Revisions at timetocode.org

Next: more refactoring...

• March, 2023
  • new charting page for Waconia
• January, 2023
  • Network connections to the server are now timed to warn at 20 minutes and shutdown after 40 minutes of idle time (no chat).
  • help command from chat field
• November, 2022
  • under remove/add items
    • shift capture (center a small-canvas capture on a larger canvas)
  • added an hsl object for supporting demos that step through the HSL color space. To try this, paste "hsl(50, 100%, 0%)" into a puck's color attribute. Run the modified capture and then recapture to see the hsl object that gets created for the puck. In it you can edit the color-step size (default is 2).
  • added S & L buttons to save and load captures to the local file system.
  • videos
    • twinkle toes
    • swingy springs
• October, 2022
  • added under remove/add items
    • toggle display of SCM (System Center of Mass)
    • toggle display of MSC (Multi-Select Center)
    • bullets from pucks (make all human-client pucks cannibalistic)
    • modify capture (use JSON, like {"color":"yellow"}, in the chat field, to modifiy the objects in the capture as indicate by the multi-select.
  • videos
    • internal shake-up
    • there's a cannibal in here
• September, 2022
  • added under remove/add items
    • chain, worm, and springy-chain
    • arc selected
  • videos
    • tears and infinity
    • dandelion parachute
    • the rack
    • tight spots
• August, 2022
  • Upgraded Monkey Hunt and Bipartisan Hoops to be playable games, including connections to the leaderboard. These projectile games can be fully controlled from a touch screen. A second-finger touch toggles the fine-moves for precise aiming.
  • separate module for Monkey Hunt
• July, 2022
  • videos:
    • path of the opposition
    • the nature of it
    • transform
  • "Run" button: an alternate way to play a capture
  • A capture can be immediately taken after starting a demo (before the engine alters the state) by clicking the "Run" button
    while holding the shift key down. This can be used to get an updated copy of an existing capture. This is also a good way to
    take an un-altered (0th frame) capture of the "a" versions of the demos.
  • separate module for capture and restore
  • separate module for leader board
• June, 2022
  • videos:
    • ball and chain
    • five sides to this story
  • under remove/add items:
    • add joint limits
    • toggle joint limits
    • add fixed-length spring
  • separate module for jello madness game
• May, 2022
  • videos:
    • strength and length
  • exit stage left
  • Added reporting of pendulum and spring periods (and their ratio) when the spring is selected in demo 5c.
  • shift-alt-s as first step to produce a capture without softconstraints key
  • shift-s now reports the spring nature of the springs in multiselect.
  • Added features for quantifying the lag of rendered cursor on canvas relative to system cursor. User must have "lagtest" in chat field before checking the local-cursor box under multiplayer. This coupled with p (stop the game loop) and alt-p (inhibit erasing) provide info on mouse input delay.
  • Added feature to automatically restart the game loop after actions, such as changing to full-screen, that affect cursor lag.
  • "Tab" key steps through a menu for multiselect operations. For the spring and revolute options in the tab menu, the "enter" key steps through, and gives focus to individual springs and revolute joints.
  • Monkey Hunt demo, 4e.
  • For non-colliding objects, the top object (drawn last), is always the one that is cursor selected.
• April, 2022
  • Spring report is displayed (including stretch amount), for a selected spring.
  • Tab key presents delete options for multi-selected compound objects.
  • Alt-c now works in two steps: the first alt-c acts to center the selection point in the middle of the narrowest dimension, the second alt-c acts to push the selection point out to the nearest end.
  • Added collision detection, shot logic, and corresponding screen comments to the bipartisan hoops game. See bpHoops.js module.
  • videos:
    • shock absorber
    • a bit of a drag
    • someday
  • Extracted Puck Popper code to a module: puckPopper.js.
• March, 2022
  • videos:
    • Pharaoh's not happy
    • some restitution please
    • it's almost a party (multi-select)
    • pool-shot forecasts
    • bullets and the stepper
    • projectile forecast
    • bipartisan hoops (application of the projectile forecast)
    • ghost on host (playing directly with mouse and keyboard)
• January, 2022
  • videos
    • ghost ball pool (shots aimed from a cell-phone client)
    • grab a puck (a first video on interacting)
  • demo 5g on the wild west...
