What the Hex is Hexskape?

[GaryLASQ]

Yep. Even Safari with version 3 now has native support for SVG. Every browser does SVG now except good old Microsoft's IE. A shame they won't implement it ... not even with version 8 of IE. Guess MS would rather invest in their Silverlight product and create proprietary file formats rather than work with a W3C standard for doing 2D graphics using XML ... go figure.

I fixed the broken links to some pics in the first post.

[lefton4ya]

I just discovered this and think it could be great if a web-based interface was developed. Do you manually edit the XML for each MOP and battlefield on your site? As it stands it is still good and I like the printouts as they are. How come this (or heroscape.glasq.com/hexscape) is not linked on your main page?

[GaryLASQ]

You know, I was just thinking about getting back into this. I have lots of improvements in mind for it. And the best news is that Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) is finally going to support XHTML and SVG. It's about time!! IE9 is the browser upgrade MS should have done about 3 or 4 years ago.

It's not linked into my site yet because I use something similar but a bit different to generate the map graphics on my site. (The XSLT code differs a bit.)

[GaryLASQ]

First post updated.

Nothing much to talk about yet, but I am back to working on this.

[Jhon Brown]

I am now using Firefox 4.0. It's good.I do need some type of method for paging things out nicely for print out through. This look nice.

[GaryLASQ]

Originally Posted by Xorlof

Just downloaded and opened it in my preferred browser, Google Chrome. The result of viewing the examples? A blank page. I did some research and found out this is a bug of sorts in Chrome's security model.

I've discovered that running Chrome with the "--allow-file-access-from-files" command-line parameter makes it work just fine. It also works if you put the files on a web server and load it from there instead of just from your hard drive.

If you do use the command-line parameter, I'd recommend you use that only for testing Hexskape, not for your regular Chrome web browsing.

Interesting. Long ago there was an issue when FireFox went from version 2.x to 3.0. Firefox 3 (and beyond) doesn't process XSLT files if they are outside of the current XML file's path (or descendant paths). The fix is going into about:config and changing security.fileuri.strict_origin_policy from "true" to "false". So to avoid this, I moved the XSLT files from being in a parent-folder of the XML files, to a child-folder called "build". The above two ZIP files each have their own "build" folder, rather than one ZIP file with the XSLT on top of two-child folders, one for the examples and one for the Hasbro maps.

Originally Posted by Xorlof

I've just gotten Hexskape this far along and after viewing sample #2, I'd say that this looks really promising. It is attractive and rather straightforward to use. I'm looking forward to digging into it further and providing more feedback. Good work GaryLASQ.

Thanks! It's an old personal project that I'm trying to revive. The idea is use the browser like an app, no plug-ins needed. Unfortunately no browser has upgraded XSLT support from 1.0 to 2.0 (that I know of). But I can still work within the limits of 1.0 for now. (I am using XSLT 2.0 for my HS website via Saxon-HE from www.saxonica.com to generate XHTML+SVG pages. But for Hexskape, the idea is not to generate a physical XHTML+SVG file from the XML file, but to simply transform the XML file when it is opened by the browser.)

I'm kinda starting from scratch and giving the logical structure of the XML a major re-think.

[Xorlof]

Originally Posted by GaryLASQ

Interesting. Long ago there was an issue when FireFox went from version 2.x to 3.0. Firefox 3 (and beyond) doesn't process XSLT files if they are outside of the current XML file's path (or descendant paths). The fix is going into about:config and changing security.fileuri.strict_origin_policy from "true" to "false". So to avoid this, I moved the XSLT files from being in a parent-folder of the XML files, to a child-folder called "build". The above two ZIP files each have their own "build" folder, rather than one ZIP file with the XSLT on top of two-child folders, one for the examples and one for the Hasbro maps.

I did a little more research and it appears the Chrome problem is not specific to anything in your use of XML/XSLT, and was reported to the developers about a year ago: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/is...etail?id=39616. No resolution yet.

Originally Posted by GaryLASQ

Thanks! It's an old personal project that I'm trying to revive. The idea is use the browser like an app, no plug-ins needed. Unfortunately no browser has upgraded XSLT support from 1.0 to 2.0 (that I know of). But I can still work within the limits of 1.0 for now. (I am using XSLT 2.0 for my HS website via Saxon-HE from www.saxonica.com to generate XHTML+SVG pages. But for Hexskape, the idea is not to generate a physical XHTML+SVG file from the XML file, but to simply transform the XML file when it is opened by the browser.)

Yeah, I like the concept a lot! It is MUCH better than distributing PDFs for maps.

