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RichardG

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  1. RichardG
    Hey guys welcome to my second post on Toolscape. It's been quite some time since my
    first post. This is because it's taken me a while to get it to the state that it is currently in.
     
    In this post I'll simply be giving you an update as to where I am with the project.
     
     
    Tabs
    This has taken me quite some time to figure out how to do this. They are not your usual
    jQuery tabs you see ^^
     
    They basically work exactly as your tabs in your browser do.
     
     
    Well they are linked to a sidebar that sits nest to the game so you can view all of the guides,
    tools etc... without leaving the comfort of the game.
     
     
    Interface
    I've made a number of interface tweaks to make the experience more fluid. Yes I'm trying to
    pay attention to detail. If anybody has any suggestions of things that would be cool to have
    (little things) then please let me know. I'm all for ideas.
     
     
    To end my short post I'll just sum it up. I'm almost ready to start adding the content to the
    application. :D
     
     
    Side note
    I've been granted permission to share my code with anyone who is interested. I was going to
    use a website called Github but that proved to be far too complicated to be worth the hassle.
     
    Does anybody know a website that I can use and keep the code up to date?
  2. RichardG
    Hi readers. Before you go any further I want you to be open minded about what I'm trying to accomplish
    here. I also would like to say that this is a work in progress and is currently for my own personal use.
     
    I decided to create this project for something to do, for good coding standards practice and I like a
    challenge, I'm a programmer if you haven't already guessed.
     
    I decided to create this blog because I wanted to share what I'm doing with the community, whether
    or not people are for or against toolkits it's still interesting to see what's still going on 'out there' and I
    can use it as a sort of log.
     
    An Introduction
     
    What I am trying to do is create an open source (all code is visible) online toolkit for our favourite game.
    I'm also trying to make something a little different. I believe that annoying problems exist with the toolkits
    that are currently available such as :
     

    Safety - Is the application Actually safe?
    Clutter - Most people only want the basic tools
    Usability - I don't think there is a Toolkit out there that has a nice clean tab interface, can you name one?

     
    Here is an overview of how I'm tackling these issues.
     
    Safety
    I've decided to make my project open source by only using HTML, CSS and Javascript to code it. The
    problem with other software is that you don't know what's actually going on 'behind the scenes'.
     
    Clutter
    In my experience a reason a lot of players don't use toolkits is because they have a lot of 'crap' built in.
    I just decided to stick with the basics (guides, database lookups and calculators). I bet most users do
    something like this :
     

    Opens a page to find something
    Search...click...scroll
    Ok done. (closes tab/window)

    so there is a lot of unused functionality.
     
    Usability
    I love designing interfaces but this proved to be quite a challenge. I wanted to build something that
    would be useful, spacious but could also be completely hidden away when the user justs wants to play
    RS. The interface consists of a sidebar and a bar running along the top of the game (a bit like Tiko, but better).
     
    I also eliminated the scrollbar entirely! It has been replaced with two buttons that scroll through the
    content. The content will also resize to match the window height which is a good, useful thing that
    took Ages to get right.
     
    It's better to show than tell so here are a few screenshots of what I have so far:
    (I was working on the menu for the task diaries today so it's still not done)
    (I also stole the colour scheme from forum.tip.it. I hope they don't mind ^^)
     
     

    Full Size
     
     

    Full Size
     
     

    Full Size
     
     
    Thanks for taking an interest if you are still reading. I'll be posting more as I update Toolscape ^^
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