Three Musketeers

Chrome support arrived.

We now have extensions for all 3 major browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer. See the image where I am on this blog page with my avatar and 3 different browsers at the same time.

If my avatar moves in one browser, then it moves in all browsers. If I chat in one browser, I chat in all at the same time. The client logs in to the chat room only once. But the avatar is shown on all browsers.

This is very different from weblin where you could only be on a page with on browser. Other browsers of the same page/domain had no avatars at all.

Initially I wanted to defer Chrome support until after the release. But it is much better to have Chrome support, because I Chrome is my main browser. The client needs lots of day to day testing. Now it is being tested all the time while I am doing my normal web browsing.

By the way: a weblin just private chatted to me, but there is no private chat yet. I just saw it in the logfile, but I could not reply. Do we need private chat early?

Roadmap Update

The core software of the client is ready to be released. I am already using the client day to day. I wish there were a Google Chrome extension. But it has only Firefox and IE currently. So I am using more Firefox than usual.

The biggest remaining problem: although the software is ready, it needs configuration. If you have a web server which hosts an avatar description and if you have an XMPP account and if you are prepared to add both to the config file like I did for my tests, then the software works for you. This is probably not the case for most of you. Therefore, I have to add a bit of auto-configuration before I can release the software (is this correct?). I can release now, but would you want it with so much work on your side? Tell me what you think.

Anyway, I updated the roadmap and I will keep it up to date from now. Here is the task list:

IE Plugin, Installer, Setup, VS10, Support Software

Just a short notice what's currently happening: I am working on

• some issues with the IE support. Stability is very good, but avatars were "behind" the browser window
• installer for the IE extension
• simple setup process which starts after downloading/installing, where you can select install browser extensions, select a nickname/avatar.
• I upgraded to MS Visual Studio 2010. There are some migration issues to be solved. But I feel, that it is better to migrate now than during the beta phase.
• There is now a separate code repository for the WebKit SDK. It has 1.5 GB headers, libraries and DLLs, which are needed to build and run the WebView module. Surprisingly the result is not larger than 10 MB.

Still next on the list:

• Finishing Setup and browser extension installers
• Simple Web site
• Installer packaging and final testing

Asynchronous and Messaging

Our extensive unit test suite discovered, that

• if two WebKit instances are loaded simultaneously, which use the same JS file from the local disk, then initializing one of the JS engines sometimes fails.

The average WebKit programmer will never experience this. The average WebKit programmer uses WebKit to make a web browser. And web browsers do not create many instances simultaneously. You press CTRL-T to open a new tab. Then another. Not two at the same time. Especially not from the local file system. Maybe that's the reason why nobody discovered the "feature" before.

Anyway, this means, that creation of WebKits must be serialized. This in turn, introduces all kinds of asynchronous behavior, which must be handled properly in many places. Asynchronous programming is always more challenging than spaghetti coding. Fortunately the client is message based. The image shows events which wait for other things to complete, before they are forwarded. In other words: the display must be loaded before it can show something. As simple as that.

This kept me busy several evenings and made a huge commit. Now I can continue with the setup/install process.

Internet Explorer Plugin, Autostart and System Tray

Three of the remaining six tasks are done:

• IE Support: I implemented an IE browser helper which connects to the client and tells about opening and closing of tabs, about URL navigation and tab switches.
• System Tray Icon: a small fun project. Since the client has no window, we need something else to control it. I created a small system tray icon which can start and stop the client.
• Autostart: this was the easiest task. Just a registry setting, configured by the system tray icon menu.

Now remaining:

• Settings dialog (do we really need this, we could start with config files and add a settings dialog later)
• Simple Web site
• Installer packaging and final testing

Next is the Web site. We need some place to download the installer and a simple way to configure the avatar, e.g. change animations and nickname.

Finally, we have to bundle all files and create an installer for Firefox and IE extensions. Not a simple task, especially the IE installer. And finally, finally there is much testing required because we want the installer to do it's job smoothly.

Translations and Release Packaging

In the last blog post I mentioned a list of remaining tasks:

• Translations
• Release packaging
• Installer testing
• Auto start
• Tray icon
• Settings dialog
• Browser compatibility
• Web portal

I just ticked off 2 tasks: Translations and Release packaging. This is the remaining list in the most likely work order:

• IE Support
• Auto start
• Tray icon
• Settings dialog
• Simple Web site
• Installer testing

Most of these tasks are of medium size. We might defer Google Chrome support until after the first beta release. Maybe someone from the community wants to take this task. We hope to complete these tasks until August 2011.

There are more tasks which should and will be done after the beta release:

• Google Chrome support
• Personal inventory of virtual items
• Virtual Items on Web pages
• Real Web portal with item shop and (avatar) trading
• Facebook, Twitter, OpenID authentication
• More social interactions (wuscheln and more)
• Porting to MacOS

Some of these tasks are big chunks of work. But most will be done until the end of this year.

Chat Window

This is the brand new chat window.

It is a normal chat window as you would expect. But there are few facts worth mentioning:

1.

It is a module. Actually, it is a display module. This means, that while you are in the chat, you will stay in the room, even if the browser is closed. This is a feature which many weblin power

users wanted.

2.

It is HTML based. See the bold user names: a single line CSS style. See the resize bars between chat-out panel, chat-in panel, and participants panel: just a few lines of HTML with the help of jQuery UI Layout.

Do you remember a blog post one year ago about "Starting Avatar Display Development"? This was after the client core and protocol was implemented, but before you could see avatars.

Now the chat is implemented and I can paint a new picture with a blue box around the finished chat module (there is also a grey cross over the IRC protocol. We do not need it now. IRC is just a future option).

All this means, that the client is basically complete.

There are only small things missing, like:

• Translations: there is a translation module, but not all visible texts are translated,
• Installer: there is an installer, but the client must be packaged and tested before release,
• Auto start with windows: currently you have to start as any other program by double clicking the icon,
• Tray icon: would be nice

... and some bigger parts:

• Settings and configuration dialog: there are config files and a config database, but no dialog yet,
• Browser compatibility: currently only Firefox works, but we want IE and Chrome as well,
• Web portal: a portal like weblin.com would be nice where you can change avatar images.

There is still much to do. It is not configured for normal users. It is for people who know what they are doing. It has still less features than weblin. It is an alpha version. But it's cool and it's on the way.

More technical detail: http://blog.wolfspelz.de/2011/06/html-based-chat-window-with-webkit.html