Board Game Arena - Уклад удзельніка [be]

Tutorial hearts

2019-08-17T20:33:17Z

Amadannabriona: /* Full game model synchronisation */

== Introduction ==

Using this tutorial, you can build a complete working game on the BGA environment: Hearts.

Before you read this tutorial, you must:
* Read the overall presentations of the BGA Framework ([[Studio|see here]]).
* Know the rules for Hearts
* Some-what know the languages used on BGA: PHP, SQL, HTML, CSS, Javascript
* Setup you development environment [http://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/First_steps_with_BGA_Studio First Steps with BGA Studio]
* As part of setup you have to have access to your ftp home folder in studio, which would have 'hearts' game source code. We will be using some resources of this game in this tutorial, so copy it over to local disk if you have not done so.

If you stuck of have question about this tutorial post on [https://forum.boardgamearena.com/viewforum.php?f=12 BGA Developers forum]

== Create your first game ==

If you have not already, you have to create a project in BGA Studio. For this tutorial you can create a project heartsYOURNAME where
YOURNAME is your developer login name. You can also re-use the project you have created for the "First Steps" tutorial above.
With the initial skeleton of code provided, you can already start a game from the BGA Studio.

1. Find and start the game in turn-based mode with 4 players. Make sure it works.

2. Modify the text in heartsYOURNAME_heartsYOURNAME.tpl, reload the page in the browser and make sure your ftp sync works as expected.
Note: if you have not setup auto-sync do it now, manually copying files is a no-starter.

3. Express stop from settings menu (the gear icon).

<i>Note: please do '''not''' use the hearts project code as a base. This tutorial assumes you started with a TEMPLATE project with no prior modifications. Using the hearts project as a base will be very confusing and you won't be able to follow all the steps.
</i>

== Hook version control system ==

For a real game, or even for this tutorial, we recommend committing the code to version control right from the start. You are going to find yourself in a situation where the game doesn't even start anymore and no way of debugging it, unless you have a way to revert. That is where version control becomes very handy. If you are not familiar with version control (e.g. [https://git-scm.com/docs/gittutorial git]) then at least back up your files after each major change. Start now.

Code for this tutorial available is on github: https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla

Different revisions represent different steps along the process, starting from original template to a complete game.

== Update game infos and box graphics ==

Even it does not nothing yet, always start by making sure the game looks decent in the game selector, meaning it has nice box graphics and its information is correct. For that we need to edit [[Game_meta-information: gameinfos.inc.php|gameinfos.inc.php]].

For a real game, you would go to [http://boardgamegeek.com BoardGameGeek], find the game, and use the information from BGG to fill in the gameinfos.

So let's do that. Find "hearts" on BoardGameGeek. (Hint: Original release 1850 :))

You can fill in the year of publishing and bgg id, put ''Public Domain'' under publisher, and a publisher id of 171 for public domain. And as designer and author you can just put your own name just for fun. Set number of players to 4.

// Players configuration that can be played (ex: 2 to 4 players)
'players' => array( 4 ),

The next step is to replace '''game_box.png''' with nicer images. For this tutorial, just copy all the files from the img/ folder of the hearts/ template into the img/ directory of your project. Replace publisher.png with a nicer image: for example https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-sharedcode/blob/master/img/publisher.png.

Details about images can be found here: [[Game art: img directory]].

Now an important step: you have to LOAD these files into the Studio website through the control panel. So go to Control Panel -> Manage Games -> heartsYOURNAME
and press Reload for 'Reload game informations' and 'Reload game box image'

Now try to start the game again. If you somehow introduced a syntax error in the gameinfos file it may not work (the game won't start).
Always use the "Express Start" button to start the game. You should see a standard state prompt from the template. You should see 4 players on the right: testdude0 .. testdude3.
To switch between them press the red arrow button near their names, it will open another tab. This way you don't need to login and logout from multiple accounts!

<i>Note: if you had run the game before with less than 4 players there is a bug that will prevent you from running it with 4 only (if you did not run it before or run it with 4 players as instructed stop reading this note), to workaround revert back to original players array (i.e. 1,2,3,4), reload game options, then create a table with 4 players, exit that game table, then change gameoptions to 4 only as above, reload game options, create table again.</i>

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/4b3a73eeb5acae961ade18473af119e8ce8d1a8f]

== Layout and Graphics ==

In this section we will do graphics of the game, and main layout of the game.

First copy a sprite with cards image from hearts img/cards.jpg into img/ folder of your project. Project hearts is mounted to your home directory on bga server.

Edit .tpl to add some divs to represent player table and hand area

<pre>
<div id="myhand_wrap" class="whiteblock">
<h3>My Hand</h3>
<div id="myhand">
</div>
</div>
</pre>

If you refresh you should see now white area with My Hand title.

[[File:Heartsla-tpl2.png]]

Now lets add a card into the hand, just so you can feel it. Edit .tpl and a playertablecard div inside a hand div
<pre>
...
<div id="myhand">
<div class="playertablecard"></div>
</div>
...
</pre>

Edit .css file
<pre>
.playertablecard {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
margin-top: 5px;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
background-image: url('img/cards.jpg'); /* temp hack to see it */
}
</pre>

When you edit CSS remember that you have to FORCE-reload page, i.e. Ctrl-F5, otherwise its cached.
<i>Same when you change existing graphics files</i>.

You should see this:

[[File:Heartsla-tpl3.png]]

Awesome! Now lets do the rest of layout.

There are few ways of how html could have been generated, you could have start with nothing and generate
all by java script. Or you could have started with complete game markup in html and make java script just hide and move pieces around. BGA framework provides also a third way which is mix of both plus template engine to generate HTML using php. So lets do that.

Change .tpl file to have this inside
<pre>
<div id="playertables">


<div class="playertable whiteblock playertable_{DIR}">
<div class="playertablename" style="color:#{PLAYER_COLOR}">
{PLAYER_NAME}
</div>
<div class="playertablecard" id="playertablecard_{PLAYER_ID}">
</div>
</div>


</div>

<div id="myhand_wrap" class="whiteblock">
<h3>{MY_HAND}</h3>
<div id="myhand">
</div>
</div>
</pre>

What we did is we added "block" player, it is marked up using html comments. {VAR} notation is used
to inject variables and
<pre>

inside

</pre>
effectively allows us to do template loops.

In .view.php insert this code after 'Place your code below' comment

<pre>
$template = self::getGameName() . "_" . self::getGameName();

$directions = array( 'S', 'W', 'N', 'E' );

// this will inflate our player block with actual players data
$this->page->begin_block($template, "player");
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $info ) {
$dir = array_shift($directions);
$this->page->insert_block("player", array ("PLAYER_ID" => $player_id,
"PLAYER_NAME" => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'],
"PLAYER_COLOR" => $players [$player_id] ['player_color'],
"DIR" => $dir ));
}
// this will make our My Hand text translatable
$this->tpl['MY_HAND'] = self::_("My hand");
</pre>

What it does is for each player we have it will replicate the html between  and  tags, substituting the variable denoted by {XXX}
with the values you provide. The DIR variable in this case we pulling from directions array (where array_shift will take first element and remove it from the array).

Reload. If everything went well you should see this:

[[File:Heartsla-tpl4.png]]

These are "tableau" areas for 4 players plus My hand visible only to one player.
They not exactly how we wanted them to be because we did not edit .css yet.

Now edit .css, add these lines after import before our previous definition

<pre>
/** Table layout **/

#playertables {
position: relative;
width: 710px;
height: 340px;
}

.playertablename {
font-weight: bold;
}

.playertable {
position: absolute;
text-align: center;
width: 180px;
height: 130px;
}

.playertable_N {
left: 50%;
top: 0px;
margin-left: -90px; /* half of 180 */
}
.playertable_S {
left: 50%;
bottom: 0px;
margin-left: -90px; /* half of 180 */
}
.playertable_W {
left: 0px;
top: 50%;
margin-top: -55px; /* half of 130 */
}
.playertable_E {
right: 0px;
top: 50%;
margin-top: -55px; /* half of 130 */
}
</pre>

Now you force Reload and you should see this:
[[File:Heartsla-tpl5.png]]

This is almost all we need for graphics and layout, there are few tweaks left there but lets do some more heavy lifting now.

<i>Note: if you did not see changes you may have not force reloaded, force means you use Ctrl+F5 or Cltr+Shift-R, if you don't "force" browser will use cached version of .css and images! Which is not what you just changed</i>

<i>Another Note: In general if you have auto-sync you don't need to reload if you change game.php file, you need normal reload if you change js, and force reload for css and images. If you changed state machine or database you likely need to restart the game.</i>

== Game Interface JS Stock ==

The BGA framework provides a few out of the box classes to deal with cards. The client side
contains a class called [[Stock]] and it can be used for any dynamic html "pieces" management that uses
common sprite images. On the server side we will use the [[Deck]] class which we discuss later.

If you open cards.jpg in an image viewer you will see that it is a "sprite" image - a 13x4 grid of images stitched together,
which is a very efficient way to transport images. So we will use the Stock class to mark up these images and create
"card" divs for us.

First, we need to add '''ebg/stock''' as a dependency in the hearts.js file:
<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <==== HERE
],
</pre>

Then add this to the Javascript contructor, this will define size of our cards
<pre>
console.log('hearts constructor');
this.cardwidth = 72;
this.cardheight = 96;
</pre>

The stock is initialized in the Javascript "setup" method like this:
<pre>
// TODO: Set up your game interface here, according to "gamedatas"

// Player hand
this.playerHand = new ebg.stock(); // new stock object for hand
this.playerHand.create( this, $('myhand'), this.cardwidth, this.cardheight );
</pre>

As parameters of the "create" method, we provided the width/height of an item (a card), and the container div "myhand" - which is an id of "div" element from our .tpl file representing a player hand.

Then, we must tell the stock what items it is going to display during its life: the 52 cards of a standard card game from a CSS sprite image named "cards.jpg" with all the cards arranged in 4 rows and 13 columns.

Here's how we tell stock what item types to display:
<pre>
this.playerHand.image_items_per_row = 13; // 13 images per row

// Create cards types:
for (var color = 1; color <= 4; color++) {
for (var value = 2; value <= 14; value++) {
// Build card type id
var card_type_id = this.getCardUniqueId(color, value);
this.playerHand.addItemType(card_type_id, card_type_id, g_gamethemeurl + 'img/cards.jpg', card_type_id);
}
}
</pre>

And add this function to the utilities section
<pre>
// Get card unique identifier based on its color and value
getCardUniqueId : function(color, value) {
return (color - 1) * 13 + (value - 2);
},
</pre>

Explanations:
* At first, we tell the stock component that our CSS sprite contains 13 items per row. This way, it can find the correct image for each card type id.
* Then for the 4x13 cards, we call the '''addItemType''' method that creates the type. The arguments are the type id, the weight of the card (for sorting purpose), the URL of our CSS sprite, and the position of our card image in the CSS sprite. It happens to be the same number in our case.

Note: we need to generate a unique ID for each type of card based on its color and value. For that we create a function '''getCardUniqueId'''. The type is the unique identifier of the TYPE of the card, e.g., the queen of spades encoded as an integer. If our deck had 2 standard card decks we would have had 2 queens of spades; they would share the same type and the same image but would have different ids. NOTE: It's unfortunate that they named this '''getCardUniqueId'''; it should have been '''getCardUniqueType''', because it really isn't an id, but a TYPE of card. The type of the item should either be a reversible function of its properties (i.e., kind of suite * 13 + value) or just an enumerator described in material.inc.php. In this specific case it's a synthetic type id, which also the same as the number of the card in the sprite image (i.e., if you enumerate each image in sprite going left to right, then top to bottom).

Now let's add the 5 of Hearts to the player's hand just for fun (this code will go in setup method after types initialization):

<pre>
// 2 = hearts, 5 is 5, and 42 is the card id, which normally would come from db
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId( this.getCardUniqueId( 2, 5 ), 42 );
</pre>

This will add the card with id 42 and type 16 ( (2-1)*13+(5-2)=16 ).

Note that number 16 would not be something you can see in database, Deck database will have separate field for type and type_arg where type is suite and type_arg is number, so its not the same thing, but you can use same formula to convert. Number 42 on the other hand would be id field in database. But we get to database in the later section.

If you reload now you should see the 5 of hearts in "your hand".

Stock control can handle clicking on items and forms the selection. yyou can immediately react to selection
or you can query it later; for example when user presses some other button.

Lets hook it up. Add this in the setup method in .js file, after this.playerHand is initialised:

dojo.connect( this.playerHand, 'onChangeSelection', this, 'onPlayerHandSelectionChanged' );

Then find the Player's action comment section and add a handler after the comment:

<pre>
onPlayerHandSelectionChanged : function() {
var items = this.playerHand.getSelectedItems();

if (items.length > 0) {
if (this.checkAction('playCard', true)) {
// Can play a card

var card_id = items[0].id;
console.log("on playCard "+card_id);

this.playerHand.unselectAll();
} else if (this.checkAction('giveCards')) {
// Can give cards => let the player select some cards
} else {
this.playerHand.unselectAll();
}
}
},
</pre>

The function name of the handler is 4th parameter of the dojo.connect function. Make sure you spell it correctly or there will be unpredictable effects.

Now if you reload, open the Javascript Console (F12), and then click on the card in My Hand, you should see:
on playCard 42
printed on the console

== Game Database and Game Initialisation ==

Next step, you want to design a game database and setup a new game (on the server side).
For that we need to a) modify the database schema to add our cards data b) add some global variables into
the existing globals table.

To modify the schema, first exit your existing game(s). Open '''dbmodel.sql''' file and uncomment the card table creation.

<pre>
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `card` (
`card_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`card_type` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_type_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
`card_location` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_location_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`card_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;
</pre>

This is the "card" table which will be managed by the Deck php class.

In addition we want a little piece of information in the players table:

-- add info about first player
ALTER TABLE `player` ADD `player_first` BOOLEAN NOT NULL DEFAULT '0';

Not sure why they put this into the player table, as we could use a global db variable to hold first player as easily.
But I am just following the existing code more-or-less.

Next we finally get into .game.php class, where the main logic and db interaction would be. Find php constructor which should be
function __construct( )
This is first function in a file. Add this code to constructor.
<pre>
parent::__construct();
self::initGameStateLabels( array(
"currentHandType" => 10,
"trickColor" => 11,
"alreadyPlayedHearts" => 12,
) );

$this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
$this->cards->init( "card" );
</pre>

Here we are initializing three "Game State Variables" which are variables stored in the database. They are integers.
It must start with no values lower then 10 since values lower than 10 are reserved. These values are stored by numeric ids
in the database, but in the php we associate them with string labels for convenience of access. The variables are "trickColor": numbers from 1 to 4 that map to card suit (not sure why it's called color; maybe it's a translation from French); "alreadyPlayedHearts": a boolean flag (0 or 1) indicating hether somebody used hearts on the trick; "currentHandType": stores the value to indicate who to give cards to during exchange.

The next 2 lines are creating $this->cards object and associating it with "card" table in the the database.

<i>If we called db table 'foo' instead of 'card' the last statement would have been $this->cards->init( "foo" )</i>

At this point I would start a new game and make sure it starts, then exit.

<i>
If you made a mistake
in the .sql or php constructor the game won't start, and good luck debugging it. (That is why it's important to check
once in a while to make sure it still starts while you remember what you have changed.)
</i>

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/e3a049257b592ff6167688d4d344f8a83d349b08]

Now we can go to game initialization '''setupNewGame''' in game.php. This method is called once when the table is created.

In your template project you should have code that deals with player table, just leave it as is. Start inserting the
other code after "Start the game initialization" comment.
<pre>
// Init global values with their initial values

// Note: hand types: 0 = give 3 cards to player on the left
// 1 = give 3 cards to player on the right
// 2 = give 3 cards to player opposite
// 3 = keep cards
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'currentHandType', 0 );

// Set current trick color to zero (= no trick color)
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'trickColor', 0 );

// Mark if we already played hearts during this hand
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'alreadyPlayedHearts', 0 );
</pre>

Here we initialize all the globals to 0.

Next is to create our cards in the database. We have one deck of cards so it's pretty simple.
<pre>
// Create cards
$cards = array ();
foreach ( $this->colors as $color_id => $color ) {
// spade, heart, diamond, club
for ($value = 2; $value <= 14; $value ++) {
// 2, 3, 4, ... K, A
$cards [] = array ('type' => $color_id,'type_arg' => $value,'nbr' => 1 );
}
}

$this->cards->createCards( $cards, 'deck' );
</pre>

This code that will create one of each card. But don't run it yet, because we missing $this->colors.
So we have state of the game in the database, but there is some static game information which never changes.
This information should be stored in material.inc.php and this way it can be accessed from all .php files.
We will edit this file now by adding these lines

<pre>
$this->colors = array(
1 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('spade'),
'nametr' => self::_('spade') ),
2 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('heart'),
'nametr' => self::_('heart') ),
3 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('club'),
'nametr' => self::_('club') ),
4 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('diamond'),
'nametr' => self::_('diamond') )
);

$this->values_label = array(
2 =>'2',
3 => '3',
4 => '4',
5 => '5',
6 => '6',
7 => '7',
8 => '8',
9 => '9',
10 => '10',
11 => clienttranslate('J'),
12 => clienttranslate('Q'),
13 => clienttranslate('K'),
14 => clienttranslate('A')
);
</pre>

Where $this->colors will define Suit labels and $this->values_label will define value labels.
If you noticed, we have two of each label for suits. This is because sometimes we need translated values on the php
side and sometimes we don't. In this case '''nametr''' will return a translated value in php, which is only useful when you throw exceptions to show the right strings. If you pass a value to the client via notification you should always use untranslated strings, and the client will translate it. 'clienttranslate' marks the value for translation but does not actually change it for php. For more about this wonderful translation stuff see [[Translations]].

== Full game model synchronisation ==

Now at any point in the game we need to make sure that database information can be reflected back in the UI, so we must fix the '''getAllDatas''' function
to return all possible data we need to reconstruct the game. This is in the game.php file. The template for getAllDatas() already takes care of player info. Let's just
add hand and tableau data before we return a result.

<pre>
// Cards in player hand
$result['hand'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'hand', $current_player_id );

// Cards played on the table
$result['cardsontable'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'cardsontable' );
</pre>

Now on the client side we should display this data, so in your .js file in the setup function (which is the receiver of getAllDatas) replace our hack of putting 5 of Hearts directly into the hand with:

<pre>
// Cards in player's hand
for ( var i in this.gamedatas.hand) {
var card = this.gamedatas.hand[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId(this.getCardUniqueId(color, value), card.id);
}

// Cards played on table
for (i in this.gamedatas.cardsontable) {
var card = this.gamedatas.cardsontable[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
var player_id = card.location_arg;
this.playCardOnTable(player_id, color, value, card.id);
}
</pre>

This should show hand and tableau cards now, except we are missing the '''playCardOnTable''' function. So find the '''getCardUniqueId''' function which
should be in the utilities section and add this after it:

<pre>
playCardOnTable : function(player_id, color, value, card_id) {
// player_id => direction
dojo.place(this.format_block('jstpl_cardontable', {
x : this.cardwidth * (value - 2),
y : this.cardheight * (color - 1),
player_id : player_id
}), 'playertablecard_' + player_id);

if (player_id != this.player_id) {
// Some opponent played a card
// Move card from player panel
this.placeOnObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'overall_player_board_' + player_id);
} else {
// You played a card. If it exists in your hand, move card from there and remove
// corresponding item

if ($('myhand_item_' + card_id)) {
this.placeOnObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'myhand_item_' + card_id);
this.playerHand.removeFromStockById(card_id);
}
}

// In any case: move it to its final destination
this.slideToObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'playertablecard_' + player_id).play();
},
</pre>

For this to work we also need to add a card template in the .tpl file
<pre>
// Javascript HTML templates

var jstpl_cardontable = '<div class="cardontable" id="cardontable_${player_id}" style="background-position:-${x}px -${y}px">\
</div>';
</pre>

What this does is basically create another card object, because if it is not our card it's not in our hand (Stock) so
we have to create it out of thin air. The technique to do that is to implement a Javascript template object defined in the .tpl file with some
parameters, which will basically create a "div" string (yes you could have used string concatenation but it would not be fancy).
Now dojo.place places it (the div) on top of a placeholder. Now we have an object with an id of 'cardontable_' + player_id. Depending
on who is playing it we either place it on the player miniboard or in hand (and remove it from hand stock). Then we animate the card move.

We also should fix our .css file now to add style for cardontable and REMOVE background for playertablecard which really is a placeholder div and not a card. (Don't miss the remove step; it will be all screwy if you do!)

<pre>
.playertablecard {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
margin-top: 5px;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
/* we remove background-image here */
}

/*** cards on table ***/

.cardontable {
position: absolute;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
background-image: url('img/cards.jpg');
}
</pre>

Now to test that it actually works let's deal cards to players during game initialization:

Add this after createCards in setupNewGame function in the game.php file
<pre>
// Shuffle deck
$this->cards->shuffle('deck');
// Deal 13 cards to each players
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards(13, 'deck', $player_id);
}
</pre>

Now when you start the game you should see 13 cards in your hand!

We just need to hook-up clicking on card and test if our playCardOnTable works.

Find onPlayerHandSelectionChanged function in the JS file, we should have logging there like console.log("on playCard "+card_id);
So after that insert this:
<pre>
console.log("on playCard "+card_id);
// type is (color - 1) * 13 + (value - 2)
var type = items[0].type;
var color = Math.floor(type / 13) + 1;
var value = type % 13 + 2;

this.playCardOnTable(this.player_id,color,value,card_id);
</pre>
Note: this code is for testing we will replace it with server interaction after we test it.

Now if you force reload (because we changed .css before) you should be able to click on card from you have and see it moving,
you can click on few cards this way. When you done enjoying the animation, press F5 to get your hand back.

[[File:Heartsla-sync.png]]

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/01d4e2f595fd14c2adcc97a957d21bb2766f78a8]

== State Machine ==

Now we need to create a game state machine. So the states are:

* Cards are dealt to all players (lets call it "newHand")
* Player is selected who will start a new trick ("newTrick")
* Player start or respond to played card ("playerTurn")
* Game control is passed to next player or trick is ended ("nextPlayer")
* End of hand processing (scoring and check for end of game) ("nextHand")

In addition players can exchange cards so we need two more states for that but we will skip it for now.

The state handling spread across 4 files, so you have to make sure all pieces are connected together.
The state machine states.php defines all the states, and function handlers on php side in a form of string,
and if any of these functions are not implemented it would be very hard to debug because it will break in random places.

So .states.php

<pre>
$machinestates = array(

// The initial state. Please do not modify.
1 => array(
"name" => "gameSetup",
"description" => clienttranslate("Game setup"),
"type" => "manager",
"action" => "stGameSetup",
"transitions" => array( "" => 20 )
),

/// New hand
20 => array(
"name" => "newHand",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNewHand",
"updateGameProgression" => true,
"transitions" => array( "" => 30 )
),

// Trick

30 => array(
"name" => "newTrick",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNewTrick",
"transitions" => array( "" => 31 )
),
31 => array(
"name" => "playerTurn",
"description" => clienttranslate('${actplayer} must play a card'),
"descriptionmyturn" => clienttranslate('${you} must play a card'),
"type" => "activeplayer",
"possibleactions" => array( "playCard" ),
"transitions" => array( "playCard" => 32 )
),
32 => array(
"name" => "nextPlayer",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNextPlayer",
"transitions" => array( "nextPlayer" => 31, "nextTrick" => 30, "endHand" => 40 )
),

// End of the hand (scoring, etc...)
40 => array(
"name" => "endHand",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stEndHand",
"transitions" => array( "nextHand" => 20, "endGame" => 99 )
),

// Final state.
// Please do not modify.
99 => array(
"name" => "gameEnd",
"description" => clienttranslate("End of game"),
"type" => "manager",
"action" => "stGameEnd",
"args" => "argGameEnd"
)

);
</pre>

The full details about what these fields are you can find in [[Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php]].

But basically we have Player states, in which human player has to perform an "action" by pressing some button in UI or selecting some game item, which will trigger js handler, which will do ajax call to server into API define
by .action.php file. All functions in this file are API between client and server and has very simple
and repetitive structure. In this case there is only two action player can do - play a card or pass cards to other player. So these 2 functions go into .action.php file, we will only define one now since we not implementing card passing states yet:

<pre>
public function playCard() {
self::setAjaxMode();
$card_id = self::getArg("id", AT_posint, true);
$this->game->playCard($card_id);
self::ajaxResponse();
}
</pre>

Now to make it run we have define all handler functions that we referenced in states, which are - one function for state arguments argGiveCards, 4 functions for robot states (where game performs some action)
and 1 function for player actions handling.
Find 'Game state arguments' section and paste this in:
<pre>
function argGiveCards() {
return array ();
}
</pre>

This normally pass some parameters to states, but we don't need anything yet. It good to have placeholder there anyway, so we can fix it later.
Important: even when its a stub this function must return array not scalar.

Lets do stubs for other functions, find game state actions section in .game.php file and insert these
<pre>
function stNewHand() {
// Take back all cards (from any location => null) to deck
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation(null, "deck");
$this->cards->shuffle('deck');
// Deal 13 cards to each players
// Create deck, shuffle it and give 13 initial cards
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards(13, 'deck', $player_id);
// Notify player about his cards
self::notifyPlayer($player_id, 'newHand', '', array ('cards' => $cards ));
}
self::setGameStateValue('alreadyPlayedHearts', 0);
$this->gamestate->nextState("");
}

function stNewTrick() {
// New trick: active the player who wins the last trick, or the player who own the club-2 card
// Reset trick color to 0 (= no color)
self::setGameStateInitialValue('trickColor', 0);
$this->gamestate->nextState();
}

function stNextPlayer() {
// Active next player OR end the trick and go to the next trick OR end the hand
if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('cardsontable') == 4) {
// This is the end of the trick
// Move all cards to "cardswon" of the given player
$best_value_player_id = self::activeNextPlayer(); // TODO figure out winner of trick
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation('cardsontable', 'cardswon', null, $best_value_player_id);

if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('hand') == 0) {
// End of the hand
$this->gamestate->nextState("endHand");
} else {
// End of the trick
$this->gamestate->nextState("nextTrick");
}
} else {
// Standard case (not the end of the trick)
// => just active the next player
$player_id = self::activeNextPlayer();
self::giveExtraTime($player_id);
$this->gamestate->nextState('nextPlayer');
}
}

function stEndHand() {
$this->gamestate->nextState("nextHand");
}

</pre>
Important: All state actions game or player must end with state transition (or thrown exception). Also make sure its ONLY one state transition,
if you accidentally fall though after state transition and do another one it will be a real mess and head scratching for long time.

Now find 'player actions' section and paste this code there
<pre>
function playCard($card_id) {
self::checkAction("playCard");
$player_id = self::getActivePlayerId();
throw new BgaUserException(self::_("Not implemented: ") . "$player_id plays $card_id");
}
</pre>
We won't implement it yet but throw an exception which we will see if interaction is working properly

Now the game should start but it would not be any different then before because we have to implement actual interactions.
Its good to check if it still working though (and if it was running before you have to exit because we changed state machine and normally it will break stuff)

== Client - Server interactions ==

Now to implement things for real we have hook UI actions to ajax calls, and process notifications send by server.
So previously we hooked playCardOnTable right into js handler which caused client animation, in real game its a two
step operation. When user clicks on game element js client sends an ajax call to server, server processes it and updates database, server sends
notification in response, client hooks animations to server notification.

So in .js code replace onPlayerHandSelectionChanged with
<pre>
onPlayerHandSelectionChanged : function() {
var items = this.playerHand.getSelectedItems();

if (items.length > 0) {
var action = 'playCard';
if (this.checkAction(action, true)) {
// Can play a card
var card_id = items[0].id;
this.ajaxcall("/" + this.game_name + "/" + this.game_name + "/" + action + ".html", {
id : card_id,
lock : true
}, this, function(result) {
}, function(is_error) {
});

this.playerHand.unselectAll();
} else if (this.checkAction('giveCards')) {
// Can give cards => let the player select some cards
} else {
this.playerHand.unselectAll();
}
}
},
</pre>

Now when you click on card you should get a server response: Not implemented...

Lets implement it, in .game.php
<pre>
function playCard($card_id) {
self::checkAction("playCard");
$player_id = self::getActivePlayerId();
$this->cards->moveCard($card_id, 'cardsontable', $player_id);
// XXX check rules here
$currentCard = $this->cards->getCard($card_id);
// And notify
self::notifyAllPlayers('playCard', clienttranslate('${player_name} plays ${value_displayed} ${color_displayed}'), array (
'i18n' => array ('color_displayed','value_displayed' ),'card_id' => $card_id,'player_id' => $player_id,
'player_name' => self::getActivePlayerName(),'value' => $currentCard ['type_arg'],
'value_displayed' => $this->values_label [$currentCard ['type_arg']],'color' => $currentCard ['type'],
'color_displayed' => $this->colors [$currentCard ['type']] ['name'] ));
// Next player
$this->gamestate->nextState('playCard');
}
</pre>

We get the card from client, we move it to the tableau (moveCard is hooked to database directly, its part of deck class),
we notify all players and we change state. What we missing here is bunch of checks (rule enforcements), we will add it later.

Interesting part about this notify is that we use i18n array for string that needs to be translated by client, so
they sent as English text in notification, then client has to know which parameters needs translating.

On the client side .js we have to implement a notification handler to do the animation

<pre>
setupNotifications : function() {
console.log('notifications subscriptions setup');

dojo.subscribe('newHand', this, "notif_newHand");
dojo.subscribe('playCard', this, "notif_playCard");

},

notif_newHand : function(notif) {
// We received a new full hand of 13 cards.
this.playerHand.removeAll();

for ( var i in notif.args.cards) {
var card = notif.args.cards[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId(this.getCardUniqueId(color, value), card.id);
}
},

notif_playCard : function(notif) {
// Play a card on the table
this.playCardOnTable(notif.args.player_id, notif.args.color, notif.args.value, notif.args.card_id);
},
</pre>

Now it actually works through the server when you click on card - the move is recorded. If you testing it now you will notice
after trick is done all cards remains on the table, but if you press F5 they would disappear, this is because
we updated database to pick-up the cards but did not send notification about it, so we need to send notification about it
and have a handler for it

So in .game.php file add notification in stNextPlayer function after moveAllCardsInLocation call:

<pre>
// Notify
// Note: we use 2 notifications here in order we can pause the display during the first notification
// before we move all cards to the winner (during the second)
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'trickWin', clienttranslate('${player_name} wins the trick'), array(
'player_id' => $best_value_player_id,
'player_name' => $players[ $best_value_player_id ]['player_name']
) );
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'giveAllCardsToPlayer','', array(
'player_id' => $best_value_player_id
) );
</pre>

And in .js file add 2 more notification handlers.

This is to subscribe in setupNotifications function
<pre>
dojo.subscribe( 'trickWin', this, "notif_trickWin" );
this.notifqueue.setSynchronous( 'trickWin', 1000 );
dojo.subscribe( 'giveAllCardsToPlayer', this, "notif_giveAllCardsToPlayer" );
</pre>

And this are handlers
<pre>
notif_trickWin : function(notif) {
// We do nothing here (just wait in order players can view the 4 cards played before they're gone.
},
notif_giveAllCardsToPlayer : function(notif) {
// Move all cards on table to given table, then destroy them
var winner_id = notif.args.player_id;
for ( var player_id in this.gamedatas.players) {
var anim = this.slideToObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'overall_player_board_' + winner_id);
dojo.connect(anim, 'onEnd', function(node) {
dojo.destroy(node);
});
anim.play();
}
},
</pre>

So 'trickWin' notification does not do much except it will delay the processing of next notification by 1 second (1000 ms)
and it will log the message (that happens independent of what handler does).
<i>Note: if on the other hand you don't want to log but what what to do something else send empty message</i>

Now after the trick you see all cards move the "player's stash".

== Scoring and End of game handling ==

Now we should calculate scoring and for that we need to actually track who wins the trick.
Trick is won by the player with highest card (no trump). We just need to remember what is trick suite.
For which we will use state variable 'trickColor' which we already conveniently created.

In .game.php file find playCard function and add this before notify functions
$currentTrickColor = self::getGameStateValue( 'trickColor' ) ;
if( $currentTrickColor == 0 )
self::setGameStateValue( 'trickColor', $currentCard['type'] );

This will make sure we remember first suit being played, now to use it modify stNextPlayer function to fix our TODO comment
<pre>
function stNextPlayer() {
// Active next player OR end the trick and go to the next trick OR end the hand
if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('cardsontable') == 4) {
// This is the end of the trick
$cards_on_table = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation('cardsontable');
$best_value = 0;
$best_value_player_id = null;
$currentTrickColor = self::getGameStateValue('trickColor');
foreach ( $cards_on_table as $card ) {
// Note: type = card color
if ($card ['type'] == $currentTrickColor) {
if ($best_value_player_id === null || $card ['type_arg'] > $best_value) {
$best_value_player_id = $card ['location_arg']; // Note: location_arg = player who played this card on table
$best_value = $card ['type_arg']; // Note: type_arg = value of the card
}
}
}

// Active this player => he's the one who starts the next trick
$this->gamestate->changeActivePlayer( $best_value_player_id );

// Move all cards to "cardswon" of the given player
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation('cardsontable', 'cardswon', null, $best_value_player_id);

// Notify
// ... same code here as before
</pre>

The scoring rule in the studio example code is huge multi-page function, for this tutorial we will make simplier.
Lets score -1 point per heart and call it a day. And game will end when somebody goes -100 or below.

As UI goes for scoring, the main thing to update is the scoring on the mini boards represented by stars, also
we want to show that in the log.
In addition scoring can be shown in [[Game_interface_logic:_yourgamename.js#Scoring_dialogs|Scoring Dialog]] using tableWindow notification, but it is a tutorial on its own and you can do it as homework (it is part of original heart game).

In .js file we need to add one more subscription and notification handler:
dojo.subscribe( 'newScores', this, "notif_newScores" );
in setupNotifications

and
notif_newScores : function(notif) {
// Update players' scores
for ( var player_id in notif.args.newScores) {
this.scoreCtrl[player_id].toValue(notif.args.newScores[player_id]);
}
},
somewhere after. this.scoreCtrl is pre-existing object that shows the scoring and this function will update score values per player from notification argument

so in .game.php our stEndHand function will look like

<pre>
function stEndHand() {
// Count and score points, then end the game or go to the next hand.
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
// Gets all "hearts" + queen of spades

$player_to_points = array ();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$player_to_points [$player_id] = 0;
}
$cards = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation("cardswon");
foreach ( $cards as $card ) {
$player_id = $card ['location_arg'];
// Note: 2 = heart
if ($card ['type'] == 2) {
$player_to_points [$player_id] ++;
}
}
// Apply scores to player
foreach ( $player_to_points as $player_id => $points ) {
if ($points != 0) {
$sql = "UPDATE player SET player_score=player_score-$points WHERE player_id='$player_id'";
self::DbQuery($sql);
$heart_number = $player_to_points [$player_id];
self::notifyAllPlayers("points", clienttranslate('${player_name} gets ${nbr} hearts and looses ${nbr} points'), array (
'player_id' => $player_id,'player_name' => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'],
'nbr' => $heart_number ));
} else {
// No point lost (just notify)
self::notifyAllPlayers("points", clienttranslate('${player_name} did not get any hearts'), array (
'player_id' => $player_id,'player_name' => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'] ));
}
}
$newScores = self::getCollectionFromDb("SELECT player_id, player_score FROM player", true );
self::notifyAllPlayers( "newScores", '', array( 'newScores' => $newScores ) );

///// Test if this is the end of the game
foreach ( $newScores as $player_id => $score ) {
if ($score <= -100) {
// Trigger the end of the game !
$this->gamestate->nextState("endGame");
return;
}
}

$this->gamestate->nextState("nextHand");
}
</pre>

So it should more less work now, including end of game condition. Try to play it!

== Additional stuff ==

The following things were not implemented and can add them yourself by looking at the code of original hearts game:

* Remove debug code from setupNewGame to deal cards, cards are now dealt in stNewHand state handler
* Rule checking and rule enforcements in playCard function
* Start scoring with 100 points each and end when <= 0
* Fix scoring rules with Q of spades and 26 point reverse scoring
* First player one with 2 club
* Add progress handling
* Add statistics
* Add card exchange states
* Add game option to start with 75 points instead of 100

Tutorial hearts

2019-08-17T20:23:10Z

Amadannabriona: /* Game Database and Game Initialisation */

== Introduction ==

Using this tutorial, you can build a complete working game on the BGA environment: Hearts.

Before you read this tutorial, you must:
* Read the overall presentations of the BGA Framework ([[Studio|see here]]).
* Know the rules for Hearts
* Some-what know the languages used on BGA: PHP, SQL, HTML, CSS, Javascript
* Setup you development environment [http://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/First_steps_with_BGA_Studio First Steps with BGA Studio]
* As part of setup you have to have access to your ftp home folder in studio, which would have 'hearts' game source code. We will be using some resources of this game in this tutorial, so copy it over to local disk if you have not done so.

