Development news : AAO goes open-source NOW !

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Development news : AAO goes open-source NOW !

Post by Unas »

Development news
AAO goes open-source NOW !
Important news today for all AAO fans who would happen to be Javascript and PHP developers as well. Well, that restricts the list, I guess, but anyway.
One month and a half ago, I announced that AAO would be going open source shortly. Well, shortly was not so short after all as I have been very busy, but it serves to highlight the need for others to support AAO development, and here it is at last.

I now unveil before your amazed eyes the new bitbucket public repository :
Image AAO Game Creation Engine

This repository contains all code and development history of AAOv6 since its start in 2010.


How to test AAO on my machine ?

This past month, I have also been working to make it much simpler for contributors to test it out.
In addition to the full integrated AAO installation (which requires a tied phpBB forum installation, and all the corresponding technical prerequisites), I introduce two simpler ways of testing changes :
  • Static testing
    As long as your changes only affect the editor or player interface, you'll be able to test them without even setting up a PHP server. If you use Firefox, you won't even need an HTTP server either : open the "editor.html" or "player.html" pages, and that's it !
  • Mocked testing
    If you don't want to worry about a phpBB forum install or any database management by yourself, but still want to test trial creation and saving, series and such, you can use mocked testing. If you have a PHP server installed (with SQLite3 support, which should be the default nowadays), you'll have it set up in seconds and it will enable you to perform everything a single user can do on AAO.
More detailed instructions for testing are present in the README file at the root of the repository.


How to contribute to the AAO engine ?

First, here are the things you will need to contribute. Don't worry, it's all free :-P This AAO repository is public, as in everyone can read and download the code - however, only a select few (namely, myself at the moment) will ever be able to modify it directly.
In order to contribute to AAO, you will need to use the fork and pull request mechanism.

The basic principle is the following :
  • You create a "fork" of the AAO repository, which is a clone belonging to your own bitbucket account.
  • You do all development on your own fork : the AAO repository will remain untouched during this phase.
  • When you think your development is over, you create a "pull request" from your fork to the AAO repository. This means you are asking me to review the changes you made and integrate them into AAO.
  • While reviewing, I will probably make some comments, and ask you to change some details. Then, when I'm happy with all of it, I will integrate it into AAO.
Of course, I will be the one deciding to integrate the changes or not.
Therefore if you intend to start a big development, you should tell me about it beforehand : if it's something I fundamentally disagree with, it's better to know it before you spend hours on it !


So... what now ?

You can start toying around with the code right now, and get used to bitbucket and git.
I will be very busy for the next week, so I probably won't be able to help much, but from May 24th onwards I will also try to find the time to answer all your questions regarding AAO development. Be it about general organisation of the AAO code, specific details you wouldn't understand, or how to contribute.

Shortly, I will also enable two bitbucket tools on the AAO repository :
  • A bug tracker
    Instead of asking Enthalpy to maintain a list of bugs on the forums, it's high time we move on to a better solution. Bitbucket provides a bug tracker which will enable everyone to search and report issues, and the dev will be able to quickly review the pending issues and propose fixes.
  • A development wiki
    As I've been developing AAO by myself from the start, I've never written any technical documentation, so I expect you will have some trouble diving in the code. I will soon enable a wiki where all developers can document whatever is useful for AAO development, to help other devs.
From now on, AAO is in your hands, almost as much as in mine !
I'm counting on all the brilliant developers among you :-)

That's all Folks!
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Re: Development news : AAO goes open-source NOW !

Post by mercurialSK »

Very cool. I had a quick click around and it's beautiful. Wow, I didn't think the homepage would be there too XD
Plus all the documentation makes this a neat opportunity for new programmers to learn too. This is really amazing.
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Re: Development news : AAO goes open-source NOW !

Post by Enthalpy »

Well, time to learn JavaScript and PHP.

Also, looking forward to the bug tracker!
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Re: Development news : AAO goes open-source NOW !

