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Your World of Text, my current side project. Requires FF3+ or Safari 4, I think.

yourworldoftext.com

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Re: Your World of Text, my current side project. Requires FF3+ or Safari 4, I think.

#33
post #2

An explanation from the author: This isn't a startup, it's just an idea I thought would be cool. I'm announcing it on HN first, hoping to get technical and aesthetic feedback before I throw the URL around. The two browsers in the submission title are the only ones I have on this machine. Right now it doesn't run as smoothly as I'd want in FF3. There are a couple big optimizations ideas I have, but I was comfortable e…

This is oddly entertaining. Could you explain how you represent the "world" in the AppEngine data store? (Also, could you use cookies to bring me back where I left?)

It's really simple. This was my first App Engine project. There's only one model, Tile, that has contents, namespace, and x/y coordinates. The contents field is a string representing the text in this tile. The namespace tells you what page the tile belongs to (e.g., /newsyc), and the coordinates are relative to the starting position. Namespace, x, and y are part of the keyname, so contents is the only model property. I don't create a tile until someone writes to that area.

I don't want to use cookies, but I'm thinking about implementing some kind of directions feature. ("Where am I?" "How do I get to X?") But I also want to keep the system really simple, so I don't know.

Re: Your World of Text, my current side project. Requires FF3+ or Safari 4, I think.

#34
post #2

An explanation from the author: This isn't a startup, it's just an idea I thought would be cool. I'm announcing it on HN first, hoping to get technical and aesthetic feedback before I throw the URL around. The two browsers in the submission title are the only ones I have on this machine. Right now it doesn't run as smoothly as I'd want in FF3. There are a couple big optimizations ideas I have, but I was comfortable e…

It actually runs better in IE8 than it did in Chrome on my work machine...

Re: Your World of Text, my current side project. Requires FF3+ or Safari 4, I think.

#35
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is oddly entertaining. Could you explain how you represent the "world" in the AppEngine data store? (Also, could you use cookies to bring me back where I left?)

It's really simple. This was my first App Engine project. There's only one model, Tile, that has contents, namespace, and x/y coordinates. The contents field is a string representing the text in this tile. The namespace tells you what page the tile belongs to (e.g., /newsyc), and the coordinates are relative to the starting position. Namespace, x, and y are part of the keyname, so contents is the only model property.…

I assume you only construct a tile if someone types in it; not if someone simply scrolls over it?

How large are the tiles?

Re: Your World of Text, my current side project. Requires FF3+ or Safari 4, I think.

#36
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really simple. This was my first App Engine project. There's only one model, Tile, that has contents, namespace, and x/y coordinates. The contents field is a string representing the text in this tile. The namespace tells you what page the tile belongs to (e.g., /newsyc), and the coordinates are relative to the starting position. Namespace, x, and y are part of the keyname, so contents is the only model property.…

I assume you only construct a tile if someone types in it; not if someone simply scrolls over it? How large are the tiles?

Correct, and 8x16.

Re: Your World of Text, my current side project. Requires FF3+ or Safari 4, I think.

#37
post #27
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same on webkit nightly. Needs more backspace!

I disabled backspace because I wasn't sure whether it should delete the char before the cursor (better for typing) or under the cursor (more natural if you click on something to delete it). Guess I'll just pick one... or have it delete under only if you clicked there?

Definitely the character before. Delete key should delete the character under the cursor.

Re: Your World of Text, my current side project. Requires FF3+ or Safari 4, I think.

#38
post #6

Maybe have a minimap feature? In the right hand corner, or a way to jump to the activity? I scrolled around for a while before I found where all the action was. Or a search feature. I think the trending topic is penis right now.

I added a top feature requests table with a votes column. Time to get our collaboration on!
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