If you stuck of have question about this tutorial post on [https://forum.boardgamearena.com/viewforum.php?f=12 BGA Developers forum]

== Create your first game ==

If you have not already, you have to create a project in BGA Studio. For this tutorial you can create a project heartsYOURNAME where
YOURNAME is your developer login name. You can also re-use the project you have created for the "First Steps" tutorial above.
With the initial skeleton of code provided, you can already start a game from the BGA Studio.

1. Find and start the game in turn-based mode with 4 players. Make sure it works.

2. Modify the text in heartsYOURNAME_heartsYOURNAME.tpl, reload the page in the browser and make sure your ftp sync works as expected.
Note: if you have not setup auto-sync do it now, manually copying files is a no-starter.

3. Express stop from settings menu (the gear icon).

<i>Note: please do '''not''' use the hearts project code as a base. This tutorial assumes you started with a TEMPLATE project with no prior modifications. Using the hearts project as a base will be very confusing and you won't be able to follow all the steps.
</i>

== Hook version control system ==

For a real game, or even for this tutorial, we recommend committing the code to version control right from the start. You are going to find yourself in a situation where the game doesn't even start anymore and no way of debugging it, unless you have a way to revert. That is where version control becomes very handy. If you are not familiar with version control (e.g. [https://git-scm.com/docs/gittutorial git]) then at least back up your files after each major change. Start now.

Code for this tutorial available is on github: https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla

Different revisions represent different steps along the process, starting from original template to a complete game.

== Update game infos and box graphics ==

Even it does not nothing yet, always start by making sure the game looks decent in the game selector, meaning it has nice box graphics and its information is correct. For that we need to edit [[Game_meta-information: gameinfos.inc.php|gameinfos.inc.php]].

For a real game, you would go to [http://boardgamegeek.com BoardGameGeek], find the game, and use the information from BGG to fill in the gameinfos.

So let's do that. Find "hearts" on BoardGameGeek. (Hint: Original release 1850 :))

You can fill in the year of publishing and bgg id, put ''Public Domain'' under publisher, and a publisher id of 171 for public domain. And as designer and author you can just put your own name just for fun. Set number of players to 4.

// Players configuration that can be played (ex: 2 to 4 players)
'players' => array( 4 ),

The next step is to replace '''game_box.png''' with nicer images. For this tutorial, just copy all the files from the img/ folder of the hearts/ template into the img/ directory of your project. Replace publisher.png with a nicer image: for example https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-sharedcode/blob/master/img/publisher.png.

Details about images can be found here: [[Game art: img directory]].

Now an important step: you have to LOAD these files into the Studio website through the control panel. So go to Control Panel -> Manage Games -> heartsYOURNAME
and press Reload for 'Reload game informations' and 'Reload game box image'

Now try to start the game again. If you somehow introduced a syntax error in the gameinfos file it may not work (the game won't start).
Always use the "Express Start" button to start the game. You should see a standard state prompt from the template. You should see 4 players on the right: testdude0 .. testdude3.
To switch between them press the red arrow button near their names, it will open another tab. This way you don't need to login and logout from multiple accounts!

<i>Note: if you had run the game before with less than 4 players there is a bug that will prevent you from running it with 4 only (if you did not run it before or run it with 4 players as instructed stop reading this note), to workaround revert back to original players array (i.e. 1,2,3,4), reload game options, then create a table with 4 players, exit that game table, then change gameoptions to 4 only as above, reload game options, create table again.</i>

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/4b3a73eeb5acae961ade18473af119e8ce8d1a8f]

== Layout and Graphics ==

In this section we will do graphics of the game, and main layout of the game.

First copy a sprite with cards image from hearts img/cards.jpg into img/ folder of your project. Project hearts is mounted to your home directory on bga server.

Edit .tpl to add some divs to represent player table and hand area

<pre>
<div id="myhand_wrap" class="whiteblock">
<h3>My Hand</h3>
<div id="myhand">
</div>
</div>
</pre>

If you refresh you should see now white area with My Hand title.

[[File:Heartsla-tpl2.png]]

Now lets add a card into the hand, just so you can feel it. Edit .tpl and a playertablecard div inside a hand div
<pre>
...
<div id="myhand">
<div class="playertablecard"></div>
</div>
...
</pre>

Edit .css file
<pre>
.playertablecard {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
margin-top: 5px;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
background-image: url('img/cards.jpg'); /* temp hack to see it */
}
</pre>

When you edit CSS remember that you have to FORCE-reload page, i.e. Ctrl-F5, otherwise its cached.
<i>Same when you change existing graphics files</i>.

You should see this:

[[File:Heartsla-tpl3.png]]

Awesome! Now lets do the rest of layout.

There are few ways of how html could have been generated, you could have start with nothing and generate
all by java script. Or you could have started with complete game markup in html and make java script just hide and move pieces around. BGA framework provides also a third way which is mix of both plus template engine to generate HTML using php. So lets do that.

Change .tpl file to have this inside
<pre>
<div id="playertables">


<div class="playertable whiteblock playertable_{DIR}">
<div class="playertablename" style="color:#{PLAYER_COLOR}">
{PLAYER_NAME}
</div>
<div class="playertablecard" id="playertablecard_{PLAYER_ID}">
</div>
</div>


</div>

<div id="myhand_wrap" class="whiteblock">
<h3>{MY_HAND}</h3>
<div id="myhand">
</div>
</div>
</pre>

What we did is we added "block" player, it is marked up using html comments. {VAR} notation is used
to inject variables and
<pre>

inside

</pre>
effectively allows us to do template loops.

In .view.php insert this code after 'Place your code below' comment

<pre>
$template = self::getGameName() . "_" . self::getGameName();

$directions = array( 'S', 'W', 'N', 'E' );

// this will inflate our player block with actual players data
$this->page->begin_block($template, "player");
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $info ) {
$dir = array_shift($directions);
$this->page->insert_block("player", array ("PLAYER_ID" => $player_id,
"PLAYER_NAME" => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'],
"PLAYER_COLOR" => $players [$player_id] ['player_color'],
"DIR" => $dir ));
}
// this will make our My Hand text translatable
$this->tpl['MY_HAND'] = self::_("My hand");
</pre>

What it does is for each player we have it will replicate the html between  and  tags, substituting the variable denoted by {XXX}
with the values you provide. The DIR variable in this case we pulling from directions array (where array_shift will take first element and remove it from the array).

Reload. If everything went well you should see this:

[[File:Heartsla-tpl4.png]]

These are "tableau" areas for 4 players plus My hand visible only to one player.
They not exactly how we wanted them to be because we did not edit .css yet.

Now edit .css, add these lines after import before our previous definition

<pre>
/** Table layout **/

#playertables {
position: relative;
width: 710px;
height: 340px;
}

.playertablename {
font-weight: bold;
}

.playertable {
position: absolute;
text-align: center;
width: 180px;
height: 130px;
}

.playertable_N {
left: 50%;
top: 0px;
margin-left: -90px; /* half of 180 */
}
.playertable_S {
left: 50%;
bottom: 0px;
margin-left: -90px; /* half of 180 */
}
.playertable_W {
left: 0px;
top: 50%;
margin-top: -55px; /* half of 130 */
}
.playertable_E {
right: 0px;
top: 50%;
margin-top: -55px; /* half of 130 */
}
</pre>

Now you force Reload and you should see this:
[[File:Heartsla-tpl5.png]]

This is almost all we need for graphics and layout, there are few tweaks left there but lets do some more heavy lifting now.

<i>Note: if you did not see changes you may have not force reloaded, force means you use Ctrl+F5 or Cltr+Shift-R, if you don't "force" browser will use cached version of .css and images! Which is not what you just changed</i>

<i>Another Note: In general if you have auto-sync you don't need to reload if you change game.php file, you need normal reload if you change js, and force reload for css and images. If you changed state machine or database you likely need to restart the game.</i>

== Game Interface JS Stock ==

The BGA framework provides a few out of the box classes to deal with cards. The client side
contains a class called [[Stock]] and it can be used for any dynamic html "pieces" management that uses
common sprite images. On the server side we will use the [[Deck]] class which we discuss later.

If you open cards.jpg in an image viewer you will see that it is a "sprite" image - a 13x4 grid of images stitched together,
which is a very efficient way to transport images. So we will use the Stock class to mark up these images and create
"card" divs for us.

First, we need to add '''ebg/stock''' as a dependency in the hearts.js file:
<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <==== HERE
],
</pre>

Then add this to the Javascript contructor, this will define size of our cards
<pre>
console.log('hearts constructor');
this.cardwidth = 72;
this.cardheight = 96;
</pre>

The stock is initialized in the Javascript "setup" method like this:
<pre>
// TODO: Set up your game interface here, according to "gamedatas"

// Player hand
this.playerHand = new ebg.stock(); // new stock object for hand
this.playerHand.create( this, $('myhand'), this.cardwidth, this.cardheight );
</pre>

As parameters of the "create" method, we provided the width/height of an item (a card), and the container div "myhand" - which is an id of "div" element from our .tpl file representing a player hand.

Then, we must tell the stock what items it is going to display during its life: the 52 cards of a standard card game from a CSS sprite image named "cards.jpg" with all the cards arranged in 4 rows and 13 columns.

Here's how we tell stock what item types to display:
<pre>
this.playerHand.image_items_per_row = 13; // 13 images per row

// Create cards types:
for (var color = 1; color <= 4; color++) {
for (var value = 2; value <= 14; value++) {
// Build card type id
var card_type_id = this.getCardUniqueId(color, value);
this.playerHand.addItemType(card_type_id, card_type_id, g_gamethemeurl + 'img/cards.jpg', card_type_id);
}
}
</pre>

And add this function to the utilities section
<pre>
// Get card unique identifier based on its color and value
getCardUniqueId : function(color, value) {
return (color - 1) * 13 + (value - 2);
},
</pre>

Explanations:
* At first, we tell the stock component that our CSS sprite contains 13 items per row. This way, it can find the correct image for each card type id.
* Then for the 4x13 cards, we call the '''addItemType''' method that creates the type. The arguments are the type id, the weight of the card (for sorting purpose), the URL of our CSS sprite, and the position of our card image in the CSS sprite. It happens to be the same number in our case.

Note: we need to generate a unique ID for each type of card based on its color and value. For that we create a function '''getCardUniqueId'''. The type is the unique identifier of the TYPE of the card, e.g., the queen of spades encoded as an integer. If our deck had 2 standard card decks we would have had 2 queens of spades; they would share the same type and the same image but would have different ids. NOTE: It's unfortunate that they named this '''getCardUniqueId'''; it should have been '''getCardUniqueType''', because it really isn't an id, but a TYPE of card. The type of the item should either be a reversible function of its properties (i.e., kind of suite * 13 + value) or just an enumerator described in material.inc.php. In this specific case it's a synthetic type id, which also the same as the number of the card in the sprite image (i.e., if you enumerate each image in sprite going left to right, then top to bottom).

Now let's add the 5 of Hearts to the player's hand just for fun (this code will go in setup method after types initialization):

<pre>
// 2 = hearts, 5 is 5, and 42 is the card id, which normally would come from db
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId( this.getCardUniqueId( 2, 5 ), 42 );
</pre>

This will add the card with id 42 and type 16 ( (2-1)*13+(5-2)=16 ).

Note that number 16 would not be something you can see in database, Deck database will have separate field for type and type_arg where type is suite and type_arg is number, so its not the same thing, but you can use same formula to convert. Number 42 on the other hand would be id field in database. But we get to database in the later section.

If you reload now you should see the 5 of hearts in "your hand".

Stock control can handle clicking on items and forms the selection. yyou can immediately react to selection
or you can query it later; for example when user presses some other button.

Lets hook it up. Add this in the setup method in .js file, after this.playerHand is initialised:

dojo.connect( this.playerHand, 'onChangeSelection', this, 'onPlayerHandSelectionChanged' );

Then find the Player's action comment section and add a handler after the comment:

<pre>
onPlayerHandSelectionChanged : function() {
var items = this.playerHand.getSelectedItems();

if (items.length > 0) {
if (this.checkAction('playCard', true)) {
// Can play a card

var card_id = items[0].id;
console.log("on playCard "+card_id);

this.playerHand.unselectAll();
} else if (this.checkAction('giveCards')) {
// Can give cards => let the player select some cards
} else {
this.playerHand.unselectAll();
}
}
},
</pre>

The function name of the handler is 4th parameter of the dojo.connect function. Make sure you spell it correctly or there will be unpredictable effects.

Now if you reload, open the Javascript Console (F12), and then click on the card in My Hand, you should see:
on playCard 42
printed on the console

== Game Database and Game Initialisation ==

Next step, you want to design a game database and setup a new game (on the server side).
For that we need to a) modify the database schema to add our cards data b) add some global variables into
the existing globals table.

To modify the schema, first exit your existing game(s). Open '''dbmodel.sql''' file and uncomment the card table creation.

<pre>
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `card` (
`card_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`card_type` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_type_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
`card_location` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_location_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`card_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;
</pre>

This is the "card" table which will be managed by the Deck php class.

In addition we want a little piece of information in the players table:

-- add info about first player
ALTER TABLE `player` ADD `player_first` BOOLEAN NOT NULL DEFAULT '0';

Not sure why they put this into the player table, as we could use a global db variable to hold first player as easily.
But I am just following the existing code more-or-less.

Next we finally get into .game.php class, where the main logic and db interaction would be. Find php constructor which should be
function __construct( )
This is first function in a file. Add this code to constructor.
<pre>
parent::__construct();
self::initGameStateLabels( array(
"currentHandType" => 10,
"trickColor" => 11,
"alreadyPlayedHearts" => 12,
) );

$this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
$this->cards->init( "card" );
</pre>

Here we are initializing three "Game State Variables" which are variables stored in the database. They are integers.
It must start with no values lower then 10 since values lower than 10 are reserved. These values are stored by numeric ids
in the database, but in the php we associate them with string labels for convenience of access. The variables are "trickColor": numbers from 1 to 4 that map to card suit (not sure why it's called color; maybe it's a translation from French); "alreadyPlayedHearts": a boolean flag (0 or 1) indicating hether somebody used hearts on the trick; "currentHandType": stores the value to indicate who to give cards to during exchange.

The next 2 lines are creating $this->cards object and associating it with "card" table in the the database.

<i>If we called db table 'foo' instead of 'card' the last statement would have been $this->cards->init( "foo" )</i>

At this point I would start a new game and make sure it starts, then exit.

<i>
If you made a mistake
in the .sql or php constructor the game won't start, and good luck debugging it. (That is why it's important to check
once in a while to make sure it still starts while you remember what you have changed.)
</i>

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/e3a049257b592ff6167688d4d344f8a83d349b08]

Now we can go to game initialization '''setupNewGame''' in game.php. This method is called once when the table is created.

In your template project you should have code that deals with player table, just leave it as is. Start inserting the
other code after "Start the game initialization" comment.
<pre>
// Init global values with their initial values

// Note: hand types: 0 = give 3 cards to player on the left
// 1 = give 3 cards to player on the right
// 2 = give 3 cards to player opposite
// 3 = keep cards
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'currentHandType', 0 );

// Set current trick color to zero (= no trick color)
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'trickColor', 0 );

// Mark if we already played hearts during this hand
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'alreadyPlayedHearts', 0 );
</pre>

Here we initialize all the globals to 0.

Next is to create our cards in the database. We have one deck of cards so it's pretty simple.
<pre>
// Create cards
$cards = array ();
foreach ( $this->colors as $color_id => $color ) {
// spade, heart, diamond, club
for ($value = 2; $value <= 14; $value ++) {
// 2, 3, 4, ... K, A
$cards [] = array ('type' => $color_id,'type_arg' => $value,'nbr' => 1 );
}
}

$this->cards->createCards( $cards, 'deck' );
</pre>

This code that will create one of each card. But don't run it yet, because we missing $this->colors.
So we have state of the game in the database, but there is some static game information which never changes.
This information should be stored in material.inc.php and this way it can be accessed from all .php files.
We will edit this file now by adding these lines

<pre>
$this->colors = array(
1 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('spade'),
'nametr' => self::_('spade') ),
2 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('heart'),
'nametr' => self::_('heart') ),
3 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('club'),
'nametr' => self::_('club') ),
4 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('diamond'),
'nametr' => self::_('diamond') )
);

$this->values_label = array(
2 =>'2',
3 => '3',
4 => '4',
5 => '5',
6 => '6',
7 => '7',
8 => '8',
9 => '9',
10 => '10',
11 => clienttranslate('J'),
12 => clienttranslate('Q'),
13 => clienttranslate('K'),
14 => clienttranslate('A')
);
</pre>

Where $this->colors will define Suit labels and $this->values_label will define value labels.
If you noticed, we have two of each label for suits. This is because sometimes we need translated values on the php
side and sometimes we don't. In this case '''nametr''' will return a translated value in php, which is only useful when you throw exceptions to show the right strings. If you pass a value to the client via notification you should always use untranslated strings, and the client will translate it. 'clienttranslate' marks the value for translation but does not actually change it for php. For more about this wonderful translation stuff see [[Translations]].

== Full game model synchronisation ==

Now at any point in the game we need to make sure that database information can be reflected back in UI, so we fix getAllDatas function
to return all possible data we need to reconstruct the game. This is in the game.php file. The template for getAllDatas already taking care of player info, lets just
add hand and tableau data before we return result.

<pre>
// Cards in player hand
$result['hand'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'hand', $current_player_id );

// Cards played on the table
$result['cardsontable'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'cardsontable' );
</pre>

Now on the client side we should display this data, so in your .js file in setup function (which is the receiver of getAllDatas) add replace our hack of putting hearts of 5 directly into hand with:

<pre>
// Cards in player's hand
for ( var i in this.gamedatas.hand) {
var card = this.gamedatas.hand[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId(this.getCardUniqueId(color, value), card.id);
}

// Cards played on table
for (i in this.gamedatas.cardsontable) {
var card = this.gamedatas.cardsontable[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
var player_id = card.location_arg;
this.playCardOnTable(player_id, color, value, card.id);
}
</pre>

This should show hand and tableau cards now, except we are missing playCardOnTable function. So find getCardUniqueId function which
should be in utilities section and add this after

<pre>
playCardOnTable : function(player_id, color, value, card_id) {
// player_id => direction
dojo.place(this.format_block('jstpl_cardontable', {
x : this.cardwidth * (value - 2),
y : this.cardheight * (color - 1),
player_id : player_id
}), 'playertablecard_' + player_id);

if (player_id != this.player_id) {
// Some opponent played a card
// Move card from player panel
this.placeOnObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'overall_player_board_' + player_id);
} else {
// You played a card. If it exists in your hand, move card from there and remove
// corresponding item

if ($('myhand_item_' + card_id)) {
this.placeOnObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'myhand_item_' + card_id);
this.playerHand.removeFromStockById(card_id);
}
}

// In any case: move it to its final destination
this.slideToObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'playertablecard_' + player_id).play();
},
</pre>

For that to work we also need to add card temple in .tpl file
<pre>
// Javascript HTML templates

var jstpl_cardontable = '<div class="cardontable" id="cardontable_${player_id}" style="background-position:-${x}px -${y}px">\
</div>';
</pre>

What this does is basically it creates another card object, because if it is not our card its not in our hand (stock) so
we have to create it out of thin air. Technique to do that is to implode a js template object defined in .tpl file with some
parameters, which will just basically create a "div" string (yes you could have used string concatenation but it would not be fancy).
Now dojo.place places it (the div) on top of placeholder. Now we have an object with id of 'cardontable_' + player_id, depending
on who is playing it we either place it on player miniboard or in hand (and remove from hand stock). Then we animate the card move.

We also should fix our .css file now to add style for cardontable and REMOVE background for playertablecard which really is a placeholder div and not a card (don't miss the remove step it will be all screwy if you miss it).

<pre>
.playertablecard {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
margin-top: 5px;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
/* we remove background-image here */
}

/*** cards on table ***/

.cardontable {
position: absolute;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
background-image: url('img/cards.jpg');
}
</pre>

Now to test that it actually works lets deal cards to players during game initialization:

Add this after createCards in setupNewGame function in the game.php file
<pre>
// Shuffle deck
$this->cards->shuffle('deck');
// Deal 13 cards to each players
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards(13, 'deck', $player_id);
}
</pre>

Now when you start the game you should see 13 cards in your hand!

We just need to hook-up clicking on card and test if our playCardOnTable works.

Find onPlayerHandSelectionChanged function in the JS file, we should have logging there like console.log("on playCard "+card_id);
So after that insert this:
<pre>
console.log("on playCard "+card_id);
// type is (color - 1) * 13 + (value - 2)
var type = items[0].type;
var color = Math.floor(type / 13) + 1;
var value = type % 13 + 2;

this.playCardOnTable(this.player_id,color,value,card_id);
</pre>
Note: this code is for testing we will replace it with server interaction after we test it.

Now if you force reload (because we changed .css before) you should be able to click on card from you have and see it moving,
you can click on few cards this way. When you done enjoying the animation, press F5 to get your hand back.

[[File:Heartsla-sync.png]]

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/01d4e2f595fd14c2adcc97a957d21bb2766f78a8]

== State Machine ==

Now we need to create a game state machine. So the states are:

* Cards are dealt to all players (lets call it "newHand")
* Player is selected who will start a new trick ("newTrick")
* Player start or respond to played card ("playerTurn")
* Game control is passed to next player or trick is ended ("nextPlayer")
* End of hand processing (scoring and check for end of game) ("nextHand")

In addition players can exchange cards so we need two more states for that but we will skip it for now.

The state handling spread across 4 files, so you have to make sure all pieces are connected together.
The state machine states.php defines all the states, and function handlers on php side in a form of string,
and if any of these functions are not implemented it would be very hard to debug because it will break in random places.

So .states.php

<pre>
$machinestates = array(

// The initial state. Please do not modify.
1 => array(
"name" => "gameSetup",
"description" => clienttranslate("Game setup"),
"type" => "manager",
"action" => "stGameSetup",
"transitions" => array( "" => 20 )
),

/// New hand
20 => array(
"name" => "newHand",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNewHand",
"updateGameProgression" => true,
"transitions" => array( "" => 30 )
),

// Trick

30 => array(
"name" => "newTrick",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNewTrick",
"transitions" => array( "" => 31 )
),
31 => array(
"name" => "playerTurn",
"description" => clienttranslate('${actplayer} must play a card'),
"descriptionmyturn" => clienttranslate('${you} must play a card'),
"type" => "activeplayer",
"possibleactions" => array( "playCard" ),
"transitions" => array( "playCard" => 32 )
),
32 => array(
"name" => "nextPlayer",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNextPlayer",
"transitions" => array( "nextPlayer" => 31, "nextTrick" => 30, "endHand" => 40 )
),

// End of the hand (scoring, etc...)
40 => array(
"name" => "endHand",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stEndHand",
"transitions" => array( "nextHand" => 20, "endGame" => 99 )
),

// Final state.
// Please do not modify.
99 => array(
"name" => "gameEnd",
"description" => clienttranslate("End of game"),
"type" => "manager",
"action" => "stGameEnd",
"args" => "argGameEnd"
)

);
</pre>

The full details about what these fields are you can find in [[Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php]].

But basically we have Player states, in which human player has to perform an "action" by pressing some button in UI or selecting some game item, which will trigger js handler, which will do ajax call to server into API define
by .action.php file. All functions in this file are API between client and server and has very simple
and repetitive structure. In this case there is only two action player can do - play a card or pass cards to other player. So these 2 functions go into .action.php file, we will only define one now since we not implementing card passing states yet:

<pre>
public function playCard() {
self::setAjaxMode();
$card_id = self::getArg("id", AT_posint, true);
$this->game->playCard($card_id);
self::ajaxResponse();
}
</pre>

Now to make it run we have define all handler functions that we referenced in states, which are - one function for state arguments argGiveCards, 4 functions for robot states (where game performs some action)
and 1 function for player actions handling.
Find 'Game state arguments' section and paste this in:
<pre>
function argGiveCards() {
return array ();
}
</pre>

This normally pass some parameters to states, but we don't need anything yet. It good to have placeholder there anyway, so we can fix it later.
Important: even when its a stub this function must return array not scalar.

Lets do stubs for other functions, find game state actions section in .game.php file and insert these
<pre>
function stNewHand() {
// Take back all cards (from any location => null) to deck
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation(null, "deck");
$this->cards->shuffle('deck');
// Deal 13 cards to each players
// Create deck, shuffle it and give 13 initial cards
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards(13, 'deck', $player_id);
// Notify player about his cards
self::notifyPlayer($player_id, 'newHand', '', array ('cards' => $cards ));
}
self::setGameStateValue('alreadyPlayedHearts', 0);
$this->gamestate->nextState("");
}

function stNewTrick() {
// New trick: active the player who wins the last trick, or the player who own the club-2 card
// Reset trick color to 0 (= no color)
self::setGameStateInitialValue('trickColor', 0);
$this->gamestate->nextState();
}

function stNextPlayer() {
// Active next player OR end the trick and go to the next trick OR end the hand
if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('cardsontable') == 4) {
// This is the end of the trick
// Move all cards to "cardswon" of the given player
$best_value_player_id = self::activeNextPlayer(); // TODO figure out winner of trick
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation('cardsontable', 'cardswon', null, $best_value_player_id);

if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('hand') == 0) {
// End of the hand
$this->gamestate->nextState("endHand");
} else {
// End of the trick
$this->gamestate->nextState("nextTrick");
}
} else {
// Standard case (not the end of the trick)
// => just active the next player
$player_id = self::activeNextPlayer();
self::giveExtraTime($player_id);
$this->gamestate->nextState('nextPlayer');
}
}

function stEndHand() {
$this->gamestate->nextState("nextHand");
}

</pre>
Important: All state actions game or player must end with state transition (or thrown exception). Also make sure its ONLY one state transition,
if you accidentally fall though after state transition and do another one it will be a real mess and head scratching for long time.

Now find 'player actions' section and paste this code there
<pre>
function playCard($card_id) {
self::checkAction("playCard");
$player_id = self::getActivePlayerId();
throw new BgaUserException(self::_("Not implemented: ") . "$player_id plays $card_id");
}
</pre>
We won't implement it yet but throw an exception which we will see if interaction is working properly

Now the game should start but it would not be any different then before because we have to implement actual interactions.
Its good to check if it still working though (and if it was running before you have to exit because we changed state machine and normally it will break stuff)

== Client - Server interactions ==

Now to implement things for real we have hook UI actions to ajax calls, and process notifications send by server.
So previously we hooked playCardOnTable right into js handler which caused client animation, in real game its a two
step operation. When user clicks on game element js client sends an ajax call to server, server processes it and updates database, server sends
notification in response, client hooks animations to server notification.

So in .js code replace onPlayerHandSelectionChanged with
<pre>
onPlayerHandSelectionChanged : function() {
var items = this.playerHand.getSelectedItems();

if (items.length > 0) {
var action = 'playCard';
if (this.checkAction(action, true)) {
// Can play a card
var card_id = items[0].id;
this.ajaxcall("/" + this.game_name + "/" + this.game_name + "/" + action + ".html", {
id : card_id,
lock : true
}, this, function(result) {
}, function(is_error) {
});

this.playerHand.unselectAll();
} else if (this.checkAction('giveCards')) {
// Can give cards => let the player select some cards
} else {
this.playerHand.unselectAll();
}
}
},
</pre>

Now when you click on card you should get a server response: Not implemented...

Lets implement it, in .game.php
<pre>
function playCard($card_id) {
self::checkAction("playCard");
$player_id = self::getActivePlayerId();
$this->cards->moveCard($card_id, 'cardsontable', $player_id);
// XXX check rules here
$currentCard = $this->cards->getCard($card_id);
// And notify
self::notifyAllPlayers('playCard', clienttranslate('${player_name} plays ${value_displayed} ${color_displayed}'), array (
'i18n' => array ('color_displayed','value_displayed' ),'card_id' => $card_id,'player_id' => $player_id,
'player_name' => self::getActivePlayerName(),'value' => $currentCard ['type_arg'],
'value_displayed' => $this->values_label [$currentCard ['type_arg']],'color' => $currentCard ['type'],
'color_displayed' => $this->colors [$currentCard ['type']] ['name'] ));
// Next player
$this->gamestate->nextState('playCard');
}
</pre>

We get the card from client, we move it to the tableau (moveCard is hooked to database directly, its part of deck class),
we notify all players and we change state. What we missing here is bunch of checks (rule enforcements), we will add it later.

Interesting part about this notify is that we use i18n array for string that needs to be translated by client, so
they sent as English text in notification, then client has to know which parameters needs translating.

On the client side .js we have to implement a notification handler to do the animation

<pre>
setupNotifications : function() {
console.log('notifications subscriptions setup');

dojo.subscribe('newHand', this, "notif_newHand");
dojo.subscribe('playCard', this, "notif_playCard");

},

notif_newHand : function(notif) {
// We received a new full hand of 13 cards.
this.playerHand.removeAll();

for ( var i in notif.args.cards) {
var card = notif.args.cards[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId(this.getCardUniqueId(color, value), card.id);
}
},

notif_playCard : function(notif) {
// Play a card on the table
this.playCardOnTable(notif.args.player_id, notif.args.color, notif.args.value, notif.args.card_id);
},
</pre>

Now it actually works through the server when you click on card - the move is recorded. If you testing it now you will notice
after trick is done all cards remains on the table, but if you press F5 they would disappear, this is because
we updated database to pick-up the cards but did not send notification about it, so we need to send notification about it
and have a handler for it

So in .game.php file add notification in stNextPlayer function after moveAllCardsInLocation call:

<pre>
// Notify
// Note: we use 2 notifications here in order we can pause the display during the first notification
// before we move all cards to the winner (during the second)
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'trickWin', clienttranslate('${player_name} wins the trick'), array(
'player_id' => $best_value_player_id,
'player_name' => $players[ $best_value_player_id ]['player_name']
) );
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'giveAllCardsToPlayer','', array(
'player_id' => $best_value_player_id
) );
</pre>

And in .js file add 2 more notification handlers.

This is to subscribe in setupNotifications function
<pre>
dojo.subscribe( 'trickWin', this, "notif_trickWin" );
this.notifqueue.setSynchronous( 'trickWin', 1000 );
dojo.subscribe( 'giveAllCardsToPlayer', this, "notif_giveAllCardsToPlayer" );
</pre>

And this are handlers
<pre>
notif_trickWin : function(notif) {
// We do nothing here (just wait in order players can view the 4 cards played before they're gone.
},
notif_giveAllCardsToPlayer : function(notif) {
// Move all cards on table to given table, then destroy them
var winner_id = notif.args.player_id;
for ( var player_id in this.gamedatas.players) {
var anim = this.slideToObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'overall_player_board_' + winner_id);
dojo.connect(anim, 'onEnd', function(node) {
dojo.destroy(node);
});
anim.play();
}
},
</pre>

So 'trickWin' notification does not do much except it will delay the processing of next notification by 1 second (1000 ms)
and it will log the message (that happens independent of what handler does).
<i>Note: if on the other hand you don't want to log but what what to do something else send empty message</i>

Now after the trick you see all cards move the "player's stash".

== Scoring and End of game handling ==

Now we should calculate scoring and for that we need to actually track who wins the trick.
Trick is won by the player with highest card (no trump). We just need to remember what is trick suite.
For which we will use state variable 'trickColor' which we already conveniently created.

In .game.php file find playCard function and add this before notify functions
$currentTrickColor = self::getGameStateValue( 'trickColor' ) ;
if( $currentTrickColor == 0 )
self::setGameStateValue( 'trickColor', $currentCard['type'] );

This will make sure we remember first suit being played, now to use it modify stNextPlayer function to fix our TODO comment
<pre>
function stNextPlayer() {
// Active next player OR end the trick and go to the next trick OR end the hand
if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('cardsontable') == 4) {
// This is the end of the trick
$cards_on_table = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation('cardsontable');
$best_value = 0;
$best_value_player_id = null;
$currentTrickColor = self::getGameStateValue('trickColor');
foreach ( $cards_on_table as $card ) {
// Note: type = card color
if ($card ['type'] == $currentTrickColor) {
if ($best_value_player_id === null || $card ['type_arg'] > $best_value) {
$best_value_player_id = $card ['location_arg']; // Note: location_arg = player who played this card on table
$best_value = $card ['type_arg']; // Note: type_arg = value of the card
}
}
}

// Active this player => he's the one who starts the next trick
$this->gamestate->changeActivePlayer( $best_value_player_id );

// Move all cards to "cardswon" of the given player
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation('cardsontable', 'cardswon', null, $best_value_player_id);

// Notify
// ... same code here as before
</pre>

The scoring rule in the studio example code is huge multi-page function, for this tutorial we will make simplier.
Lets score -1 point per heart and call it a day. And game will end when somebody goes -100 or below.

As UI goes for scoring, the main thing to update is the scoring on the mini boards represented by stars, also
we want to show that in the log.
In addition scoring can be shown in [[Game_interface_logic:_yourgamename.js#Scoring_dialogs|Scoring Dialog]] using tableWindow notification, but it is a tutorial on its own and you can do it as homework (it is part of original heart game).

In .js file we need to add one more subscription and notification handler:
dojo.subscribe( 'newScores', this, "notif_newScores" );
in setupNotifications

and
notif_newScores : function(notif) {
// Update players' scores
for ( var player_id in notif.args.newScores) {
this.scoreCtrl[player_id].toValue(notif.args.newScores[player_id]);
}
},
somewhere after. this.scoreCtrl is pre-existing object that shows the scoring and this function will update score values per player from notification argument

so in .game.php our stEndHand function will look like

<pre>
function stEndHand() {
// Count and score points, then end the game or go to the next hand.
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
// Gets all "hearts" + queen of spades

$player_to_points = array ();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$player_to_points [$player_id] = 0;
}
$cards = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation("cardswon");
foreach ( $cards as $card ) {
$player_id = $card ['location_arg'];
// Note: 2 = heart
if ($card ['type'] == 2) {
$player_to_points [$player_id] ++;
}
}
// Apply scores to player
foreach ( $player_to_points as $player_id => $points ) {
if ($points != 0) {
$sql = "UPDATE player SET player_score=player_score-$points WHERE player_id='$player_id'";
self::DbQuery($sql);
$heart_number = $player_to_points [$player_id];
self::notifyAllPlayers("points", clienttranslate('${player_name} gets ${nbr} hearts and looses ${nbr} points'), array (
'player_id' => $player_id,'player_name' => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'],
'nbr' => $heart_number ));
} else {
// No point lost (just notify)
self::notifyAllPlayers("points", clienttranslate('${player_name} did not get any hearts'), array (
'player_id' => $player_id,'player_name' => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'] ));
}
}
$newScores = self::getCollectionFromDb("SELECT player_id, player_score FROM player", true );
self::notifyAllPlayers( "newScores", '', array( 'newScores' => $newScores ) );

///// Test if this is the end of the game
foreach ( $newScores as $player_id => $score ) {
if ($score <= -100) {
// Trigger the end of the game !
$this->gamestate->nextState("endGame");
return;
}
}

$this->gamestate->nextState("nextHand");
}
</pre>

So it should more less work now, including end of game condition. Try to play it!

== Additional stuff ==

The following things were not implemented and can add them yourself by looking at the code of original hearts game:

* Remove debug code from setupNewGame to deal cards, cards are now dealt in stNewHand state handler
* Rule checking and rule enforcements in playCard function
* Start scoring with 100 points each and end when <= 0
* Fix scoring rules with Q of spades and 26 point reverse scoring
* First player one with 2 club
* Add progress handling
* Add statistics
* Add card exchange states
* Add game option to start with 75 points instead of 100

Tutorial hearts

2019-08-17T18:51:49Z

Amadannabriona: /* Game Interface JS Stock */

== Introduction ==

Using this tutorial, you can build a complete working game on the BGA environment: Hearts.

Before you read this tutorial, you must:
* Read the overall presentations of the BGA Framework ([[Studio|see here]]).
* Know the rules for Hearts
* Some-what know the languages used on BGA: PHP, SQL, HTML, CSS, Javascript
* Setup you development environment [http://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/First_steps_with_BGA_Studio First Steps with BGA Studio]
* As part of setup you have to have access to your ftp home folder in studio, which would have 'hearts' game source code. We will be using some resources of this game in this tutorial, so copy it over to local disk if you have not done so.

If you stuck of have question about this tutorial post on [https://forum.boardgamearena.com/viewforum.php?f=12 BGA Developers forum]

== Create your first game ==

If you have not already, you have to create a project in BGA Studio. For this tutorial you can create a project heartsYOURNAME where
YOURNAME is your developer login name. You can also re-use the project you have created for the "First Steps" tutorial above.
With the initial skeleton of code provided, you can already start a game from the BGA Studio.

1. Find and start the game in turn-based mode with 4 players. Make sure it works.

2. Modify the text in heartsYOURNAME_heartsYOURNAME.tpl, reload the page in the browser and make sure your ftp sync works as expected.
Note: if you have not setup auto-sync do it now, manually copying files is a no-starter.

