perhaps influence the relationship between developer and publisher. Unique game concepts: are publishers generally biased towards new/novel game concepts? Intellectual property: if I send a playable demo to a publisher what's to stop them from just reproducing the new/novel game mechanic? I think the answer is basically nothing... but I'm wondering if this is a realistic concern. Revenue sharing: how does it work? what's a common ratio? 70/30? 30/70? Flaky publishers: how common is it for a publisher to "string along" developers for a while then just drop them? Can this be reconciled with a contract of some kind? And any other issues you've encountered or heard of.

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• Do all mods simply alter game files? [on hold]

  - by Starkers

  When you install some mods you drag certain files into your game directory and replace the files. Other mods, though, come with an installer where you can set parameters first. Does the installer then go and automatically replace the certain files? At the end of the day, is that all the installation of any mod is? Is the installation of a mod simply the replacement of certain files inside the game's root directory? Do mods exist which don't fit the above statement? That install outside the game's root? Why do they do this? All the mods I can think of do just replace certain files inside the game's root. However, I know Team Fortress was spawned from a multiplayer halflife 1 mod. Do you reckon that mod installed files outside the root to enable multiplayer via a network for a single player game? How rare are these mods? Or do they not even exist? Do even extensive mods make all their changes inside the root?

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• Unity , libgdx, or something else to develop my first game for Android?

  - by capcom

  I want to start by saying that I absolutely love Unity (even more when I team it up with Blender). I really want to start developing games for Android, but it seems like Unity poses way too many roadblocks in terms of which devices it supports (and even if it does support them, it doesn't work well on all of them). I've been looking around for alternatives, and found something called libgdx. Well, it's nothing like Unity unfortunately, but at least it seems like I may be able to reach a larger audience in the market. I'd like to start by making 2D games, but with 3D graphics (say, imported from Blender). I can do this very easily in Unity, and it seems like it should be alright with libgdx too. But I really want to know if ditching Unity is a smart idea, considering how comfortable I am with it already, and how much I like it. Finally, is libgdx something you would recommend considering my requirements/situation? BTW, I am quite familiar with Eclipse too. Many thanks. Feel free to request further details.

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• Apache returns 403 Forbidden for alternative port vhost

  - by Wesley

  I'm having an issue getting vhosts to work on Apache 2.2, Debian 6. I have two VirtualHosts, one on port 80 and one on port 8888. The port 80 one has been created automatically by DirectAdmin, the 8888 is a custom one. It's configuration is as follows. <VirtualHost *:8888 > DocumentRoot /home/user/public_html/development ServerName www.myserver.nl ServerAlias myserver.nl <Directory "/home/user/public_html/development"> Options +Indexes +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews AllowOverride All Order Allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> </VirtualHost> Of course I also have a NameVirtualHost *:8888 The port 80 DocumentRoot is /home/user/public_html/production, which is perfectly accessible and works like a charm. The port 8888 docroot of /home/user/public_html/development is 403 forbidden though. I have compared the permissions for both folders. They seem fine to me. drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Aug 17 16:14 development drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Aug 18 04:29 production Also, the index.php file which is supposed to display when accessing through port 8888, located in /development/: -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 41 Aug 17 16:14 index.html I have looked at my error_log and found many of the following entries, only being added to the log file when accessing through port 8888. [Sat Aug 18 04:35:09 2012] [error] [client 27.32.156.232] Symbolic link not allowed or link target not accessible: /home/user/public_html /home/user/public_html is a symbolic link that refers to /home/user/domains/mydomain/public_html. The symbolic link has the following permissions: lrwxrwxrwx 1 admin admin 29 Aug 17 15:56 public_html -> ./domains/mydomain/public_html I'm at a loss. It seems that everything is readable or executable. I've set the Directory to FollowSymLinks in the httpd.conf file, but that doesn't seem to make a difference. If I change that directory tag to <Directory "/home/admin/public_html"> (so it has FollowSymLinks on that as well) it still does not work. Any help is greatly appreciated. If I need to post more information, let me know. I'm pretty much a beginner at this stuff. .. .. UPDATE: I ended up changing the configuration to directly go to the actual path of the files, avoiding the public_html symlink altogether. That worked. Thanks for the suggestions folks. DocumentRoot /home/user/domains/mydomain/public_html/development instead of DocumentRoot /home/user/public_html/development

