Do you know any software (online or not) easy to understand and appropriate to create this kind of plots?
I would like the image to be vectorized, can write subindices, arrows, dots and so on to explain numerical stencils and grids.
I am using Windows 7
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Started working on a new web application recently and noticed they insert images into their pages by using css pseudo-elements. What is the point of this? Why not just use a normal img tag?
Hi Chopper Draw Lion4,
That's a great question which has several possible answers.
Its an older site and they were doing the old image replacement technique
This was popular circa 2000 - 2010 when people believed that using text was more beneficial to SEM/SEO than using an image with an alt tag. It was "all the rage"
It could be useful in responsive markup. Depending on what kind of image/size. It may be that image only shows at certain response points. (yet one would still wonder why not hide them image rather than use a pseudo element)
Unskilled developer who just discovered pseudo-elements. This doesn't need much explanation.
The application may have been written in a way which did not give the ui developer access to the core html code which is injected.
I suspect this is the most likely reason. And the one I have come across most often.
Situation: the ui developer needs to make something happen. But they have been forbidden from touching the actual coding.
Example:
"Dear ui developer, please insert smiley faces or frowny faces depending on whether this is a positive comment or a negative one."
<custom-directive data-grade="bad">{{Our Data is Great and You Stink}}<custom-directive>
<custom-directive data-grade="good">{{Your Data can Enjoy New Life}}<custom-directive>
What would you do if this is all you were given and there were no interior elements to which you could insert the smiley/frowny face?
Well, if it were me, I'd probably have to , at that point use a css pseudo element.
See this as an example to answer:
http://codepen.io/Acts7/pen/MJRrwa
Or this spiffy solution for a "star rating system"
https://codepen.io/Acts7/pen/BpEJRg
Hope this answers your question.
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I'm not sure where to begin, but my goal is to to create a 2D simulation game that allows the user to create formations using points, or dots, on the grid. I wanted the game to allow the user to direct the points on the grid to their next location, or set of locations, in a continuous simulation from the first formation to the last in chronological order.
Like I mentioned earlier, I am brand new to coding and wanted to know what specifically should I be looking to learn to create this? Also if you have suggestions on what I should use to create this such as Flash, Html5, or something else please let me know.
Are you trying to make Conway's Game of Life?
As far as good beginner game engines go my first couple of games were in GameMaker. I understand the reputation it gets about it not having "real programming" but if you are learning to write code I actually think this works great. No it doesn't have syntax like code does, but it does require you to learn programming logic and that is what is important. Syntax isn't that tricky and you can look it up. Logic and structure, that's hard.
I don't know much about FLash other than that it is kind of a sinking ship and losing support. If it's between javascript and that, go Javascript. When you say
HTML5 or Java, you do not make games in HTML5. If you have an HTML5 game engine like Impact, it's actually javascript code you are writting. HTML5 is just putting the game window in a web page.
I haven't messed with PyGame much, but Python is a fantastic beginner language and I have heard this works for small things like what you want to do.
Love2D gets used for projects like yours a lot. Don't have experience with it myself but you could take a look at it.
I have used Unity a lot for my projects big and small. It's a big learning curve but if you want to learn how you could make "big" games, this is how you should do it. Tons of great beginner learning materials and support, just expect to go through several tutorials(which you should do anyways with whatever you pick) before you can get started.
So you have a start pattern, and a target pattern, and the user must move the points by, say, sliding them along the grid lines, until the target pattern is attained... I think the easiest would be Corona (https://coronalabs.com/, free and excellent docs). It has a very simple game engine which is based on Lua programming language, a very simple language that is also very powerful and versatile such that it will allow you to jump in and support complexifying your game as you learn. Corona is built so you don't have to worry about all the intricacies of getting the code onto the device etc, it has a device emulator so you can test on your desktop. You just focus on creating your callbacks and logic and imagery, they will get used at the appropriate time.