3. Express stop from settings menu (the gear icon).

<i>Note: please do '''not''' use the hearts project code as a base. This tutorial assumes you started with a TEMPLATE project with no prior modifications. Using the hearts project as a base will be very confusing and you won't be able to follow all the steps.
</i>

== Hook version control system ==

For a real game, or even for this tutorial, we recommend committing the code to version control right from the start. You are going to find yourself in a situation where the game doesn't even start anymore and no way of debugging it, unless you have a way to revert. That is where version control becomes very handy. If you are not familiar with version control (e.g. [https://git-scm.com/docs/gittutorial git]) then at least back up your files after each major change. Start now.

Code for this tutorial available is on github: https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla

Different revisions represent different steps along the process, starting from original template to a complete game.

== Update game infos and box graphics ==

Even it does not nothing yet, always start by making sure the game looks decent in the game selector, meaning it has nice box graphics and its information is correct. For that we need to edit [[Game_meta-information: gameinfos.inc.php|gameinfos.inc.php]].

For a real game, you would go to [http://boardgamegeek.com BoardGameGeek], find the game, and use the information from BGG to fill in the gameinfos.

So let's do that. Find "hearts" on BoardGameGeek. (Hint: Original release 1850 :))

You can fill in the year of publishing and bgg id, put ''Public Domain'' under publisher, and a publisher id of 171 for public domain. And as designer and author you can just put your own name just for fun. Set number of players to 4.

// Players configuration that can be played (ex: 2 to 4 players)
'players' => array( 4 ),

The next step is to replace '''game_box.png''' with nicer images. For this tutorial, just copy all the files from the img/ folder of the hearts/ template into the img/ directory of your project. Replace publisher.png with a nicer image: for example https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-sharedcode/blob/master/img/publisher.png.

Details about images can be found here: [[Game art: img directory]].

Now an important step: you have to LOAD these files into the Studio website through the control panel. So go to Control Panel -> Manage Games -> heartsYOURNAME
and press Reload for 'Reload game informations' and 'Reload game box image'

Now try to start the game again. If you somehow introduced a syntax error in the gameinfos file it may not work (the game won't start).
Always use the "Express Start" button to start the game. You should see a standard state prompt from the template. You should see 4 players on the right: testdude0 .. testdude3.
To switch between them press the red arrow button near their names, it will open another tab. This way you don't need to login and logout from multiple accounts!

<i>Note: if you had run the game before with less than 4 players there is a bug that will prevent you from running it with 4 only (if you did not run it before or run it with 4 players as instructed stop reading this note), to workaround revert back to original players array (i.e. 1,2,3,4), reload game options, then create a table with 4 players, exit that game table, then change gameoptions to 4 only as above, reload game options, create table again.</i>

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/4b3a73eeb5acae961ade18473af119e8ce8d1a8f]

== Layout and Graphics ==

In this section we will do graphics of the game, and main layout of the game.

First copy a sprite with cards image from hearts img/cards.jpg into img/ folder of your project. Project hearts is mounted to your home directory on bga server.

Edit .tpl to add some divs to represent player table and hand area

<pre>
<div id="myhand_wrap" class="whiteblock">
<h3>My Hand</h3>
<div id="myhand">
</div>
</div>
</pre>

If you refresh you should see now white area with My Hand title.

[[File:Heartsla-tpl2.png]]

Now lets add a card into the hand, just so you can feel it. Edit .tpl and a playertablecard div inside a hand div
<pre>
...
<div id="myhand">
<div class="playertablecard"></div>
</div>
...
</pre>

Edit .css file
<pre>
.playertablecard {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
margin-top: 5px;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
background-image: url('img/cards.jpg'); /* temp hack to see it */
}
</pre>

When you edit CSS remember that you have to FORCE-reload page, i.e. Ctrl-F5, otherwise its cached.
<i>Same when you change existing graphics files</i>.

You should see this:

[[File:Heartsla-tpl3.png]]

Awesome! Now lets do the rest of layout.

There are few ways of how html could have been generated, you could have start with nothing and generate
all by java script. Or you could have started with complete game markup in html and make java script just hide and move pieces around. BGA framework provides also a third way which is mix of both plus template engine to generate HTML using php. So lets do that.

Change .tpl file to have this inside
<pre>
<div id="playertables">


<div class="playertable whiteblock playertable_{DIR}">
<div class="playertablename" style="color:#{PLAYER_COLOR}">
{PLAYER_NAME}
</div>
<div class="playertablecard" id="playertablecard_{PLAYER_ID}">
</div>
</div>


</div>

<div id="myhand_wrap" class="whiteblock">
<h3>{MY_HAND}</h3>
<div id="myhand">
</div>
</div>
</pre>

What we did is we added "block" player, it is marked up using html comments. {VAR} notation is used
to inject variables and
<pre>

inside

</pre>
effectively allows us to do template loops.

In .view.php insert this code after 'Place your code below' comment

<pre>
$template = self::getGameName() . "_" . self::getGameName();

$directions = array( 'S', 'W', 'N', 'E' );

// this will inflate our player block with actual players data
$this->page->begin_block($template, "player");
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $info ) {
$dir = array_shift($directions);
$this->page->insert_block("player", array ("PLAYER_ID" => $player_id,
"PLAYER_NAME" => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'],
"PLAYER_COLOR" => $players [$player_id] ['player_color'],
"DIR" => $dir ));
}
// this will make our My Hand text translatable
$this->tpl['MY_HAND'] = self::_("My hand");
</pre>

What it does is for each player we have it will replicate the html between  and  tags, substituting the variable denoted by {XXX}
with the values you provide. The DIR variable in this case we pulling from directions array (where array_shift will take first element and remove it from the array).

Reload. If everything went well you should see this:

[[File:Heartsla-tpl4.png]]

These are "tableau" areas for 4 players plus My hand visible only to one player.
They not exactly how we wanted them to be because we did not edit .css yet.

Now edit .css, add these lines after import before our previous definition

<pre>
/** Table layout **/

#playertables {
position: relative;
width: 710px;
height: 340px;
}

.playertablename {
font-weight: bold;
}

.playertable {
position: absolute;
text-align: center;
width: 180px;
height: 130px;
}

.playertable_N {
left: 50%;
top: 0px;
margin-left: -90px; /* half of 180 */
}
.playertable_S {
left: 50%;
bottom: 0px;
margin-left: -90px; /* half of 180 */
}
.playertable_W {
left: 0px;
top: 50%;
margin-top: -55px; /* half of 130 */
}
.playertable_E {
right: 0px;
top: 50%;
margin-top: -55px; /* half of 130 */
}
</pre>

Now you force Reload and you should see this:
[[File:Heartsla-tpl5.png]]

This is almost all we need for graphics and layout, there are few tweaks left there but lets do some more heavy lifting now.

<i>Note: if you did not see changes you may have not force reloaded, force means you use Ctrl+F5 or Cltr+Shift-R, if you don't "force" browser will use cached version of .css and images! Which is not what you just changed</i>

<i>Another Note: In general if you have auto-sync you don't need to reload if you change game.php file, you need normal reload if you change js, and force reload for css and images. If you changed state machine or database you likely need to restart the game.</i>

== Game Interface JS Stock ==

The BGA framework provides a few out of the box classes to deal with cards. The client side
contains a class called [[Stock]] and it can be used for any dynamic html "pieces" management that uses
common sprite images. On the server side we will use the [[Deck]] class which we discuss later.

If you open cards.jpg in an image viewer you will see that it is a "sprite" image - a 13x4 grid of images stitched together,
which is a very efficient way to transport images. So we will use the Stock class to mark up these images and create
"card" divs for us.

First, we need to add '''ebg/stock''' as a dependency in the hearts.js file:
<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <==== HERE
],
</pre>

Then add this to the Javascript contructor, this will define size of our cards
<pre>
console.log('hearts constructor');
this.cardwidth = 72;
this.cardheight = 96;
</pre>

The stock is initialized in the Javascript "setup" method like this:
<pre>
// TODO: Set up your game interface here, according to "gamedatas"

// Player hand
this.playerHand = new ebg.stock(); // new stock object for hand
this.playerHand.create( this, $('myhand'), this.cardwidth, this.cardheight );
</pre>

As parameters of the "create" method, we provided the width/height of an item (a card), and the container div "myhand" - which is an id of "div" element from our .tpl file representing a player hand.

Then, we must tell the stock what items it is going to display during its life: the 52 cards of a standard card game from a CSS sprite image named "cards.jpg" with all the cards arranged in 4 rows and 13 columns.

Here's how we tell stock what item types to display:
<pre>
this.playerHand.image_items_per_row = 13; // 13 images per row

// Create cards types:
for (var color = 1; color <= 4; color++) {
for (var value = 2; value <= 14; value++) {
// Build card type id
var card_type_id = this.getCardUniqueId(color, value);
this.playerHand.addItemType(card_type_id, card_type_id, g_gamethemeurl + 'img/cards.jpg', card_type_id);
}
}
</pre>

And add this function to the utilities section
<pre>
// Get card unique identifier based on its color and value
getCardUniqueId : function(color, value) {
return (color - 1) * 13 + (value - 2);
},
</pre>

Explanations:
* At first, we tell the stock component that our CSS sprite contains 13 items per row. This way, it can find the correct image for each card type id.
* Then for the 4x13 cards, we call the '''addItemType''' method that creates the type. The arguments are the type id, the weight of the card (for sorting purpose), the URL of our CSS sprite, and the position of our card image in the CSS sprite. It happens to be the same number in our case.

Note: we need to generate a unique ID for each type of card based on its color and value. For that we create a function '''getCardUniqueId'''. The type is the unique identifier of the TYPE of the card, e.g., the queen of spades encoded as an integer. If our deck had 2 standard card decks we would have had 2 queens of spades; they would share the same type and the same image but would have different ids. NOTE: It's unfortunate that they named this '''getCardUniqueId'''; it should have been '''getCardUniqueType''', because it really isn't an id, but a TYPE of card. The type of the item should either be a reversible function of its properties (i.e., kind of suite * 13 + value) or just an enumerator described in material.inc.php. In this specific case it's a synthetic type id, which also the same as the number of the card in the sprite image (i.e., if you enumerate each image in sprite going left to right, then top to bottom).

Now let's add the 5 of Hearts to the player's hand just for fun (this code will go in setup method after types initialization):

<pre>
// 2 = hearts, 5 is 5, and 42 is the card id, which normally would come from db
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId( this.getCardUniqueId( 2, 5 ), 42 );
</pre>

This will add the card with id 42 and type 16 ( (2-1)*13+(5-2)=16 ).

Note that number 16 would not be something you can see in database, Deck database will have separate field for type and type_arg where type is suite and type_arg is number, so its not the same thing, but you can use same formula to convert. Number 42 on the other hand would be id field in database. But we get to database in the later section.

If you reload now you should see the 5 of hearts in "your hand".

Stock control can handle clicking on items and forms the selection. yyou can immediately react to selection
or you can query it later; for example when user presses some other button.

Lets hook it up. Add this in the setup method in .js file, after this.playerHand is initialised:

dojo.connect( this.playerHand, 'onChangeSelection', this, 'onPlayerHandSelectionChanged' );

Then find the Player's action comment section and add a handler after the comment:

<pre>
onPlayerHandSelectionChanged : function() {
var items = this.playerHand.getSelectedItems();

if (items.length > 0) {
if (this.checkAction('playCard', true)) {
// Can play a card

var card_id = items[0].id;
console.log("on playCard "+card_id);

this.playerHand.unselectAll();
} else if (this.checkAction('giveCards')) {
// Can give cards => let the player select some cards
} else {
this.playerHand.unselectAll();
}
}
},
</pre>

The function name of the handler is 4th parameter of the dojo.connect function. Make sure you spell it correctly or there will be unpredictable effects.

Now if you reload, open the Javascript Console (F12), and then click on the card in My Hand, you should see:
on playCard 42
printed on the console

== Game Database and Game Initialisation ==

Next step you want to design game database and setup new game (on server side).
For that we need to a) modify database schema to add our cards data b) add some global "variables" into
existing globals table.

To modify schema first exit you existing game(s). Open dbmodel.sql file and uncomment card table creation

<pre>
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `card` (
`card_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`card_type` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_type_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
`card_location` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_location_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`card_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;
</pre>

This is "card" table which would be managed by Deck php class.

In addition we want a little piece of information in the players table:

-- add info about first player
ALTER TABLE `player` ADD `player_first` BOOLEAN NOT NULL DEFAULT '0';

Not sure why they put this into player table, we could have global db variable to hold first player as easily.
But I am just following existing code more-less.

Next we finally get into .game.php class, where the main logic and db interaction would be. Find php constructor which should be
function __construct( )
This is first function in a file. Add this code to constructor.
<pre>
parent::__construct();
self::initGameStateLabels( array(
"currentHandType" => 10,
"trickColor" => 11,
"alreadyPlayedHearts" => 12,
) );

$this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
$this->cards->init( "card" );
</pre>

Here we are initializing three "Game State Variables" which are variable stored in database. They are integers.
It must start with no lower then 10 since the others ones are reserved. These values are stored by numeric id's
in the database, but in the php we associate them with string labels for convenience of access. The variables are "trickColor" - numbers from 1 to 4 that map to card suit (not sure why its called color maybe its translation from french); "alreadyPlayedHearts" - is boolean flag (well 0 or 1) indication either somebody use hearts on the trick; "currentHandType" - stores the value to indicate who to give cards during exchange.

Next 2 lines are creating $this->cards object and associating it with "card" table in the the database.

<i>If we called db table 'foo' instead of 'card' the last statement would have been $this->cards->init( "foo" )</i>

At this point I would start a new game and make sure it starts, then exit.

<i>
If you made a mistake
in .sql or php constructor game won't start and good luck debugging it (that is why it important to check
once in a while to make sure it still starts while you remember what you have changed)
</i>

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/e3a049257b592ff6167688d4d344f8a83d349b08]

Now we can go to game initialization setupNewGame in game.php, this method is called once when table is created.

In your template project you should have code that deals with player table, just leave it as is. Start inserting the
other code after "Start the game initialization" comment
<pre>
// Init global values with their initial values

// Note: hand types: 0 = give 3 cards to player on the left
// 1 = give 3 cards to player on the right
// 2 = give 3 cards to player on tthe front
// 3 = keep cards
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'currentHandType', 0 );

// Set current trick color to zero (= no trick color)
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'trickColor', 0 );

// Mark if we already played some heart during this hand
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'alreadyPlayedHearts', 0 );
</pre>

Here we initialized all the globals to 0.

Next is to create our cards in the database. We have one deck of cards so its pretty simple
<pre>
// Create cards
$cards = array ();
foreach ( $this->colors as $color_id => $color ) {
// spade, heart, diamond, club
for ($value = 2; $value <= 14; $value ++) {
// 2, 3, 4, ... K, A
$cards [] = array ('type' => $color_id,'type_arg' => $value,'nbr' => 1 );
}
}

$this->cards->createCards( $cards, 'deck' );
</pre>

This code that will create one of each card. But don't run it yet, because we missing $this->colors.
So we have state of the game in the database, but there is some static game information which never changes,
this information should be stored in material.inc.php and this way it can be accessed from all .php files.
We will edit this file now by adding these lines

<pre>
$this->colors = array(
1 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('spade'),
'nametr' => self::_('spade') ),
2 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('heart'),
'nametr' => self::_('heart') ),
3 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('club'),
'nametr' => self::_('club') ),
4 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('diamond'),
'nametr' => self::_('diamond') )
);

$this->values_label = array(
2 =>'2',
3 => '3',
4 => '4',
5 => '5',
6 => '6',
7 => '7',
8 => '8',
9 => '9',
10 => '10',
11 => clienttranslate('J'),
12 => clienttranslate('Q'),
13 => clienttranslate('K'),
14 => clienttranslate('A')
);
</pre>

Where $this->colors will define Suit labels and $this->values_label defines value labels.
If you noticed we have two of each label for suits. This is because we need sometimes translated values on php
side and sometimes we don't. In this case nametr will return a translated value right in php, which is only usefull when you throw exceptions to show right strings. If you passing value to client via notification you should always
use untranslated strings, and client will translate it. 'clienttranslate' marks the value for translation but does not actually change it for php. For more about this wonderful translation stuff see [[Translations]] section.

== Full game model synchronisation ==

Now at any point in the game we need to make sure that database information can be reflected back in UI, so we fix getAllDatas function
to return all possible data we need to reconstruct the game. This is in the game.php file. The template for getAllDatas already taking care of player info, lets just
add hand and tableau data before we return result.

<pre>
// Cards in player hand
$result['hand'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'hand', $current_player_id );

// Cards played on the table
$result['cardsontable'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'cardsontable' );
</pre>

Now on the client side we should display this data, so in your .js file in setup function (which is the receiver of getAllDatas) add replace our hack of putting hearts of 5 directly into hand with:

<pre>
// Cards in player's hand
for ( var i in this.gamedatas.hand) {
var card = this.gamedatas.hand[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId(this.getCardUniqueId(color, value), card.id);
}

// Cards played on table
for (i in this.gamedatas.cardsontable) {
var card = this.gamedatas.cardsontable[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
var player_id = card.location_arg;
this.playCardOnTable(player_id, color, value, card.id);
}
</pre>

This should show hand and tableau cards now, except we are missing playCardOnTable function. So find getCardUniqueId function which
should be in utilities section and add this after

<pre>
playCardOnTable : function(player_id, color, value, card_id) {
// player_id => direction
dojo.place(this.format_block('jstpl_cardontable', {
x : this.cardwidth * (value - 2),
y : this.cardheight * (color - 1),
player_id : player_id
}), 'playertablecard_' + player_id);

if (player_id != this.player_id) {
// Some opponent played a card
// Move card from player panel
this.placeOnObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'overall_player_board_' + player_id);
} else {
// You played a card. If it exists in your hand, move card from there and remove
// corresponding item

if ($('myhand_item_' + card_id)) {
this.placeOnObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'myhand_item_' + card_id);
this.playerHand.removeFromStockById(card_id);
}
}

// In any case: move it to its final destination
this.slideToObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'playertablecard_' + player_id).play();
},
</pre>

For that to work we also need to add card temple in .tpl file
<pre>
// Javascript HTML templates

var jstpl_cardontable = '<div class="cardontable" id="cardontable_${player_id}" style="background-position:-${x}px -${y}px">\
</div>';
</pre>

What this does is basically it creates another card object, because if it is not our card its not in our hand (stock) so
we have to create it out of thin air. Technique to do that is to implode a js template object defined in .tpl file with some
parameters, which will just basically create a "div" string (yes you could have used string concatenation but it would not be fancy).
Now dojo.place places it (the div) on top of placeholder. Now we have an object with id of 'cardontable_' + player_id, depending
on who is playing it we either place it on player miniboard or in hand (and remove from hand stock). Then we animate the card move.

We also should fix our .css file now to add style for cardontable and REMOVE background for playertablecard which really is a placeholder div and not a card (don't miss the remove step it will be all screwy if you miss it).

<pre>
.playertablecard {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
margin-top: 5px;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
/* we remove background-image here */
}

/*** cards on table ***/

.cardontable {
position: absolute;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
background-image: url('img/cards.jpg');
}
</pre>

Now to test that it actually works lets deal cards to players during game initialization:

Add this after createCards in setupNewGame function in the game.php file
<pre>
// Shuffle deck
$this->cards->shuffle('deck');
// Deal 13 cards to each players
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards(13, 'deck', $player_id);
}
</pre>

Now when you start the game you should see 13 cards in your hand!

We just need to hook-up clicking on card and test if our playCardOnTable works.

Find onPlayerHandSelectionChanged function in the JS file, we should have logging there like console.log("on playCard "+card_id);
So after that insert this:
<pre>
console.log("on playCard "+card_id);
// type is (color - 1) * 13 + (value - 2)
var type = items[0].type;
var color = Math.floor(type / 13) + 1;
var value = type % 13 + 2;

this.playCardOnTable(this.player_id,color,value,card_id);
</pre>
Note: this code is for testing we will replace it with server interaction after we test it.

Now if you force reload (because we changed .css before) you should be able to click on card from you have and see it moving,
you can click on few cards this way. When you done enjoying the animation, press F5 to get your hand back.

[[File:Heartsla-sync.png]]

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/01d4e2f595fd14c2adcc97a957d21bb2766f78a8]

== State Machine ==

Now we need to create a game state machine. So the states are:

* Cards are dealt to all players (lets call it "newHand")
* Player is selected who will start a new trick ("newTrick")
* Player start or respond to played card ("playerTurn")
* Game control is passed to next player or trick is ended ("nextPlayer")
* End of hand processing (scoring and check for end of game) ("nextHand")

In addition players can exchange cards so we need two more states for that but we will skip it for now.

The state handling spread across 4 files, so you have to make sure all pieces are connected together.
The state machine states.php defines all the states, and function handlers on php side in a form of string,
and if any of these functions are not implemented it would be very hard to debug because it will break in random places.

So .states.php

<pre>
$machinestates = array(

// The initial state. Please do not modify.
1 => array(
"name" => "gameSetup",
"description" => clienttranslate("Game setup"),
"type" => "manager",
"action" => "stGameSetup",
"transitions" => array( "" => 20 )
),

/// New hand
20 => array(
"name" => "newHand",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNewHand",
"updateGameProgression" => true,
"transitions" => array( "" => 30 )
),

// Trick

30 => array(
"name" => "newTrick",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNewTrick",
"transitions" => array( "" => 31 )
),
31 => array(
"name" => "playerTurn",
"description" => clienttranslate('${actplayer} must play a card'),
"descriptionmyturn" => clienttranslate('${you} must play a card'),
"type" => "activeplayer",
"possibleactions" => array( "playCard" ),
"transitions" => array( "playCard" => 32 )
),
32 => array(
"name" => "nextPlayer",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNextPlayer",
"transitions" => array( "nextPlayer" => 31, "nextTrick" => 30, "endHand" => 40 )
),

// End of the hand (scoring, etc...)
40 => array(
"name" => "endHand",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stEndHand",
"transitions" => array( "nextHand" => 20, "endGame" => 99 )
),

// Final state.
// Please do not modify.
99 => array(
"name" => "gameEnd",
"description" => clienttranslate("End of game"),
"type" => "manager",
"action" => "stGameEnd",
"args" => "argGameEnd"
)

);
</pre>

The full details about what these fields are you can find in [[Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php]].

But basically we have Player states, in which human player has to perform an "action" by pressing some button in UI or selecting some game item, which will trigger js handler, which will do ajax call to server into API define
by .action.php file. All functions in this file are API between client and server and has very simple
and repetitive structure. In this case there is only two action player can do - play a card or pass cards to other player. So these 2 functions go into .action.php file, we will only define one now since we not implementing card passing states yet:

<pre>
public function playCard() {
self::setAjaxMode();
$card_id = self::getArg("id", AT_posint, true);
$this->game->playCard($card_id);
self::ajaxResponse();
}
</pre>

Now to make it run we have define all handler functions that we referenced in states, which are - one function for state arguments argGiveCards, 4 functions for robot states (where game performs some action)
and 1 function for player actions handling.
Find 'Game state arguments' section and paste this in:
<pre>
function argGiveCards() {
return array ();
}
</pre>

This normally pass some parameters to states, but we don't need anything yet. It good to have placeholder there anyway, so we can fix it later.
Important: even when its a stub this function must return array not scalar.

Lets do stubs for other functions, find game state actions section in .game.php file and insert these
<pre>
function stNewHand() {
// Take back all cards (from any location => null) to deck
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation(null, "deck");
$this->cards->shuffle('deck');
// Deal 13 cards to each players
// Create deck, shuffle it and give 13 initial cards
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards(13, 'deck', $player_id);
// Notify player about his cards
self::notifyPlayer($player_id, 'newHand', '', array ('cards' => $cards ));
}
self::setGameStateValue('alreadyPlayedHearts', 0);
$this->gamestate->nextState("");
}

function stNewTrick() {
// New trick: active the player who wins the last trick, or the player who own the club-2 card
// Reset trick color to 0 (= no color)
self::setGameStateInitialValue('trickColor', 0);
$this->gamestate->nextState();
}

function stNextPlayer() {
// Active next player OR end the trick and go to the next trick OR end the hand
if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('cardsontable') == 4) {
// This is the end of the trick
// Move all cards to "cardswon" of the given player
$best_value_player_id = self::activeNextPlayer(); // TODO figure out winner of trick
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation('cardsontable', 'cardswon', null, $best_value_player_id);

if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('hand') == 0) {
// End of the hand
$this->gamestate->nextState("endHand");
} else {
// End of the trick
$this->gamestate->nextState("nextTrick");
}
} else {
// Standard case (not the end of the trick)
// => just active the next player
$player_id = self::activeNextPlayer();
self::giveExtraTime($player_id);
$this->gamestate->nextState('nextPlayer');
}
}

function stEndHand() {
$this->gamestate->nextState("nextHand");
}

</pre>
Important: All state actions game or player must end with state transition (or thrown exception). Also make sure its ONLY one state transition,
if you accidentally fall though after state transition and do another one it will be a real mess and head scratching for long time.

Now find 'player actions' section and paste this code there
<pre>
function playCard($card_id) {
self::checkAction("playCard");
$player_id = self::getActivePlayerId();
throw new BgaUserException(self::_("Not implemented: ") . "$player_id plays $card_id");
}
</pre>
We won't implement it yet but throw an exception which we will see if interaction is working properly

Now the game should start but it would not be any different then before because we have to implement actual interactions.
Its good to check if it still working though (and if it was running before you have to exit because we changed state machine and normally it will break stuff)

== Client - Server interactions ==

Now to implement things for real we have hook UI actions to ajax calls, and process notifications send by server.
So previously we hooked playCardOnTable right into js handler which caused client animation, in real game its a two
step operation. When user clicks on game element js client sends an ajax call to server, server processes it and updates database, server sends
notification in response, client hooks animations to server notification.

So in .js code replace onPlayerHandSelectionChanged with
<pre>
onPlayerHandSelectionChanged : function() {
var items = this.playerHand.getSelectedItems();

if (items.length > 0) {
var action = 'playCard';
if (this.checkAction(action, true)) {
// Can play a card
var card_id = items[0].id;
this.ajaxcall("/" + this.game_name + "/" + this.game_name + "/" + action + ".html", {
id : card_id,
lock : true
}, this, function(result) {
}, function(is_error) {
});

this.playerHand.unselectAll();
} else if (this.checkAction('giveCards')) {
// Can give cards => let the player select some cards
} else {
this.playerHand.unselectAll();
}
}
},
</pre>

Now when you click on card you should get a server response: Not implemented...

Lets implement it, in .game.php
<pre>
function playCard($card_id) {
self::checkAction("playCard");
$player_id = self::getActivePlayerId();
$this->cards->moveCard($card_id, 'cardsontable', $player_id);
// XXX check rules here
$currentCard = $this->cards->getCard($card_id);
// And notify
self::notifyAllPlayers('playCard', clienttranslate('${player_name} plays ${value_displayed} ${color_displayed}'), array (
'i18n' => array ('color_displayed','value_displayed' ),'card_id' => $card_id,'player_id' => $player_id,
'player_name' => self::getActivePlayerName(),'value' => $currentCard ['type_arg'],
'value_displayed' => $this->values_label [$currentCard ['type_arg']],'color' => $currentCard ['type'],
'color_displayed' => $this->colors [$currentCard ['type']] ['name'] ));
// Next player
$this->gamestate->nextState('playCard');
}
</pre>

We get the card from client, we move it to the tableau (moveCard is hooked to database directly, its part of deck class),
we notify all players and we change state. What we missing here is bunch of checks (rule enforcements), we will add it later.

Interesting part about this notify is that we use i18n array for string that needs to be translated by client, so
they sent as English text in notification, then client has to know which parameters needs translating.

On the client side .js we have to implement a notification handler to do the animation

<pre>
setupNotifications : function() {
console.log('notifications subscriptions setup');

dojo.subscribe('newHand', this, "notif_newHand");
dojo.subscribe('playCard', this, "notif_playCard");

},

notif_newHand : function(notif) {
// We received a new full hand of 13 cards.
this.playerHand.removeAll();

for ( var i in notif.args.cards) {
var card = notif.args.cards[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId(this.getCardUniqueId(color, value), card.id);
}
},

notif_playCard : function(notif) {
// Play a card on the table
this.playCardOnTable(notif.args.player_id, notif.args.color, notif.args.value, notif.args.card_id);
},
</pre>

Now it actually works through the server when you click on card - the move is recorded. If you testing it now you will notice
after trick is done all cards remains on the table, but if you press F5 they would disappear, this is because
we updated database to pick-up the cards but did not send notification about it, so we need to send notification about it
and have a handler for it

So in .game.php file add notification in stNextPlayer function after moveAllCardsInLocation call:

<pre>
// Notify
// Note: we use 2 notifications here in order we can pause the display during the first notification
// before we move all cards to the winner (during the second)
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'trickWin', clienttranslate('${player_name} wins the trick'), array(
'player_id' => $best_value_player_id,
'player_name' => $players[ $best_value_player_id ]['player_name']
) );
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'giveAllCardsToPlayer','', array(
'player_id' => $best_value_player_id
) );
</pre>

And in .js file add 2 more notification handlers.

This is to subscribe in setupNotifications function
<pre>
dojo.subscribe( 'trickWin', this, "notif_trickWin" );
this.notifqueue.setSynchronous( 'trickWin', 1000 );
dojo.subscribe( 'giveAllCardsToPlayer', this, "notif_giveAllCardsToPlayer" );
</pre>

And this are handlers
<pre>
notif_trickWin : function(notif) {
// We do nothing here (just wait in order players can view the 4 cards played before they're gone.
},
notif_giveAllCardsToPlayer : function(notif) {
// Move all cards on table to given table, then destroy them
var winner_id = notif.args.player_id;
for ( var player_id in this.gamedatas.players) {
var anim = this.slideToObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'overall_player_board_' + winner_id);
dojo.connect(anim, 'onEnd', function(node) {
dojo.destroy(node);
});
anim.play();
}
},
</pre>

So 'trickWin' notification does not do much except it will delay the processing of next notification by 1 second (1000 ms)
and it will log the message (that happens independent of what handler does).
<i>Note: if on the other hand you don't want to log but what what to do something else send empty message</i>

Now after the trick you see all cards move the "player's stash".

== Scoring and End of game handling ==

Now we should calculate scoring and for that we need to actually track who wins the trick.
Trick is won by the player with highest card (no trump). We just need to remember what is trick suite.
For which we will use state variable 'trickColor' which we already conveniently created.

In .game.php file find playCard function and add this before notify functions
$currentTrickColor = self::getGameStateValue( 'trickColor' ) ;
if( $currentTrickColor == 0 )
self::setGameStateValue( 'trickColor', $currentCard['type'] );

This will make sure we remember first suit being played, now to use it modify stNextPlayer function to fix our TODO comment
<pre>
function stNextPlayer() {
// Active next player OR end the trick and go to the next trick OR end the hand
if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('cardsontable') == 4) {
// This is the end of the trick
$cards_on_table = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation('cardsontable');
$best_value = 0;
$best_value_player_id = null;
$currentTrickColor = self::getGameStateValue('trickColor');
foreach ( $cards_on_table as $card ) {
// Note: type = card color
if ($card ['type'] == $currentTrickColor) {
if ($best_value_player_id === null || $card ['type_arg'] > $best_value) {
$best_value_player_id = $card ['location_arg']; // Note: location_arg = player who played this card on table
$best_value = $card ['type_arg']; // Note: type_arg = value of the card
}
}
}

// Active this player => he's the one who starts the next trick
$this->gamestate->changeActivePlayer( $best_value_player_id );

// Move all cards to "cardswon" of the given player
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation('cardsontable', 'cardswon', null, $best_value_player_id);

// Notify
// ... same code here as before
</pre>

The scoring rule in the studio example code is huge multi-page function, for this tutorial we will make simplier.
Lets score -1 point per heart and call it a day. And game will end when somebody goes -100 or below.

As UI goes for scoring, the main thing to update is the scoring on the mini boards represented by stars, also
we want to show that in the log.
In addition scoring can be shown in [[Game_interface_logic:_yourgamename.js#Scoring_dialogs|Scoring Dialog]] using tableWindow notification, but it is a tutorial on its own and you can do it as homework (it is part of original heart game).

In .js file we need to add one more subscription and notification handler:
dojo.subscribe( 'newScores', this, "notif_newScores" );
in setupNotifications

and
notif_newScores : function(notif) {
// Update players' scores
for ( var player_id in notif.args.newScores) {
this.scoreCtrl[player_id].toValue(notif.args.newScores[player_id]);
}
},
somewhere after. this.scoreCtrl is pre-existing object that shows the scoring and this function will update score values per player from notification argument

so in .game.php our stEndHand function will look like

<pre>
function stEndHand() {
// Count and score points, then end the game or go to the next hand.
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
// Gets all "hearts" + queen of spades

$player_to_points = array ();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$player_to_points [$player_id] = 0;
}
$cards = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation("cardswon");
foreach ( $cards as $card ) {
$player_id = $card ['location_arg'];
// Note: 2 = heart
if ($card ['type'] == 2) {
$player_to_points [$player_id] ++;
}
}
// Apply scores to player
foreach ( $player_to_points as $player_id => $points ) {
if ($points != 0) {
$sql = "UPDATE player SET player_score=player_score-$points WHERE player_id='$player_id'";
self::DbQuery($sql);
$heart_number = $player_to_points [$player_id];
self::notifyAllPlayers("points", clienttranslate('${player_name} gets ${nbr} hearts and looses ${nbr} points'), array (
'player_id' => $player_id,'player_name' => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'],
'nbr' => $heart_number ));
} else {
// No point lost (just notify)
self::notifyAllPlayers("points", clienttranslate('${player_name} did not get any hearts'), array (
'player_id' => $player_id,'player_name' => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'] ));
}
}
$newScores = self::getCollectionFromDb("SELECT player_id, player_score FROM player", true );
self::notifyAllPlayers( "newScores", '', array( 'newScores' => $newScores ) );

///// Test if this is the end of the game
foreach ( $newScores as $player_id => $score ) {
if ($score <= -100) {
// Trigger the end of the game !
$this->gamestate->nextState("endGame");
return;
}
}

$this->gamestate->nextState("nextHand");
}
</pre>

So it should more less work now, including end of game condition. Try to play it!

== Additional stuff ==

The following things were not implemented and can add them yourself by looking at the code of original hearts game:

* Remove debug code from setupNewGame to deal cards, cards are now dealt in stNewHand state handler
* Rule checking and rule enforcements in playCard function
* Start scoring with 100 points each and end when <= 0
* Fix scoring rules with Q of spades and 26 point reverse scoring
* First player one with 2 club
* Add progress handling
* Add statistics
* Add card exchange states
* Add game option to start with 75 points instead of 100

Tutorial hearts

2019-08-17T18:44:12Z

Amadannabriona: /* Game Interface JS Stock */

== Introduction ==

Using this tutorial, you can build a complete working game on the BGA environment: Hearts.

Before you read this tutorial, you must:
* Read the overall presentations of the BGA Framework ([[Studio|see here]]).
* Know the rules for Hearts
* Some-what know the languages used on BGA: PHP, SQL, HTML, CSS, Javascript
* Setup you development environment [http://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/First_steps_with_BGA_Studio First Steps with BGA Studio]
* As part of setup you have to have access to your ftp home folder in studio, which would have 'hearts' game source code. We will be using some resources of this game in this tutorial, so copy it over to local disk if you have not done so.

If you stuck of have question about this tutorial post on [https://forum.boardgamearena.com/viewforum.php?f=12 BGA Developers forum]

== Create your first game ==

If you have not already, you have to create a project in BGA Studio. For this tutorial you can create a project heartsYOURNAME where
YOURNAME is your developer login name. You can also re-use the project you have created for the "First Steps" tutorial above.
With the initial skeleton of code provided, you can already start a game from the BGA Studio.

1. Find and start the game in turn-based mode with 4 players. Make sure it works.

2. Modify the text in heartsYOURNAME_heartsYOURNAME.tpl, reload the page in the browser and make sure your ftp sync works as expected.
Note: if you have not setup auto-sync do it now, manually copying files is a no-starter.

3. Express stop from settings menu (the gear icon).

<i>Note: please do '''not''' use the hearts project code as a base. This tutorial assumes you started with a TEMPLATE project with no prior modifications. Using the hearts project as a base will be very confusing and you won't be able to follow all the steps.
</i>

== Hook version control system ==

For a real game, or even for this tutorial, we recommend committing the code to version control right from the start. You are going to find yourself in a situation where the game doesn't even start anymore and no way of debugging it, unless you have a way to revert. That is where version control becomes very handy. If you are not familiar with version control (e.g. [https://git-scm.com/docs/gittutorial git]) then at least back up your files after each major change. Start now.

Code for this tutorial available is on github: https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla

Different revisions represent different steps along the process, starting from original template to a complete game.

