Good idea. I will finish the other functional parts and I may plan to implement your suggestion. However, I think that I will keep some games in the homepage, maybe less :). I think that with some efforts the Java™ Game Tome will contain more than 100 games in one month.
Yes, the look & feel isn’t very impressive at the moment! However, we are still developing it. gouessej is doing a great job implementing all the code.
I guess Demonpants & myself will fight about who will be allowed to create the user interface on top ;D
I did some previous web design (partly with help from templatemonster):
http://www.multiplayerhub.com/board/
http://www.noblemaster.com/
http://www.aevumobscurum.com/original/
http://www.kingx.com/
I can slap something cool over once you are done implementing all the code, unless Demonpants/gouessej are beating me to it ;D
The possibility of viewing the details of the games has been added (the rate is not visible). I will do the rest (mainly rating and game update) tonight or tomorrow. Only logged users can rate a game (to avoid fraud as much as possible).
I plan to make a short movie to promote the Java™ Game Tome with some scenes of each game.
For the look and feel, including a 3D game browsing system might be done with JOGL in an unsigned applet.
The semi-automatic promoting system is not ready. Therefore, I’m sorry if your website is not yet more visited. Google detected the Tome. I will use the ancestor of the semi-automatic promoting system on www.javagametome.com itself, I hope it will work fine.
In the homepage, I will keep some games organized in some sections:
- recently added games
- recently updated games
- highly rated games
- most played games
I tried to submit my game (Ferrari3D) to this site, but I got the error message “unknown developer login”, even though I had registered. But when I looked at the main page afterwards it was added and the submitter was listed as ‘root’! Does it simply mean that someone already added the game, or am I going insane? 
In case of the latter, could I please change the location of the thumbnail? I have a much nicer looking one then the current one.
Finally, take it easy goussej. That the majority of people thinks that the current design is ugly does not mean that we don’t appreciate your efforts in this. Thank you for working on this site, and keep up the good work!
Ferrari 3D has been added by me yesterday. There was a bug in the user registration, I have just fixed it when I read your post here, thank you very very much. If you want to change the thumbnail, give me the URL and I will do this as soon as possible, ok?
If you’re patient, retry to register on the Tome and wait for some days, I will allow the users to update the information about the games.
Yes it is ugly and it is not a problem. The priority is to make this website work at first before improving the look and feel, I have already said it. I take it easy. I slept only 5 hours this night because I had to fix some bugs, I’m fine. Christoph and Elijah will improve the look and feel, count mainly on them.
Now, the Java™ Game Tome contains 100 games!!
Insert quote not working?
Now, the Java™ Game Tome contains 100 games!!
Erm, 99 games! I’ve had to suspend Bloodridge as my ISP is getting sniffy about the bandwidth I’m taking up…
EDIT Cancel that - Bloodridge is now back online!
Thanks. I’m going to fix it. magic_quotes_gpc is at on, I expected it at false, it is discouraged to enable it in PHP 6.0.0. I will use addslashes(…) before using a string to query the database and stripslashes(…) to clean a string before displaying it. Christoph will deactivate these magic quotes if possible in php.ini.
You reassure me, Bloodridge is one of the best games on the Java™ Game Tome on my view, it must stay available.
Ok now it is possible to view the details of the games, update them and rate the games. Now please register on the website and update your games directly if needed. I will add a system to submit news tomorrow.
There are some problems with the database. I have added the RSS feed but the information is poor, wait for some days, it will work better.
you should probably use mysql_real_escape_string instead of addslashes, see:
@javagametome
its not pretty atm, but that fact that you are doing it is good, and i assume it will get better if you continue to keep working on it.
i suggest you make people provide a thumbnail of a certain size when submitting a game, currently the scaling is poor quality and the aspect ratios are all broken
You’re right, I have seen it too when I looked deeper in the PHP documentation.
The GUI will be improved later, step by step. Of course, I keep working on it :), thanks.
It is important that the images in the panel have a fixed size. I will add a warning in the submission system to tell the submitter that the provided image will be resized.
One thing that JavaGamesFactory did quite nicely was classifing games by their stage of development (concept, in development, beta, complete, etc). This made it easy to find something to play/demo to people. Could we have that again please?
EDIT: Oh, and is it possible for authors to remove their games should they be taken down/withdrawn etc?
Kev
Hello,
I try to update my game info but I have an error message saying that the update can’t be done. The first update didn’t give an error but the other attempts did. I also created an account with user jeromeblouin.
Ok. I think that it happened because of a problem with the magic quotes, I’m really sorry. Please send me a private message (in French if you want, Jérome Blouin, it sounds French, doesn’t it?) and tell me which update you want to do. According to the database, you only modified the homepage URL and your modification has been approved now.
Thank you very much for this bug report, it will help me to improve the website.
N.B: an unlogged user tried to remove the homepage URL of the game “Roll 4K”. I rejected the modification. Some kinds of modification are approved only for logged users, I should display something, a message, sorry again.
[quote]Thank you very much for this bug report, it will help me to improve the website.
[/quote]
C’est un plaisir! -> It’s pleasure! (for anglophone ones. ) It’s a very little action compared to what you and the other contributors are building… BTW, thanks a lot!
I’ll send you a private message when I’m home…
That was me, I was going to change it to the full URL but was fiddling about and clicked. It’s a good idea to display the message. Are the updates going to be automatic in the future or will they always be pending approval by you?
Kev
It would be technically possible to drive the updates automatic. Nevertheless, I can’t do it as I allow unlogged users to do many things (Elijah and Christoph agree with me about it as far as I know), there must be a counterpart, a control. If I let anyone do anything, someone can come and change all the URLs in order to break all, to perform a “sabotage”. It is an extreme case but the Java™ Game Tome won’t become a graveyard, I hope it’s clear. Please read the rules: http://www.javagametome.com/terms_of_use.php
“Any modification of the contents must be approved by the administrator before being published.”
I think that we will add some protections against robots too. I have implemented an approval mechanism not to bother you, Elijah validated the structure of the tables, he knew what I was doing. I hope it is not a problem for you. I remember what you wrote on IRC, I hope that you will participate to the Java™ Game Tome by adding contents too. Sometimes I disagree with you but I respect you as a human being and as a talented programmer. This Tome is ugly but it is a good occasion to promote Java gaming.
P.S: I precise that I follow the same principles than for a professional application I had rewritten during my single work placement. If someone destroys the Tome, I have planned to adapt some tools to be able to rebuild it in less than an hour (including FTP, SVN and the database).
I thought that’d been cleared up above. You mis-translated some text “chap” which isn’t an insult. The site was pretty weird looking when I looked at it - looks considerably better with that new title bar though.
Kev
I was speaking about what you wrote about my political views. Read the terms of use, I hope that you are reassured. I clearly differenciate the role of the Foundation and the aims of our website.
Ah right, well thats good from my point of view anyway.
Kev