Goals:
-Create a web front end for a few basic features of Oregon Trail
How We Accomplished Those Goals:
-The first hurdle to jump was figuring out how to get a Smalltalk server
running. We had to load the VisualWave parcel:
-Then we set up a local server on port 8008 (which is an arbitrary number. Just choose any unused port.)
-We tested our local server in a browser using "echo":
-After we had our server running, we loaded the Web Toolkit Parcel and began using it to locally build our Oregon Trail website-game. (note: just go to your localhost address without the echo command, and you should see the Web Toolkit homepage):
-Then start building your own site with your own local home directory:
-Next we had to actually begin developing our webpages. There were a few requirements that had to be met, and we decided to knock out a few from the outset with our static, form homepage. It passes the form values to an .ssp dynamic page that does a few length checks and ultimately passes the values to our "home".ssp page using query strings. That's why the second pic below has such a long address!:
-This is when things get, er, fun. Through various means of dynamic .ssp pages, we integrate our "gm" (GameManager) class from our Smalltalk OregonTrail class, and initialize our Wagon with the options selected using the radio buttons, and the previously entered Member names. By pass our data around using the "hidden" form type, and we also store this data in session variables. We also check for cookie expiration.
-...and everything works according to plan! Coding in smalltalk for the Web is fun! The user can keep putting in new messages for the radio buttons and everything updates accordingly. Also, because of Amazing Alex's (one of the members of team Menfinity) Awesome Implementation (AAAI) of using a session variable for our gm class, we could have ultimately easily integrated, say, our "move" method into our web front end. Regardless, we got a 100 on M9, which was a nice way to finish off our OregonTrail project. And for those wondering what the Special Page is, what could it be other than a page of team..(**drumroll**):
Advice:
-Start early in order to make sure you can get the server running smoothly. I
(D.Tate, member of team Menfinity) had numerous problems early on getting things
to run smoothly locally.
-Strongly consider downloading Notepad++ if you don't have it already! It is basically
a magical Disney-esque program that allows you to accomplish wonderful things.
-Get it working before you try to make it pretty. Then you can let a more-than-willing
CM team member (if you have one) mess with making it look better. Lol, I am one, so I'm
speaking from personal opinion. Of course, our webpages didn't turn out particularly
pretty, so uh, yeah..But we got a 100 so it's okay! Menfinity-- We. Are. Forever. Men.