HTMLView performance?
BlitzMax Forums/MaxGUI Module/HTMLView performance?
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| Hi all, again :) Does HTMLView cause any performance issues? I am quite familiar with HTML and could use it to easily create good looking dynamic content for my game (if compared to doing it with ordinary 2D stuff), but I wonder if a HTMLView that has graphically intensive content can cause a performance hit for the game. Has anyone done any tests or have experiences regarding this? -AF |
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| Its IE COM Module so it will cost its time ... And why would you want to have a HTMLView open while 3D rendering is running? |
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| My game is a strategy game and I need to display all kinds of boxes that contain all kinds of information. With HTMLView I can use HTML to display that information. With plain Max2D I would need to mess with bitmap fonts, layout, links, events and such. HTML makes it a lot easier task and the end result is easier to customize and edit. I only wish I could remove that scrollbar from HTMLView. :( -AF |
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| Use HighGUI3 or FryGUI to display your information within the game. Missuing HTML for this purpose will cause some serious break in the style and feel, at least would to me, as you can not seamless integrate the HTML part into the 2D game part. |
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| I'll check if HighGUI3 or FryGUI have improved. I checked them a while ago and they weren't good enough and I was going to make the GUI myself. There's no break in style and feel, since HTML can use the very same graphics the game uses. It's just a lot easier to code. The only downside is that, as far as I can see, there's no way to fully remove the scroller - you can only partially hide it with JavaScript by making it a single color that fits the underlying graphics. -AF |
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| If you really can't find a dom setting, you could possibly hide the scroll by parenting the htmlview to a panel a little less wide thereby cropping it. The other problem you may find mixing htmlview with gameplay is handling keyboard and mouse focus. I would consider the development of a successful strategy game should be 50% gui work anyway so I'd go for custom option and save maxgui for what it was mainly designed for - game tools / editors. On the other hand, from my own testing scrolling a huge bitmap broken into big tiles and populating it with lots of sprites seemed doable in dhtml in which case you could consider implementing a bmx game server using standard browsers for the client. |
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| Thanks for your input. Yeah, I have to make a custom GUI anyway, I just think that I could save a lot of time by using HTMLView for some parts (basicly parts that need to display lots of formatted data). Making my own system that supports hypertext stuff that includes tables and images is quite a task. With HTMLView I get lots of extras (from CSS up to JavaScript components, videos, flash etc) with practically zero work. This is something I really need to think about. I do HTML and JavaScript for living as a day job so using HTMLView gadgets is real tempting: I could get serious results with very small time investments. HTMLView would make things like comprehensive in-game help and in-game encyclopedia a trivial task from programming point of view. Panel cropping is a good idea. I need to check out input focus issues. -AF |
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