== Update game infos and box graphics ==

Even it does not nothing yet, always start by making sure the game looks decent in the game selector, meaning it has nice box graphics and its information is correct. For that we need to edit [[Game_meta-information: gameinfos.inc.php|gameinfos.inc.php]].

For a real game, you would go to [http://boardgamegeek.com BoardGameGeek], find the game, and use the information from BGG to fill in the gameinfos.

So let's do that. Find "hearts" on BoardGameGeek. (Hint: Original release 1850 :))

You can fill in the year of publishing and bgg id, put ''Public Domain'' under publisher, and a publisher id of 171 for public domain. And as designer and author you can just put your own name just for fun. Set number of players to 4.

// Players configuration that can be played (ex: 2 to 4 players)
'players' => array( 4 ),

The next step is to replace '''game_box.png''' with nicer images. For this tutorial, just copy all the files from the img/ folder of the hearts/ template into the img/ directory of your project. Replace publisher.png with a nicer image: for example https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-sharedcode/blob/master/img/publisher.png.

Details about images can be found here: [[Game art: img directory]].

Now an important step: you have to LOAD these files into the Studio website through the control panel. So go to Control Panel -> Manage Games -> heartsYOURNAME
and press Reload for 'Reload game informations' and 'Reload game box image'

Now try to start the game again. If you somehow introduced a syntax error in the gameinfos file it may not work (the game won't start).
Always use the "Express Start" button to start the game. You should see a standard state prompt from the template. You should see 4 players on the right: testdude0 .. testdude3.
To switch between them press the red arrow button near their names, it will open another tab. This way you don't need to login and logout from multiple accounts!

<i>Note: if you had run the game before with less than 4 players there is a bug that will prevent you from running it with 4 only (if you did not run it before or run it with 4 players as instructed stop reading this note), to workaround revert back to original players array (i.e. 1,2,3,4), reload game options, then create a table with 4 players, exit that game table, then change gameoptions to 4 only as above, reload game options, create table again.</i>

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/4b3a73eeb5acae961ade18473af119e8ce8d1a8f]

== Layout and Graphics ==

In this section we will do graphics of the game, and main layout of the game.

First copy a sprite with cards image from hearts img/cards.jpg into img/ folder of your project. Project hearts is mounted to your home directory on bga server.

Edit .tpl to add some divs to represent player table and hand area

<pre>
<div id="myhand_wrap" class="whiteblock">
<h3>My Hand</h3>
<div id="myhand">
</div>
</div>
</pre>

If you refresh you should see now white area with My Hand title.

[[File:Heartsla-tpl2.png]]

Now lets add a card into the hand, just so you can feel it. Edit .tpl and a playertablecard div inside a hand div
<pre>
...
<div id="myhand">
<div class="playertablecard"></div>
</div>
...
</pre>

Edit .css file
<pre>
.playertablecard {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
margin-top: 5px;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
background-image: url('img/cards.jpg'); /* temp hack to see it */
}
</pre>

When you edit CSS remember that you have to FORCE-reload page, i.e. Ctrl-F5, otherwise its cached.
<i>Same when you change existing graphics files</i>.

You should see this:

[[File:Heartsla-tpl3.png]]

Awesome! Now lets do the rest of layout.

There are few ways of how html could have been generated, you could have start with nothing and generate
all by java script. Or you could have started with complete game markup in html and make java script just hide and move pieces around. BGA framework provides also a third way which is mix of both plus template engine to generate HTML using php. So lets do that.

Change .tpl file to have this inside
<pre>
<div id="playertables">


<div class="playertable whiteblock playertable_{DIR}">
<div class="playertablename" style="color:#{PLAYER_COLOR}">
{PLAYER_NAME}
</div>
<div class="playertablecard" id="playertablecard_{PLAYER_ID}">
</div>
</div>


</div>

<div id="myhand_wrap" class="whiteblock">
<h3>{MY_HAND}</h3>
<div id="myhand">
</div>
</div>
</pre>

What we did is we added "block" player, it is marked up using html comments. {VAR} notation is used
to inject variables and
<pre>

inside

</pre>
effectively allows us to do template loops.

In .view.php insert this code after 'Place your code below' comment

<pre>
$template = self::getGameName() . "_" . self::getGameName();

$directions = array( 'S', 'W', 'N', 'E' );

// this will inflate our player block with actual players data
$this->page->begin_block($template, "player");
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $info ) {
$dir = array_shift($directions);
$this->page->insert_block("player", array ("PLAYER_ID" => $player_id,
"PLAYER_NAME" => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'],
"PLAYER_COLOR" => $players [$player_id] ['player_color'],
"DIR" => $dir ));
}
// this will make our My Hand text translatable
$this->tpl['MY_HAND'] = self::_("My hand");
</pre>

What it does is for each player we have it will replicate the html between  and  tags, substituting the variable denoted by {XXX}
with the values you provide. The DIR variable in this case we pulling from directions array (where array_shift will take first element and remove it from the array).

Reload. If everything went well you should see this:

[[File:Heartsla-tpl4.png]]

These are "tableau" areas for 4 players plus My hand visible only to one player.
They not exactly how we wanted them to be because we did not edit .css yet.

Now edit .css, add these lines after import before our previous definition

<pre>
/** Table layout **/

#playertables {
position: relative;
width: 710px;
height: 340px;
}

.playertablename {
font-weight: bold;
}

.playertable {
position: absolute;
text-align: center;
width: 180px;
height: 130px;
}

.playertable_N {
left: 50%;
top: 0px;
margin-left: -90px; /* half of 180 */
}
.playertable_S {
left: 50%;
bottom: 0px;
margin-left: -90px; /* half of 180 */
}
.playertable_W {
left: 0px;
top: 50%;
margin-top: -55px; /* half of 130 */
}
.playertable_E {
right: 0px;
top: 50%;
margin-top: -55px; /* half of 130 */
}
</pre>

Now you force Reload and you should see this:
[[File:Heartsla-tpl5.png]]

This is almost all we need for graphics and layout, there are few tweaks left there but lets do some more heavy lifting now.

<i>Note: if you did not see changes you may have not force reloaded, force means you use Ctrl+F5 or Cltr+Shift-R, if you don't "force" browser will use cached version of .css and images! Which is not what you just changed</i>

<i>Another Note: In general if you have auto-sync you don't need to reload if you change game.php file, you need normal reload if you change js, and force reload for css and images. If you changed state machine or database you likely need to restart the game.</i>

== Game Interface JS Stock ==

The BGA framework provides a few out of the box classes to deal with cards. The client side
contains a class called [[Stock]] and it can be used for any dynamic html "pieces" management that uses
common sprite images. On the server side we will use the [[Deck]] class which we discuss later.

If you open cards.jpg in an image viewer you will see that it is a "sprite" image - a 13x4 grid of images stitched together,
which is a very efficient way to transport images. So we will use the Stock class to mark up these images and create
"card" divs for us.

First, we need to add '''ebg/stock''' as a dependency in the hearts.js file:
<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <==== HERE
],
</pre>

Then add this to the Javascript contructor, this will define size of our cards
<pre>
console.log('hearts constructor');
this.cardwidth = 72;
this.cardheight = 96;
</pre>

The stock is initialized in the Javascript "setup" method like this:
<pre>
// TODO: Set up your game interface here, according to "gamedatas"

// Player hand
this.playerHand = new ebg.stock(); // new stock object for hand
this.playerHand.create( this, $('myhand'), this.cardwidth, this.cardheight );
</pre>

As parameters of the "create" method, we provided the width/height of an item (a card), and the container div "myhand" - which is an id of "div" element from our .tpl file representing a player hand.

Then, we must tell the stock what items it is going to display during its life: the 52 cards of a standard card game from a CSS sprite image named "cards.jpg" with all the cards arranged in 4 rows and 13 columns.

Here's how we tell stock what item types to display:
<pre>
this.playerHand.image_items_per_row = 13; // 13 images per row

// Create cards types:
for (var color = 1; color <= 4; color++) {
for (var value = 2; value <= 14; value++) {
// Build card type id
var card_type_id = this.getCardUniqueId(color, value);
this.playerHand.addItemType(card_type_id, card_type_id, g_gamethemeurl + 'img/cards.jpg', card_type_id);
}
}
</pre>

And add this function to the utilities section
<pre>
// Get card unique identifier based on its color and value
getCardUniqueId : function(color, value) {
return (color - 1) * 13 + (value - 2);
},
</pre>

Explanations:
* At first, we tell the stock component that our CSS sprite contains 13 items per row. This way, it can find the correct image for each card type id.
* Then for the 4x13 cards, we call the '''addItemType''' method that creates the type. The arguments are the type id, the weight of the card (for sorting purpose), the URL of our CSS sprite, and the position of our card image in the CSS sprite. It happens to be the same number in our case.

Note: we need to generate a unique ID for each type of card based on its color and value. For that we create a function '''getCardUniqueId'''. The type is the unique identifier of the TYPE of the card, e.g., the queen of spades encoded as an integer. If our deck had 2 standard card decks we would have had 2 queens of spades; they would share the same type and the same image but would have different ids. NOTE: It's unfortunate that they named this '''getCardUniqueId'''; it should have been '''getCardUniqueType''', because it really isn't an id, but a TYPE of card. The type of the item should either be a reversible function of its properties (i.e., kind of suite * 13 + value) or just an enumerator described in material.inc.php. In this specific case it's a synthetic type id, which also the same as the number of the card in the sprite image (i.e., if you enumerate each image in sprite going left to right, then top to bottom).

Now let's add the 5 of Hearts to the player's hand just for fun (this code will go in setup method after types initialization):

<pre>
// 2 - hears, 5 is 5, and 42 is card id, it normally would come from db
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId( this.getCardUniqueId( 2, 5 ), 42 );
</pre>

This will add card with id 42 and type 16 ( (2-1)*13+(5-2)=16 ).

Note that number 16 would not be something you can see in database, Deck database will have separate field for type and type_arg where type is suite and type_arg is number, so its not the same thing, but you can use same formula to convert. Number 42 on the other hand would be id field in database. But we get to database in the later section.

If you reload now you should see 5 of hearts in "your hand".

Stock control can handle clicking on items and forms the selection, you can immediately react to selection
or you can query it later, for example when user presses some other button.

Lets hook it up, add this in setup method in .js file, after this.playerHand is initialised

dojo.connect( this.playerHand, 'onChangeSelection', this, 'onPlayerHandSelectionChanged' );

Then find Player's action comment section and add handler after the comment
<pre>
onPlayerHandSelectionChanged : function() {
var items = this.playerHand.getSelectedItems();

if (items.length > 0) {
if (this.checkAction('playCard', true)) {
// Can play a card

var card_id = items[0].id;
console.log("on playCard "+card_id);

this.playerHand.unselectAll();
} else if (this.checkAction('giveCards')) {
// Can give cards => let the player select some cards
} else {
this.playerHand.unselectAll();
}
}
},
</pre>

The function name of the handler if 4th parameter on dojo.connect function, if you misspelled it will be some unpredictable effects.

Now if you reload, open js Console (F12), then click on card in My Hand and you should see
on playCard 42
printed on the console

== Game Database and Game Initialisation ==

Next step you want to design game database and setup new game (on server side).
For that we need to a) modify database schema to add our cards data b) add some global "variables" into
existing globals table.

To modify schema first exit you existing game(s). Open dbmodel.sql file and uncomment card table creation

<pre>
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `card` (
`card_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`card_type` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_type_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
`card_location` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_location_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`card_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;
</pre>

This is "card" table which would be managed by Deck php class.

In addition we want a little piece of information in the players table:

-- add info about first player
ALTER TABLE `player` ADD `player_first` BOOLEAN NOT NULL DEFAULT '0';

Not sure why they put this into player table, we could have global db variable to hold first player as easily.
But I am just following existing code more-less.

Next we finally get into .game.php class, where the main logic and db interaction would be. Find php constructor which should be
function __construct( )
This is first function in a file. Add this code to constructor.
<pre>
parent::__construct();
self::initGameStateLabels( array(
"currentHandType" => 10,
"trickColor" => 11,
"alreadyPlayedHearts" => 12,
) );

$this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
$this->cards->init( "card" );
</pre>

Here we are initializing three "Game State Variables" which are variable stored in database. They are integers.
It must start with no lower then 10 since the others ones are reserved. These values are stored by numeric id's
in the database, but in the php we associate them with string labels for convenience of access. The variables are "trickColor" - numbers from 1 to 4 that map to card suit (not sure why its called color maybe its translation from french); "alreadyPlayedHearts" - is boolean flag (well 0 or 1) indication either somebody use hearts on the trick; "currentHandType" - stores the value to indicate who to give cards during exchange.

Next 2 lines are creating $this->cards object and associating it with "card" table in the the database.

<i>If we called db table 'foo' instead of 'card' the last statement would have been $this->cards->init( "foo" )</i>

At this point I would start a new game and make sure it starts, then exit.

<i>
If you made a mistake
in .sql or php constructor game won't start and good luck debugging it (that is why it important to check
once in a while to make sure it still starts while you remember what you have changed)
</i>

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/e3a049257b592ff6167688d4d344f8a83d349b08]

Now we can go to game initialization setupNewGame in game.php, this method is called once when table is created.

In your template project you should have code that deals with player table, just leave it as is. Start inserting the
other code after "Start the game initialization" comment
<pre>
// Init global values with their initial values

// Note: hand types: 0 = give 3 cards to player on the left
// 1 = give 3 cards to player on the right
// 2 = give 3 cards to player on tthe front
// 3 = keep cards
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'currentHandType', 0 );

// Set current trick color to zero (= no trick color)
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'trickColor', 0 );

// Mark if we already played some heart during this hand
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'alreadyPlayedHearts', 0 );
</pre>

Here we initialized all the globals to 0.

Next is to create our cards in the database. We have one deck of cards so its pretty simple
<pre>
// Create cards
$cards = array ();
foreach ( $this->colors as $color_id => $color ) {
// spade, heart, diamond, club
for ($value = 2; $value <= 14; $value ++) {
// 2, 3, 4, ... K, A
$cards [] = array ('type' => $color_id,'type_arg' => $value,'nbr' => 1 );
}
}

$this->cards->createCards( $cards, 'deck' );
</pre>

This code that will create one of each card. But don't run it yet, because we missing $this->colors.
So we have state of the game in the database, but there is some static game information which never changes,
this information should be stored in material.inc.php and this way it can be accessed from all .php files.
We will edit this file now by adding these lines

<pre>
$this->colors = array(
1 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('spade'),
'nametr' => self::_('spade') ),
2 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('heart'),
'nametr' => self::_('heart') ),
3 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('club'),
'nametr' => self::_('club') ),
4 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('diamond'),
'nametr' => self::_('diamond') )
);

$this->values_label = array(
2 =>'2',
3 => '3',
4 => '4',
5 => '5',
6 => '6',
7 => '7',
8 => '8',
9 => '9',
10 => '10',
11 => clienttranslate('J'),
12 => clienttranslate('Q'),
13 => clienttranslate('K'),
14 => clienttranslate('A')
);
</pre>

Where $this->colors will define Suit labels and $this->values_label defines value labels.
If you noticed we have two of each label for suits. This is because we need sometimes translated values on php
side and sometimes we don't. In this case nametr will return a translated value right in php, which is only usefull when you throw exceptions to show right strings. If you passing value to client via notification you should always
use untranslated strings, and client will translate it. 'clienttranslate' marks the value for translation but does not actually change it for php. For more about this wonderful translation stuff see [[Translations]] section.

== Full game model synchronisation ==

Now at any point in the game we need to make sure that database information can be reflected back in UI, so we fix getAllDatas function
to return all possible data we need to reconstruct the game. This is in the game.php file. The template for getAllDatas already taking care of player info, lets just
add hand and tableau data before we return result.

<pre>
// Cards in player hand
$result['hand'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'hand', $current_player_id );

// Cards played on the table
$result['cardsontable'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'cardsontable' );
</pre>

Now on the client side we should display this data, so in your .js file in setup function (which is the receiver of getAllDatas) add replace our hack of putting hearts of 5 directly into hand with:

<pre>
// Cards in player's hand
for ( var i in this.gamedatas.hand) {
var card = this.gamedatas.hand[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId(this.getCardUniqueId(color, value), card.id);
}

// Cards played on table
for (i in this.gamedatas.cardsontable) {
var card = this.gamedatas.cardsontable[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
var player_id = card.location_arg;
this.playCardOnTable(player_id, color, value, card.id);
}
</pre>

This should show hand and tableau cards now, except we are missing playCardOnTable function. So find getCardUniqueId function which
should be in utilities section and add this after

<pre>
playCardOnTable : function(player_id, color, value, card_id) {
// player_id => direction
dojo.place(this.format_block('jstpl_cardontable', {
x : this.cardwidth * (value - 2),
y : this.cardheight * (color - 1),
player_id : player_id
}), 'playertablecard_' + player_id);

if (player_id != this.player_id) {
// Some opponent played a card
// Move card from player panel
this.placeOnObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'overall_player_board_' + player_id);
} else {
// You played a card. If it exists in your hand, move card from there and remove
// corresponding item

if ($('myhand_item_' + card_id)) {
this.placeOnObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'myhand_item_' + card_id);
this.playerHand.removeFromStockById(card_id);
}
}

// In any case: move it to its final destination
this.slideToObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'playertablecard_' + player_id).play();
},
</pre>

For that to work we also need to add card temple in .tpl file
<pre>
// Javascript HTML templates

var jstpl_cardontable = '<div class="cardontable" id="cardontable_${player_id}" style="background-position:-${x}px -${y}px">\
</div>';
</pre>

What this does is basically it creates another card object, because if it is not our card its not in our hand (stock) so
we have to create it out of thin air. Technique to do that is to implode a js template object defined in .tpl file with some
parameters, which will just basically create a "div" string (yes you could have used string concatenation but it would not be fancy).
Now dojo.place places it (the div) on top of placeholder. Now we have an object with id of 'cardontable_' + player_id, depending
on who is playing it we either place it on player miniboard or in hand (and remove from hand stock). Then we animate the card move.

We also should fix our .css file now to add style for cardontable and REMOVE background for playertablecard which really is a placeholder div and not a card (don't miss the remove step it will be all screwy if you miss it).

<pre>
.playertablecard {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
margin-top: 5px;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
/* we remove background-image here */
}

/*** cards on table ***/

.cardontable {
position: absolute;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
background-image: url('img/cards.jpg');
}
</pre>

Now to test that it actually works lets deal cards to players during game initialization:

Add this after createCards in setupNewGame function in the game.php file
<pre>
// Shuffle deck
$this->cards->shuffle('deck');
// Deal 13 cards to each players
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards(13, 'deck', $player_id);
}
</pre>

Now when you start the game you should see 13 cards in your hand!

We just need to hook-up clicking on card and test if our playCardOnTable works.

Find onPlayerHandSelectionChanged function in the JS file, we should have logging there like console.log("on playCard "+card_id);
So after that insert this:
<pre>
console.log("on playCard "+card_id);
// type is (color - 1) * 13 + (value - 2)
var type = items[0].type;
var color = Math.floor(type / 13) + 1;
var value = type % 13 + 2;

this.playCardOnTable(this.player_id,color,value,card_id);
</pre>
Note: this code is for testing we will replace it with server interaction after we test it.

Now if you force reload (because we changed .css before) you should be able to click on card from you have and see it moving,
you can click on few cards this way. When you done enjoying the animation, press F5 to get your hand back.

[[File:Heartsla-sync.png]]

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/01d4e2f595fd14c2adcc97a957d21bb2766f78a8]

== State Machine ==

Now we need to create a game state machine. So the states are:

* Cards are dealt to all players (lets call it "newHand")
* Player is selected who will start a new trick ("newTrick")
* Player start or respond to played card ("playerTurn")
* Game control is passed to next player or trick is ended ("nextPlayer")
* End of hand processing (scoring and check for end of game) ("nextHand")

In addition players can exchange cards so we need two more states for that but we will skip it for now.

The state handling spread across 4 files, so you have to make sure all pieces are connected together.
The state machine states.php defines all the states, and function handlers on php side in a form of string,
and if any of these functions are not implemented it would be very hard to debug because it will break in random places.

So .states.php

<pre>
$machinestates = array(

// The initial state. Please do not modify.
1 => array(
"name" => "gameSetup",
"description" => clienttranslate("Game setup"),
"type" => "manager",
"action" => "stGameSetup",
"transitions" => array( "" => 20 )
),

/// New hand
20 => array(
"name" => "newHand",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNewHand",
"updateGameProgression" => true,
"transitions" => array( "" => 30 )
),

// Trick

30 => array(
"name" => "newTrick",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNewTrick",
"transitions" => array( "" => 31 )
),
31 => array(
"name" => "playerTurn",
"description" => clienttranslate('${actplayer} must play a card'),
"descriptionmyturn" => clienttranslate('${you} must play a card'),
"type" => "activeplayer",
"possibleactions" => array( "playCard" ),
"transitions" => array( "playCard" => 32 )
),
32 => array(
"name" => "nextPlayer",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNextPlayer",
"transitions" => array( "nextPlayer" => 31, "nextTrick" => 30, "endHand" => 40 )
),

// End of the hand (scoring, etc...)
40 => array(
"name" => "endHand",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stEndHand",
"transitions" => array( "nextHand" => 20, "endGame" => 99 )
),

// Final state.
// Please do not modify.
99 => array(
"name" => "gameEnd",
"description" => clienttranslate("End of game"),
"type" => "manager",
"action" => "stGameEnd",
"args" => "argGameEnd"
)

);
</pre>

The full details about what these fields are you can find in [[Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php]].

But basically we have Player states, in which human player has to perform an "action" by pressing some button in UI or selecting some game item, which will trigger js handler, which will do ajax call to server into API define
by .action.php file. All functions in this file are API between client and server and has very simple
and repetitive structure. In this case there is only two action player can do - play a card or pass cards to other player. So these 2 functions go into .action.php file, we will only define one now since we not implementing card passing states yet:

<pre>
public function playCard() {
self::setAjaxMode();
$card_id = self::getArg("id", AT_posint, true);
$this->game->playCard($card_id);
self::ajaxResponse();
}
</pre>

Now to make it run we have define all handler functions that we referenced in states, which are - one function for state arguments argGiveCards, 4 functions for robot states (where game performs some action)
and 1 function for player actions handling.
Find 'Game state arguments' section and paste this in:
<pre>
function argGiveCards() {
return array ();
}
</pre>

This normally pass some parameters to states, but we don't need anything yet. It good to have placeholder there anyway, so we can fix it later.
Important: even when its a stub this function must return array not scalar.

Lets do stubs for other functions, find game state actions section in .game.php file and insert these
<pre>
function stNewHand() {
// Take back all cards (from any location => null) to deck
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation(null, "deck");
$this->cards->shuffle('deck');
// Deal 13 cards to each players
// Create deck, shuffle it and give 13 initial cards
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards(13, 'deck', $player_id);
// Notify player about his cards
self::notifyPlayer($player_id, 'newHand', '', array ('cards' => $cards ));
}
self::setGameStateValue('alreadyPlayedHearts', 0);
$this->gamestate->nextState("");
}

function stNewTrick() {
// New trick: active the player who wins the last trick, or the player who own the club-2 card
// Reset trick color to 0 (= no color)
self::setGameStateInitialValue('trickColor', 0);
$this->gamestate->nextState();
}

function stNextPlayer() {
// Active next player OR end the trick and go to the next trick OR end the hand
if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('cardsontable') == 4) {
// This is the end of the trick
// Move all cards to "cardswon" of the given player
$best_value_player_id = self::activeNextPlayer(); // TODO figure out winner of trick
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation('cardsontable', 'cardswon', null, $best_value_player_id);

if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('hand') == 0) {
// End of the hand
$this->gamestate->nextState("endHand");
} else {
// End of the trick
$this->gamestate->nextState("nextTrick");
}
} else {
// Standard case (not the end of the trick)
// => just active the next player
$player_id = self::activeNextPlayer();
self::giveExtraTime($player_id);
$this->gamestate->nextState('nextPlayer');
}
}

function stEndHand() {
$this->gamestate->nextState("nextHand");
}

</pre>
Important: All state actions game or player must end with state transition (or thrown exception). Also make sure its ONLY one state transition,
if you accidentally fall though after state transition and do another one it will be a real mess and head scratching for long time.

Now find 'player actions' section and paste this code there
<pre>
function playCard($card_id) {
self::checkAction("playCard");
$player_id = self::getActivePlayerId();
throw new BgaUserException(self::_("Not implemented: ") . "$player_id plays $card_id");
}
</pre>
We won't implement it yet but throw an exception which we will see if interaction is working properly

Now the game should start but it would not be any different then before because we have to implement actual interactions.
Its good to check if it still working though (and if it was running before you have to exit because we changed state machine and normally it will break stuff)

== Client - Server interactions ==

Now to implement things for real we have hook UI actions to ajax calls, and process notifications send by server.
So previously we hooked playCardOnTable right into js handler which caused client animation, in real game its a two
step operation. When user clicks on game element js client sends an ajax call to server, server processes it and updates database, server sends
notification in response, client hooks animations to server notification.

So in .js code replace onPlayerHandSelectionChanged with
<pre>
onPlayerHandSelectionChanged : function() {
var items = this.playerHand.getSelectedItems();

if (items.length > 0) {
var action = 'playCard';
if (this.checkAction(action, true)) {
// Can play a card
var card_id = items[0].id;
this.ajaxcall("/" + this.game_name + "/" + this.game_name + "/" + action + ".html", {
id : card_id,
lock : true
}, this, function(result) {
}, function(is_error) {
});

this.playerHand.unselectAll();
} else if (this.checkAction('giveCards')) {
// Can give cards => let the player select some cards
} else {
this.playerHand.unselectAll();
}
}
},
</pre>

Now when you click on card you should get a server response: Not implemented...

Lets implement it, in .game.php
<pre>
function playCard($card_id) {
self::checkAction("playCard");
$player_id = self::getActivePlayerId();
$this->cards->moveCard($card_id, 'cardsontable', $player_id);
// XXX check rules here
$currentCard = $this->cards->getCard($card_id);
// And notify
self::notifyAllPlayers('playCard', clienttranslate('${player_name} plays ${value_displayed} ${color_displayed}'), array (
'i18n' => array ('color_displayed','value_displayed' ),'card_id' => $card_id,'player_id' => $player_id,
'player_name' => self::getActivePlayerName(),'value' => $currentCard ['type_arg'],
'value_displayed' => $this->values_label [$currentCard ['type_arg']],'color' => $currentCard ['type'],
'color_displayed' => $this->colors [$currentCard ['type']] ['name'] ));
// Next player
$this->gamestate->nextState('playCard');
}
</pre>

We get the card from client, we move it to the tableau (moveCard is hooked to database directly, its part of deck class),
we notify all players and we change state. What we missing here is bunch of checks (rule enforcements), we will add it later.

Interesting part about this notify is that we use i18n array for string that needs to be translated by client, so
they sent as English text in notification, then client has to know which parameters needs translating.

On the client side .js we have to implement a notification handler to do the animation

<pre>
setupNotifications : function() {
console.log('notifications subscriptions setup');

dojo.subscribe('newHand', this, "notif_newHand");
dojo.subscribe('playCard', this, "notif_playCard");

},

notif_newHand : function(notif) {
// We received a new full hand of 13 cards.
this.playerHand.removeAll();

for ( var i in notif.args.cards) {
var card = notif.args.cards[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId(this.getCardUniqueId(color, value), card.id);
}
},

notif_playCard : function(notif) {
// Play a card on the table
this.playCardOnTable(notif.args.player_id, notif.args.color, notif.args.value, notif.args.card_id);
},
</pre>

Now it actually works through the server when you click on card - the move is recorded. If you testing it now you will notice
after trick is done all cards remains on the table, but if you press F5 they would disappear, this is because
we updated database to pick-up the cards but did not send notification about it, so we need to send notification about it
and have a handler for it

So in .game.php file add notification in stNextPlayer function after moveAllCardsInLocation call:

<pre>
// Notify
// Note: we use 2 notifications here in order we can pause the display during the first notification
// before we move all cards to the winner (during the second)
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'trickWin', clienttranslate('${player_name} wins the trick'), array(
'player_id' => $best_value_player_id,
'player_name' => $players[ $best_value_player_id ]['player_name']
) );
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'giveAllCardsToPlayer','', array(
'player_id' => $best_value_player_id
) );
</pre>

And in .js file add 2 more notification handlers.

This is to subscribe in setupNotifications function
<pre>
dojo.subscribe( 'trickWin', this, "notif_trickWin" );
this.notifqueue.setSynchronous( 'trickWin', 1000 );
dojo.subscribe( 'giveAllCardsToPlayer', this, "notif_giveAllCardsToPlayer" );
</pre>

And this are handlers
<pre>
notif_trickWin : function(notif) {
// We do nothing here (just wait in order players can view the 4 cards played before they're gone.
},
notif_giveAllCardsToPlayer : function(notif) {
// Move all cards on table to given table, then destroy them
var winner_id = notif.args.player_id;
for ( var player_id in this.gamedatas.players) {
var anim = this.slideToObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'overall_player_board_' + winner_id);
dojo.connect(anim, 'onEnd', function(node) {
dojo.destroy(node);
});
anim.play();
}
},
</pre>

So 'trickWin' notification does not do much except it will delay the processing of next notification by 1 second (1000 ms)
and it will log the message (that happens independent of what handler does).
<i>Note: if on the other hand you don't want to log but what what to do something else send empty message</i>

Now after the trick you see all cards move the "player's stash".

== Scoring and End of game handling ==

Now we should calculate scoring and for that we need to actually track who wins the trick.
Trick is won by the player with highest card (no trump). We just need to remember what is trick suite.
For which we will use state variable 'trickColor' which we already conveniently created.

In .game.php file find playCard function and add this before notify functions
$currentTrickColor = self::getGameStateValue( 'trickColor' ) ;
if( $currentTrickColor == 0 )
self::setGameStateValue( 'trickColor', $currentCard['type'] );

This will make sure we remember first suit being played, now to use it modify stNextPlayer function to fix our TODO comment
<pre>
function stNextPlayer() {
// Active next player OR end the trick and go to the next trick OR end the hand
if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('cardsontable') == 4) {
// This is the end of the trick
$cards_on_table = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation('cardsontable');
$best_value = 0;
$best_value_player_id = null;
$currentTrickColor = self::getGameStateValue('trickColor');
foreach ( $cards_on_table as $card ) {
// Note: type = card color
if ($card ['type'] == $currentTrickColor) {
if ($best_value_player_id === null || $card ['type_arg'] > $best_value) {
$best_value_player_id = $card ['location_arg']; // Note: location_arg = player who played this card on table
$best_value = $card ['type_arg']; // Note: type_arg = value of the card
}
}
}

// Active this player => he's the one who starts the next trick
$this->gamestate->changeActivePlayer( $best_value_player_id );

// Move all cards to "cardswon" of the given player
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation('cardsontable', 'cardswon', null, $best_value_player_id);

// Notify
// ... same code here as before
</pre>

The scoring rule in the studio example code is huge multi-page function, for this tutorial we will make simplier.
Lets score -1 point per heart and call it a day. And game will end when somebody goes -100 or below.

As UI goes for scoring, the main thing to update is the scoring on the mini boards represented by stars, also
we want to show that in the log.
In addition scoring can be shown in [[Game_interface_logic:_yourgamename.js#Scoring_dialogs|Scoring Dialog]] using tableWindow notification, but it is a tutorial on its own and you can do it as homework (it is part of original heart game).

In .js file we need to add one more subscription and notification handler:
dojo.subscribe( 'newScores', this, "notif_newScores" );
in setupNotifications

and
notif_newScores : function(notif) {
// Update players' scores
for ( var player_id in notif.args.newScores) {
this.scoreCtrl[player_id].toValue(notif.args.newScores[player_id]);
}
},
somewhere after. this.scoreCtrl is pre-existing object that shows the scoring and this function will update score values per player from notification argument

so in .game.php our stEndHand function will look like

<pre>
function stEndHand() {
// Count and score points, then end the game or go to the next hand.
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
// Gets all "hearts" + queen of spades

$player_to_points = array ();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$player_to_points [$player_id] = 0;
}
$cards = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation("cardswon");
foreach ( $cards as $card ) {
$player_id = $card ['location_arg'];
// Note: 2 = heart
if ($card ['type'] == 2) {
$player_to_points [$player_id] ++;
}
}
// Apply scores to player
foreach ( $player_to_points as $player_id => $points ) {
if ($points != 0) {
$sql = "UPDATE player SET player_score=player_score-$points WHERE player_id='$player_id'";
self::DbQuery($sql);
$heart_number = $player_to_points [$player_id];
self::notifyAllPlayers("points", clienttranslate('${player_name} gets ${nbr} hearts and looses ${nbr} points'), array (
'player_id' => $player_id,'player_name' => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'],
'nbr' => $heart_number ));
} else {
// No point lost (just notify)
self::notifyAllPlayers("points", clienttranslate('${player_name} did not get any hearts'), array (
'player_id' => $player_id,'player_name' => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'] ));
}
}
$newScores = self::getCollectionFromDb("SELECT player_id, player_score FROM player", true );
self::notifyAllPlayers( "newScores", '', array( 'newScores' => $newScores ) );

///// Test if this is the end of the game
foreach ( $newScores as $player_id => $score ) {
if ($score <= -100) {
// Trigger the end of the game !
$this->gamestate->nextState("endGame");
return;
}
}

$this->gamestate->nextState("nextHand");
}
</pre>

So it should more less work now, including end of game condition. Try to play it!

== Additional stuff ==

The following things were not implemented and can add them yourself by looking at the code of original hearts game:

* Remove debug code from setupNewGame to deal cards, cards are now dealt in stNewHand state handler
* Rule checking and rule enforcements in playCard function
* Start scoring with 100 points each and end when <= 0
* Fix scoring rules with Q of spades and 26 point reverse scoring
* First player one with 2 club
* Add progress handling
* Add statistics
* Add card exchange states
* Add game option to start with 75 points instead of 100

Your game mobile version

2019-08-17T18:14:37Z

Amadannabriona: /* Declare your interface minimum width */

Board Game Arena is now adaptated for Mobiles and Tablets too.

It is very easy to have a mobile version of the game you developed with BGA Studio. In fact, your game is probably already 100% playable on mobile.

However, to provide your players the best experience, you should follow the two piece of advice below.

== Declare your interface minimum width ==

By default, your game can run in a window of up to 740 pixels wide. Including the information in the right column (player's panel), it fits on a 1024px wide screen.

However, you can choose to declare that your game is able to run with a smaller width. This way, the game will appear much better on mobile screens and tablets.

For example, the Reversi board is only 540px wide. If we stay with the default width (740px), the game interface displayed on mobile will be too large and some space will be lost on the left and on the right. Consequently the Reversi board will appear very small on the mobile screen, and players will have to "pinch & zoom" to display it correctly.

To avoid that, we can specify that the game can be played with an interface with a minimum width of 540 pixels, by adding the following to '''gameinfos.inc.php''' :

// Game interface width range (pixels)
// Note: game interface = space on the left side, without the column on the right
'game_interface_width' => array(

// Minimum width
// default: 740
// maximum possible value: 740 (i.e. your game interface should fit with a 740px width, corresponding to a 1024px screen)
// minimum possible value: 320 (the lower the value you specify, the better the display is on mobile)
'min' => 540,

// Maximum width
// default: null (i.e. no limit, the game interface is as big as the player's screen allows).
// maximum possible value: unlimited
// minimum possible value: 740
'max' => null
),

And that's it! Now, BGA can choose the better display for your game interface, whatever the device.

'''Important'''

If you declare that your interface can run with a 540 pixels width, it must effectively run on an interface with 540 pixels width.

Note that this doesn't mean that your interface must ''always'' be 540 pixels width; you just have to make your interface fluid and/or use CSS media queries to fit any width.

Examples :

* On '''Can't Stop''', when the screen is too narrow, we move the dice on another position (below the main board) to fit within the width :

@media only screen and (max-width: 990px) {

#dicechoices {
left: 180px;
top: 530px;
}
#cantstop_wrap {
height: 900px;
width: 550px;
}
}

* On Seasons, we have some panels on the right of the board. On small screens, we display these panels below the board:

@media only screen and (max-width: 970px) {

#board {
float: none;
margin: auto;
}
.seasons_rightpanel {
margin-left: 0px;
}

}

Tip: on mobile, BGA displays player panels at the top of the page (instead of displaying them on the right). When doing this, BGA applies the CSS class "mobile_version" to the root HTML element with id "ebd-body". If you want you can use this CSS "mobile_version" class to optimize some of your game adaptations to this change. In the opposite, when the "normal" version is active, the CSS class "desktop_version" BGA applies the CSS class "desktop_version" to the root HTML element with id "ebd-body".

== Touchscreen compatibility ==

Most of your games should work with touchscreen devices without needing any changes.

Note: when your game is running on a touchscreen device, the global CSS class "touch-device" is added to the to the root HTML element with id "ebd-body" (and "notouch-device" is added for the opposite).