  • new options under the "remove/add items" control
    • "add pyramid" and "add stack"
    • "toggle", "reveal", and "hide" bullet options for converting pucks to bullets to avoid penetration anomalies with high-speed shots.
    • add non-colliding puck grid (7x7)
  • alt-c keyboard shortcut
    • when doing drag rotation to aim and shoot a rectangular puck, this centers the cursor-spring attachment point along the narrowest dimension of the puck
    • centers multi-select marks along the narrowest dimension of rectangular pucks
  • projectile-path visualization for aiming projectiles (when shooting with gravity on)
    • basketball demo (almost a new game). Press the "v" key to view full screen. Read the on-screen help on how to shoot.
• November, 2021
  • Added alignment feature for objects in the multi-select group. See "align selected" under "remove/add items." Alternately, use alt-l to run it.
• October, 2021
  • Applied revolute joint in double-compound pendulum (see 5f). Added feature (drawDuringPE attribute) to inhibit drawing of a specific puck while in pause-erase mode (alt-p).
  • Added fixed-length variation of the distance joint. Applied it for Newton's cradle demos (see demo 5h).
• July, 2021
  • "remove/add items" select control for clearing off the canvas and then adding stuff: springs, pucks, walls, pins etc.
  • Added "Joints" prototype in Constructors and Prototypes module.
  • Added "revolute joint" and "chain" to the "remove/add items" select control. Also see demo 5e.
• April, 2021
  • Touch-screen play of ghost-ball pool for the host computer, useful for playing on a tablet.
  • Finemove toggle, the b key, useful for disengaging the ghost-ball from target balls, or turning finemoves on/off in other demos.
  • Shot history stepper, alt-b and alt-n, step you back and forth through the shot history.
  • Refined the ghost-ball visualization to include indications for:
    • non-ideal (non pool-ball) collisions,
    • glancing angles,
    • around-other-objects shots,
    • post-collision path lines.
  • Moved ghost-ball code into a module, ghostBall.js.
• February, 2021
  • Finemoves algorithm added for Ghost-Ball pool game. When the ghostball touches an object ball or cushion, the resolution of the mouse movement is increased by a factor of about 7. This improves aiming accuracy. After disengaging from the target, ghostball movement reverts to the normal 1 to 1.
• January, 2021
  • Several new network commands (enter in the chat) for the host:
    • rr: room report
    • dcir: disconnect all clients in the room
    • ping:p2p-uNNN: ping test along P2P path to user uNNN
    • dbrtc:on or dbrtc:off: turn on/off debug logging for WebRTC in the browser console (ctrl-shift-i)
  • Mapping function for Ghost Ball pool that effectively stretches out the surface of a cellphone (controlling shots) making it easier to reach the table cushions
  • Changed behavior in Ghost-Ball when two clients are addressing the same ball. First player addressing the ball now maintains control.
  • Put code for virtual game pad into separate module.
• September, 2020
  • Enlisted the Ghost-Ball Pool game into the leaderboard reporting and added game-rule governance and feedback that runs during game play.
• July, 2020
  • Dandelion demo: 5d. Demonstration of image rotation and dissimilar drag characteristics in a compound object. Also makes a good object to launch into the air (with gravity on) using the pool-shot feature.
• June, 2020
  • Added ghost-ball feature for cue-ball shots off the cushion.
  • Touch-screen features added for ghost-ball pool. You can aim and shoot from your cell phone (use the desktop client from your phone to connect to a host computer).
• May, 2020
  • Pool-shot feature for aiming and shooting a puck:
    Try some pool shots in demo 3d, Ghost-Ball Pool. Instructions are displayed at the beginning of the game and in the left panel.
  • Updated the network client to support the features of Ghost-Ball Pool. Nice!
• April, 2020
  • Video walkthrough page and playlist including videos on the cell phone interface (virtual game pad) for Puck Popper.
  • The combination of the "alt" and "p" keys toggle the canvas eraser on/off. The eraser normally precedes each frame. When toggled off, some drawing features, such as for springs, are inhibited.