The concepts you will need to develop your game:
- setting up the initial grid and pattern
- drawing lines (for the grid) and circles (for the "points) (presumably, different colors)
- handling a swipe
- updating the state of the grid so you know where the points are
- determining if the target pattern has been met
- keeping score (time used, number of moves required)
- start-over (prematurely with confirmation by user, or when target reached)
Install Corona, look at its intro to Lua, start playing around with it, starting with really simple stuff, actually best is to take existing examples that come with Corona and try to modify them to do something different and gradually diverge from original. The Corona docs and examples are excellent, there is a very active community, tons of youtube videos by avid game developers on tricks and techniques, and corona questions on stackoverflow get quick answers.
Have fun!
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I'm planning on making a little game. And I'm looking for an engine. Basically what I want is Unity, but then 2D. It's a very interface heavy game, stylized, so what I need is an engine (or similar) in which it's easy to draw lines, primitives and text (and bitmaps, though that's less important.) The game will have a game world, though you'll never directly see it. All you'll get is a bunch of information about it (text, lines, graphs, ...)
I know you could use Unity to make 2D games, though for what I have in mind it's not optimal and the way objects work in Unity isn't really how I want to structure my game. (I've worked a lot in Unity and absolutely love it, though I don't think it's the right tool for this game.)
What I love about Unity is that you can just build for any platform, with a single click, and it just works. It also already has it's own way of building your gameobjects, and since I'm making something very different, I don't want this. I need more control over the objects and actually only want the engine to draw stuff.
I was thinking about using Flash, ActionScript3. It should be very good at drawing lines and text. And hopefully just as easy to build.
I also checked out HTML5 and javascript, using KineticJS, which can draw lines and primites very easily (pretty much exactly like I want it), though I hate javascript and want more structured code. Maybe it's just me that I can't get javascript to be clean enough for my taste, but well, that's something we'll have to live with then :P
My question now is, since I never used flash. What are your thoughts on this. Is it perfect for this kind of stylized text-based games? Is it easy to build (I'm using FlashDevelop since that's a free way to make flash stuff)? On top of that, can I use a single code base for Windows and Mac (maybe even iOS, Android or other, though that's less important)?
Or maybe you have another suggestion I could check out? (I already checked out a bunch of other question here, though none were really helpful. So yea it's another 'I'm looking for an engine' question, so don't kill me for that. I already did quite a bit of looking around, though would love some more input from others.)
Edit1: I've been looking around some more and found Haxe (http://haxe.org/) seems promising, can anyone recommend this or?
I think Flash/AC3 would fit perfectly, especially if you're using FlashDevelop.
To comment on Daniel MesSer:
This means that a programmer "never" has to worry about positioning objects and the visual appearance of the game. The programmer only have to provide the functionality for what should happen when stuff happens (buttons are clicked, animations are complete etc).
This just is not true. If you're work at a company that solely uses Flash CS this might be the case. But with FlashDevelop you've got a fully functional IDE. If you look up some third party libraries like Flixel, Citrus Engine or FlashPunk, you'd find something that could fit perfectly to your needs.
I think that for what you want to do, flash would not be an optimal tool. The beauty of flash and what it was designed to do is to separate and combine what a graphical artist does and what a programmer does.
You see, you have Flash as the tool where you align, position and import/draw graphics and do complex animations. And then you export those as assets and work with the graphical resources from ActionScript. This means that a programmer "never" has to worry about positioning objects and the visual appearance of the game. The programmer only have to provide the functionality for what should happen when stuff happens (buttons are clicked, animations are complete etc).
It sounds as if your game are more in the "techy" family, where you will be working alone, and you want to draw primitives yourself and there will be a lot of text on the screen.
Flash was never intended to be a tool to work with loads of text and doing stuff the techy way, it was created to make it easy to work with loads of graphical resources in a structured way where the programmer doesn't have to worry that much about the graphical content.
If my assumptions of what you want to do is correct, you would be better off working with JS. It would be better suited since you are working with few complex graphical assets, are interested in cross platform support and basically wants to work with loads of text.
I also checked out HTML5 and javascript, using KineticJS, which can draw lines and primites very easily (pretty much exactly like I want it), though I hate javascript and want more structured code.