What may not work :
* ":hover" CSS switch. Because there is no mouse, ":hover" won't be triggered. This is not an issue unless it is needed to play the game. In addition, some touch devices consider that a short touch must trigger a ":hover" (and should apply corresponding CSS), which can block an interaction in your game. We advise you to explicitely disable ":hover" effects when your game is running on a touchscreen device (for ex. by adding ".notouch-device" as a prefix to all your CSS :hover rules).
* Mouseover events : like the previous one : if you associated Javascript events to "onmouseover" event, it won't work on tablets.
* Drag'n'drop : it won't work. To make it work, you should listen to "ontouchstart", "ontouchmove" and "ontouchend" event and trigger the same logic you already have for "onmousedown", "onmousemove" and "onmouseup". You should also make sure to stop the Javascript "ontouchmove" event (ex: dojo.stopEvent( evt ) ) during the drag n drop, otherwise the interface is going to scroll while drag'n'dropping.

Your game mobile version

2019-08-17T18:12:23Z

Amadannabriona:

Board Game Arena is now adaptated for Mobiles and Tablets too.

It is very easy to have a mobile version of the game you developed with BGA Studio. In fact, your game is probably already 100% playable on mobile.

However, to provide your players the best experience, you should follow the two piece of advice below.

== Declare your interface minimum width ==

By default, your game can run in a window of up to 740 pixels wide. Including the information in the right column (player's panel), it fits on a 1024px wide screen.

However, you can choose to declare that your game is able to run with a smaller width. This way, the game will appear much better on mobile screens and tablets.

For example, the Reversi board is only 540px wide. If we stay with the default width (740px), the game interface displayed on mobile will be too large and some space will be lost on the left and on the right. Consequently the Reversi board will appear very small on the mobile screen, and players will have to "pinch & zoom" to display it correctly.

To avoid that, we can specify that the game can be played with an interface with a minimum width of 540 pixels, by adding the following to '''gameinfos.inc.php''' :

// Game interface width range (pixels)
// Note: game interface = space on the left side, without the column on the right
'game_interface_width' => array(

// Minimum width
// default: 740
// maximum possible value: 740 (ie: your game interface should fit with a 740px width (correspond to a 1024px screen)
// minimum possible value: 320 (the lowest value you specify, the better the display is on mobile)
'min' => 540,

// Maximum width
// default: null (ie: no limit, the game interface is as big as the player's screen allows it).
// maximum possible value: unlimited
// minimum possible value: 740
'max' => null
),

And that's it! Now, BGA can choose the better display for your game interface, whatever the device.

'''Important'''

If you declare that your interface can run with a 540 pixels width, it must effectively run on an interface with 540 pixels width.

Note that this doesn't mean that your interface must ALWAYS be 540 pixels width: you just have to make your interface fluid and/or to use CSS media query to fit in any width.

Examples :

* On Can't Stop, when the screen is too narrow, we move the dices on another position (below the main board) to fit in the width :

@media only screen and (max-width: 990px) {

#dicechoices {
left: 180px;
top: 530px;
}
#cantstop_wrap {
height: 900px;
width: 550px;
}
}

* On Seasons, we have some panels on the right of the board. On small screens, we display these panels below the board:

@media only screen and (max-width: 970px) {

#board {
float: none;
margin: auto;
}
.seasons_rightpanel {
margin-left: 0px;
}

}

Tip: on mobile, BGA displays player panels at the top of the page (instead of displaying them on the right). When doing this, BGA applies the CSS class "mobile_version" to the root HTML element with id "ebd-body". If you want you can use this CSS "mobile_version" class to optimize some of your game adaptations to this change. In the opposite, when the "normal" version is active, the CSS class "desktop_version" BGA applies the CSS class "desktop_version" to the root HTML element with id "ebd-body".

== Touchscreen compatibility ==

Most of your games should work with touchscreen devices without needing any changes.

Note: when your game is running on a touchscreen device, the global CSS class "touch-device" is added to the to the root HTML element with id "ebd-body" (and "notouch-device" is added for the opposite).

What may not work :
* ":hover" CSS switch. Because there is no mouse, ":hover" won't be triggered. This is not an issue unless it is needed to play the game. In addition, some touch devices consider that a short touch must trigger a ":hover" (and should apply corresponding CSS), which can block an interaction in your game. We advise you to explicitely disable ":hover" effects when your game is running on a touchscreen device (for ex. by adding ".notouch-device" as a prefix to all your CSS :hover rules).
* Mouseover events : like the previous one : if you associated Javascript events to "onmouseover" event, it won't work on tablets.
* Drag'n'drop : it won't work. To make it work, you should listen to "ontouchstart", "ontouchmove" and "ontouchend" event and trigger the same logic you already have for "onmousedown", "onmousemove" and "onmouseup". You should also make sure to stop the Javascript "ontouchmove" event (ex: dojo.stopEvent( evt ) ) during the drag n drop, otherwise the interface is going to scroll while drag'n'dropping.

Tutorial hearts

2019-08-17T02:01:38Z

Amadannabriona: /* Update game infos and box graphics */

== Introduction ==

Using this tutorial, you can build a complete working game on the BGA environment: Hearts.

Before you read this tutorial, you must:
* Read the overall presentations of the BGA Framework ([[Studio|see here]]).
* Know the rules for Hearts
* Some-what know the languages used on BGA: PHP, SQL, HTML, CSS, Javascript
* Setup you development environment [http://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/First_steps_with_BGA_Studio First Steps with BGA Studio]
* As part of setup you have to have access to your ftp home folder in studio, which would have 'hearts' game source code. We will be using some resources of this game in this tutorial, so copy it over to local disk if you have not done so.

If you stuck of have question about this tutorial post on [https://forum.boardgamearena.com/viewforum.php?f=12 BGA Developers forum]

== Create your first game ==

If you have not already, you have to create a project in BGA Studio. For this tutorial you can create a project heartsYOURNAME where
YOURNAME is your developer login name. You can also re-use the project you have created for the "First Steps" tutorial above.
With the initial skeleton of code provided, you can already start a game from the BGA Studio.

1. Find and start the game in turn-based mode with 4 players. Make sure it works.

2. Modify the text in heartsYOURNAME_heartsYOURNAME.tpl, reload the page in the browser and make sure your ftp sync works as expected.
Note: if you have not setup auto-sync do it now, manually copying files is a no-starter.

3. Express stop from settings menu (the gear icon).

<i>Note: please do '''not''' use the hearts project code as a base. This tutorial assumes you started with a TEMPLATE project with no prior modifications. Using the hearts project as a base will be very confusing and you won't be able to follow all the steps.
</i>

== Hook version control system ==

For a real game, or even for this tutorial, we recommend committing the code to version control right from the start. You are going to find yourself in a situation where the game doesn't even start anymore and no way of debugging it, unless you have a way to revert. That is where version control becomes very handy. If you are not familiar with version control (e.g. [https://git-scm.com/docs/gittutorial git]) then at least back up your files after each major change. Start now.

Code for this tutorial available is on github: https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla

Different revisions represent different steps along the process, starting from original template to a complete game.

== Update game infos and box graphics ==

Even it does not nothing yet, always start by making sure the game looks decent in the game selector, meaning it has nice box graphics and its information is correct. For that we need to edit [[Game_meta-information: gameinfos.inc.php|gameinfos.inc.php]].

For a real game, you would go to [http://boardgamegeek.com BoardGameGeek], find the game, and use the information from BGG to fill in the gameinfos.

So let's do that. Find "hearts" on BoardGameGeek. (Hint: Original release 1850 :))

You can fill in the year of publishing and bgg id, put ''Public Domain'' under publisher, and a publisher id of 171 for public domain. And as designer and author you can just put your own name just for fun. Set number of players to 4.

// Players configuration that can be played (ex: 2 to 4 players)
'players' => array( 4 ),

The next step is to replace '''game_box.png''' with nicer images. For this tutorial, just copy all the files from the img/ folder of the hearts/ template into the img/ directory of your project. Replace publisher.png with a nicer image: for example https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-sharedcode/blob/master/img/publisher.png.

Details about images can be found here: [[Game art: img directory]].

Now an important step: you have to LOAD these files into the Studio website through the control panel. So go to Control Panel -> Manage Games -> heartsYOURNAME
and press Reload for 'Reload game informations' and 'Reload game box image'

Now try to start the game again. If you somehow introduced a syntax error in the gameinfos file it may not work (the game won't start).
Always use the "Express Start" button to start the game. You should see a standard state prompt from the template. You should see 4 players on the right: testdude0 .. testdude3.
To switch between them press the red arrow button near their names, it will open another tab. This way you don't need to login and logout from multiple accounts!

<i>Note: if you had run the game before with less than 4 players there is a bug that will prevent you from running it with 4 only (if you did not run it before or run it with 4 players as instructed stop reading this note), to workaround revert back to original players array (i.e. 1,2,3,4), reload game options, then create a table with 4 players, exit that game table, then change gameoptions to 4 only as above, reload game options, create table again.</i>

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/4b3a73eeb5acae961ade18473af119e8ce8d1a8f]

== Layout and Graphics ==

In this section we will do graphics of the game, and main layout of the game.

First copy a sprite with cards image from hearts img/cards.jpg into img/ folder of your project. Project hearts is mounted to your home directory on bga server.

Edit .tpl to add some divs to represent player table and hand area

<pre>
<div id="myhand_wrap" class="whiteblock">
<h3>My Hand</h3>
<div id="myhand">
</div>
</div>
</pre>

If you refresh you should see now white area with My Hand title.

[[File:Heartsla-tpl2.png]]

Now lets add a card into the hand, just so you can feel it. Edit .tpl and a playertablecard div inside a hand div
<pre>
...
<div id="myhand">
<div class="playertablecard"></div>
</div>
...
</pre>

Edit .css file
<pre>
.playertablecard {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
margin-top: 5px;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
background-image: url('img/cards.jpg'); /* temp hack to see it */
}
</pre>

When you edit CSS remember that you have to FORCE-reload page, i.e. Ctrl-F5, otherwise its cached.
<i>Same when you change existing graphics files</i>.

You should see this:

[[File:Heartsla-tpl3.png]]

Awesome! Now lets do the rest of layout.

There are few ways of how html could have been generated, you could have start with nothing and generate
all by java script. Or you could have started with complete game markup in html and make java script just hide and move pieces around. BGA framework provides also a third way which is mix of both plus template engine to generate HTML using php. So lets do that.

Change .tpl file to have this inside
<pre>
<div id="playertables">


<div class="playertable whiteblock playertable_{DIR}">
<div class="playertablename" style="color:#{PLAYER_COLOR}">
{PLAYER_NAME}
</div>
<div class="playertablecard" id="playertablecard_{PLAYER_ID}">
</div>
</div>


</div>

<div id="myhand_wrap" class="whiteblock">
<h3>{MY_HAND}</h3>
<div id="myhand">
</div>
</div>
</pre>

What we did is we added "block" player, it is marked up using html comments. {VAR} notation is used
to inject variables and
<pre>

inside

</pre>
effectively allows us to do template loops.

In .view.php insert this code after 'Place your code below' comment

<pre>
$template = self::getGameName() . "_" . self::getGameName();

$directions = array( 'S', 'W', 'N', 'E' );

// this will inflate our player block with actual players data
$this->page->begin_block($template, "player");
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $info ) {
$dir = array_shift($directions);
$this->page->insert_block("player", array ("PLAYER_ID" => $player_id,
"PLAYER_NAME" => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'],
"PLAYER_COLOR" => $players [$player_id] ['player_color'],
"DIR" => $dir ));
}
// this will make our My Hand text translatable
$this->tpl['MY_HAND'] = self::_("My hand");
</pre>

What it does is for each player we have it will replicate the html between  and  tags, substituting the variable denoted by {XXX}
with the values you provide. The DIR variable in this case we pulling from directions array (where array_shift will take first element and remove it from the array).

Reload. If everything went well you should see this:

[[File:Heartsla-tpl4.png]]

These are "tableau" areas for 4 players plus My hand visible only to one player.
They not exactly how we wanted them to be because we did not edit .css yet.

Now edit .css, add these lines after import before our previous definition

<pre>
/** Table layout **/

#playertables {
position: relative;
width: 710px;
height: 340px;
}

.playertablename {
font-weight: bold;
}

.playertable {
position: absolute;
text-align: center;
width: 180px;
height: 130px;
}

.playertable_N {
left: 50%;
top: 0px;
margin-left: -90px; /* half of 180 */
}
.playertable_S {
left: 50%;
bottom: 0px;
margin-left: -90px; /* half of 180 */
}
.playertable_W {
left: 0px;
top: 50%;
margin-top: -55px; /* half of 130 */
}
.playertable_E {
right: 0px;
top: 50%;
margin-top: -55px; /* half of 130 */
}
</pre>

Now you force Reload and you should see this:
[[File:Heartsla-tpl5.png]]

This is almost all we need for graphics and layout, there are few tweaks left there but lets do some more heavy lifting now.

<i>Note: if you did not see changes you may have not force reloaded, force means you use Ctrl+F5 or Cltr+Shift-R, if you don't "force" browser will use cached version of .css and images! Which is not what you just changed</i>

<i>Another Note: In general if you have auto-sync you don't need to reload if you change game.php file, you need normal reload if you change js, and force reload for css and images. If you changed state machine or database you likely need to restart the game.</i>

== Game Interface JS Stock ==

BGA framework provides few out of the box classes to deal with cards. The client side
contains class called [[Stock]] and it can be used for any dynamic html 'pieces' management that uses
common sprite image. On the server side we will use [[Deck]] class which we discuss later.

If you open cards.jpg in an image viewer you can see that it is a "sprite" image - 13x4 grid of images stitched together,
which is very efficient way to transport images. So we will use Stock class to mark up these images and create
"card" divs for us.

At first, we need to add "ebg/stock" as a dependency in the hearts.js file:
<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <==== HERE
],
</pre>

Then add this to js contructor, this will define size of our cards
<pre>
console.log('hearts constructor');
this.cardwidth = 72;
this.cardheight = 96;
</pre>

The stock is initialized in Javascript "setup" method like this:
<pre>
// TODO: Set up your game interface here, according to "gamedatas"

// Player hand
this.playerHand = new ebg.stock(); // new stock object for hand
this.playerHand.create( this, $('myhand'), this.cardwidth, this.cardheight );
</pre>

As parameters of the "create" method, we provided the width/height of an item (a card), and the container div "myhand" - which is an id of "div" element from our .tpl file representing player hand.

Then, we must tell the stock what are the items it is going to display during its life: the 52 cards of a standard card game from "CSS sprite" image named "cards.jpg" with all the cards arranged in 4 rows and 13 columns.

Here's how we tell stock what are the items type to display:
<pre>
this.playerHand.image_items_per_row = 13; // 13 images per row

// Create cards types:
for (var color = 1; color <= 4; color++) {
for (var value = 2; value <= 14; value++) {
// Build card type id
var card_type_id = this.getCardUniqueId(color, value);
this.playerHand.addItemType(card_type_id, card_type_id, g_gamethemeurl + 'img/cards.jpg', card_type_id);
}
}
</pre>

And add this function to utilities section
<pre>
// Get card unique identifier based on its color and value
getCardUniqueId : function(color, value) {
return (color - 1) * 13 + (value - 2);
},
</pre>

Explanations:
* At first, we tell the stock component that our CSS sprite contains 13 items per row. This way, it can find the correct image for each card type id.
* Then for the 4x13 cards, we call "addItemType" method that create the type. The arguments are the type id, the weight of the card (for sorting purpose), the URL of our CSS sprite, and the position of our card image in the CSS sprite. It happens to be the same number in our case.

Note: we need to generate a unique ID for each type of card based on its color and value. For that we create a function "getCardUniqueId". The type is unique identification of the TYPE of the card, i.e. queen of spades encoded in the integer, if our deck have 2 standard card decks we would have had 2 queen of spades, they would shared same type, same image but will have different ids. NOTE: its unfortunate that they named this 'getCardUniqueId', it should have been 'getCardUniqueType', because it really not an id, but a TYPE of card. The type of the item either should be reversible function of its properties (i.e. kind of suite * 13 + value) or just enumerator described in material.inc.php. In this specific case its a synthetic type id, which also same as number of the card in the sprite image (i.e. if you enumerate each image in sprite going left to right, then top to bottom).

Now lets add the 5 of Heart to player's hand just for fun (this code will go in setup method after types initialization):

<pre>
// 2 - hears, 5 is 5, and 42 is card id, it normally would come from db
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId( this.getCardUniqueId( 2, 5 ), 42 );
</pre>

This will add card with id 42 and type 16 ( (2-1)*13+(5-2)=16 ).

Note that number 16 would not be something you can see in database, Deck database will have separate field for type and type_arg where type is suite and type_arg is number, so its not the same thing, but you can use same formula to convert. Number 42 on the other hand would be id field in database. But we get to database in the later section.

If you reload now you should see 5 of hearts in "your hand".

Stock control can handle clicking on items and forms the selection, you can immediately react to selection
or you can query it later, for example when user presses some other button.

Lets hook it up, add this in setup method in .js file, after this.playerHand is initialised

dojo.connect( this.playerHand, 'onChangeSelection', this, 'onPlayerHandSelectionChanged' );

Then find Player's action comment section and add handler after the comment
<pre>
onPlayerHandSelectionChanged : function() {
var items = this.playerHand.getSelectedItems();

if (items.length > 0) {
if (this.checkAction('playCard', true)) {
// Can play a card

var card_id = items[0].id;
console.log("on playCard "+card_id);

this.playerHand.unselectAll();
} else if (this.checkAction('giveCards')) {
// Can give cards => let the player select some cards
} else {
this.playerHand.unselectAll();
}
}
},
</pre>

The function name of the handler if 4th parameter on dojo.connect function, if you misspelled it will be some unpredictable effects.

Now if you reload, open js Console (F12), then click on card in My Hand and you should see
on playCard 42
printed on the console

== Game Database and Game Initialisation ==

Next step you want to design game database and setup new game (on server side).
For that we need to a) modify database schema to add our cards data b) add some global "variables" into
existing globals table.

To modify schema first exit you existing game(s). Open dbmodel.sql file and uncomment card table creation

<pre>
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `card` (
`card_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`card_type` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_type_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
`card_location` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_location_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`card_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;
</pre>

This is "card" table which would be managed by Deck php class.

In addition we want a little piece of information in the players table:

-- add info about first player
ALTER TABLE `player` ADD `player_first` BOOLEAN NOT NULL DEFAULT '0';

Not sure why they put this into player table, we could have global db variable to hold first player as easily.
But I am just following existing code more-less.

Next we finally get into .game.php class, where the main logic and db interaction would be. Find php constructor which should be
function __construct( )
This is first function in a file. Add this code to constructor.
<pre>
parent::__construct();
self::initGameStateLabels( array(
"currentHandType" => 10,
"trickColor" => 11,
"alreadyPlayedHearts" => 12,
) );

$this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
$this->cards->init( "card" );
</pre>

Here we are initializing three "Game State Variables" which are variable stored in database. They are integers.
It must start with no lower then 10 since the others ones are reserved. These values are stored by numeric id's
in the database, but in the php we associate them with string labels for convenience of access. The variables are "trickColor" - numbers from 1 to 4 that map to card suit (not sure why its called color maybe its translation from french); "alreadyPlayedHearts" - is boolean flag (well 0 or 1) indication either somebody use hearts on the trick; "currentHandType" - stores the value to indicate who to give cards during exchange.

Next 2 lines are creating $this->cards object and associating it with "card" table in the the database.

<i>If we called db table 'foo' instead of 'card' the last statement would have been $this->cards->init( "foo" )</i>

At this point I would start a new game and make sure it starts, then exit.

<i>
If you made a mistake
in .sql or php constructor game won't start and good luck debugging it (that is why it important to check
once in a while to make sure it still starts while you remember what you have changed)
</i>

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/e3a049257b592ff6167688d4d344f8a83d349b08]

Now we can go to game initialization setupNewGame in game.php, this method is called once when table is created.

In your template project you should have code that deals with player table, just leave it as is. Start inserting the
other code after "Start the game initialization" comment
<pre>
// Init global values with their initial values

// Note: hand types: 0 = give 3 cards to player on the left
// 1 = give 3 cards to player on the right
// 2 = give 3 cards to player on tthe front
// 3 = keep cards
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'currentHandType', 0 );

// Set current trick color to zero (= no trick color)
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'trickColor', 0 );

// Mark if we already played some heart during this hand
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'alreadyPlayedHearts', 0 );
</pre>

Here we initialized all the globals to 0.

Next is to create our cards in the database. We have one deck of cards so its pretty simple
<pre>
// Create cards
$cards = array ();
foreach ( $this->colors as $color_id => $color ) {
// spade, heart, diamond, club
for ($value = 2; $value <= 14; $value ++) {
// 2, 3, 4, ... K, A
$cards [] = array ('type' => $color_id,'type_arg' => $value,'nbr' => 1 );
}
}

$this->cards->createCards( $cards, 'deck' );
</pre>

This code that will create one of each card. But don't run it yet, because we missing $this->colors.
So we have state of the game in the database, but there is some static game information which never changes,
this information should be stored in material.inc.php and this way it can be accessed from all .php files.
We will edit this file now by adding these lines

<pre>
$this->colors = array(
1 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('spade'),
'nametr' => self::_('spade') ),
2 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('heart'),
'nametr' => self::_('heart') ),
3 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('club'),
'nametr' => self::_('club') ),
4 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('diamond'),
'nametr' => self::_('diamond') )
);

$this->values_label = array(
2 =>'2',
3 => '3',
4 => '4',
5 => '5',
6 => '6',
7 => '7',
8 => '8',
9 => '9',
10 => '10',
11 => clienttranslate('J'),
12 => clienttranslate('Q'),
13 => clienttranslate('K'),
14 => clienttranslate('A')
);
</pre>

Where $this->colors will define Suit labels and $this->values_label defines value labels.
If you noticed we have two of each label for suits. This is because we need sometimes translated values on php
side and sometimes we don't. In this case nametr will return a translated value right in php, which is only usefull when you throw exceptions to show right strings. If you passing value to client via notification you should always
use untranslated strings, and client will translate it. 'clienttranslate' marks the value for translation but does not actually change it for php. For more about this wonderful translation stuff see [[Translations]] section.

== Full game model synchronisation ==

Now at any point in the game we need to make sure that database information can be reflected back in UI, so we fix getAllDatas function
to return all possible data we need to reconstruct the game. This is in the game.php file. The template for getAllDatas already taking care of player info, lets just
add hand and tableau data before we return result.

<pre>
// Cards in player hand
$result['hand'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'hand', $current_player_id );

// Cards played on the table
$result['cardsontable'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'cardsontable' );
</pre>

Now on the client side we should display this data, so in your .js file in setup function (which is the receiver of getAllDatas) add replace our hack of putting hearts of 5 directly into hand with:

<pre>
// Cards in player's hand
for ( var i in this.gamedatas.hand) {
var card = this.gamedatas.hand[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId(this.getCardUniqueId(color, value), card.id);
}

// Cards played on table
for (i in this.gamedatas.cardsontable) {
var card = this.gamedatas.cardsontable[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
var player_id = card.location_arg;
this.playCardOnTable(player_id, color, value, card.id);
}
</pre>

This should show hand and tableau cards now, except we are missing playCardOnTable function. So find getCardUniqueId function which
should be in utilities section and add this after

<pre>
playCardOnTable : function(player_id, color, value, card_id) {
// player_id => direction
dojo.place(this.format_block('jstpl_cardontable', {
x : this.cardwidth * (value - 2),
y : this.cardheight * (color - 1),
player_id : player_id
}), 'playertablecard_' + player_id);

if (player_id != this.player_id) {
// Some opponent played a card
// Move card from player panel
this.placeOnObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'overall_player_board_' + player_id);
} else {
// You played a card. If it exists in your hand, move card from there and remove
// corresponding item

if ($('myhand_item_' + card_id)) {
this.placeOnObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'myhand_item_' + card_id);
this.playerHand.removeFromStockById(card_id);
}
}

// In any case: move it to its final destination
this.slideToObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'playertablecard_' + player_id).play();
},
</pre>

For that to work we also need to add card temple in .tpl file
<pre>
// Javascript HTML templates

var jstpl_cardontable = '<div class="cardontable" id="cardontable_${player_id}" style="background-position:-${x}px -${y}px">\
</div>';
</pre>

What this does is basically it creates another card object, because if it is not our card its not in our hand (stock) so
we have to create it out of thin air. Technique to do that is to implode a js template object defined in .tpl file with some
parameters, which will just basically create a "div" string (yes you could have used string concatenation but it would not be fancy).
Now dojo.place places it (the div) on top of placeholder. Now we have an object with id of 'cardontable_' + player_id, depending
on who is playing it we either place it on player miniboard or in hand (and remove from hand stock). Then we animate the card move.

We also should fix our .css file now to add style for cardontable and REMOVE background for playertablecard which really is a placeholder div and not a card (don't miss the remove step it will be all screwy if you miss it).

<pre>
.playertablecard {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
margin-top: 5px;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
/* we remove background-image here */
}

/*** cards on table ***/

.cardontable {
position: absolute;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
background-image: url('img/cards.jpg');
}
</pre>

Now to test that it actually works lets deal cards to players during game initialization:

Add this after createCards in setupNewGame function in the game.php file
<pre>
// Shuffle deck
$this->cards->shuffle('deck');
// Deal 13 cards to each players
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards(13, 'deck', $player_id);
}
</pre>

Now when you start the game you should see 13 cards in your hand!

We just need to hook-up clicking on card and test if our playCardOnTable works.

Find onPlayerHandSelectionChanged function in the JS file, we should have logging there like console.log("on playCard "+card_id);
So after that insert this:
<pre>
console.log("on playCard "+card_id);
// type is (color - 1) * 13 + (value - 2)
var type = items[0].type;
var color = Math.floor(type / 13) + 1;
var value = type % 13 + 2;

this.playCardOnTable(this.player_id,color,value,card_id);
</pre>
Note: this code is for testing we will replace it with server interaction after we test it.

Now if you force reload (because we changed .css before) you should be able to click on card from you have and see it moving,
you can click on few cards this way. When you done enjoying the animation, press F5 to get your hand back.

[[File:Heartsla-sync.png]]

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/01d4e2f595fd14c2adcc97a957d21bb2766f78a8]

== State Machine ==

Now we need to create a game state machine. So the states are:

* Cards are dealt to all players (lets call it "newHand")
* Player is selected who will start a new trick ("newTrick")
* Player start or respond to played card ("playerTurn")
* Game control is passed to next player or trick is ended ("nextPlayer")
* End of hand processing (scoring and check for end of game) ("nextHand")

In addition players can exchange cards so we need two more states for that but we will skip it for now.

The state handling spread across 4 files, so you have to make sure all pieces are connected together.
The state machine states.php defines all the states, and function handlers on php side in a form of string,
and if any of these functions are not implemented it would be very hard to debug because it will break in random places.

So .states.php

<pre>
$machinestates = array(

// The initial state. Please do not modify.
1 => array(
"name" => "gameSetup",
"description" => clienttranslate("Game setup"),
"type" => "manager",
"action" => "stGameSetup",
"transitions" => array( "" => 20 )
),

/// New hand
20 => array(
"name" => "newHand",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNewHand",
"updateGameProgression" => true,
"transitions" => array( "" => 30 )
),

// Trick

30 => array(
"name" => "newTrick",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNewTrick",
"transitions" => array( "" => 31 )
),
31 => array(
"name" => "playerTurn",
"description" => clienttranslate('${actplayer} must play a card'),
"descriptionmyturn" => clienttranslate('${you} must play a card'),
"type" => "activeplayer",
"possibleactions" => array( "playCard" ),
"transitions" => array( "playCard" => 32 )
),
32 => array(
"name" => "nextPlayer",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNextPlayer",
"transitions" => array( "nextPlayer" => 31, "nextTrick" => 30, "endHand" => 40 )
),

// End of the hand (scoring, etc...)
40 => array(
"name" => "endHand",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stEndHand",
"transitions" => array( "nextHand" => 20, "endGame" => 99 )
),

// Final state.
// Please do not modify.
99 => array(
"name" => "gameEnd",
"description" => clienttranslate("End of game"),
"type" => "manager",
"action" => "stGameEnd",
"args" => "argGameEnd"
)

);
</pre>

The full details about what these fields are you can find in [[Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php]].

But basically we have Player states, in which human player has to perform an "action" by pressing some button in UI or selecting some game item, which will trigger js handler, which will do ajax call to server into API define
by .action.php file. All functions in this file are API between client and server and has very simple
and repetitive structure. In this case there is only two action player can do - play a card or pass cards to other player. So these 2 functions go into .action.php file, we will only define one now since we not implementing card passing states yet:

<pre>
public function playCard() {
self::setAjaxMode();
$card_id = self::getArg("id", AT_posint, true);
$this->game->playCard($card_id);
self::ajaxResponse();
}
</pre>

Now to make it run we have define all handler functions that we referenced in states, which are - one function for state arguments argGiveCards, 4 functions for robot states (where game performs some action)
and 1 function for player actions handling.
Find 'Game state arguments' section and paste this in:
<pre>
function argGiveCards() {
return array ();
}
</pre>

This normally pass some parameters to states, but we don't need anything yet. It good to have placeholder there anyway, so we can fix it later.
Important: even when its a stub this function must return array not scalar.

Lets do stubs for other functions, find game state actions section in .game.php file and insert these
<pre>
function stNewHand() {
// Take back all cards (from any location => null) to deck
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation(null, "deck");
$this->cards->shuffle('deck');
// Deal 13 cards to each players
// Create deck, shuffle it and give 13 initial cards
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards(13, 'deck', $player_id);
// Notify player about his cards
self::notifyPlayer($player_id, 'newHand', '', array ('cards' => $cards ));
}
self::setGameStateValue('alreadyPlayedHearts', 0);
$this->gamestate->nextState("");
}

function stNewTrick() {
// New trick: active the player who wins the last trick, or the player who own the club-2 card
// Reset trick color to 0 (= no color)
self::setGameStateInitialValue('trickColor', 0);
$this->gamestate->nextState();
}

function stNextPlayer() {
// Active next player OR end the trick and go to the next trick OR end the hand
if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('cardsontable') == 4) {
// This is the end of the trick
// Move all cards to "cardswon" of the given player
$best_value_player_id = self::activeNextPlayer(); // TODO figure out winner of trick
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation('cardsontable', 'cardswon', null, $best_value_player_id);

if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('hand') == 0) {
// End of the hand
$this->gamestate->nextState("endHand");
} else {
// End of the trick
$this->gamestate->nextState("nextTrick");
}
} else {
// Standard case (not the end of the trick)
// => just active the next player
$player_id = self::activeNextPlayer();
self::giveExtraTime($player_id);
$this->gamestate->nextState('nextPlayer');
}
}

function stEndHand() {
$this->gamestate->nextState("nextHand");
}

</pre>
Important: All state actions game or player must end with state transition (or thrown exception). Also make sure its ONLY one state transition,
if you accidentally fall though after state transition and do another one it will be a real mess and head scratching for long time.

Now find 'player actions' section and paste this code there
<pre>
function playCard($card_id) {
self::checkAction("playCard");
$player_id = self::getActivePlayerId();
throw new BgaUserException(self::_("Not implemented: ") . "$player_id plays $card_id");
}
</pre>
We won't implement it yet but throw an exception which we will see if interaction is working properly

Now the game should start but it would not be any different then before because we have to implement actual interactions.
Its good to check if it still working though (and if it was running before you have to exit because we changed state machine and normally it will break stuff)

== Client - Server interactions ==

Now to implement things for real we have hook UI actions to ajax calls, and process notifications send by server.
So previously we hooked playCardOnTable right into js handler which caused client animation, in real game its a two
step operation. When user clicks on game element js client sends an ajax call to server, server processes it and updates database, server sends
notification in response, client hooks animations to server notification.

So in .js code replace onPlayerHandSelectionChanged with
<pre>
onPlayerHandSelectionChanged : function() {
var items = this.playerHand.getSelectedItems();

if (items.length > 0) {
var action = 'playCard';
if (this.checkAction(action, true)) {
// Can play a card
var card_id = items[0].id;
this.ajaxcall("/" + this.game_name + "/" + this.game_name + "/" + action + ".html", {
id : card_id,
lock : true
}, this, function(result) {
}, function(is_error) {
});

this.playerHand.unselectAll();
} else if (this.checkAction('giveCards')) {
// Can give cards => let the player select some cards
} else {
this.playerHand.unselectAll();
}
}
},
</pre>

Now when you click on card you should get a server response: Not implemented...

Lets implement it, in .game.php
<pre>
function playCard($card_id) {
self::checkAction("playCard");
$player_id = self::getActivePlayerId();
$this->cards->moveCard($card_id, 'cardsontable', $player_id);
// XXX check rules here
$currentCard = $this->cards->getCard($card_id);
// And notify
self::notifyAllPlayers('playCard', clienttranslate('${player_name} plays ${value_displayed} ${color_displayed}'), array (
'i18n' => array ('color_displayed','value_displayed' ),'card_id' => $card_id,'player_id' => $player_id,
'player_name' => self::getActivePlayerName(),'value' => $currentCard ['type_arg'],
'value_displayed' => $this->values_label [$currentCard ['type_arg']],'color' => $currentCard ['type'],
'color_displayed' => $this->colors [$currentCard ['type']] ['name'] ));
// Next player
$this->gamestate->nextState('playCard');
}
</pre>

We get the card from client, we move it to the tableau (moveCard is hooked to database directly, its part of deck class),
we notify all players and we change state. What we missing here is bunch of checks (rule enforcements), we will add it later.

Interesting part about this notify is that we use i18n array for string that needs to be translated by client, so
they sent as English text in notification, then client has to know which parameters needs translating.

On the client side .js we have to implement a notification handler to do the animation

<pre>
setupNotifications : function() {
console.log('notifications subscriptions setup');

dojo.subscribe('newHand', this, "notif_newHand");
dojo.subscribe('playCard', this, "notif_playCard");

},

notif_newHand : function(notif) {
// We received a new full hand of 13 cards.
this.playerHand.removeAll();

for ( var i in notif.args.cards) {
var card = notif.args.cards[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId(this.getCardUniqueId(color, value), card.id);
}
},

notif_playCard : function(notif) {
// Play a card on the table
this.playCardOnTable(notif.args.player_id, notif.args.color, notif.args.value, notif.args.card_id);
},
</pre>

Now it actually works through the server when you click on card - the move is recorded. If you testing it now you will notice
after trick is done all cards remains on the table, but if you press F5 they would disappear, this is because
we updated database to pick-up the cards but did not send notification about it, so we need to send notification about it
and have a handler for it

So in .game.php file add notification in stNextPlayer function after moveAllCardsInLocation call:

<pre>
// Notify
// Note: we use 2 notifications here in order we can pause the display during the first notification
// before we move all cards to the winner (during the second)
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'trickWin', clienttranslate('${player_name} wins the trick'), array(
'player_id' => $best_value_player_id,
'player_name' => $players[ $best_value_player_id ]['player_name']
) );
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'giveAllCardsToPlayer','', array(
'player_id' => $best_value_player_id
) );
</pre>

And in .js file add 2 more notification handlers.

This is to subscribe in setupNotifications function
<pre>
dojo.subscribe( 'trickWin', this, "notif_trickWin" );
this.notifqueue.setSynchronous( 'trickWin', 1000 );
dojo.subscribe( 'giveAllCardsToPlayer', this, "notif_giveAllCardsToPlayer" );
</pre>

And this are handlers
<pre>
notif_trickWin : function(notif) {
// We do nothing here (just wait in order players can view the 4 cards played before they're gone.
},
notif_giveAllCardsToPlayer : function(notif) {
// Move all cards on table to given table, then destroy them
var winner_id = notif.args.player_id;
for ( var player_id in this.gamedatas.players) {
var anim = this.slideToObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'overall_player_board_' + winner_id);
dojo.connect(anim, 'onEnd', function(node) {
dojo.destroy(node);
});
anim.play();
}
},
</pre>

So 'trickWin' notification does not do much except it will delay the processing of next notification by 1 second (1000 ms)
and it will log the message (that happens independent of what handler does).
<i>Note: if on the other hand you don't want to log but what what to do something else send empty message</i>

Now after the trick you see all cards move the "player's stash".

== Scoring and End of game handling ==

Now we should calculate scoring and for that we need to actually track who wins the trick.
Trick is won by the player with highest card (no trump). We just need to remember what is trick suite.
For which we will use state variable 'trickColor' which we already conveniently created.