• March, 2020
  • Client names (or nicknames) are displayed above the client pucks, at game start, and when "?" key or client-color square is touched on the virtual game pad.
  • CV checkbox for optionally displaying the drone pucks as Coronaviruses.
• February, 2020
  • Adapted the client page to run in both desktop mode: timetocode.org/client.html, and mobile-friendly mode: timetocode.org/client.html?m. The mobile version offers the most direct path the Two Thumbs game pad. The desktop version supports all the streaming and cursor-related options, and yes, can be used from a cell phone.
  • Virtual game pad changes:
    • Reversed the jet control so that the touch point sets the direction of the nose cone, not the jet tube.
    • Revised the "scope" control to have a sweep rate indicator. The result of the sweeping action, the tube angle, is now transmitted from the host to the client, and rendered there. The gun and jet tube angles are synced with the host when Puck Popper is started or when the Two Thumbs game pad is started or reset.
    • The color square on the Two Thumbs game pad now inidcates, with a black dot, whether the client has a puck or not.
• January, 2020
  • Split the main code module into three parts. Links to the new code modules are in the tour (first topic in the outline).
• November, 2019
  • "Canvas" button enlarges the canvas to match the size and aspect ratio of the screen (view port). When using this button, the perimeter fence (in the physics world) is enlarged to match the dimensions of the larger canvas.
• July, 2019
  • Added the PiEngine class to gwModule.js. This is a javascript version of the algorithm for calculating pi digits originally written in Python. The 1d and 1e demos use PiEngine.
• June, 2019
  • Demo 1c presents an unusual method for calculating the first two digits of pi (31) using two elastically colliding pucks.
  • Removed the page folds in the left panel. Added an outline of topics at the top. Should be more context sensitive now and better summarized by search engines.
• May, 2019
  • For demo 2, changed how wave speed is specified, now in units of pixels per frame (see propSpeed_ppf_px in captures). This gives consistent rendering, independent of device frame rate.
  • Demo 2c makes use of a new option to specify the object speed in Mach number.
  • Demo 2e incorporates hsl( hue, saturation%, lightness%) color for the pulse rings. The hue level is incremented 3 points between each pulse ring. The saturation and lightness levels can be edited in the capture.
  • Added a second video to the Perfect Kiss topic (on the Python page). This demonstrates the reversibility of the Perfect Kiss algorithm.
• April, 2019
  • YouTube video on the keyboard interface for playing Puck Popper.
  • Refined the capture process to produce a more concise and editable JSON recording.
  • The "Reverse" button flips the velocity and reverses the rotation rate of each puck.
  • Enlisted the Jello Madness game into the leaderboard reporting. Try untangling 6a and 6d. How does your time compare?
  • Changed the local launching point for the drone bullets to originate from the center of the drone pucks (not the end of their guns). This is more compatible with the algorithm that calculates the leading angle need to anticipate the movement of the targets. So the drones are even sharper shooters now.
  • Changed the starting puck position and velocity, for the first four network players in Puck Popper, to be consistent, not random as before. This provides a more repeatable game. These starting states are editable in the startingPosAndVels array of the capture.
  • Command to generate a new drone and navigation pin at the location of the local cursor: depress the shift, d, and p keys together (shift-d-p).
• March, 2019
  • Added new variations of Puck Popper. Click on the #8 button, then click on the letters in the "Plus" row under the button cluster. Versions "d", and "e" have no drag force on the host puck. "c" and "d" have elastic collisions (restitution of 1.0). "e" applies no recoil when firing bullets and so it's good for demonstrating the target-leading algorithm.
  • Now inhibiting collisions between the bullets, themselves, and their host. This cleans up the game play somewhat and avoids an anomaly in the physics engine when shooting at walls at very close range.
  • Code revisions:
    • Allow the host (local) puck to be treated (edited and captured) separately from the pucks of the network clients. Network client pucks are instantiated as copies of the host puck if it is available.
    • Changed treatment of NPC (drone) pucks that are taken off the navigation pins. The free-floating NPC pucks are drawn without a jet tube or jet flame.
  • Holding the control key down, displays the position and elasticity properties of a single selected puck.