I am not at all familiar with XSLT or SVG (beyond knowing what they do), so figuring out the details of your implementation is a bit slow going for me.

Originally Posted by GaryLASQ

I'm kinda starting from scratch and giving the logical structure of the XML a major re-think.

I've been studying and decoding the VirtualScape file format lately and if you don't mind I'd like to make a .HSC (VirtualScape) to XML converter. I'll use the current XML format for now, unless you revise it before I get around to making this tool. Until we can get a full fledged map making tool to natively support such an XML format, that might be an OK first step...

[lefton4ya]

Question Xorlof? How do you have a title after one post? Were you some other usename and have to change your ID?

Anyway, great work if you can integrate VirtualScape and the web-based map viewer. It would be nice if virtualscape included native saving and Heroscapers could have a built in viewer. There might be some issues that might require the rewriting of one app or the other though: figuring out rotation, stacked-water tiles, multiple scenarios per map (with different start zones and glyph placements).

[Xorlof]

Originally Posted by lefton4ya

Question Xorlof? How do you have a title after one post? Were you some other usename and have to change your ID?

I reported some spam earlier today and the admin handling it accidentally deleted my account along with the spammers' account. My account was restored, but unfortunately, all of my posts got lost in the the process (not a huge number since I'm pretty new here). I was generously given a title as compensation. The current title reflects what occurred regarding the deletion...

You can still see evidence of my earlier posts in quotes in various threads. (For example, right now I am at 1 post (soon to be 2 when I post this message) and that post #1 appears immediately above your post, but you'll notice that GaryLASQ had quoted a previous, now missing post of mine in the post right above that).

Anyway, back to the matter at hand...

Originally Posted by lefton4ya

Anyway, great work if you can integrate VirtualScape and the web-based map viewer. It would be nice if virtualscape included native saving and Heroscapers could have a built in viewer. There might be some issues that might require the rewriting of one app or the other though: figuring out rotation, stacked-water tiles, multiple scenarios per map (with different start zones and glyph placements).

Yeah, there'll be issues to work out. The first version would be very basic. Right now I am just planning a 1-way export from VirtualScape format to GaryLASQ's web-based one, if he's is OK with me "piggy-backing" on his project. Later on, I may do a two way conversion, but I suspect that that may prove to be trickier. Right now, I'll wait for Gary's OK before proceeding, as he may want me to wait or this may be functionality he's planning on doing himself.

[lefton4ya]

Originally Posted by Xorlof

I reported some spam earlier today and the admin handling it accidentally deleted my account along with the spammers' account.

I wonder which admin got an itchy triggerfinger on his banHammer? Anyway, at least you got a title (and some +rep from me at aleast) from it. Thanks for sicking around here after something like that - if that happened to me, I'd put my head in the sand for awhile.

[GaryLASQ]

Originally Posted by Xorlof

Right now I am just planning a 1-way export from VirtualScape format to GaryLASQ's web-based one, if he's is OK with me "piggy-backing" on his project. Later on, I may do a two way conversion, but I suspect that that may prove to be trickier. Right now, I'll wait for Gary's OK before proceeding, as he may want me to wait or this may be functionality he's planning on doing himself.

If you put an "XML Export" feature in Virtualscape, that would be fantastic. You don't really need to wait on me to start that. Just make up your own XML structure, it doesn't even need to match mine all that closely. If I want Virtualscape-XML to be able to import into whatever I come up with, that would be for me to code (with XSLT of course).

Ideally, there would be one standard XML specification that we came up with for Heroscape, as a collaborative effort; defined via XML Schema and/or RelaxNG. It could be called XHSML (eXtensible HeroScape Markup Language), or maybe HXS (Heroscape XML Specification).

JSON is another option. But I think XML is a better starting place. Someone could simply convert the XML to JSON if desired.

Edit: Long long ago, I forget who, started an XML spec for Heroscape. It might even date back to the Heroscape.net days. But I don't have any information on that, just a vague recollection. Also, the old battlefield/scenario builder called Landscape, used *.sol files, which were just slightly "dirty" XML files.

[Parduz]

Originally Posted by GaryLASQ

Also, the old battlefield/scenario builder called Landscape, used *.sol files, which were just slightly "dirty" XML files.

My memory is faulty, but I still have my SolidScape VB6 source code to look at if someone need to dig in the .sol files.

Originally Posted by GaryLASQ

Edit: Long long ago, I forget who, started an XML spec for Heroscape. It might even date back to the Heroscape.net days.

I may try to dig in my backup hard disk.


- Parduz, still lurking