In .game.php file find playCard function and add this before notify functions
$currentTrickColor = self::getGameStateValue( 'trickColor' ) ;
if( $currentTrickColor == 0 )
self::setGameStateValue( 'trickColor', $currentCard['type'] );

This will make sure we remember first suit being played, now to use it modify stNextPlayer function to fix our TODO comment
<pre>
function stNextPlayer() {
// Active next player OR end the trick and go to the next trick OR end the hand
if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('cardsontable') == 4) {
// This is the end of the trick
$cards_on_table = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation('cardsontable');
$best_value = 0;
$best_value_player_id = null;
$currentTrickColor = self::getGameStateValue('trickColor');
foreach ( $cards_on_table as $card ) {
// Note: type = card color
if ($card ['type'] == $currentTrickColor) {
if ($best_value_player_id === null || $card ['type_arg'] > $best_value) {
$best_value_player_id = $card ['location_arg']; // Note: location_arg = player who played this card on table
$best_value = $card ['type_arg']; // Note: type_arg = value of the card
}
}
}

// Active this player => he's the one who starts the next trick
$this->gamestate->changeActivePlayer( $best_value_player_id );

// Move all cards to "cardswon" of the given player
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation('cardsontable', 'cardswon', null, $best_value_player_id);

// Notify
// ... same code here as before
</pre>

The scoring rule in the studio example code is huge multi-page function, for this tutorial we will make simplier.
Lets score -1 point per heart and call it a day. And game will end when somebody goes -100 or below.

As UI goes for scoring, the main thing to update is the scoring on the mini boards represented by stars, also
we want to show that in the log.
In addition scoring can be shown in [[Game_interface_logic:_yourgamename.js#Scoring_dialogs|Scoring Dialog]] using tableWindow notification, but it is a tutorial on its own and you can do it as homework (it is part of original heart game).

In .js file we need to add one more subscription and notification handler:
dojo.subscribe( 'newScores', this, "notif_newScores" );
in setupNotifications

and
notif_newScores : function(notif) {
// Update players' scores
for ( var player_id in notif.args.newScores) {
this.scoreCtrl[player_id].toValue(notif.args.newScores[player_id]);
}
},
somewhere after. this.scoreCtrl is pre-existing object that shows the scoring and this function will update score values per player from notification argument

so in .game.php our stEndHand function will look like

<pre>
function stEndHand() {
// Count and score points, then end the game or go to the next hand.
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
// Gets all "hearts" + queen of spades

$player_to_points = array ();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$player_to_points [$player_id] = 0;
}
$cards = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation("cardswon");
foreach ( $cards as $card ) {
$player_id = $card ['location_arg'];
// Note: 2 = heart
if ($card ['type'] == 2) {
$player_to_points [$player_id] ++;
}
}
// Apply scores to player
foreach ( $player_to_points as $player_id => $points ) {
if ($points != 0) {
$sql = "UPDATE player SET player_score=player_score-$points WHERE player_id='$player_id'";
self::DbQuery($sql);
$heart_number = $player_to_points [$player_id];
self::notifyAllPlayers("points", clienttranslate('${player_name} gets ${nbr} hearts and looses ${nbr} points'), array (
'player_id' => $player_id,'player_name' => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'],
'nbr' => $heart_number ));
} else {
// No point lost (just notify)
self::notifyAllPlayers("points", clienttranslate('${player_name} did not get any hearts'), array (
'player_id' => $player_id,'player_name' => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'] ));
}
}
$newScores = self::getCollectionFromDb("SELECT player_id, player_score FROM player", true );
self::notifyAllPlayers( "newScores", '', array( 'newScores' => $newScores ) );

///// Test if this is the end of the game
foreach ( $newScores as $player_id => $score ) {
if ($score <= -100) {
// Trigger the end of the game !
$this->gamestate->nextState("endGame");
return;
}
}

$this->gamestate->nextState("nextHand");
}
</pre>

So it should more less work now, including end of game condition. Try to play it!

== Additional stuff ==

The following things were not implemented and can add them yourself by looking at the code of original hearts game:

* Remove debug code from setupNewGame to deal cards, cards are now dealt in stNewHand state handler
* Rule checking and rule enforcements in playCard function
* Start scoring with 100 points each and end when <= 0
* Fix scoring rules with Q of spades and 26 point reverse scoring
* First player one with 2 club
* Add progress handling
* Add statistics
* Add card exchange states
* Add game option to start with 75 points instead of 100

Tutorial hearts

2019-08-17T01:52:52Z

Amadannabriona: /* Update game infos and box graphics */

== Introduction ==

Using this tutorial, you can build a complete working game on the BGA environment: Hearts.

Before you read this tutorial, you must:
* Read the overall presentations of the BGA Framework ([[Studio|see here]]).
* Know the rules for Hearts
* Some-what know the languages used on BGA: PHP, SQL, HTML, CSS, Javascript
* Setup you development environment [http://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/First_steps_with_BGA_Studio First Steps with BGA Studio]
* As part of setup you have to have access to your ftp home folder in studio, which would have 'hearts' game source code. We will be using some resources of this game in this tutorial, so copy it over to local disk if you have not done so.

If you stuck of have question about this tutorial post on [https://forum.boardgamearena.com/viewforum.php?f=12 BGA Developers forum]

== Create your first game ==

If you have not already, you have to create a project in BGA Studio. For this tutorial you can create a project heartsYOURNAME where
YOURNAME is your developer login name. You can also re-use the project you have created for the "First Steps" tutorial above.
With the initial skeleton of code provided, you can already start a game from the BGA Studio.

1. Find and start the game in turn-based mode with 4 players. Make sure it works.

2. Modify the text in heartsYOURNAME_heartsYOURNAME.tpl, reload the page in the browser and make sure your ftp sync works as expected.
Note: if you have not setup auto-sync do it now, manually copying files is a no-starter.

3. Express stop from settings menu (the gear icon).

<i>Note: please do '''not''' use the hearts project code as a base. This tutorial assumes you started with a TEMPLATE project with no prior modifications. Using the hearts project as a base will be very confusing and you won't be able to follow all the steps.
</i>

== Hook version control system ==

For a real game, or even for this tutorial, we recommend committing the code to version control right from the start. You are going to find yourself in a situation where the game doesn't even start anymore and no way of debugging it, unless you have a way to revert. That is where version control becomes very handy. If you are not familiar with version control (e.g. [https://git-scm.com/docs/gittutorial git]) then at least back up your files after each major change. Start now.

Code for this tutorial available is on github: https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla

Different revisions represent different steps along the process, starting from original template to a complete game.

== Update game infos and box graphics ==

Even it does not nothing yet, always start by making sure the game looks decent in the game selector, meaning it has nice box graphics and its information is correct. For that we need to edit [[Game_meta-information: gameinfos.inc.php|gameinfos.inc.php]].

For a real game, you would go to [http://boardgamegeek.com BoardGameGeek], find the game, and use the information from BGG to fill in the gameinfos.

So let's do that. Find "hearts" on BoardGameGeek. (Hint: Original release 1850 :))

You can fill in the year of publishing and bgg id, put ''Public Domain'' under publisher, and a publisher id of 171 for public domain. And as designer and author you can just put your own name just for fun. Set number of players to 4.

// Players configuration that can be played (ex: 2 to 4 players)
'players' => array( 4 ),

The next step is to replace '''game_box.png''' with nicer images. For this tutorial, just copy all the files from the img/ folder of the hearts/ template into the img/ directory of your project. Replace publisher.png with a nicer image: for example https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-sharedcode/blob/master/img/publisher.png.

Details about images can be found here: [[Game art: img directory]].

Now an important step. You have to LOAD these files in studio website through control panel. So go to Control Panel -> Manager Games -> heartsYOUNAME
and press Reload for 'Reload game informations' and 'Reload game box image'

Now try to start the game again. If you some-how introduced a syntax error in gameinfos file it may not actually work (game won't start).
Always use "Express Start" button to start the game. You should see a standard state prompt from template. You should see 4 players on the right, testdude0 .. testdude3.
To switch between them press the red arrow button near their names, it will open another tab. This way you don't need to login and logout from multiple accounts!

<i>Note: if you had run the game before with less than 4 players there is a bug that will prevent you from running it with 4 only (if you did not run it before or run it with 4 players as instructed stop reading this note), to workaround revert back to original players array (i.e. 1,2,3,4), reload game options, then create a table with 4 players, exit that game table, then change gameoptions to 4 only as above, reload game options, create table again.</i>

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/4b3a73eeb5acae961ade18473af119e8ce8d1a8f]

== Layout and Graphics ==

In this section we will do graphics of the game, and main layout of the game.

First copy a sprite with cards image from hearts img/cards.jpg into img/ folder of your project. Project hearts is mounted to your home directory on bga server.

Edit .tpl to add some divs to represent player table and hand area

<pre>
<div id="myhand_wrap" class="whiteblock">
<h3>My Hand</h3>
<div id="myhand">
</div>
</div>
</pre>

If you refresh you should see now white area with My Hand title.

[[File:Heartsla-tpl2.png]]

Now lets add a card into the hand, just so you can feel it. Edit .tpl and a playertablecard div inside a hand div
<pre>
...
<div id="myhand">
<div class="playertablecard"></div>
</div>
...
</pre>

Edit .css file
<pre>
.playertablecard {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
margin-top: 5px;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
background-image: url('img/cards.jpg'); /* temp hack to see it */
}
</pre>

When you edit CSS remember that you have to FORCE-reload page, i.e. Ctrl-F5, otherwise its cached.
<i>Same when you change existing graphics files</i>.

You should see this:

[[File:Heartsla-tpl3.png]]

Awesome! Now lets do the rest of layout.

There are few ways of how html could have been generated, you could have start with nothing and generate
all by java script. Or you could have started with complete game markup in html and make java script just hide and move pieces around. BGA framework provides also a third way which is mix of both plus template engine to generate HTML using php. So lets do that.

Change .tpl file to have this inside
<pre>
<div id="playertables">


<div class="playertable whiteblock playertable_{DIR}">
<div class="playertablename" style="color:#{PLAYER_COLOR}">
{PLAYER_NAME}
</div>
<div class="playertablecard" id="playertablecard_{PLAYER_ID}">
</div>
</div>


</div>

<div id="myhand_wrap" class="whiteblock">
<h3>{MY_HAND}</h3>
<div id="myhand">
</div>
</div>
</pre>

What we did is we added "block" player, it is marked up using html comments. {VAR} notation is used
to inject variables and
<pre>

inside

</pre>
effectively allows us to do template loops.

In .view.php insert this code after 'Place your code below' comment

<pre>
$template = self::getGameName() . "_" . self::getGameName();

$directions = array( 'S', 'W', 'N', 'E' );

// this will inflate our player block with actual players data
$this->page->begin_block($template, "player");
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $info ) {
$dir = array_shift($directions);
$this->page->insert_block("player", array ("PLAYER_ID" => $player_id,
"PLAYER_NAME" => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'],
"PLAYER_COLOR" => $players [$player_id] ['player_color'],
"DIR" => $dir ));
}
// this will make our My Hand text translatable
$this->tpl['MY_HAND'] = self::_("My hand");
</pre>

What it does is for each player we have it will replicate the html between  and  tags, substituting the variable denoted by {XXX}
with the values you provide. The DIR variable in this case we pulling from directions array (where array_shift will take first element and remove it from the array).

Reload. If everything went well you should see this:

[[File:Heartsla-tpl4.png]]

These are "tableau" areas for 4 players plus My hand visible only to one player.
They not exactly how we wanted them to be because we did not edit .css yet.

Now edit .css, add these lines after import before our previous definition

<pre>
/** Table layout **/

#playertables {
position: relative;
width: 710px;
height: 340px;
}

.playertablename {
font-weight: bold;
}

.playertable {
position: absolute;
text-align: center;
width: 180px;
height: 130px;
}

.playertable_N {
left: 50%;
top: 0px;
margin-left: -90px; /* half of 180 */
}
.playertable_S {
left: 50%;
bottom: 0px;
margin-left: -90px; /* half of 180 */
}
.playertable_W {
left: 0px;
top: 50%;
margin-top: -55px; /* half of 130 */
}
.playertable_E {
right: 0px;
top: 50%;
margin-top: -55px; /* half of 130 */
}
</pre>

Now you force Reload and you should see this:
[[File:Heartsla-tpl5.png]]

This is almost all we need for graphics and layout, there are few tweaks left there but lets do some more heavy lifting now.

<i>Note: if you did not see changes you may have not force reloaded, force means you use Ctrl+F5 or Cltr+Shift-R, if you don't "force" browser will use cached version of .css and images! Which is not what you just changed</i>

<i>Another Note: In general if you have auto-sync you don't need to reload if you change game.php file, you need normal reload if you change js, and force reload for css and images. If you changed state machine or database you likely need to restart the game.</i>

== Game Interface JS Stock ==

BGA framework provides few out of the box classes to deal with cards. The client side
contains class called [[Stock]] and it can be used for any dynamic html 'pieces' management that uses
common sprite image. On the server side we will use [[Deck]] class which we discuss later.

If you open cards.jpg in an image viewer you can see that it is a "sprite" image - 13x4 grid of images stitched together,
which is very efficient way to transport images. So we will use Stock class to mark up these images and create
"card" divs for us.

At first, we need to add "ebg/stock" as a dependency in the hearts.js file:
<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <==== HERE
],
</pre>

Then add this to js contructor, this will define size of our cards
<pre>
console.log('hearts constructor');
this.cardwidth = 72;
this.cardheight = 96;
</pre>

The stock is initialized in Javascript "setup" method like this:
<pre>
// TODO: Set up your game interface here, according to "gamedatas"

// Player hand
this.playerHand = new ebg.stock(); // new stock object for hand
this.playerHand.create( this, $('myhand'), this.cardwidth, this.cardheight );
</pre>

As parameters of the "create" method, we provided the width/height of an item (a card), and the container div "myhand" - which is an id of "div" element from our .tpl file representing player hand.

Then, we must tell the stock what are the items it is going to display during its life: the 52 cards of a standard card game from "CSS sprite" image named "cards.jpg" with all the cards arranged in 4 rows and 13 columns.

Here's how we tell stock what are the items type to display:
<pre>
this.playerHand.image_items_per_row = 13; // 13 images per row

// Create cards types:
for (var color = 1; color <= 4; color++) {
for (var value = 2; value <= 14; value++) {
// Build card type id
var card_type_id = this.getCardUniqueId(color, value);
this.playerHand.addItemType(card_type_id, card_type_id, g_gamethemeurl + 'img/cards.jpg', card_type_id);
}
}
</pre>

And add this function to utilities section
<pre>
// Get card unique identifier based on its color and value
getCardUniqueId : function(color, value) {
return (color - 1) * 13 + (value - 2);
},
</pre>

Explanations:
* At first, we tell the stock component that our CSS sprite contains 13 items per row. This way, it can find the correct image for each card type id.
* Then for the 4x13 cards, we call "addItemType" method that create the type. The arguments are the type id, the weight of the card (for sorting purpose), the URL of our CSS sprite, and the position of our card image in the CSS sprite. It happens to be the same number in our case.

Note: we need to generate a unique ID for each type of card based on its color and value. For that we create a function "getCardUniqueId". The type is unique identification of the TYPE of the card, i.e. queen of spades encoded in the integer, if our deck have 2 standard card decks we would have had 2 queen of spades, they would shared same type, same image but will have different ids. NOTE: its unfortunate that they named this 'getCardUniqueId', it should have been 'getCardUniqueType', because it really not an id, but a TYPE of card. The type of the item either should be reversible function of its properties (i.e. kind of suite * 13 + value) or just enumerator described in material.inc.php. In this specific case its a synthetic type id, which also same as number of the card in the sprite image (i.e. if you enumerate each image in sprite going left to right, then top to bottom).

Now lets add the 5 of Heart to player's hand just for fun (this code will go in setup method after types initialization):

<pre>
// 2 - hears, 5 is 5, and 42 is card id, it normally would come from db
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId( this.getCardUniqueId( 2, 5 ), 42 );
</pre>

This will add card with id 42 and type 16 ( (2-1)*13+(5-2)=16 ).

Note that number 16 would not be something you can see in database, Deck database will have separate field for type and type_arg where type is suite and type_arg is number, so its not the same thing, but you can use same formula to convert. Number 42 on the other hand would be id field in database. But we get to database in the later section.

If you reload now you should see 5 of hearts in "your hand".

Stock control can handle clicking on items and forms the selection, you can immediately react to selection
or you can query it later, for example when user presses some other button.

Lets hook it up, add this in setup method in .js file, after this.playerHand is initialised

dojo.connect( this.playerHand, 'onChangeSelection', this, 'onPlayerHandSelectionChanged' );

Then find Player's action comment section and add handler after the comment
<pre>
onPlayerHandSelectionChanged : function() {
var items = this.playerHand.getSelectedItems();

if (items.length > 0) {
if (this.checkAction('playCard', true)) {
// Can play a card

var card_id = items[0].id;
console.log("on playCard "+card_id);

this.playerHand.unselectAll();
} else if (this.checkAction('giveCards')) {
// Can give cards => let the player select some cards
} else {
this.playerHand.unselectAll();
}
}
},
</pre>

The function name of the handler if 4th parameter on dojo.connect function, if you misspelled it will be some unpredictable effects.

Now if you reload, open js Console (F12), then click on card in My Hand and you should see
on playCard 42
printed on the console

== Game Database and Game Initialisation ==

Next step you want to design game database and setup new game (on server side).
For that we need to a) modify database schema to add our cards data b) add some global "variables" into
existing globals table.

To modify schema first exit you existing game(s). Open dbmodel.sql file and uncomment card table creation

<pre>
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `card` (
`card_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`card_type` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_type_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
`card_location` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_location_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`card_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;
</pre>

This is "card" table which would be managed by Deck php class.

In addition we want a little piece of information in the players table:

-- add info about first player
ALTER TABLE `player` ADD `player_first` BOOLEAN NOT NULL DEFAULT '0';

Not sure why they put this into player table, we could have global db variable to hold first player as easily.
But I am just following existing code more-less.

Next we finally get into .game.php class, where the main logic and db interaction would be. Find php constructor which should be
function __construct( )
This is first function in a file. Add this code to constructor.
<pre>
parent::__construct();
self::initGameStateLabels( array(
"currentHandType" => 10,
"trickColor" => 11,
"alreadyPlayedHearts" => 12,
) );

$this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
$this->cards->init( "card" );
</pre>

Here we are initializing three "Game State Variables" which are variable stored in database. They are integers.
It must start with no lower then 10 since the others ones are reserved. These values are stored by numeric id's
in the database, but in the php we associate them with string labels for convenience of access. The variables are "trickColor" - numbers from 1 to 4 that map to card suit (not sure why its called color maybe its translation from french); "alreadyPlayedHearts" - is boolean flag (well 0 or 1) indication either somebody use hearts on the trick; "currentHandType" - stores the value to indicate who to give cards during exchange.

Next 2 lines are creating $this->cards object and associating it with "card" table in the the database.

<i>If we called db table 'foo' instead of 'card' the last statement would have been $this->cards->init( "foo" )</i>

At this point I would start a new game and make sure it starts, then exit.

<i>
If you made a mistake
in .sql or php constructor game won't start and good luck debugging it (that is why it important to check
once in a while to make sure it still starts while you remember what you have changed)
</i>

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/e3a049257b592ff6167688d4d344f8a83d349b08]

Now we can go to game initialization setupNewGame in game.php, this method is called once when table is created.

In your template project you should have code that deals with player table, just leave it as is. Start inserting the
other code after "Start the game initialization" comment
<pre>
// Init global values with their initial values

// Note: hand types: 0 = give 3 cards to player on the left
// 1 = give 3 cards to player on the right
// 2 = give 3 cards to player on tthe front
// 3 = keep cards
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'currentHandType', 0 );

// Set current trick color to zero (= no trick color)
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'trickColor', 0 );

// Mark if we already played some heart during this hand
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'alreadyPlayedHearts', 0 );
</pre>

Here we initialized all the globals to 0.

Next is to create our cards in the database. We have one deck of cards so its pretty simple
<pre>
// Create cards
$cards = array ();
foreach ( $this->colors as $color_id => $color ) {
// spade, heart, diamond, club
for ($value = 2; $value <= 14; $value ++) {
// 2, 3, 4, ... K, A
$cards [] = array ('type' => $color_id,'type_arg' => $value,'nbr' => 1 );
}
}

$this->cards->createCards( $cards, 'deck' );
</pre>

This code that will create one of each card. But don't run it yet, because we missing $this->colors.
So we have state of the game in the database, but there is some static game information which never changes,
this information should be stored in material.inc.php and this way it can be accessed from all .php files.
We will edit this file now by adding these lines

<pre>
$this->colors = array(
1 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('spade'),
'nametr' => self::_('spade') ),
2 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('heart'),
'nametr' => self::_('heart') ),
3 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('club'),
'nametr' => self::_('club') ),
4 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('diamond'),
'nametr' => self::_('diamond') )
);

$this->values_label = array(
2 =>'2',
3 => '3',
4 => '4',
5 => '5',
6 => '6',
7 => '7',
8 => '8',
9 => '9',
10 => '10',
11 => clienttranslate('J'),
12 => clienttranslate('Q'),
13 => clienttranslate('K'),
14 => clienttranslate('A')
);
</pre>

Where $this->colors will define Suit labels and $this->values_label defines value labels.
If you noticed we have two of each label for suits. This is because we need sometimes translated values on php
side and sometimes we don't. In this case nametr will return a translated value right in php, which is only usefull when you throw exceptions to show right strings. If you passing value to client via notification you should always
use untranslated strings, and client will translate it. 'clienttranslate' marks the value for translation but does not actually change it for php. For more about this wonderful translation stuff see [[Translations]] section.

== Full game model synchronisation ==

Now at any point in the game we need to make sure that database information can be reflected back in UI, so we fix getAllDatas function
to return all possible data we need to reconstruct the game. This is in the game.php file. The template for getAllDatas already taking care of player info, lets just
add hand and tableau data before we return result.

<pre>
// Cards in player hand
$result['hand'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'hand', $current_player_id );

// Cards played on the table
$result['cardsontable'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'cardsontable' );
</pre>

Now on the client side we should display this data, so in your .js file in setup function (which is the receiver of getAllDatas) add replace our hack of putting hearts of 5 directly into hand with:

<pre>
// Cards in player's hand
for ( var i in this.gamedatas.hand) {
var card = this.gamedatas.hand[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId(this.getCardUniqueId(color, value), card.id);
}

// Cards played on table
for (i in this.gamedatas.cardsontable) {
var card = this.gamedatas.cardsontable[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
var player_id = card.location_arg;
this.playCardOnTable(player_id, color, value, card.id);
}
</pre>

This should show hand and tableau cards now, except we are missing playCardOnTable function. So find getCardUniqueId function which
should be in utilities section and add this after

<pre>
playCardOnTable : function(player_id, color, value, card_id) {
// player_id => direction
dojo.place(this.format_block('jstpl_cardontable', {
x : this.cardwidth * (value - 2),
y : this.cardheight * (color - 1),
player_id : player_id
}), 'playertablecard_' + player_id);

if (player_id != this.player_id) {
// Some opponent played a card
// Move card from player panel
this.placeOnObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'overall_player_board_' + player_id);
} else {
// You played a card. If it exists in your hand, move card from there and remove
// corresponding item

if ($('myhand_item_' + card_id)) {
this.placeOnObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'myhand_item_' + card_id);
this.playerHand.removeFromStockById(card_id);
}
}

// In any case: move it to its final destination
this.slideToObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'playertablecard_' + player_id).play();
},
</pre>

For that to work we also need to add card temple in .tpl file
<pre>
// Javascript HTML templates

var jstpl_cardontable = '<div class="cardontable" id="cardontable_${player_id}" style="background-position:-${x}px -${y}px">\
</div>';
</pre>

What this does is basically it creates another card object, because if it is not our card its not in our hand (stock) so
we have to create it out of thin air. Technique to do that is to implode a js template object defined in .tpl file with some
parameters, which will just basically create a "div" string (yes you could have used string concatenation but it would not be fancy).
Now dojo.place places it (the div) on top of placeholder. Now we have an object with id of 'cardontable_' + player_id, depending
on who is playing it we either place it on player miniboard or in hand (and remove from hand stock). Then we animate the card move.

We also should fix our .css file now to add style for cardontable and REMOVE background for playertablecard which really is a placeholder div and not a card (don't miss the remove step it will be all screwy if you miss it).

<pre>
.playertablecard {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
margin-top: 5px;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
/* we remove background-image here */
}

/*** cards on table ***/

.cardontable {
position: absolute;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
background-image: url('img/cards.jpg');
}
</pre>

Now to test that it actually works lets deal cards to players during game initialization:

Add this after createCards in setupNewGame function in the game.php file
<pre>
// Shuffle deck
$this->cards->shuffle('deck');
// Deal 13 cards to each players
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards(13, 'deck', $player_id);
}
</pre>

Now when you start the game you should see 13 cards in your hand!

We just need to hook-up clicking on card and test if our playCardOnTable works.

Find onPlayerHandSelectionChanged function in the JS file, we should have logging there like console.log("on playCard "+card_id);
So after that insert this:
<pre>
console.log("on playCard "+card_id);
// type is (color - 1) * 13 + (value - 2)
var type = items[0].type;
var color = Math.floor(type / 13) + 1;
var value = type % 13 + 2;

this.playCardOnTable(this.player_id,color,value,card_id);
</pre>
Note: this code is for testing we will replace it with server interaction after we test it.

Now if you force reload (because we changed .css before) you should be able to click on card from you have and see it moving,
you can click on few cards this way. When you done enjoying the animation, press F5 to get your hand back.

[[File:Heartsla-sync.png]]

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/01d4e2f595fd14c2adcc97a957d21bb2766f78a8]

== State Machine ==

Now we need to create a game state machine. So the states are:

* Cards are dealt to all players (lets call it "newHand")
* Player is selected who will start a new trick ("newTrick")
* Player start or respond to played card ("playerTurn")
* Game control is passed to next player or trick is ended ("nextPlayer")
* End of hand processing (scoring and check for end of game) ("nextHand")

In addition players can exchange cards so we need two more states for that but we will skip it for now.

The state handling spread across 4 files, so you have to make sure all pieces are connected together.
The state machine states.php defines all the states, and function handlers on php side in a form of string,
and if any of these functions are not implemented it would be very hard to debug because it will break in random places.

So .states.php

<pre>
$machinestates = array(

// The initial state. Please do not modify.
1 => array(
"name" => "gameSetup",
"description" => clienttranslate("Game setup"),
"type" => "manager",
"action" => "stGameSetup",
"transitions" => array( "" => 20 )
),

/// New hand
20 => array(
"name" => "newHand",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNewHand",
"updateGameProgression" => true,
"transitions" => array( "" => 30 )
),

// Trick

30 => array(
"name" => "newTrick",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNewTrick",
"transitions" => array( "" => 31 )
),
31 => array(
"name" => "playerTurn",
"description" => clienttranslate('${actplayer} must play a card'),
"descriptionmyturn" => clienttranslate('${you} must play a card'),
"type" => "activeplayer",
"possibleactions" => array( "playCard" ),
"transitions" => array( "playCard" => 32 )
),
32 => array(
"name" => "nextPlayer",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNextPlayer",
"transitions" => array( "nextPlayer" => 31, "nextTrick" => 30, "endHand" => 40 )
),

// End of the hand (scoring, etc...)
40 => array(
"name" => "endHand",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stEndHand",
"transitions" => array( "nextHand" => 20, "endGame" => 99 )
),

// Final state.
// Please do not modify.
99 => array(
"name" => "gameEnd",
"description" => clienttranslate("End of game"),
"type" => "manager",
"action" => "stGameEnd",
"args" => "argGameEnd"
)

);
</pre>

The full details about what these fields are you can find in [[Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php]].

But basically we have Player states, in which human player has to perform an "action" by pressing some button in UI or selecting some game item, which will trigger js handler, which will do ajax call to server into API define
by .action.php file. All functions in this file are API between client and server and has very simple
and repetitive structure. In this case there is only two action player can do - play a card or pass cards to other player. So these 2 functions go into .action.php file, we will only define one now since we not implementing card passing states yet:

<pre>
public function playCard() {
self::setAjaxMode();
$card_id = self::getArg("id", AT_posint, true);
$this->game->playCard($card_id);
self::ajaxResponse();
}
</pre>

Now to make it run we have define all handler functions that we referenced in states, which are - one function for state arguments argGiveCards, 4 functions for robot states (where game performs some action)
and 1 function for player actions handling.
Find 'Game state arguments' section and paste this in:
<pre>
function argGiveCards() {
return array ();
}
</pre>

This normally pass some parameters to states, but we don't need anything yet. It good to have placeholder there anyway, so we can fix it later.
Important: even when its a stub this function must return array not scalar.

Lets do stubs for other functions, find game state actions section in .game.php file and insert these
<pre>
function stNewHand() {
// Take back all cards (from any location => null) to deck
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation(null, "deck");
$this->cards->shuffle('deck');
// Deal 13 cards to each players
// Create deck, shuffle it and give 13 initial cards
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards(13, 'deck', $player_id);
// Notify player about his cards
self::notifyPlayer($player_id, 'newHand', '', array ('cards' => $cards ));
}
self::setGameStateValue('alreadyPlayedHearts', 0);
$this->gamestate->nextState("");
}

function stNewTrick() {
// New trick: active the player who wins the last trick, or the player who own the club-2 card
// Reset trick color to 0 (= no color)
self::setGameStateInitialValue('trickColor', 0);
$this->gamestate->nextState();
}

function stNextPlayer() {
// Active next player OR end the trick and go to the next trick OR end the hand
if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('cardsontable') == 4) {
// This is the end of the trick
// Move all cards to "cardswon" of the given player
$best_value_player_id = self::activeNextPlayer(); // TODO figure out winner of trick
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation('cardsontable', 'cardswon', null, $best_value_player_id);

if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('hand') == 0) {
// End of the hand
$this->gamestate->nextState("endHand");
} else {
// End of the trick
$this->gamestate->nextState("nextTrick");
}
} else {
// Standard case (not the end of the trick)
// => just active the next player
$player_id = self::activeNextPlayer();
self::giveExtraTime($player_id);
$this->gamestate->nextState('nextPlayer');
}
}

function stEndHand() {
$this->gamestate->nextState("nextHand");
}

</pre>
Important: All state actions game or player must end with state transition (or thrown exception). Also make sure its ONLY one state transition,
if you accidentally fall though after state transition and do another one it will be a real mess and head scratching for long time.

Now find 'player actions' section and paste this code there
<pre>
function playCard($card_id) {
self::checkAction("playCard");
$player_id = self::getActivePlayerId();
throw new BgaUserException(self::_("Not implemented: ") . "$player_id plays $card_id");
}
</pre>
We won't implement it yet but throw an exception which we will see if interaction is working properly

Now the game should start but it would not be any different then before because we have to implement actual interactions.
Its good to check if it still working though (and if it was running before you have to exit because we changed state machine and normally it will break stuff)

== Client - Server interactions ==

Now to implement things for real we have hook UI actions to ajax calls, and process notifications send by server.
So previously we hooked playCardOnTable right into js handler which caused client animation, in real game its a two
step operation. When user clicks on game element js client sends an ajax call to server, server processes it and updates database, server sends
notification in response, client hooks animations to server notification.

So in .js code replace onPlayerHandSelectionChanged with
<pre>
onPlayerHandSelectionChanged : function() {
var items = this.playerHand.getSelectedItems();

if (items.length > 0) {
var action = 'playCard';
if (this.checkAction(action, true)) {
// Can play a card
var card_id = items[0].id;
this.ajaxcall("/" + this.game_name + "/" + this.game_name + "/" + action + ".html", {
id : card_id,
lock : true
}, this, function(result) {
}, function(is_error) {
});

this.playerHand.unselectAll();
} else if (this.checkAction('giveCards')) {
// Can give cards => let the player select some cards
} else {
this.playerHand.unselectAll();
}
}
},
</pre>

Now when you click on card you should get a server response: Not implemented...

Lets implement it, in .game.php
<pre>
function playCard($card_id) {
self::checkAction("playCard");
$player_id = self::getActivePlayerId();
$this->cards->moveCard($card_id, 'cardsontable', $player_id);
// XXX check rules here
$currentCard = $this->cards->getCard($card_id);
// And notify
self::notifyAllPlayers('playCard', clienttranslate('${player_name} plays ${value_displayed} ${color_displayed}'), array (
'i18n' => array ('color_displayed','value_displayed' ),'card_id' => $card_id,'player_id' => $player_id,
'player_name' => self::getActivePlayerName(),'value' => $currentCard ['type_arg'],
'value_displayed' => $this->values_label [$currentCard ['type_arg']],'color' => $currentCard ['type'],
'color_displayed' => $this->colors [$currentCard ['type']] ['name'] ));
// Next player
$this->gamestate->nextState('playCard');
}
</pre>

We get the card from client, we move it to the tableau (moveCard is hooked to database directly, its part of deck class),
we notify all players and we change state. What we missing here is bunch of checks (rule enforcements), we will add it later.

Interesting part about this notify is that we use i18n array for string that needs to be translated by client, so
they sent as English text in notification, then client has to know which parameters needs translating.

On the client side .js we have to implement a notification handler to do the animation

<pre>
setupNotifications : function() {
console.log('notifications subscriptions setup');

dojo.subscribe('newHand', this, "notif_newHand");
dojo.subscribe('playCard', this, "notif_playCard");

},

notif_newHand : function(notif) {
// We received a new full hand of 13 cards.
this.playerHand.removeAll();

for ( var i in notif.args.cards) {
var card = notif.args.cards[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId(this.getCardUniqueId(color, value), card.id);
}
},

notif_playCard : function(notif) {
// Play a card on the table
this.playCardOnTable(notif.args.player_id, notif.args.color, notif.args.value, notif.args.card_id);
},
</pre>

Now it actually works through the server when you click on card - the move is recorded. If you testing it now you will notice
after trick is done all cards remains on the table, but if you press F5 they would disappear, this is because
we updated database to pick-up the cards but did not send notification about it, so we need to send notification about it
and have a handler for it

So in .game.php file add notification in stNextPlayer function after moveAllCardsInLocation call:

<pre>
// Notify
// Note: we use 2 notifications here in order we can pause the display during the first notification
// before we move all cards to the winner (during the second)
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'trickWin', clienttranslate('${player_name} wins the trick'), array(
'player_id' => $best_value_player_id,
'player_name' => $players[ $best_value_player_id ]['player_name']
) );
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'giveAllCardsToPlayer','', array(
'player_id' => $best_value_player_id
) );
</pre>

And in .js file add 2 more notification handlers.

This is to subscribe in setupNotifications function
<pre>
dojo.subscribe( 'trickWin', this, "notif_trickWin" );
this.notifqueue.setSynchronous( 'trickWin', 1000 );
dojo.subscribe( 'giveAllCardsToPlayer', this, "notif_giveAllCardsToPlayer" );
</pre>

And this are handlers
<pre>
notif_trickWin : function(notif) {
// We do nothing here (just wait in order players can view the 4 cards played before they're gone.
},
notif_giveAllCardsToPlayer : function(notif) {
// Move all cards on table to given table, then destroy them
var winner_id = notif.args.player_id;
for ( var player_id in this.gamedatas.players) {
var anim = this.slideToObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'overall_player_board_' + winner_id);
dojo.connect(anim, 'onEnd', function(node) {
dojo.destroy(node);
});
anim.play();
}
},
</pre>

So 'trickWin' notification does not do much except it will delay the processing of next notification by 1 second (1000 ms)
and it will log the message (that happens independent of what handler does).
<i>Note: if on the other hand you don't want to log but what what to do something else send empty message</i>

Now after the trick you see all cards move the "player's stash".

== Scoring and End of game handling ==

Now we should calculate scoring and for that we need to actually track who wins the trick.
Trick is won by the player with highest card (no trump). We just need to remember what is trick suite.
For which we will use state variable 'trickColor' which we already conveniently created.

In .game.php file find playCard function and add this before notify functions
$currentTrickColor = self::getGameStateValue( 'trickColor' ) ;
if( $currentTrickColor == 0 )
self::setGameStateValue( 'trickColor', $currentCard['type'] );

This will make sure we remember first suit being played, now to use it modify stNextPlayer function to fix our TODO comment
<pre>
function stNextPlayer() {
// Active next player OR end the trick and go to the next trick OR end the hand
if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('cardsontable') == 4) {
// This is the end of the trick
$cards_on_table = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation('cardsontable');
$best_value = 0;
$best_value_player_id = null;
$currentTrickColor = self::getGameStateValue('trickColor');
foreach ( $cards_on_table as $card ) {
// Note: type = card color
if ($card ['type'] == $currentTrickColor) {
if ($best_value_player_id === null || $card ['type_arg'] > $best_value) {
$best_value_player_id = $card ['location_arg']; // Note: location_arg = player who played this card on table
$best_value = $card ['type_arg']; // Note: type_arg = value of the card
}
}
}

// Active this player => he's the one who starts the next trick
$this->gamestate->changeActivePlayer( $best_value_player_id );

// Move all cards to "cardswon" of the given player
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation('cardsontable', 'cardswon', null, $best_value_player_id);

// Notify
// ... same code here as before
</pre>

The scoring rule in the studio example code is huge multi-page function, for this tutorial we will make simplier.
Lets score -1 point per heart and call it a day. And game will end when somebody goes -100 or below.