• December, 2018
  • The new "Friendly fire" checkbox (visible when the "Multiplayer" control is checked) controls whether bullets from real Puck Popper players can affect the health of other real players. If unchecked, human bullets can only hit the drones. In this mode multiple players act as a team to scrub out those nasty drones. Nice.
• November, 2018
  • New parameters in the leaderboard records to better characterize the various ways the games can be played.
  • Toggle link (at the end of the title row for the report) for viewing the two leaderboard tables (time and score), one at a time.
  • The "More" row beneath the button cluster. For some demos, this row will contain links to variations on the primary version of the demo.
• September, 2018
  • Secured the timetocode.org domain.
• August, 2018
  • Changes in the code:
    Revised the Spring class to include the functionality that was in the client-cursor springs (originally called them cursor strings). Springs can now be attached at off-center points on pucks (turn off "Select COM" to establish off-center selection points). Client-cursor springs are implemented using the revised Spring class.
• July, 2018
  • Leaderboard report: the top 15 scores get reported below the game score table. The report consists of two query results, one table sorted by score, the other by time. The backend of the leaderboard, a Google sheet, is queried depending on the version of the Puck Popper game (e.g. demo #7 results are reported separate from #8). Custom versions of Puck Popper, made using the capture feature, are reported separately as distinguished by a unique identifier in the capture. Game results where the mouse was used (in the Canvas area) or the drones are "sleeping", are filtered out of the reports.
  • Editor features to adjust the surface-friction (+/- keys) and drag (</> keys) of selected pucks.
  • Puck finder: the question-mark key identifies your puck in demos #7 and #8.
  • Pinned-spring constraints in demo #9 will gently return the three balls to the triangle orientation. The hidden springs and pins are now visible if the "Edit walls & pins" feature is enabled.
  • A way to enter a nickname without connecting to the multiplayer server. From the host page, type the nickname into the chat field, before starting demos #7 or #8. That nickname will be used when reporting to the leaderboard.
• June, 2018
  • Added scoring features to Puck Popper (demos 7 and 8):
    • +200 for last puck-player standing
    • +100 for popping client and drone pucks
    • +50 for popping a regular puck
    • +10 for hitting a puck with one of your bullets
    • -10 for getting hit by a bullet
    • -1 for shooting a bullet that expires before it hits another puck
  • A score summary for each player is reported in the chat panel at the end of the game (one puck left).
• April, 2018
  • Puck popping sound effect.
  • Scope control:
    Located in the bottom right corner of the virtual gamepad, this control precisely rotates the pea shooter and shoots from a fixed position. Touching the center block stops the movement of your puck, and then shoots without recoil (and no rotation). The surrounding two blocks rotate the shooter tube. The rotation rate is reduced as the touch point approaches the center block.
• March, 2018
  • Virtual gamepad:
    The client interface has been extended to include support for touch-screen devices. Yes, cell-phone play for Puck Popper, demos 7 and 8. This is accessed via the Two-Thumbs button on the client. First, from your phone, connect a client page to the host, then touch the Two-Thumbs button.
  • Full-screen button (bottom right):
    Nice for viewing the demos with nothing but the animation canvas visible. This works best in Chrome. Once in fullscreen mode, use ctrl +/- to scale up or down. When hosting, this is the best way to present a Puck Popper game to a group of viewers.
  • Prior to connecting, put a nickname is in the chat field. This helps to keep track of who's in a multiplayer Puck Popper game.
• January, 2018
  • Demo #9: additive color mixing
  • Option to put startup info in the URL (the query string). For example: www.timetocode.org/?7b starts the b version of demo #7, www.timetocode.org/?8 starts demo #8. This allows the user to post a link to a specific demo. Related to this, improved the startup process: framerate is sampled on a blank canvas for about one second.
  • Group copy and paste with multi-select (ctrl-v replicates the selected group or single object to the cursor position). A spring-only paste is now done with ctrl-s.
  • Drone copying. Copy operations directed at a drone puck now replicate the drone client. The copy will simply float (not navigate) unless you copy and paste a navigation spring from another drone. See discussion under demo #7.
• December, 2017
  • Moved most of the editor's rotation features to be part of multi-select. Automated the editors use of the COM feature.
  • Use "o" key for single stepping and repeatedly (hold "o" key down) slow stepping the animation (use "p" to resume normal animation).