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• PostgreSQL compare databases tool or generating migration script util

  - by opedge

  In our development we use two servers with PostgreSQL 8.4 - development and production. So, after changes were made on development server we would like to automatically generate SQL migration scripts. I found that EMS DB Comparer for PostgreSQL can do it, but it is only for Windows (our development team use Ubuntu for developing). Do you now alternative tools to do this?

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• Any PHP MVC framework planning to use 5.3 features?

  - by alexandrul

  I would like to get started with PHP, and 5.3 release seems to bring many nice features (namespaces, lambda functions, and many others). I have found some MVC frameworks, and some of them support only PHP 5: PHP Frameworks PHP MVC Frameworks Model–view–controller on Wikipedia but can anyone recommend one of those MVC frameworks that plans to actively use PHP 5.3 features, not just being compatible with PHP 5.3? Update Results so far: Zend Framework 2.0 (in development) Lithium (in development, based on CakePHP) Symfony (in development) FLOW3 (in development, alpha)

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• Ajax Control Toolkit and Superexpert

  - by Stephen Walther

  Microsoft has asked my company, Superexpert Consulting, to take ownership of the development and maintenance of the Ajax Control Toolkit moving forward. In this blog entry, I discuss our strategy for improving the Ajax Control Toolkit. Why the Ajax Control Toolkit? The Ajax Control Toolkit is one of the most popular projects on CodePlex. In fact, some have argued that it is among the most successful open-source projects of all time. It consistently receives over 3,500 downloads a day (not weekends -- workdays). A mind-boggling number of developers use the Ajax Control Toolkit in their ASP.NET Web Forms applications. Why does the Ajax Control Toolkit continue to be such a popular project? The Ajax Control Toolkit fills a strong need in the ASP.NET Web Forms world. The Toolkit enables Web Forms developers to build richly interactive JavaScript applications without writing any JavaScript. For example, by taking advantage of the Ajax Control Toolkit, a Web Forms developer can add modal dialogs, popup calendars, and client tabs to a web application simply by dragging web controls onto a page. The Ajax Control Toolkit is not for everyone. If you are comfortable writing JavaScript then I recommend that you investigate using jQuery plugins instead of the Ajax Control Toolkit. However, if you are a Web Forms developer and you don’t want to get your hands dirty writing JavaScript, then the Ajax Control Toolkit is a great solution. The Ajax Control Toolkit is Vast The Ajax Control Toolkit consists of 40 controls. That’s a lot of controls (For the sake of comparison, jQuery UI consists of only 8 controls – those slackers J). Furthermore, developers expect the Ajax Control Toolkit to work on browsers both old and new. For example, people expect the Ajax Control Toolkit to work with Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 9 and every version of Internet Explorer in between. People also expect the Ajax Control Toolkit to work on the latest versions of Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome. And, people expect the Ajax Control Toolkit to work with different operating systems. Yikes, that is a lot of combinations. The biggest challenge which my company faces in supporting the Ajax Control Toolkit is ensuring that the Ajax Control Toolkit works across all of these different browsers and operating systems. Testing, Testing, Testing Because we wanted to ensure that we could easily test the Ajax Control Toolkit with different browsers, the very first thing that we did was to set up a dedicated testing server. The dedicated server -- named Schizo -- hosts 4 virtual machines so that we can run Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, and Internet Explorer 9 at the same time (We also use the virtual machines to host the latest versions of Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Safari). The five developers on our team (plus me) can each publish to a separate FTP website on the testing server. That way, we can quickly test how changes to the Ajax Control Toolkit affect different browsers. QUnit Tests for the Ajax Control Toolkit Introducing regressions – introducing new bugs when trying to fix existing bugs – is the concern which prevents me from sleeping well at night. There are so many people using the Ajax Control Toolkit in so many