I've been developing a text adventure in python that runs in the windows command prompt. I didn't think to host this online until it was done, so i'm hoping there's a way to emulate CMD and run the game in a web browser, but this may be difficult due to the nature of how the game functions.
Basically, everything from items to enemies to events are stored in plain text files, allowing for users to create their own stories and whatnot through a dev console in game. When certain triggers happen, these files are modified. For example, unlocking a door changes a line in the specific area file. So it's crucial that the user have their own sandbox of the original directory, otherwise events wouldn't work and the game wouldn't function.
I've seen a similar set up to run old DOS games online but due to the sandbox directory aspect, I wouldn't be surprised if this was effectively impossible. I'm hoping you guys have some idea of how I could go about this without rewriting the source entirely. ]]
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I've tried gradlew html:clean and then gradlew html:dist
however, it never uses the newest code. It will continue to grab the code from somewhere else and compile older versions of it. I got it to use the newest code once but I am not sure what I did to get it to do that. I'm not sure what files to post here to help.
For development, there are two ways possible:
If you don't need to debug and did not already compile: Use html:clean and html:superdev and make sure to delete the browser cache => You will get a fresh version of your game
If you need to debug or the game is already running: Use html:superdev if you did not already, head to localhost:8080/html, click the button to enter superdev mode (at the upper left corner) and hit recompile => You will get a fresh version of your game ready for debugging
For releasing an update of your game:
You need to enforce that all users get a fresh copy of your game. You cannot rely on all users deleting their browser cache, therefore you need to use other tricks for that (changing the directory of the game for every build, using HTTP headers...). I recommend you to use game hosting sites like GameJolt ot itch.io. They do this magic for you, and are trusted sites by players.
I found out the answer was to Shift-F5 to hard refresh the page. Chrome was caching the old info.
I've an embedded system which runs firmware and has USB mass storage with size 79kB. So when you plug in the device to any computer(MAC/Windows), it pops as a 79kB flash drive. The firmware creates files which has transaction records. The objective is to display these transactions (tables and simple graphs) to the user. I've narrowed down to a web browser. So the user (with MAC/Windows PC) can plug in the USB device mass storage and open an HTML file in the mass storage drive and view all the transactions in the form of tables and simple bar graphs. The tricky part comes here: the device(firmware) needs to update it's clock, and this time input has to be sourced from the MAC/Windows PC. How can this be achieved?
This is the minimum requirement. Further, through the web browser the user wants to write some configuration parameters for e.g. through a text box and a submit button in the HTML page.
NOTE: Here the device has USB mass storage type and the web browser approach were selected so that there is no prerequisites for the user.
Please suggest an alternative if this can be done using another approach for e.g. a different class of USB or some other application locally available on MAC/Windows desktop/laptop. For e.g. the application should run on both on Mac and Windows i.e. the code should be the same but can be built into separate packages one for Mac and the other (.exe) for Windows. Please suggest a platform for this that has same source but can be built for both mac and windows. Thanks!
As far as I know, there is no way a web browser could write to a file. If such a thing was possible, it would be a huge security issue.
You have to write a piece of native software to do all the tasks you name. That can be done in pretty much any programming language, and if you're developing embedded systems I reckon you must have some experience in programming.
I'm looking at doing something similar and have an idea, though you may be better equipped to run with it than I am. Have the define contain a directory called "SET_DATE" with files "YEAR15" through "YEAR99", "MON01" through "MON12", "DATE01" through "DATE31", "H00" through "H23", "M00" through "M59", "S00" through "S59", and "SET"; each such file should start at a different sector, though none of the sectors in question need to contain any data (they need not physically be stored anywhere). To set the date to July 4, 2020 at 12:34:56pm, read the following files in sequence:
SET_DATE/YEAR20
SET_DATE/MONTH07
SET_DATE/DATE04
SET_DATE/H12
SET_DATE/M34
SET_DATE/S56
SET_DATE/SET
The last access should cause the unit to set its clock. If a user might want to set the clock more than once, that could be accommodated by either having a bunch of essentially-identical directories under SET_DATE (so setting the date the first time would use SET_DATE/00/YEAR20, the second time SET_DATE/01/YEAR20, etc.) and/or having the drive unmount/remount itself if necessary to clear out any caching.
I would think it unwise to have directory fetches trigger actions, since Windows or an anti-virus tool might decide to pre-cache all the directories in a drive when it is mounted. I would not expect Windows or a browser to eagerly load files, however, so I would think one could have read accesses trigger actions.