  • Option to model springs with soft constrains. This is Erin Catto's spring modeling approach (distance joints) in Box2D. Please refer to the discussion for demo #5.
  • Editing option for modifying the spring-damping and puck-restitution coefficients: select object, then use page-up or page-down keys.
  • Group-rotation for the editor's multi-select (select multiple objects, then hold control and shift key down, then mouse drag).
• November, 2017
  • Run-it links in the demo topics (follow the more-on-the-demos link on the main page). The run-it links automatically feed a capture to the engine and then run it.
  • Multi-body drag. Hold control key down, then click and drag to move all bodies in the multi-select group.
  • Automatic setting of the engine's timestep.
  • Frame stepper (button) when animation is paused.
  • Box selector for multi-select. Hold alt key down, then click and drag.
• October, 2017
  • P2P video stream from host to client (canvas to video element). This facilitates multiuser play outside the boundaries of a single physical room.
• September, 2017
  • WebRTC peer-to-peer (P2P) layer added to the socket.io functionality (note that shift-p acts to toggle P2P on/off from the client page).
• August, 2017
  • Ray-casting drones for demos #7 and #8
    • Guns lead (aim ahead) to compensate for target-object motion.
    • Drone navigation forces render as jets.
• July, 2017
  • Modified the spring object to allow for storage on two pins (see demo #4).
• June, 2017
  • Multi-object selection functionality for the editor
  • More editor features for puck objects (resizing)
  • An example of a JSON capture of a modified version of demo #6
• May, 2017
  • Some editor features now apply to non-wall objects: drag pins, delete pins and pucks, change angle and rotation rate for pucks.
• April, 2017
  • A control for setting the physics-engine timestep. This supports users running displays at higher (than 60hz) refresh rates.
• March, 2017
  • Demo #8 introduces a basic wall editor and a capture feature to build (and save) terrain for Puck Popper battles.
  • A tangle timer for demo #6 (Jello Madness). This coupled with the capture feature makes for a playable game.
  • Sound-field simulation for demo #2
• February, 2017
  • Demo #7 brings in some game-feature objects: jets, guns, shields, and health indicators. This is similar to the Puck Popper game from the tutorial page and helps to demonstrate receiving keyboard events from the multiplayer clients.
• January, 2017
  • Multiplayer features for the demo page
    • Client-to-host communication using node.js and socket.io
    • Feature for testing latency (ping-to-server and ping-to-host)
    • Chat feature
    • A discussion page on the use of these features and instructions for installing a local node server
• November, 2016
  • A Spring prototype to supplement Box2dWeb 
    • Modeling of spring-damper systems to determine forces exerted on objects
    • Functionality for representing (drawing) the springs as they stretch and get thinner
    • Demos 5 and 6
• October, 2016
  • A start at translating the final topic from the tutorial page for use in a web browser
    • JavaScript code using a Revealing Module design pattern with prototypes
    • Box2dWeb physics engine
    • An initial framework for rendering to the HTML5 Canvas
      • Drawing functions for walls, circular and rectangular pucks, cursor springs
    • DOM controls for changing parameters and starting the demos
    • A vector prototype
    • A Client prototype with cursor-spring functionality for selecting and moving objects
      • Modeling of simple cursor-spring forces and object drag resistance
      • Cursor-spring selection options for center-of-mass (COM) or other local points on an object
• March, 2016
  • Purchased timetocode.org from Google domains. This domain name seemed about right for me and nicely represents the collision between my retirement and my interest in coding...
  • Started hosting at 50webs and added two subdomains:
    • pet.timetocode.org
    • waconia.timetocode.org
  • Moved the Physics Engine Tutorial (PET) content from gustavus.edu to pet.timetocode.org.
  • Moved my Waconia weather-gleaner and charting site to inside my local network at home. The site was most recently hosted on my office computer at Gustavus. Sorry, it's only for me now. It has sentimental value as it was a starting point of sorts that got me going as a developer at PNNL. In a sense I have archived it at waconia.timetocode.org. Some sample charts from my local network get pushed out there every hour. I even put together some installation instructions. It's a tricky install. Let me know if you get it up and running on your local network.