As UI goes for scoring, the main thing to update is the scoring on the mini boards represented by stars, also
we want to show that in the log.
In addition scoring can be shown in [[Game_interface_logic:_yourgamename.js#Scoring_dialogs|Scoring Dialog]] using tableWindow notification, but it is a tutorial on its own and you can do it as homework (it is part of original heart game).

In .js file we need to add one more subscription and notification handler:
dojo.subscribe( 'newScores', this, "notif_newScores" );
in setupNotifications

and
notif_newScores : function(notif) {
// Update players' scores
for ( var player_id in notif.args.newScores) {
this.scoreCtrl[player_id].toValue(notif.args.newScores[player_id]);
}
},
somewhere after. this.scoreCtrl is pre-existing object that shows the scoring and this function will update score values per player from notification argument

so in .game.php our stEndHand function will look like

<pre>
function stEndHand() {
// Count and score points, then end the game or go to the next hand.
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
// Gets all "hearts" + queen of spades

$player_to_points = array ();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$player_to_points [$player_id] = 0;
}
$cards = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation("cardswon");
foreach ( $cards as $card ) {
$player_id = $card ['location_arg'];
// Note: 2 = heart
if ($card ['type'] == 2) {
$player_to_points [$player_id] ++;
}
}
// Apply scores to player
foreach ( $player_to_points as $player_id => $points ) {
if ($points != 0) {
$sql = "UPDATE player SET player_score=player_score-$points WHERE player_id='$player_id'";
self::DbQuery($sql);
$heart_number = $player_to_points [$player_id];
self::notifyAllPlayers("points", clienttranslate('${player_name} gets ${nbr} hearts and looses ${nbr} points'), array (
'player_id' => $player_id,'player_name' => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'],
'nbr' => $heart_number ));
} else {
// No point lost (just notify)
self::notifyAllPlayers("points", clienttranslate('${player_name} did not get any hearts'), array (
'player_id' => $player_id,'player_name' => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'] ));
}
}
$newScores = self::getCollectionFromDb("SELECT player_id, player_score FROM player", true );
self::notifyAllPlayers( "newScores", '', array( 'newScores' => $newScores ) );

///// Test if this is the end of the game
foreach ( $newScores as $player_id => $score ) {
if ($score <= -100) {
// Trigger the end of the game !
$this->gamestate->nextState("endGame");
return;
}
}

$this->gamestate->nextState("nextHand");
}
</pre>

So it should more less work now, including end of game condition. Try to play it!

== Additional stuff ==

The following things were not implemented and can add them yourself by looking at the code of original hearts game:

* Remove debug code from setupNewGame to deal cards, cards are now dealt in stNewHand state handler
* Rule checking and rule enforcements in playCard function
* Start scoring with 100 points each and end when <= 0
* Fix scoring rules with Q of spades and 26 point reverse scoring
* First player one with 2 club
* Add progress handling
* Add statistics
* Add card exchange states
* Add game option to start with 75 points instead of 100

Tutorial hearts

2019-08-17T01:48:29Z

Amadannabriona: /* Hook version control system */

== Introduction ==

Using this tutorial, you can build a complete working game on the BGA environment: Hearts.

Before you read this tutorial, you must:
* Read the overall presentations of the BGA Framework ([[Studio|see here]]).
* Know the rules for Hearts
* Some-what know the languages used on BGA: PHP, SQL, HTML, CSS, Javascript
* Setup you development environment [http://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/First_steps_with_BGA_Studio First Steps with BGA Studio]
* As part of setup you have to have access to your ftp home folder in studio, which would have 'hearts' game source code. We will be using some resources of this game in this tutorial, so copy it over to local disk if you have not done so.

If you stuck of have question about this tutorial post on [https://forum.boardgamearena.com/viewforum.php?f=12 BGA Developers forum]

== Create your first game ==

If you have not already, you have to create a project in BGA Studio. For this tutorial you can create a project heartsYOURNAME where
YOURNAME is your developer login name. You can also re-use the project you have created for the "First Steps" tutorial above.
With the initial skeleton of code provided, you can already start a game from the BGA Studio.

1. Find and start the game in turn-based mode with 4 players. Make sure it works.

2. Modify the text in heartsYOURNAME_heartsYOURNAME.tpl, reload the page in the browser and make sure your ftp sync works as expected.
Note: if you have not setup auto-sync do it now, manually copying files is a no-starter.

3. Express stop from settings menu (the gear icon).

<i>Note: please do '''not''' use the hearts project code as a base. This tutorial assumes you started with a TEMPLATE project with no prior modifications. Using the hearts project as a base will be very confusing and you won't be able to follow all the steps.
</i>

== Hook version control system ==

For a real game, or even for this tutorial, we recommend committing the code to version control right from the start. You are going to find yourself in a situation where the game doesn't even start anymore and no way of debugging it, unless you have a way to revert. That is where version control becomes very handy. If you are not familiar with version control (e.g. [https://git-scm.com/docs/gittutorial git]) then at least back up your files after each major change. Start now.

Code for this tutorial available is on github: https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla

Different revisions represent different steps along the process, starting from original template to a complete game.

== Update game infos and box graphics ==

Even it does not nothing yet I always start with making sure game looks descent in the game selector, meaning it has nice box graphics and information is correct. For that we need to edit [[Game_meta-information: gameinfos.inc.php|gameinfos.inc.php]].
What you would do for real game you would go to http://boardgamegeek.com find the game and use the information from web-site to fill the gameinfos.
So lets do that. Find "hearts" on boardgamegeek. Original release 1850 :)
You can fill in year of publishing, bgg id, you can put Public Domain as publisher and publisher id is 171 for public domain. And as designer and author you can just put your own name just for fun. Set number of players to 4.

// Players configuration that can be played (ex: 2 to 4 players)
'players' => array( 4 ),

The next step is to replace game_box.png with nicer images. For this tutorial just copy all files from img/ folder of hearts/ template into img/ directory of your project. And replace publisher.png with nicer image for example https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-sharedcode/blob/master/img/publisher.png.

Details about images can be found here: [[Game art: img directory]].

Now important step. You have to LOAD these files in studio website through control panel. So go to Control Panel -> Manager Games -> heartsYOUNAME
and press Reload for 'Reload game informations' and 'Reload game box image'

Now try to start the game again. If you some-how introduced a syntax error in gameinfos file it may not actually work (game won't start).
Always use "Express Start" button to start the game. You should see a standard state prompt from template. You should see 4 players on the right, testdude0 .. testdude3.
To switch between them press the red arrow button near their names, it will open another tab. This way you don't need to login and logout from multiple accounts!

<i>Note: if you had run the game before with less than 4 players there is a bug that will prevent you from running it with 4 only (if you did not run it before or run it with 4 players as instructed stop reading this note), to workaround revert back to original players array (i.e. 1,2,3,4), reload game options, then create a table with 4 players, exit that game table, then change gameoptions to 4 only as above, reload game options, create table again.</i>

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/4b3a73eeb5acae961ade18473af119e8ce8d1a8f]

== Layout and Graphics ==

In this section we will do graphics of the game, and main layout of the game.

First copy a sprite with cards image from hearts img/cards.jpg into img/ folder of your project. Project hearts is mounted to your home directory on bga server.

Edit .tpl to add some divs to represent player table and hand area

<pre>
<div id="myhand_wrap" class="whiteblock">
<h3>My Hand</h3>
<div id="myhand">
</div>
</div>
</pre>

If you refresh you should see now white area with My Hand title.

[[File:Heartsla-tpl2.png]]

Now lets add a card into the hand, just so you can feel it. Edit .tpl and a playertablecard div inside a hand div
<pre>
...
<div id="myhand">
<div class="playertablecard"></div>
</div>
...
</pre>

Edit .css file
<pre>
.playertablecard {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
margin-top: 5px;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
background-image: url('img/cards.jpg'); /* temp hack to see it */
}
</pre>

When you edit CSS remember that you have to FORCE-reload page, i.e. Ctrl-F5, otherwise its cached.
<i>Same when you change existing graphics files</i>.

You should see this:

[[File:Heartsla-tpl3.png]]

Awesome! Now lets do the rest of layout.

There are few ways of how html could have been generated, you could have start with nothing and generate
all by java script. Or you could have started with complete game markup in html and make java script just hide and move pieces around. BGA framework provides also a third way which is mix of both plus template engine to generate HTML using php. So lets do that.

Change .tpl file to have this inside
<pre>
<div id="playertables">


<div class="playertable whiteblock playertable_{DIR}">
<div class="playertablename" style="color:#{PLAYER_COLOR}">
{PLAYER_NAME}
</div>
<div class="playertablecard" id="playertablecard_{PLAYER_ID}">
</div>
</div>


</div>

<div id="myhand_wrap" class="whiteblock">
<h3>{MY_HAND}</h3>
<div id="myhand">
</div>
</div>
</pre>

What we did is we added "block" player, it is marked up using html comments. {VAR} notation is used
to inject variables and
<pre>

inside

</pre>
effectively allows us to do template loops.

In .view.php insert this code after 'Place your code below' comment

<pre>
$template = self::getGameName() . "_" . self::getGameName();

$directions = array( 'S', 'W', 'N', 'E' );

// this will inflate our player block with actual players data
$this->page->begin_block($template, "player");
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $info ) {
$dir = array_shift($directions);
$this->page->insert_block("player", array ("PLAYER_ID" => $player_id,
"PLAYER_NAME" => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'],
"PLAYER_COLOR" => $players [$player_id] ['player_color'],
"DIR" => $dir ));
}
// this will make our My Hand text translatable
$this->tpl['MY_HAND'] = self::_("My hand");
</pre>

What it does is for each player we have it will replicate the html between  and  tags, substituting the variable denoted by {XXX}
with the values you provide. The DIR variable in this case we pulling from directions array (where array_shift will take first element and remove it from the array).

Reload. If everything went well you should see this:

[[File:Heartsla-tpl4.png]]

These are "tableau" areas for 4 players plus My hand visible only to one player.
They not exactly how we wanted them to be because we did not edit .css yet.

Now edit .css, add these lines after import before our previous definition

<pre>
/** Table layout **/

#playertables {
position: relative;
width: 710px;
height: 340px;
}

.playertablename {
font-weight: bold;
}

.playertable {
position: absolute;
text-align: center;
width: 180px;
height: 130px;
}

.playertable_N {
left: 50%;
top: 0px;
margin-left: -90px; /* half of 180 */
}
.playertable_S {
left: 50%;
bottom: 0px;
margin-left: -90px; /* half of 180 */
}
.playertable_W {
left: 0px;
top: 50%;
margin-top: -55px; /* half of 130 */
}
.playertable_E {
right: 0px;
top: 50%;
margin-top: -55px; /* half of 130 */
}
</pre>

Now you force Reload and you should see this:
[[File:Heartsla-tpl5.png]]

This is almost all we need for graphics and layout, there are few tweaks left there but lets do some more heavy lifting now.

<i>Note: if you did not see changes you may have not force reloaded, force means you use Ctrl+F5 or Cltr+Shift-R, if you don't "force" browser will use cached version of .css and images! Which is not what you just changed</i>

<i>Another Note: In general if you have auto-sync you don't need to reload if you change game.php file, you need normal reload if you change js, and force reload for css and images. If you changed state machine or database you likely need to restart the game.</i>

== Game Interface JS Stock ==

BGA framework provides few out of the box classes to deal with cards. The client side
contains class called [[Stock]] and it can be used for any dynamic html 'pieces' management that uses
common sprite image. On the server side we will use [[Deck]] class which we discuss later.

If you open cards.jpg in an image viewer you can see that it is a "sprite" image - 13x4 grid of images stitched together,
which is very efficient way to transport images. So we will use Stock class to mark up these images and create
"card" divs for us.

At first, we need to add "ebg/stock" as a dependency in the hearts.js file:
<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <==== HERE
],
</pre>

Then add this to js contructor, this will define size of our cards
<pre>
console.log('hearts constructor');
this.cardwidth = 72;
this.cardheight = 96;
</pre>

The stock is initialized in Javascript "setup" method like this:
<pre>
// TODO: Set up your game interface here, according to "gamedatas"

// Player hand
this.playerHand = new ebg.stock(); // new stock object for hand
this.playerHand.create( this, $('myhand'), this.cardwidth, this.cardheight );
</pre>

As parameters of the "create" method, we provided the width/height of an item (a card), and the container div "myhand" - which is an id of "div" element from our .tpl file representing player hand.

Then, we must tell the stock what are the items it is going to display during its life: the 52 cards of a standard card game from "CSS sprite" image named "cards.jpg" with all the cards arranged in 4 rows and 13 columns.

Here's how we tell stock what are the items type to display:
<pre>
this.playerHand.image_items_per_row = 13; // 13 images per row

// Create cards types:
for (var color = 1; color <= 4; color++) {
for (var value = 2; value <= 14; value++) {
// Build card type id
var card_type_id = this.getCardUniqueId(color, value);
this.playerHand.addItemType(card_type_id, card_type_id, g_gamethemeurl + 'img/cards.jpg', card_type_id);
}
}
</pre>

And add this function to utilities section
<pre>
// Get card unique identifier based on its color and value
getCardUniqueId : function(color, value) {
return (color - 1) * 13 + (value - 2);
},
</pre>

Explanations:
* At first, we tell the stock component that our CSS sprite contains 13 items per row. This way, it can find the correct image for each card type id.
* Then for the 4x13 cards, we call "addItemType" method that create the type. The arguments are the type id, the weight of the card (for sorting purpose), the URL of our CSS sprite, and the position of our card image in the CSS sprite. It happens to be the same number in our case.

Note: we need to generate a unique ID for each type of card based on its color and value. For that we create a function "getCardUniqueId". The type is unique identification of the TYPE of the card, i.e. queen of spades encoded in the integer, if our deck have 2 standard card decks we would have had 2 queen of spades, they would shared same type, same image but will have different ids. NOTE: its unfortunate that they named this 'getCardUniqueId', it should have been 'getCardUniqueType', because it really not an id, but a TYPE of card. The type of the item either should be reversible function of its properties (i.e. kind of suite * 13 + value) or just enumerator described in material.inc.php. In this specific case its a synthetic type id, which also same as number of the card in the sprite image (i.e. if you enumerate each image in sprite going left to right, then top to bottom).

Now lets add the 5 of Heart to player's hand just for fun (this code will go in setup method after types initialization):

<pre>
// 2 - hears, 5 is 5, and 42 is card id, it normally would come from db
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId( this.getCardUniqueId( 2, 5 ), 42 );
</pre>

This will add card with id 42 and type 16 ( (2-1)*13+(5-2)=16 ).

Note that number 16 would not be something you can see in database, Deck database will have separate field for type and type_arg where type is suite and type_arg is number, so its not the same thing, but you can use same formula to convert. Number 42 on the other hand would be id field in database. But we get to database in the later section.

If you reload now you should see 5 of hearts in "your hand".

Stock control can handle clicking on items and forms the selection, you can immediately react to selection
or you can query it later, for example when user presses some other button.

Lets hook it up, add this in setup method in .js file, after this.playerHand is initialised

dojo.connect( this.playerHand, 'onChangeSelection', this, 'onPlayerHandSelectionChanged' );

Then find Player's action comment section and add handler after the comment
<pre>
onPlayerHandSelectionChanged : function() {
var items = this.playerHand.getSelectedItems();

if (items.length > 0) {
if (this.checkAction('playCard', true)) {
// Can play a card

var card_id = items[0].id;
console.log("on playCard "+card_id);

this.playerHand.unselectAll();
} else if (this.checkAction('giveCards')) {
// Can give cards => let the player select some cards
} else {
this.playerHand.unselectAll();
}
}
},
</pre>

The function name of the handler if 4th parameter on dojo.connect function, if you misspelled it will be some unpredictable effects.

Now if you reload, open js Console (F12), then click on card in My Hand and you should see
on playCard 42
printed on the console

== Game Database and Game Initialisation ==

Next step you want to design game database and setup new game (on server side).
For that we need to a) modify database schema to add our cards data b) add some global "variables" into
existing globals table.

To modify schema first exit you existing game(s). Open dbmodel.sql file and uncomment card table creation

<pre>
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `card` (
`card_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`card_type` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_type_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
`card_location` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_location_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`card_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;
</pre>

This is "card" table which would be managed by Deck php class.

In addition we want a little piece of information in the players table:

-- add info about first player
ALTER TABLE `player` ADD `player_first` BOOLEAN NOT NULL DEFAULT '0';

Not sure why they put this into player table, we could have global db variable to hold first player as easily.
But I am just following existing code more-less.

Next we finally get into .game.php class, where the main logic and db interaction would be. Find php constructor which should be
function __construct( )
This is first function in a file. Add this code to constructor.
<pre>
parent::__construct();
self::initGameStateLabels( array(
"currentHandType" => 10,
"trickColor" => 11,
"alreadyPlayedHearts" => 12,
) );

$this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
$this->cards->init( "card" );
</pre>

Here we are initializing three "Game State Variables" which are variable stored in database. They are integers.
It must start with no lower then 10 since the others ones are reserved. These values are stored by numeric id's
in the database, but in the php we associate them with string labels for convenience of access. The variables are "trickColor" - numbers from 1 to 4 that map to card suit (not sure why its called color maybe its translation from french); "alreadyPlayedHearts" - is boolean flag (well 0 or 1) indication either somebody use hearts on the trick; "currentHandType" - stores the value to indicate who to give cards during exchange.

Next 2 lines are creating $this->cards object and associating it with "card" table in the the database.

<i>If we called db table 'foo' instead of 'card' the last statement would have been $this->cards->init( "foo" )</i>

At this point I would start a new game and make sure it starts, then exit.

<i>
If you made a mistake
in .sql or php constructor game won't start and good luck debugging it (that is why it important to check
once in a while to make sure it still starts while you remember what you have changed)
</i>

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/e3a049257b592ff6167688d4d344f8a83d349b08]

Now we can go to game initialization setupNewGame in game.php, this method is called once when table is created.

In your template project you should have code that deals with player table, just leave it as is. Start inserting the
other code after "Start the game initialization" comment
<pre>
// Init global values with their initial values

// Note: hand types: 0 = give 3 cards to player on the left
// 1 = give 3 cards to player on the right
// 2 = give 3 cards to player on tthe front
// 3 = keep cards
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'currentHandType', 0 );

// Set current trick color to zero (= no trick color)
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'trickColor', 0 );

// Mark if we already played some heart during this hand
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'alreadyPlayedHearts', 0 );
</pre>

Here we initialized all the globals to 0.

Next is to create our cards in the database. We have one deck of cards so its pretty simple
<pre>
// Create cards
$cards = array ();
foreach ( $this->colors as $color_id => $color ) {
// spade, heart, diamond, club
for ($value = 2; $value <= 14; $value ++) {
// 2, 3, 4, ... K, A
$cards [] = array ('type' => $color_id,'type_arg' => $value,'nbr' => 1 );
}
}

$this->cards->createCards( $cards, 'deck' );
</pre>

This code that will create one of each card. But don't run it yet, because we missing $this->colors.
So we have state of the game in the database, but there is some static game information which never changes,
this information should be stored in material.inc.php and this way it can be accessed from all .php files.
We will edit this file now by adding these lines

<pre>
$this->colors = array(
1 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('spade'),
'nametr' => self::_('spade') ),
2 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('heart'),
'nametr' => self::_('heart') ),
3 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('club'),
'nametr' => self::_('club') ),
4 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('diamond'),
'nametr' => self::_('diamond') )
);

$this->values_label = array(
2 =>'2',
3 => '3',
4 => '4',
5 => '5',
6 => '6',
7 => '7',
8 => '8',
9 => '9',
10 => '10',
11 => clienttranslate('J'),
12 => clienttranslate('Q'),
13 => clienttranslate('K'),
14 => clienttranslate('A')
);
</pre>

Where $this->colors will define Suit labels and $this->values_label defines value labels.
If you noticed we have two of each label for suits. This is because we need sometimes translated values on php
side and sometimes we don't. In this case nametr will return a translated value right in php, which is only usefull when you throw exceptions to show right strings. If you passing value to client via notification you should always
use untranslated strings, and client will translate it. 'clienttranslate' marks the value for translation but does not actually change it for php. For more about this wonderful translation stuff see [[Translations]] section.

== Full game model synchronisation ==

Now at any point in the game we need to make sure that database information can be reflected back in UI, so we fix getAllDatas function
to return all possible data we need to reconstruct the game. This is in the game.php file. The template for getAllDatas already taking care of player info, lets just
add hand and tableau data before we return result.

<pre>
// Cards in player hand
$result['hand'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'hand', $current_player_id );

// Cards played on the table
$result['cardsontable'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'cardsontable' );
</pre>

Now on the client side we should display this data, so in your .js file in setup function (which is the receiver of getAllDatas) add replace our hack of putting hearts of 5 directly into hand with:

<pre>
// Cards in player's hand
for ( var i in this.gamedatas.hand) {
var card = this.gamedatas.hand[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId(this.getCardUniqueId(color, value), card.id);
}

// Cards played on table
for (i in this.gamedatas.cardsontable) {
var card = this.gamedatas.cardsontable[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
var player_id = card.location_arg;
this.playCardOnTable(player_id, color, value, card.id);
}
</pre>

This should show hand and tableau cards now, except we are missing playCardOnTable function. So find getCardUniqueId function which
should be in utilities section and add this after

<pre>
playCardOnTable : function(player_id, color, value, card_id) {
// player_id => direction
dojo.place(this.format_block('jstpl_cardontable', {
x : this.cardwidth * (value - 2),
y : this.cardheight * (color - 1),
player_id : player_id
}), 'playertablecard_' + player_id);

if (player_id != this.player_id) {
// Some opponent played a card
// Move card from player panel
this.placeOnObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'overall_player_board_' + player_id);
} else {
// You played a card. If it exists in your hand, move card from there and remove
// corresponding item

if ($('myhand_item_' + card_id)) {
this.placeOnObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'myhand_item_' + card_id);
this.playerHand.removeFromStockById(card_id);
}
}

// In any case: move it to its final destination
this.slideToObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'playertablecard_' + player_id).play();
},
</pre>

For that to work we also need to add card temple in .tpl file
<pre>
// Javascript HTML templates

var jstpl_cardontable = '<div class="cardontable" id="cardontable_${player_id}" style="background-position:-${x}px -${y}px">\
</div>';
</pre>

What this does is basically it creates another card object, because if it is not our card its not in our hand (stock) so
we have to create it out of thin air. Technique to do that is to implode a js template object defined in .tpl file with some
parameters, which will just basically create a "div" string (yes you could have used string concatenation but it would not be fancy).
Now dojo.place places it (the div) on top of placeholder. Now we have an object with id of 'cardontable_' + player_id, depending
on who is playing it we either place it on player miniboard or in hand (and remove from hand stock). Then we animate the card move.

We also should fix our .css file now to add style for cardontable and REMOVE background for playertablecard which really is a placeholder div and not a card (don't miss the remove step it will be all screwy if you miss it).

<pre>
.playertablecard {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
margin-top: 5px;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
/* we remove background-image here */
}

/*** cards on table ***/

.cardontable {
position: absolute;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
background-image: url('img/cards.jpg');
}
</pre>

Now to test that it actually works lets deal cards to players during game initialization:

Add this after createCards in setupNewGame function in the game.php file
<pre>
// Shuffle deck
$this->cards->shuffle('deck');
// Deal 13 cards to each players
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards(13, 'deck', $player_id);
}
</pre>

Now when you start the game you should see 13 cards in your hand!

We just need to hook-up clicking on card and test if our playCardOnTable works.

Find onPlayerHandSelectionChanged function in the JS file, we should have logging there like console.log("on playCard "+card_id);
So after that insert this:
<pre>
console.log("on playCard "+card_id);
// type is (color - 1) * 13 + (value - 2)
var type = items[0].type;
var color = Math.floor(type / 13) + 1;
var value = type % 13 + 2;

this.playCardOnTable(this.player_id,color,value,card_id);
</pre>
Note: this code is for testing we will replace it with server interaction after we test it.

Now if you force reload (because we changed .css before) you should be able to click on card from you have and see it moving,
you can click on few cards this way. When you done enjoying the animation, press F5 to get your hand back.

[[File:Heartsla-sync.png]]

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/01d4e2f595fd14c2adcc97a957d21bb2766f78a8]

== State Machine ==

Now we need to create a game state machine. So the states are:

* Cards are dealt to all players (lets call it "newHand")
* Player is selected who will start a new trick ("newTrick")
* Player start or respond to played card ("playerTurn")
* Game control is passed to next player or trick is ended ("nextPlayer")
* End of hand processing (scoring and check for end of game) ("nextHand")

In addition players can exchange cards so we need two more states for that but we will skip it for now.

The state handling spread across 4 files, so you have to make sure all pieces are connected together.
The state machine states.php defines all the states, and function handlers on php side in a form of string,
and if any of these functions are not implemented it would be very hard to debug because it will break in random places.

So .states.php

<pre>
$machinestates = array(

// The initial state. Please do not modify.
1 => array(
"name" => "gameSetup",
"description" => clienttranslate("Game setup"),
"type" => "manager",
"action" => "stGameSetup",
"transitions" => array( "" => 20 )
),

/// New hand
20 => array(
"name" => "newHand",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNewHand",
"updateGameProgression" => true,
"transitions" => array( "" => 30 )
),

// Trick

30 => array(
"name" => "newTrick",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNewTrick",
"transitions" => array( "" => 31 )
),
31 => array(
"name" => "playerTurn",
"description" => clienttranslate('${actplayer} must play a card'),
"descriptionmyturn" => clienttranslate('${you} must play a card'),
"type" => "activeplayer",
"possibleactions" => array( "playCard" ),
"transitions" => array( "playCard" => 32 )
),
32 => array(
"name" => "nextPlayer",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNextPlayer",
"transitions" => array( "nextPlayer" => 31, "nextTrick" => 30, "endHand" => 40 )
),

// End of the hand (scoring, etc...)
40 => array(
"name" => "endHand",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stEndHand",
"transitions" => array( "nextHand" => 20, "endGame" => 99 )
),

// Final state.
// Please do not modify.
99 => array(
"name" => "gameEnd",
"description" => clienttranslate("End of game"),
"type" => "manager",
"action" => "stGameEnd",
"args" => "argGameEnd"
)

);
</pre>

The full details about what these fields are you can find in [[Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php]].

But basically we have Player states, in which human player has to perform an "action" by pressing some button in UI or selecting some game item, which will trigger js handler, which will do ajax call to server into API define
by .action.php file. All functions in this file are API between client and server and has very simple
and repetitive structure. In this case there is only two action player can do - play a card or pass cards to other player. So these 2 functions go into .action.php file, we will only define one now since we not implementing card passing states yet:

<pre>
public function playCard() {
self::setAjaxMode();
$card_id = self::getArg("id", AT_posint, true);
$this->game->playCard($card_id);
self::ajaxResponse();
}
</pre>

Now to make it run we have define all handler functions that we referenced in states, which are - one function for state arguments argGiveCards, 4 functions for robot states (where game performs some action)
and 1 function for player actions handling.
Find 'Game state arguments' section and paste this in:
<pre>
function argGiveCards() {
return array ();
}
</pre>

This normally pass some parameters to states, but we don't need anything yet. It good to have placeholder there anyway, so we can fix it later.
Important: even when its a stub this function must return array not scalar.

Lets do stubs for other functions, find game state actions section in .game.php file and insert these
<pre>
function stNewHand() {
// Take back all cards (from any location => null) to deck
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation(null, "deck");
$this->cards->shuffle('deck');
// Deal 13 cards to each players
// Create deck, shuffle it and give 13 initial cards
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards(13, 'deck', $player_id);
// Notify player about his cards
self::notifyPlayer($player_id, 'newHand', '', array ('cards' => $cards ));
}
self::setGameStateValue('alreadyPlayedHearts', 0);
$this->gamestate->nextState("");
}

function stNewTrick() {
// New trick: active the player who wins the last trick, or the player who own the club-2 card
// Reset trick color to 0 (= no color)
self::setGameStateInitialValue('trickColor', 0);
$this->gamestate->nextState();
}

function stNextPlayer() {
// Active next player OR end the trick and go to the next trick OR end the hand
if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('cardsontable') == 4) {
// This is the end of the trick
// Move all cards to "cardswon" of the given player
$best_value_player_id = self::activeNextPlayer(); // TODO figure out winner of trick
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation('cardsontable', 'cardswon', null, $best_value_player_id);

if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('hand') == 0) {
// End of the hand
$this->gamestate->nextState("endHand");
} else {
// End of the trick
$this->gamestate->nextState("nextTrick");
}
} else {
// Standard case (not the end of the trick)
// => just active the next player
$player_id = self::activeNextPlayer();
self::giveExtraTime($player_id);
$this->gamestate->nextState('nextPlayer');
}
}

function stEndHand() {
$this->gamestate->nextState("nextHand");
}

</pre>
Important: All state actions game or player must end with state transition (or thrown exception). Also make sure its ONLY one state transition,
if you accidentally fall though after state transition and do another one it will be a real mess and head scratching for long time.

Now find 'player actions' section and paste this code there
<pre>
function playCard($card_id) {
self::checkAction("playCard");
$player_id = self::getActivePlayerId();
throw new BgaUserException(self::_("Not implemented: ") . "$player_id plays $card_id");
}
</pre>
We won't implement it yet but throw an exception which we will see if interaction is working properly

Now the game should start but it would not be any different then before because we have to implement actual interactions.
Its good to check if it still working though (and if it was running before you have to exit because we changed state machine and normally it will break stuff)

== Client - Server interactions ==

Now to implement things for real we have hook UI actions to ajax calls, and process notifications send by server.
So previously we hooked playCardOnTable right into js handler which caused client animation, in real game its a two
step operation. When user clicks on game element js client sends an ajax call to server, server processes it and updates database, server sends
notification in response, client hooks animations to server notification.

So in .js code replace onPlayerHandSelectionChanged with
<pre>
onPlayerHandSelectionChanged : function() {
var items = this.playerHand.getSelectedItems();

if (items.length > 0) {
var action = 'playCard';
if (this.checkAction(action, true)) {
// Can play a card
var card_id = items[0].id;
this.ajaxcall("/" + this.game_name + "/" + this.game_name + "/" + action + ".html", {
id : card_id,
lock : true
}, this, function(result) {
}, function(is_error) {
});

this.playerHand.unselectAll();
} else if (this.checkAction('giveCards')) {
// Can give cards => let the player select some cards
} else {
this.playerHand.unselectAll();
}
}
},
</pre>

Now when you click on card you should get a server response: Not implemented...

Lets implement it, in .game.php
<pre>
function playCard($card_id) {
self::checkAction("playCard");
$player_id = self::getActivePlayerId();
$this->cards->moveCard($card_id, 'cardsontable', $player_id);
// XXX check rules here
$currentCard = $this->cards->getCard($card_id);
// And notify
self::notifyAllPlayers('playCard', clienttranslate('${player_name} plays ${value_displayed} ${color_displayed}'), array (
'i18n' => array ('color_displayed','value_displayed' ),'card_id' => $card_id,'player_id' => $player_id,
'player_name' => self::getActivePlayerName(),'value' => $currentCard ['type_arg'],
'value_displayed' => $this->values_label [$currentCard ['type_arg']],'color' => $currentCard ['type'],
'color_displayed' => $this->colors [$currentCard ['type']] ['name'] ));
// Next player
$this->gamestate->nextState('playCard');
}
</pre>

We get the card from client, we move it to the tableau (moveCard is hooked to database directly, its part of deck class),
we notify all players and we change state. What we missing here is bunch of checks (rule enforcements), we will add it later.

Interesting part about this notify is that we use i18n array for string that needs to be translated by client, so
they sent as English text in notification, then client has to know which parameters needs translating.

On the client side .js we have to implement a notification handler to do the animation

<pre>
setupNotifications : function() {
console.log('notifications subscriptions setup');

dojo.subscribe('newHand', this, "notif_newHand");
dojo.subscribe('playCard', this, "notif_playCard");

},

notif_newHand : function(notif) {
// We received a new full hand of 13 cards.
this.playerHand.removeAll();

for ( var i in notif.args.cards) {
var card = notif.args.cards[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId(this.getCardUniqueId(color, value), card.id);
}
},

notif_playCard : function(notif) {
// Play a card on the table
this.playCardOnTable(notif.args.player_id, notif.args.color, notif.args.value, notif.args.card_id);
},
</pre>

Now it actually works through the server when you click on card - the move is recorded. If you testing it now you will notice
after trick is done all cards remains on the table, but if you press F5 they would disappear, this is because
we updated database to pick-up the cards but did not send notification about it, so we need to send notification about it
and have a handler for it

So in .game.php file add notification in stNextPlayer function after moveAllCardsInLocation call:

<pre>
// Notify
// Note: we use 2 notifications here in order we can pause the display during the first notification
// before we move all cards to the winner (during the second)
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'trickWin', clienttranslate('${player_name} wins the trick'), array(
'player_id' => $best_value_player_id,
'player_name' => $players[ $best_value_player_id ]['player_name']
) );
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'giveAllCardsToPlayer','', array(
'player_id' => $best_value_player_id
) );
</pre>

And in .js file add 2 more notification handlers.

This is to subscribe in setupNotifications function
<pre>
dojo.subscribe( 'trickWin', this, "notif_trickWin" );
this.notifqueue.setSynchronous( 'trickWin', 1000 );
dojo.subscribe( 'giveAllCardsToPlayer', this, "notif_giveAllCardsToPlayer" );
</pre>

And this are handlers
<pre>
notif_trickWin : function(notif) {
// We do nothing here (just wait in order players can view the 4 cards played before they're gone.
},
notif_giveAllCardsToPlayer : function(notif) {
// Move all cards on table to given table, then destroy them
var winner_id = notif.args.player_id;
for ( var player_id in this.gamedatas.players) {
var anim = this.slideToObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'overall_player_board_' + winner_id);
dojo.connect(anim, 'onEnd', function(node) {
dojo.destroy(node);
});
anim.play();
}
},
</pre>

So 'trickWin' notification does not do much except it will delay the processing of next notification by 1 second (1000 ms)
and it will log the message (that happens independent of what handler does).
<i>Note: if on the other hand you don't want to log but what what to do something else send empty message</i>

Now after the trick you see all cards move the "player's stash".

== Scoring and End of game handling ==

Now we should calculate scoring and for that we need to actually track who wins the trick.
Trick is won by the player with highest card (no trump). We just need to remember what is trick suite.
For which we will use state variable 'trickColor' which we already conveniently created.

In .game.php file find playCard function and add this before notify functions
$currentTrickColor = self::getGameStateValue( 'trickColor' ) ;
if( $currentTrickColor == 0 )
self::setGameStateValue( 'trickColor', $currentCard['type'] );

This will make sure we remember first suit being played, now to use it modify stNextPlayer function to fix our TODO comment
<pre>
function stNextPlayer() {
// Active next player OR end the trick and go to the next trick OR end the hand
if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('cardsontable') == 4) {
// This is the end of the trick
$cards_on_table = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation('cardsontable');
$best_value = 0;
$best_value_player_id = null;
$currentTrickColor = self::getGameStateValue('trickColor');
foreach ( $cards_on_table as $card ) {
// Note: type = card color
if ($card ['type'] == $currentTrickColor) {
if ($best_value_player_id === null || $card ['type_arg'] > $best_value) {
$best_value_player_id = $card ['location_arg']; // Note: location_arg = player who played this card on table
$best_value = $card ['type_arg']; // Note: type_arg = value of the card
}
}
}

// Active this player => he's the one who starts the next trick
$this->gamestate->changeActivePlayer( $best_value_player_id );

// Move all cards to "cardswon" of the given player
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation('cardsontable', 'cardswon', null, $best_value_player_id);

// Notify
// ... same code here as before
</pre>

The scoring rule in the studio example code is huge multi-page function, for this tutorial we will make simplier.
Lets score -1 point per heart and call it a day. And game will end when somebody goes -100 or below.

As UI goes for scoring, the main thing to update is the scoring on the mini boards represented by stars, also
we want to show that in the log.
In addition scoring can be shown in [[Game_interface_logic:_yourgamename.js#Scoring_dialogs|Scoring Dialog]] using tableWindow notification, but it is a tutorial on its own and you can do it as homework (it is part of original heart game).