Post by Broocevelt »

This is amazing Unas! Thank you for making this, I'll take a look at it this summer and mess around with it :)
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Re: Development news : AAO goes open-source NOW !

Post by kwando1313 »

It's happening!!!

But yay. I'll be checking it out soon.
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Re: Development news : AAO goes open-source NOW !

Post by Enthalpy »

Oh, and I should also ask:

With this update, what's the future of the v6 forum?
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Re: Development news : AAO goes open-source NOW !

Post by kwando1313 »

Also, if anyone needs an IDE...

If you're a student (like me), you get a year-long free evaluation of the JetBrains software, if you give them your student email address. So, just a heads up for y'all there. (I'm using it purely because I'm used to using PyCharm at work, and it's quite nice.)

also jeez i made a horrible pun earlier
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Re: Development news : AAO goes open-source NOW !

Post by Unas »

Enthalpy wrote:Oh, and I should also ask:

With this update, what's the future of the v6 forum?
Well, the V6 subforum will be deleted and its contents should be moved into the bug reports and suggestions ones I guess.

We may keep these two sections though, even with the bug tracker, as I'm not sure all members of AAO will care enough to go to bitbucket for reporting... Not sure yet to be honest. It would mean more work for you (when a bug is posted and confirmed, instead of adding a link to your list, you'd have to fill it all again in the bug tracker...)
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Re: Development news : AAO goes open-source NOW !

Post by Unas »

We can celebrate kwando as the first contributor to the AAO code base ! Yay ! :-D
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Re: Development news : AAO goes open-source NOW !

Post by mercurialSK »

With the editor and/or player, can we assume that it's predominantly targeting Firefox (and maybe Chrome)? Basically there's no need for cross or legacy browser hacks right...?
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Re: Development news : AAO goes open-source NOW !

Post by kwando1313 »

I'm pretty sure that's the case, yes. Like, I don't think AAO v6 is trying to support IE9 or anything.

ie9 is liek the wurst </3
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Re: Development news : AAO goes open-source NOW !

Post by Unas »

I don't like hacks, but I don't like browser-specific features either.
What you should do is write W3C-compliant code : code using only standardised features or, in the case of CSS, features about to be standardised and which syntax is unlikely to change before standardisation.

As far as CSS goes, I've already put in place a script to abstract the browser-specific prefixes in properties when needed. In your CSS stylesheets, you should only use the generic, standard syntax; if needed, my script will prepend prefixes and do basic transformation of arguments when loading the sheet onto the page.

And as far as testing goes, I expect stuff to be perfectly working in Firefox and Chrome.
(Aside for some specific visual glitches, which can be accepted if they don't ruin the features entirely. cf. http://aceattorney.sparklin.org/forum/v ... 47#p716447 )
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Re: Development news : AAO goes open-source NOW !

Post by kwando1313 »

Not sure what the issue is, but I dl'd easyphp to do a mock php server...

But after following the instructions, I get this error:

Code: Select all

<b>Notice</b>:  Trying to get property of non-object in <b>C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-DevServer-14.1VC11\data\localweb\aao-game-creation-engine\trunk\includes\UserDataHandler.class.php</b> on line <b>47</b><br />
Any idea what's up with that?

That line is

Code: Select all

		return self::getHandlerFor($user->data['user_id'], $user->data);
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Re: Development news : AAO goes open-source NOW !

Post by Unas »

Which install method did you try ?
Mocked, or integrated install ?
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Re: Development news : AAO goes open-source NOW !

Post by mercurialSK »

Ok neat. And lol yeah I was just asking because I didn't want to bother trying to catch weird legacy cases so that's nice.
Unas wrote:Of course, I will be the one deciding to integrate the changes or not.
Therefore if you intend to start a big development, you should tell me about it beforehand : if it's something I fundamentally disagree with, it's better to know it before you spend hours on it !
...Does it count as a 'big development' if I'm trying to add hotkeys? More specifically, new module(s)...
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