I have numerous programs that launch the current web browser on constructed HTML files, and it needs to open in a new window. Many places in the registry reference chrome.exe. There are so many it's hit or miss editing each to have "--new-window". I renamed chrome.exe to chrome_original.exe and replaced chrome.exe with a program I made. What my program does is pass command line arguments to chrome_original.exe, adding "--new-window" if not already present. A config file is read for options. For instance I can keep a log of invocations. There are times when adding "--new-window" is not appropriate, which can be determined by examining the log.
On my development machine the strategy works excellent, but on other machines it doesn't. On the other machines chrome loads, but just sits there with the wheel spinning. Does it test to see if the exe being run is chrome.exe? Why does it work on my development machine?
If chrome updates itself with a new version, putting things back like they were, when I redeploy my exe it will take care of that.
I need to get this working if anyone has an idea why chrome will just sit with the wheel spinning and not load a page. Thanks
To analyze the problem I recommend that you install Process Explorer from www.sysinternals.com.
There should be no Chrome "sitting around with the wheel spinning".
In Process Explorer find out which is the process, double click it and in the first tab in the window that opens you see the command line.
Compare it with the command line on the computer where it works.
Process Explorer gives you much more information, like for example the environment variables. I saw in the case of Firefox that Environment variables may be very relevant. For example when you start Firefox by your program and do not set the working directory correctly it may hang.
I resolved my issue. Chrome also runs as a background process, sitting in the tray, utilizing the same exe. When loaded, the exe file is not held open. Having the exe already loaded as one file name, then loading again as a different file name, no doubt causes confusion. What was already loaded needed to be unloaded, first. In addition, the auto start registry key value needed to be updated with the new exe file name.
I have yet to see what will happen when chrome updates itself automatically with a new version. There's a good chance the launching utility will be overwritten. Some tweaking will need to be done.
Using a launcher for chrome to intercept invocations works really well and is a good approach to always having a new window when one is wanted.
I've used background transfer service (BTS) API for Windows Phone in two apps and experienced very bad problems. It became one of the main source of bug in the two apps as for some reasons, download are often refusing to start, whatever I set in the flags (Connected to wifi, not connected, connected to a power outlet, etc.), and it was random from a user to another. This and bad response from the servers.
Is there a more customized way to achieve it? Which threads or loop remains alive in my app when I'm navigating to the external:// world? I should probably check with counters.
My main question remains: appart from the BTS, is there something to allow a 3-4 megs file to upload even if I navigate out from my app to play an mp3 from an external:// app?
Once you exit your app, you are pretty much shut down. You can masquerade as a location tracking background agent to remain in the background when you get deactivated, though you'll suck battery and I believe there can only be one of these active at a time. Generally, highly not recommended (and you'll probably fail certification).
A better way to do this if BTS is not to your liking is to use a ResourceIntensiveTask. This will only be triggered when the user is plugged in and has WiFi but will allow you to run whatever you want for as long as the conditions are met (for example, at night) which should be plenty of time to upload a 3-4 MB file.
The question may sound a little odd but I'm currently in a project where this could help solving many problems.
Is it somehow possible to embed an .exe into any web browser? I don't want to run the program directly in the browser (would be major security risk I guess), I just want the window of the .exe being embeded into a browser page. So the .exe is running locally on the system but instead of a "windows window" I have it displayed in the web browser. Think of it like VNC, I only need my "video" and the possiblity of user interaction (the program is an interactive 3D visualization).
I don't have much hope for this being possible so I'm also glad about any suggestion that would allow me to display web pages while my program is running in the same (fullscreen) window. Doesn't necessarily has to be a "real" browser but should allow basic stuff like HTML, CSS etc.
This kinda sound more like a SuperUser question rather than a StackOverflow one.
Anyway, I have a number of possible solutions for you:
You could use a second monitor.
Maybe all you really need is setting the "exe" window to "always be on top".
I could swear that used to be an option in the Windows' default Task Manager in the earlier versions of Windows but I use a 3rd-party piece of software for around 10 years now for that and many other purposes, however there are many such options to be found online.
Can't risk endorsing the one I use here, since it tends to spook people into thinking I'm trying to infect them with HAX.
In case you have the sources for the "exe" you are running, have you considered going the other way around and building a web renderer into your desktop program? Something like WebKit, Servo and suchlike.
Or you could make the program listen on a port to network packets you can be sending from the page you'd have to make — like a remote control.
Then there's also the cgi-bin option if you run the server.
And, to see what you're controlling, you might wanna stream it to some streaming platform (if you get it to stream an obscured window), embed their player widget in an iframe on your custom local webpage and keep the website you are reaching in another frame.
Maybe even code the program to read XInput and stream it through Mixer using its MixPlay feature to control it.
Hope any of this helps.