Write objectoriented javascript :-) I'm a oop-maniac, but I'm starting to find the beauty of js too. It IS possible to write beautiful code even there! ;-)
Regarding flash and AS3, It would be possible, and probably pretty "easy" to use. I started programming using AS2 (well some other stuff before that as well). But personally I dont think flash is the right way to go. Flash have reached it's expiery-date a long time ago.
There are several games coded in HTML5 and KineticJS. You can find some examples on www.kineticjs.com. With HTML5 and kinetic, you'll also be able to make it work for multiple platforms at once.
Hope this helps :-)
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My question is rather simple, but affect serious issue.
When I'm developing websites / widgets and other web applications may I use similar approach in design cases like other pages have? It's just my inspiration.
For example. I'm not copying piece of codes, graphics, but using some very useful strategies and concepts, but
find very comfortable Google new navigation (top, dark bar)
icon navigation and positioning like in Google+ or Google Maps is nice in my opinion
apple.com boxes with rounded corners and delicate shadow is just perfect
etc. etc.
So... what if I create administration panel for example finding inspirations in that pages? Similiar but in different dimmensions and colors , using different buttons layout, using my own code and graphics (or with royalty-free licence on icons, btw. similiar to iPhone icons ;) )
What about copyrights and intellectual property?
I AM NOT A LAWYER AND THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE!
You cannot copyright things that are considered useful or practical, Like rounded corners and shadows. Yet in Intellectual property there are "Trade Dress" which means: The total image and overall appearance of a product or service; protected under common law principles to trademark law.
But as mentioned above this can be a very fine line and ultimately it is up to the judge/jury to decide did you infringe.
If you cannot afford a lawyer I would recommend doing alot of reading and studying. A book that hes helped me out a alot is: Intellectual Property: Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights by Richard Stim. Published by West Legal Studies. That book gives you a good base and is used in Law Schools and you can understand it.
Getting ideas
Collecting ideas from other sites is normal and probably the right thing you can do! Like checking out features and way of others do things. That's called research -- taking bad and good from other sites and making yours better.
Using similar elements
Its pretty impossible to get sued, because you used similar toolbar on your site, as google has. Of course being a copycat is not a nice thing to do. Unless you are getting only the idea and of course create the full toolbar from ground up.
As example: I really liked the orange toolbar in new google analytics. So I used it in a UI for a big system. I only used the tab and icon look. Also made it in blue not orange.. That's taking some good idea and making it fit for your current project.
What you shouldn't do
You must remember, that all logos and images are copyrighted (unless stated otherwise; also, some sites copyright their own logos and layout graphics, but offer the content as free to use.)
Making a parody-site
Technically you can go as far as copying a full site. However, this is on the very critical verge, where you could get sued. However:
If you don't use any of the logos or trademarked elements
You make all graphics and photos yourself (dress all your models the same)
Create all code from ground up (copyrighting html and css might be possible, but if you change it a little, or better yet make it your own.. its not the same)
Maybe even put the sidebar or menus on the opposite side or something
If you follow these points, you should be safe from getting sued, however copying somebody's site is not a nice thing to do. Unless, you want to play a prank on your friend or creating a fansite of a site of some kind.
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, but I also have never been sued! These are general facts, on how you get things done on the web. 85% of worlds ideas are already being done, but who said you cant make the same ideas better?!
I required to write a small web application that allow customer to select predefined layout template in html and be able to modify it. The application need to allow customer to add block text to pre defined area and images. The block texts need to be able to reorder based on customer need. eg. move up , move down or move to sidebar. THe complete layout will be able to convert to table layout and inline css due to email program doesn't like div & css. I don't know where should I looking for the information to make this happen, could anyone show me how to do this.
Thank you
Of course, I may be misunderstanding you. You might consider using a standard content management system such as:
linux based
joomla
Mambo
Windows based
DotNetNuke
Sharepoint
Those systems have the functionality you described built in with the added benefit that most of them are free and open source.
I'm not sure why someone downvoted you, but check out a javascript framework like script.aculo.us or Yahoo's YUI
Those will go a long way towards creating the interface you need. Also they have a lot of examples.
The Yahoo framework has an inplace html editor (I think that is what you are asking for). Another editing is the fckeditor.