unique scenarios, that it is difficult to make improvements to the Ajax Control Toolkit without introducing regressions. In order to avoid regressions, we decided early on that it was extremely important to build good test coverage for the 40 controls in the Ajax Control Toolkit. We’ve been focusing a lot of energy on building automated JavaScript unit tests which we can use to help us discover regressions. We decided to write the unit tests with the QUnit test framework. We picked QUnit because it is quickly becoming the standard unit testing framework in the JavaScript world. For example, it is the unit testing framework used by the jQuery team, the jQuery UI team, and many jQuery UI plugin developers. We had to make several enhancements to the QUnit framework in order to test the Ajax Control Toolkit. For example, QUnit does not support tests which include postbacks. We modified the QUnit framework so that it works with IFrames so we could perform postbacks in our automated tests. At this point, we have written hundreds of QUnit tests. For example, we have written 135 QUnit tests for the Accordion control. The QUnit tests are included with the Ajax Control Toolkit source code in a project named AjaxControlToolkit.Tests. You can run all of the QUnit tests contained in the project by opening the Default.aspx page. Automating the QUnit Tests across Multiple Browsers Automated tests are useless if no one ever runs them. In order for the QUnit tests to be useful, we needed an easy way to run the tests automatically against a matrix of browsers. We wanted to run the unit tests against Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Internet Explorer 9, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari automatically. Expecting a developer to run QUnit tests against every browser after every check-in is just too much to expect. It takes 20 seconds to run the Accordion QUnit tests. We are testing against 8 browsers. That would require the developer to open 8 browsers and wait for the results after each change in code. Too much work. Therefore, we built a JavaScript Test Server. Our JavaScript Test Server project was inspired by John Resig’s TestSwarm project. The JavaScript Test Server runs our QUnit tests in a swarm of browsers (running on different operating systems) automatically. Here’s how the JavaScript Test Server works: 1. We created an ASP.NET page named RunTest.aspx that constantly polls the JavaScript Test Server for a new set of QUnit tests to run. After the RunTest.aspx page runs the QUnit tests, the RunTest.aspx records the test results back to the JavaScript Test Server. 2. We opened the RunTest.aspx page on instances of Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Internet Explorer 9, FireFox, Chrome, Opera, Google, and Safari. Now that we have the JavaScript Test Server setup, we can run all of our QUnit tests against all of the browsers which we need to support with a single click of a button. A New Release of the Ajax Control Toolkit Each Month The Ajax Control Toolkit Issue Tracker contains over one thousand five hundred open issues and feature requests. So we have plenty of work on our plates J At CodePlex, anyone can vote for an issue to be fixed. Originally, we planned to fix issues in order of their votes. However, we quickly discovered that this approach was inefficient. Constantly switching back and forth between different controls was too time-consuming. It takes time to re-familiarize yourself with a control. Instead, we decided to focus on two or three controls each month and really focus on fixing the issues with those controls. This way, we can fix sets of related issues and avoid the randomization caused by context switching. Our team works in monthly sprints. We plan to do another release of the Ajax Control Toolkit each and every month. So far, we have competed one release of the Ajax Control Toolkit which was released on April 1, 2011. We plan to release a new version in early May. Conclusion Fortunately, I work with a team of smart developers. We currently have 5 developers working on the Ajax Control Toolkit (not full-time, they are also building two very cool ASP.NET MVC applications). All the developers who work on our team are required to have strong JavaScript, jQuery, and ASP.NET MVC skills. In the interest of being as transparent as possible about our work on the Ajax Control Toolkit, I plan to blog frequently about our team’s ongoing work. In my next blog entry, I plan to write about the two Ajax Control Toolkit controls which are the focus of our work for next release.

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