In .js file we need to add one more subscription and notification handler:
dojo.subscribe( 'newScores', this, "notif_newScores" );
in setupNotifications

and
notif_newScores : function(notif) {
// Update players' scores
for ( var player_id in notif.args.newScores) {
this.scoreCtrl[player_id].toValue(notif.args.newScores[player_id]);
}
},
somewhere after. this.scoreCtrl is pre-existing object that shows the scoring and this function will update score values per player from notification argument

so in .game.php our stEndHand function will look like

<pre>
function stEndHand() {
// Count and score points, then end the game or go to the next hand.
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
// Gets all "hearts" + queen of spades

$player_to_points = array ();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$player_to_points [$player_id] = 0;
}
$cards = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation("cardswon");
foreach ( $cards as $card ) {
$player_id = $card ['location_arg'];
// Note: 2 = heart
if ($card ['type'] == 2) {
$player_to_points [$player_id] ++;
}
}
// Apply scores to player
foreach ( $player_to_points as $player_id => $points ) {
if ($points != 0) {
$sql = "UPDATE player SET player_score=player_score-$points WHERE player_id='$player_id'";
self::DbQuery($sql);
$heart_number = $player_to_points [$player_id];
self::notifyAllPlayers("points", clienttranslate('${player_name} gets ${nbr} hearts and looses ${nbr} points'), array (
'player_id' => $player_id,'player_name' => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'],
'nbr' => $heart_number ));
} else {
// No point lost (just notify)
self::notifyAllPlayers("points", clienttranslate('${player_name} did not get any hearts'), array (
'player_id' => $player_id,'player_name' => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'] ));
}
}
$newScores = self::getCollectionFromDb("SELECT player_id, player_score FROM player", true );
self::notifyAllPlayers( "newScores", '', array( 'newScores' => $newScores ) );

///// Test if this is the end of the game
foreach ( $newScores as $player_id => $score ) {
if ($score <= -100) {
// Trigger the end of the game !
$this->gamestate->nextState("endGame");
return;
}
}

$this->gamestate->nextState("nextHand");
}
</pre>

So it should more less work now, including end of game condition. Try to play it!

== Additional stuff ==

The following things were not implemented and can add them yourself by looking at the code of original hearts game:

* Remove debug code from setupNewGame to deal cards, cards are now dealt in stNewHand state handler
* Rule checking and rule enforcements in playCard function
* Start scoring with 100 points each and end when <= 0
* Fix scoring rules with Q of spades and 26 point reverse scoring
* First player one with 2 club
* Add progress handling
* Add statistics
* Add card exchange states
* Add game option to start with 75 points instead of 100

Tutorial hearts

2019-08-17T01:39:21Z

Amadannabriona: /* Create your first game */

== Introduction ==

Using this tutorial, you can build a complete working game on the BGA environment: Hearts.

Before you read this tutorial, you must:
* Read the overall presentations of the BGA Framework ([[Studio|see here]]).
* Know the rules for Hearts
* Some-what know the languages used on BGA: PHP, SQL, HTML, CSS, Javascript
* Setup you development environment [http://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/First_steps_with_BGA_Studio First Steps with BGA Studio]
* As part of setup you have to have access to your ftp home folder in studio, which would have 'hearts' game source code. We will be using some resources of this game in this tutorial, so copy it over to local disk if you have not done so.

If you stuck of have question about this tutorial post on [https://forum.boardgamearena.com/viewforum.php?f=12 BGA Developers forum]

== Create your first game ==

If you have not already, you have to create a project in BGA Studio. For this tutorial you can create a project heartsYOURNAME where
YOURNAME is your developer login name. You can also re-use the project you have created for the "First Steps" tutorial above.
With the initial skeleton of code provided, you can already start a game from the BGA Studio.

1. Find and start the game in turn-based mode with 4 players. Make sure it works.

2. Modify the text in heartsYOURNAME_heartsYOURNAME.tpl, reload the page in the browser and make sure your ftp sync works as expected.
Note: if you have not setup auto-sync do it now, manually copying files is a no-starter.

3. Express stop from settings menu (the gear icon).

<i>Note: please do '''not''' use the hearts project code as a base. This tutorial assumes you started with a TEMPLATE project with no prior modifications. Using the hearts project as a base will be very confusing and you won't be able to follow all the steps.
</i>

== Hook version control system ==

If its a real game or even for this tutorial I would commit the code to version control right at start. You going to find yourself in the situation
when game does not even start anymore and no way of debugging it unless you have a way to revert. That is where version control becomes very handy.
If you don't know what I am talking about then at least back-up your files after each of major steps. Starting now.

Code for this tutorial available on github at https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla

Different revisions represent different steps along the process, starting from original template to a complete game.

== Update game infos and box graphics ==

Even it does not nothing yet I always start with making sure game looks descent in the game selector, meaning it has nice box graphics and information is correct. For that we need to edit [[Game_meta-information: gameinfos.inc.php|gameinfos.inc.php]].
What you would do for real game you would go to http://boardgamegeek.com find the game and use the information from web-site to fill the gameinfos.
So lets do that. Find "hearts" on boardgamegeek. Original release 1850 :)
You can fill in year of publishing, bgg id, you can put Public Domain as publisher and publisher id is 171 for public domain. And as designer and author you can just put your own name just for fun. Set number of players to 4.

// Players configuration that can be played (ex: 2 to 4 players)
'players' => array( 4 ),

The next step is to replace game_box.png with nicer images. For this tutorial just copy all files from img/ folder of hearts/ template into img/ directory of your project. And replace publisher.png with nicer image for example https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-sharedcode/blob/master/img/publisher.png.

Details about images can be found here: [[Game art: img directory]].

Now important step. You have to LOAD these files in studio website through control panel. So go to Control Panel -> Manager Games -> heartsYOUNAME
and press Reload for 'Reload game informations' and 'Reload game box image'

Now try to start the game again. If you some-how introduced a syntax error in gameinfos file it may not actually work (game won't start).
Always use "Express Start" button to start the game. You should see a standard state prompt from template. You should see 4 players on the right, testdude0 .. testdude3.
To switch between them press the red arrow button near their names, it will open another tab. This way you don't need to login and logout from multiple accounts!

<i>Note: if you had run the game before with less than 4 players there is a bug that will prevent you from running it with 4 only (if you did not run it before or run it with 4 players as instructed stop reading this note), to workaround revert back to original players array (i.e. 1,2,3,4), reload game options, then create a table with 4 players, exit that game table, then change gameoptions to 4 only as above, reload game options, create table again.</i>

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/4b3a73eeb5acae961ade18473af119e8ce8d1a8f]

== Layout and Graphics ==

In this section we will do graphics of the game, and main layout of the game.

First copy a sprite with cards image from hearts img/cards.jpg into img/ folder of your project. Project hearts is mounted to your home directory on bga server.

Edit .tpl to add some divs to represent player table and hand area

<pre>
<div id="myhand_wrap" class="whiteblock">
<h3>My Hand</h3>
<div id="myhand">
</div>
</div>
</pre>

If you refresh you should see now white area with My Hand title.

[[File:Heartsla-tpl2.png]]

Now lets add a card into the hand, just so you can feel it. Edit .tpl and a playertablecard div inside a hand div
<pre>
...
<div id="myhand">
<div class="playertablecard"></div>
</div>
...
</pre>

Edit .css file
<pre>
.playertablecard {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
margin-top: 5px;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
background-image: url('img/cards.jpg'); /* temp hack to see it */
}
</pre>

When you edit CSS remember that you have to FORCE-reload page, i.e. Ctrl-F5, otherwise its cached.
<i>Same when you change existing graphics files</i>.

You should see this:

[[File:Heartsla-tpl3.png]]

Awesome! Now lets do the rest of layout.

There are few ways of how html could have been generated, you could have start with nothing and generate
all by java script. Or you could have started with complete game markup in html and make java script just hide and move pieces around. BGA framework provides also a third way which is mix of both plus template engine to generate HTML using php. So lets do that.

Change .tpl file to have this inside
<pre>
<div id="playertables">


<div class="playertable whiteblock playertable_{DIR}">
<div class="playertablename" style="color:#{PLAYER_COLOR}">
{PLAYER_NAME}
</div>
<div class="playertablecard" id="playertablecard_{PLAYER_ID}">
</div>
</div>


</div>

<div id="myhand_wrap" class="whiteblock">
<h3>{MY_HAND}</h3>
<div id="myhand">
</div>
</div>
</pre>

What we did is we added "block" player, it is marked up using html comments. {VAR} notation is used
to inject variables and
<pre>

inside

</pre>
effectively allows us to do template loops.

In .view.php insert this code after 'Place your code below' comment

<pre>
$template = self::getGameName() . "_" . self::getGameName();

$directions = array( 'S', 'W', 'N', 'E' );

// this will inflate our player block with actual players data
$this->page->begin_block($template, "player");
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $info ) {
$dir = array_shift($directions);
$this->page->insert_block("player", array ("PLAYER_ID" => $player_id,
"PLAYER_NAME" => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'],
"PLAYER_COLOR" => $players [$player_id] ['player_color'],
"DIR" => $dir ));
}
// this will make our My Hand text translatable
$this->tpl['MY_HAND'] = self::_("My hand");
</pre>

What it does is for each player we have it will replicate the html between  and  tags, substituting the variable denoted by {XXX}
with the values you provide. The DIR variable in this case we pulling from directions array (where array_shift will take first element and remove it from the array).

Reload. If everything went well you should see this:

[[File:Heartsla-tpl4.png]]

These are "tableau" areas for 4 players plus My hand visible only to one player.
They not exactly how we wanted them to be because we did not edit .css yet.

Now edit .css, add these lines after import before our previous definition

<pre>
/** Table layout **/

#playertables {
position: relative;
width: 710px;
height: 340px;
}

.playertablename {
font-weight: bold;
}

.playertable {
position: absolute;
text-align: center;
width: 180px;
height: 130px;
}

.playertable_N {
left: 50%;
top: 0px;
margin-left: -90px; /* half of 180 */
}
.playertable_S {
left: 50%;
bottom: 0px;
margin-left: -90px; /* half of 180 */
}
.playertable_W {
left: 0px;
top: 50%;
margin-top: -55px; /* half of 130 */
}
.playertable_E {
right: 0px;
top: 50%;
margin-top: -55px; /* half of 130 */
}
</pre>

Now you force Reload and you should see this:
[[File:Heartsla-tpl5.png]]

This is almost all we need for graphics and layout, there are few tweaks left there but lets do some more heavy lifting now.

<i>Note: if you did not see changes you may have not force reloaded, force means you use Ctrl+F5 or Cltr+Shift-R, if you don't "force" browser will use cached version of .css and images! Which is not what you just changed</i>

<i>Another Note: In general if you have auto-sync you don't need to reload if you change game.php file, you need normal reload if you change js, and force reload for css and images. If you changed state machine or database you likely need to restart the game.</i>

== Game Interface JS Stock ==

BGA framework provides few out of the box classes to deal with cards. The client side
contains class called [[Stock]] and it can be used for any dynamic html 'pieces' management that uses
common sprite image. On the server side we will use [[Deck]] class which we discuss later.

If you open cards.jpg in an image viewer you can see that it is a "sprite" image - 13x4 grid of images stitched together,
which is very efficient way to transport images. So we will use Stock class to mark up these images and create
"card" divs for us.

At first, we need to add "ebg/stock" as a dependency in the hearts.js file:
<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <==== HERE
],
</pre>

Then add this to js contructor, this will define size of our cards
<pre>
console.log('hearts constructor');
this.cardwidth = 72;
this.cardheight = 96;
</pre>

The stock is initialized in Javascript "setup" method like this:
<pre>
// TODO: Set up your game interface here, according to "gamedatas"

// Player hand
this.playerHand = new ebg.stock(); // new stock object for hand
this.playerHand.create( this, $('myhand'), this.cardwidth, this.cardheight );
</pre>

As parameters of the "create" method, we provided the width/height of an item (a card), and the container div "myhand" - which is an id of "div" element from our .tpl file representing player hand.

Then, we must tell the stock what are the items it is going to display during its life: the 52 cards of a standard card game from "CSS sprite" image named "cards.jpg" with all the cards arranged in 4 rows and 13 columns.

Here's how we tell stock what are the items type to display:
<pre>
this.playerHand.image_items_per_row = 13; // 13 images per row

// Create cards types:
for (var color = 1; color <= 4; color++) {
for (var value = 2; value <= 14; value++) {
// Build card type id
var card_type_id = this.getCardUniqueId(color, value);
this.playerHand.addItemType(card_type_id, card_type_id, g_gamethemeurl + 'img/cards.jpg', card_type_id);
}
}
</pre>

And add this function to utilities section
<pre>
// Get card unique identifier based on its color and value
getCardUniqueId : function(color, value) {
return (color - 1) * 13 + (value - 2);
},
</pre>

Explanations:
* At first, we tell the stock component that our CSS sprite contains 13 items per row. This way, it can find the correct image for each card type id.
* Then for the 4x13 cards, we call "addItemType" method that create the type. The arguments are the type id, the weight of the card (for sorting purpose), the URL of our CSS sprite, and the position of our card image in the CSS sprite. It happens to be the same number in our case.

Note: we need to generate a unique ID for each type of card based on its color and value. For that we create a function "getCardUniqueId". The type is unique identification of the TYPE of the card, i.e. queen of spades encoded in the integer, if our deck have 2 standard card decks we would have had 2 queen of spades, they would shared same type, same image but will have different ids. NOTE: its unfortunate that they named this 'getCardUniqueId', it should have been 'getCardUniqueType', because it really not an id, but a TYPE of card. The type of the item either should be reversible function of its properties (i.e. kind of suite * 13 + value) or just enumerator described in material.inc.php. In this specific case its a synthetic type id, which also same as number of the card in the sprite image (i.e. if you enumerate each image in sprite going left to right, then top to bottom).

Now lets add the 5 of Heart to player's hand just for fun (this code will go in setup method after types initialization):

<pre>
// 2 - hears, 5 is 5, and 42 is card id, it normally would come from db
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId( this.getCardUniqueId( 2, 5 ), 42 );
</pre>

This will add card with id 42 and type 16 ( (2-1)*13+(5-2)=16 ).

Note that number 16 would not be something you can see in database, Deck database will have separate field for type and type_arg where type is suite and type_arg is number, so its not the same thing, but you can use same formula to convert. Number 42 on the other hand would be id field in database. But we get to database in the later section.

If you reload now you should see 5 of hearts in "your hand".

Stock control can handle clicking on items and forms the selection, you can immediately react to selection
or you can query it later, for example when user presses some other button.

Lets hook it up, add this in setup method in .js file, after this.playerHand is initialised

dojo.connect( this.playerHand, 'onChangeSelection', this, 'onPlayerHandSelectionChanged' );

Then find Player's action comment section and add handler after the comment
<pre>
onPlayerHandSelectionChanged : function() {
var items = this.playerHand.getSelectedItems();

if (items.length > 0) {
if (this.checkAction('playCard', true)) {
// Can play a card

var card_id = items[0].id;
console.log("on playCard "+card_id);

this.playerHand.unselectAll();
} else if (this.checkAction('giveCards')) {
// Can give cards => let the player select some cards
} else {
this.playerHand.unselectAll();
}
}
},
</pre>

The function name of the handler if 4th parameter on dojo.connect function, if you misspelled it will be some unpredictable effects.

Now if you reload, open js Console (F12), then click on card in My Hand and you should see
on playCard 42
printed on the console

== Game Database and Game Initialisation ==

Next step you want to design game database and setup new game (on server side).
For that we need to a) modify database schema to add our cards data b) add some global "variables" into
existing globals table.

To modify schema first exit you existing game(s). Open dbmodel.sql file and uncomment card table creation

<pre>
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `card` (
`card_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`card_type` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_type_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
`card_location` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_location_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`card_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;
</pre>

This is "card" table which would be managed by Deck php class.

In addition we want a little piece of information in the players table:

-- add info about first player
ALTER TABLE `player` ADD `player_first` BOOLEAN NOT NULL DEFAULT '0';

Not sure why they put this into player table, we could have global db variable to hold first player as easily.
But I am just following existing code more-less.

Next we finally get into .game.php class, where the main logic and db interaction would be. Find php constructor which should be
function __construct( )
This is first function in a file. Add this code to constructor.
<pre>
parent::__construct();
self::initGameStateLabels( array(
"currentHandType" => 10,
"trickColor" => 11,
"alreadyPlayedHearts" => 12,
) );

$this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
$this->cards->init( "card" );
</pre>

Here we are initializing three "Game State Variables" which are variable stored in database. They are integers.
It must start with no lower then 10 since the others ones are reserved. These values are stored by numeric id's
in the database, but in the php we associate them with string labels for convenience of access. The variables are "trickColor" - numbers from 1 to 4 that map to card suit (not sure why its called color maybe its translation from french); "alreadyPlayedHearts" - is boolean flag (well 0 or 1) indication either somebody use hearts on the trick; "currentHandType" - stores the value to indicate who to give cards during exchange.

Next 2 lines are creating $this->cards object and associating it with "card" table in the the database.

<i>If we called db table 'foo' instead of 'card' the last statement would have been $this->cards->init( "foo" )</i>

At this point I would start a new game and make sure it starts, then exit.

<i>
If you made a mistake
in .sql or php constructor game won't start and good luck debugging it (that is why it important to check
once in a while to make sure it still starts while you remember what you have changed)
</i>

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/e3a049257b592ff6167688d4d344f8a83d349b08]

Now we can go to game initialization setupNewGame in game.php, this method is called once when table is created.

In your template project you should have code that deals with player table, just leave it as is. Start inserting the
other code after "Start the game initialization" comment
<pre>
// Init global values with their initial values

// Note: hand types: 0 = give 3 cards to player on the left
// 1 = give 3 cards to player on the right
// 2 = give 3 cards to player on tthe front
// 3 = keep cards
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'currentHandType', 0 );

// Set current trick color to zero (= no trick color)
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'trickColor', 0 );

// Mark if we already played some heart during this hand
self::setGameStateInitialValue( 'alreadyPlayedHearts', 0 );
</pre>

Here we initialized all the globals to 0.

Next is to create our cards in the database. We have one deck of cards so its pretty simple
<pre>
// Create cards
$cards = array ();
foreach ( $this->colors as $color_id => $color ) {
// spade, heart, diamond, club
for ($value = 2; $value <= 14; $value ++) {
// 2, 3, 4, ... K, A
$cards [] = array ('type' => $color_id,'type_arg' => $value,'nbr' => 1 );
}
}

$this->cards->createCards( $cards, 'deck' );
</pre>

This code that will create one of each card. But don't run it yet, because we missing $this->colors.
So we have state of the game in the database, but there is some static game information which never changes,
this information should be stored in material.inc.php and this way it can be accessed from all .php files.
We will edit this file now by adding these lines

<pre>
$this->colors = array(
1 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('spade'),
'nametr' => self::_('spade') ),
2 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('heart'),
'nametr' => self::_('heart') ),
3 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('club'),
'nametr' => self::_('club') ),
4 => array( 'name' => clienttranslate('diamond'),
'nametr' => self::_('diamond') )
);

$this->values_label = array(
2 =>'2',
3 => '3',
4 => '4',
5 => '5',
6 => '6',
7 => '7',
8 => '8',
9 => '9',
10 => '10',
11 => clienttranslate('J'),
12 => clienttranslate('Q'),
13 => clienttranslate('K'),
14 => clienttranslate('A')
);
</pre>

Where $this->colors will define Suit labels and $this->values_label defines value labels.
If you noticed we have two of each label for suits. This is because we need sometimes translated values on php
side and sometimes we don't. In this case nametr will return a translated value right in php, which is only usefull when you throw exceptions to show right strings. If you passing value to client via notification you should always
use untranslated strings, and client will translate it. 'clienttranslate' marks the value for translation but does not actually change it for php. For more about this wonderful translation stuff see [[Translations]] section.

== Full game model synchronisation ==

Now at any point in the game we need to make sure that database information can be reflected back in UI, so we fix getAllDatas function
to return all possible data we need to reconstruct the game. This is in the game.php file. The template for getAllDatas already taking care of player info, lets just
add hand and tableau data before we return result.

<pre>
// Cards in player hand
$result['hand'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'hand', $current_player_id );

// Cards played on the table
$result['cardsontable'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'cardsontable' );
</pre>

Now on the client side we should display this data, so in your .js file in setup function (which is the receiver of getAllDatas) add replace our hack of putting hearts of 5 directly into hand with:

<pre>
// Cards in player's hand
for ( var i in this.gamedatas.hand) {
var card = this.gamedatas.hand[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId(this.getCardUniqueId(color, value), card.id);
}

// Cards played on table
for (i in this.gamedatas.cardsontable) {
var card = this.gamedatas.cardsontable[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
var player_id = card.location_arg;
this.playCardOnTable(player_id, color, value, card.id);
}
</pre>

This should show hand and tableau cards now, except we are missing playCardOnTable function. So find getCardUniqueId function which
should be in utilities section and add this after

<pre>
playCardOnTable : function(player_id, color, value, card_id) {
// player_id => direction
dojo.place(this.format_block('jstpl_cardontable', {
x : this.cardwidth * (value - 2),
y : this.cardheight * (color - 1),
player_id : player_id
}), 'playertablecard_' + player_id);

if (player_id != this.player_id) {
// Some opponent played a card
// Move card from player panel
this.placeOnObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'overall_player_board_' + player_id);
} else {
// You played a card. If it exists in your hand, move card from there and remove
// corresponding item

if ($('myhand_item_' + card_id)) {
this.placeOnObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'myhand_item_' + card_id);
this.playerHand.removeFromStockById(card_id);
}
}

// In any case: move it to its final destination
this.slideToObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'playertablecard_' + player_id).play();
},
</pre>

For that to work we also need to add card temple in .tpl file
<pre>
// Javascript HTML templates

var jstpl_cardontable = '<div class="cardontable" id="cardontable_${player_id}" style="background-position:-${x}px -${y}px">\
</div>';
</pre>

What this does is basically it creates another card object, because if it is not our card its not in our hand (stock) so
we have to create it out of thin air. Technique to do that is to implode a js template object defined in .tpl file with some
parameters, which will just basically create a "div" string (yes you could have used string concatenation but it would not be fancy).
Now dojo.place places it (the div) on top of placeholder. Now we have an object with id of 'cardontable_' + player_id, depending
on who is playing it we either place it on player miniboard or in hand (and remove from hand stock). Then we animate the card move.

We also should fix our .css file now to add style for cardontable and REMOVE background for playertablecard which really is a placeholder div and not a card (don't miss the remove step it will be all screwy if you miss it).

<pre>
.playertablecard {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
margin-top: 5px;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
/* we remove background-image here */
}

/*** cards on table ***/

.cardontable {
position: absolute;
width: 72px;
height: 96px;
background-image: url('img/cards.jpg');
}
</pre>

Now to test that it actually works lets deal cards to players during game initialization:

Add this after createCards in setupNewGame function in the game.php file
<pre>
// Shuffle deck
$this->cards->shuffle('deck');
// Deal 13 cards to each players
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards(13, 'deck', $player_id);
}
</pre>

Now when you start the game you should see 13 cards in your hand!

We just need to hook-up clicking on card and test if our playCardOnTable works.

Find onPlayerHandSelectionChanged function in the JS file, we should have logging there like console.log("on playCard "+card_id);
So after that insert this:
<pre>
console.log("on playCard "+card_id);
// type is (color - 1) * 13 + (value - 2)
var type = items[0].type;
var color = Math.floor(type / 13) + 1;
var value = type % 13 + 2;

this.playCardOnTable(this.player_id,color,value,card_id);
</pre>
Note: this code is for testing we will replace it with server interaction after we test it.

Now if you force reload (because we changed .css before) you should be able to click on card from you have and see it moving,
you can click on few cards this way. When you done enjoying the animation, press F5 to get your hand back.

[[File:Heartsla-sync.png]]

Code Rev [https://github.com/elaskavaia/bga-heartsla/tree/01d4e2f595fd14c2adcc97a957d21bb2766f78a8]

== State Machine ==

Now we need to create a game state machine. So the states are:

* Cards are dealt to all players (lets call it "newHand")
* Player is selected who will start a new trick ("newTrick")
* Player start or respond to played card ("playerTurn")
* Game control is passed to next player or trick is ended ("nextPlayer")
* End of hand processing (scoring and check for end of game) ("nextHand")

In addition players can exchange cards so we need two more states for that but we will skip it for now.

The state handling spread across 4 files, so you have to make sure all pieces are connected together.
The state machine states.php defines all the states, and function handlers on php side in a form of string,
and if any of these functions are not implemented it would be very hard to debug because it will break in random places.

So .states.php

<pre>
$machinestates = array(

// The initial state. Please do not modify.
1 => array(
"name" => "gameSetup",
"description" => clienttranslate("Game setup"),
"type" => "manager",
"action" => "stGameSetup",
"transitions" => array( "" => 20 )
),

/// New hand
20 => array(
"name" => "newHand",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNewHand",
"updateGameProgression" => true,
"transitions" => array( "" => 30 )
),

// Trick

30 => array(
"name" => "newTrick",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNewTrick",
"transitions" => array( "" => 31 )
),
31 => array(
"name" => "playerTurn",
"description" => clienttranslate('${actplayer} must play a card'),
"descriptionmyturn" => clienttranslate('${you} must play a card'),
"type" => "activeplayer",
"possibleactions" => array( "playCard" ),
"transitions" => array( "playCard" => 32 )
),
32 => array(
"name" => "nextPlayer",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stNextPlayer",
"transitions" => array( "nextPlayer" => 31, "nextTrick" => 30, "endHand" => 40 )
),

// End of the hand (scoring, etc...)
40 => array(
"name" => "endHand",
"description" => "",
"type" => "game",
"action" => "stEndHand",
"transitions" => array( "nextHand" => 20, "endGame" => 99 )
),

// Final state.
// Please do not modify.
99 => array(
"name" => "gameEnd",
"description" => clienttranslate("End of game"),
"type" => "manager",
"action" => "stGameEnd",
"args" => "argGameEnd"
)

);
</pre>

The full details about what these fields are you can find in [[Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php]].

But basically we have Player states, in which human player has to perform an "action" by pressing some button in UI or selecting some game item, which will trigger js handler, which will do ajax call to server into API define
by .action.php file. All functions in this file are API between client and server and has very simple
and repetitive structure. In this case there is only two action player can do - play a card or pass cards to other player. So these 2 functions go into .action.php file, we will only define one now since we not implementing card passing states yet:

<pre>
public function playCard() {
self::setAjaxMode();
$card_id = self::getArg("id", AT_posint, true);
$this->game->playCard($card_id);
self::ajaxResponse();
}
</pre>

Now to make it run we have define all handler functions that we referenced in states, which are - one function for state arguments argGiveCards, 4 functions for robot states (where game performs some action)
and 1 function for player actions handling.
Find 'Game state arguments' section and paste this in:
<pre>
function argGiveCards() {
return array ();
}
</pre>

This normally pass some parameters to states, but we don't need anything yet. It good to have placeholder there anyway, so we can fix it later.
Important: even when its a stub this function must return array not scalar.

Lets do stubs for other functions, find game state actions section in .game.php file and insert these
<pre>
function stNewHand() {
// Take back all cards (from any location => null) to deck
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation(null, "deck");
$this->cards->shuffle('deck');
// Deal 13 cards to each players
// Create deck, shuffle it and give 13 initial cards
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards(13, 'deck', $player_id);
// Notify player about his cards
self::notifyPlayer($player_id, 'newHand', '', array ('cards' => $cards ));
}
self::setGameStateValue('alreadyPlayedHearts', 0);
$this->gamestate->nextState("");
}

function stNewTrick() {
// New trick: active the player who wins the last trick, or the player who own the club-2 card
// Reset trick color to 0 (= no color)
self::setGameStateInitialValue('trickColor', 0);
$this->gamestate->nextState();
}

function stNextPlayer() {
// Active next player OR end the trick and go to the next trick OR end the hand
if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('cardsontable') == 4) {
// This is the end of the trick
// Move all cards to "cardswon" of the given player
$best_value_player_id = self::activeNextPlayer(); // TODO figure out winner of trick
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation('cardsontable', 'cardswon', null, $best_value_player_id);

if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('hand') == 0) {
// End of the hand
$this->gamestate->nextState("endHand");
} else {
// End of the trick
$this->gamestate->nextState("nextTrick");
}
} else {
// Standard case (not the end of the trick)
// => just active the next player
$player_id = self::activeNextPlayer();
self::giveExtraTime($player_id);
$this->gamestate->nextState('nextPlayer');
}
}

function stEndHand() {
$this->gamestate->nextState("nextHand");
}

</pre>
Important: All state actions game or player must end with state transition (or thrown exception). Also make sure its ONLY one state transition,
if you accidentally fall though after state transition and do another one it will be a real mess and head scratching for long time.

Now find 'player actions' section and paste this code there
<pre>
function playCard($card_id) {
self::checkAction("playCard");
$player_id = self::getActivePlayerId();
throw new BgaUserException(self::_("Not implemented: ") . "$player_id plays $card_id");
}
</pre>
We won't implement it yet but throw an exception which we will see if interaction is working properly

Now the game should start but it would not be any different then before because we have to implement actual interactions.
Its good to check if it still working though (and if it was running before you have to exit because we changed state machine and normally it will break stuff)

== Client - Server interactions ==

Now to implement things for real we have hook UI actions to ajax calls, and process notifications send by server.
So previously we hooked playCardOnTable right into js handler which caused client animation, in real game its a two
step operation. When user clicks on game element js client sends an ajax call to server, server processes it and updates database, server sends
notification in response, client hooks animations to server notification.

So in .js code replace onPlayerHandSelectionChanged with
<pre>
onPlayerHandSelectionChanged : function() {
var items = this.playerHand.getSelectedItems();

if (items.length > 0) {
var action = 'playCard';
if (this.checkAction(action, true)) {
// Can play a card
var card_id = items[0].id;
this.ajaxcall("/" + this.game_name + "/" + this.game_name + "/" + action + ".html", {
id : card_id,
lock : true
}, this, function(result) {
}, function(is_error) {
});

this.playerHand.unselectAll();
} else if (this.checkAction('giveCards')) {
// Can give cards => let the player select some cards
} else {
this.playerHand.unselectAll();
}
}
},
</pre>

Now when you click on card you should get a server response: Not implemented...

Lets implement it, in .game.php
<pre>
function playCard($card_id) {
self::checkAction("playCard");
$player_id = self::getActivePlayerId();
$this->cards->moveCard($card_id, 'cardsontable', $player_id);
// XXX check rules here
$currentCard = $this->cards->getCard($card_id);
// And notify
self::notifyAllPlayers('playCard', clienttranslate('${player_name} plays ${value_displayed} ${color_displayed}'), array (
'i18n' => array ('color_displayed','value_displayed' ),'card_id' => $card_id,'player_id' => $player_id,
'player_name' => self::getActivePlayerName(),'value' => $currentCard ['type_arg'],
'value_displayed' => $this->values_label [$currentCard ['type_arg']],'color' => $currentCard ['type'],
'color_displayed' => $this->colors [$currentCard ['type']] ['name'] ));
// Next player
$this->gamestate->nextState('playCard');
}
</pre>

We get the card from client, we move it to the tableau (moveCard is hooked to database directly, its part of deck class),
we notify all players and we change state. What we missing here is bunch of checks (rule enforcements), we will add it later.

Interesting part about this notify is that we use i18n array for string that needs to be translated by client, so
they sent as English text in notification, then client has to know which parameters needs translating.

On the client side .js we have to implement a notification handler to do the animation

<pre>
setupNotifications : function() {
console.log('notifications subscriptions setup');

dojo.subscribe('newHand', this, "notif_newHand");
dojo.subscribe('playCard', this, "notif_playCard");

},

notif_newHand : function(notif) {
// We received a new full hand of 13 cards.
this.playerHand.removeAll();

for ( var i in notif.args.cards) {
var card = notif.args.cards[i];
var color = card.type;
var value = card.type_arg;
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId(this.getCardUniqueId(color, value), card.id);
}
},

notif_playCard : function(notif) {
// Play a card on the table
this.playCardOnTable(notif.args.player_id, notif.args.color, notif.args.value, notif.args.card_id);
},
</pre>

Now it actually works through the server when you click on card - the move is recorded. If you testing it now you will notice
after trick is done all cards remains on the table, but if you press F5 they would disappear, this is because
we updated database to pick-up the cards but did not send notification about it, so we need to send notification about it
and have a handler for it

So in .game.php file add notification in stNextPlayer function after moveAllCardsInLocation call:

<pre>
// Notify
// Note: we use 2 notifications here in order we can pause the display during the first notification
// before we move all cards to the winner (during the second)
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'trickWin', clienttranslate('${player_name} wins the trick'), array(
'player_id' => $best_value_player_id,
'player_name' => $players[ $best_value_player_id ]['player_name']
) );
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'giveAllCardsToPlayer','', array(
'player_id' => $best_value_player_id
) );
</pre>

And in .js file add 2 more notification handlers.

This is to subscribe in setupNotifications function
<pre>
dojo.subscribe( 'trickWin', this, "notif_trickWin" );
this.notifqueue.setSynchronous( 'trickWin', 1000 );
dojo.subscribe( 'giveAllCardsToPlayer', this, "notif_giveAllCardsToPlayer" );
</pre>

And this are handlers
<pre>
notif_trickWin : function(notif) {
// We do nothing here (just wait in order players can view the 4 cards played before they're gone.
},
notif_giveAllCardsToPlayer : function(notif) {
// Move all cards on table to given table, then destroy them
var winner_id = notif.args.player_id;
for ( var player_id in this.gamedatas.players) {
var anim = this.slideToObject('cardontable_' + player_id, 'overall_player_board_' + winner_id);
dojo.connect(anim, 'onEnd', function(node) {
dojo.destroy(node);
});
anim.play();
}
},
</pre>

So 'trickWin' notification does not do much except it will delay the processing of next notification by 1 second (1000 ms)
and it will log the message (that happens independent of what handler does).
<i>Note: if on the other hand you don't want to log but what what to do something else send empty message</i>

Now after the trick you see all cards move the "player's stash".

== Scoring and End of game handling ==

Now we should calculate scoring and for that we need to actually track who wins the trick.
Trick is won by the player with highest card (no trump). We just need to remember what is trick suite.
For which we will use state variable 'trickColor' which we already conveniently created.

In .game.php file find playCard function and add this before notify functions
$currentTrickColor = self::getGameStateValue( 'trickColor' ) ;
if( $currentTrickColor == 0 )
self::setGameStateValue( 'trickColor', $currentCard['type'] );

This will make sure we remember first suit being played, now to use it modify stNextPlayer function to fix our TODO comment
<pre>
function stNextPlayer() {
// Active next player OR end the trick and go to the next trick OR end the hand
if ($this->cards->countCardInLocation('cardsontable') == 4) {
// This is the end of the trick
$cards_on_table = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation('cardsontable');
$best_value = 0;
$best_value_player_id = null;
$currentTrickColor = self::getGameStateValue('trickColor');
foreach ( $cards_on_table as $card ) {
// Note: type = card color
if ($card ['type'] == $currentTrickColor) {
if ($best_value_player_id === null || $card ['type_arg'] > $best_value) {
$best_value_player_id = $card ['location_arg']; // Note: location_arg = player who played this card on table
$best_value = $card ['type_arg']; // Note: type_arg = value of the card
}
}
}

// Active this player => he's the one who starts the next trick
$this->gamestate->changeActivePlayer( $best_value_player_id );

// Move all cards to "cardswon" of the given player
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation('cardsontable', 'cardswon', null, $best_value_player_id);

// Notify
// ... same code here as before
</pre>

The scoring rule in the studio example code is huge multi-page function, for this tutorial we will make simplier.
Lets score -1 point per heart and call it a day. And game will end when somebody goes -100 or below.

As UI goes for scoring, the main thing to update is the scoring on the mini boards represented by stars, also
we want to show that in the log.
In addition scoring can be shown in [[Game_interface_logic:_yourgamename.js#Scoring_dialogs|Scoring Dialog]] using tableWindow notification, but it is a tutorial on its own and you can do it as homework (it is part of original heart game).

In .js file we need to add one more subscription and notification handler:
dojo.subscribe( 'newScores', this, "notif_newScores" );
in setupNotifications

and
notif_newScores : function(notif) {
// Update players' scores
for ( var player_id in notif.args.newScores) {
this.scoreCtrl[player_id].toValue(notif.args.newScores[player_id]);
}
},
somewhere after. this.scoreCtrl is pre-existing object that shows the scoring and this function will update score values per player from notification argument

so in .game.php our stEndHand function will look like

<pre>
function stEndHand() {
// Count and score points, then end the game or go to the next hand.
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
// Gets all "hearts" + queen of spades

$player_to_points = array ();
foreach ( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$player_to_points [$player_id] = 0;
}
$cards = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation("cardswon");
foreach ( $cards as $card ) {
$player_id = $card ['location_arg'];
// Note: 2 = heart
if ($card ['type'] == 2) {
$player_to_points [$player_id] ++;
}
}
// Apply scores to player
foreach ( $player_to_points as $player_id => $points ) {
if ($points != 0) {
$sql = "UPDATE player SET player_score=player_score-$points WHERE player_id='$player_id'";
self::DbQuery($sql);
$heart_number = $player_to_points [$player_id];
self::notifyAllPlayers("points", clienttranslate('${player_name} gets ${nbr} hearts and looses ${nbr} points'), array (
'player_id' => $player_id,'player_name' => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'],
'nbr' => $heart_number ));
} else {
// No point lost (just notify)
self::notifyAllPlayers("points", clienttranslate('${player_name} did not get any hearts'), array (
'player_id' => $player_id,'player_name' => $players [$player_id] ['player_name'] ));
}
}
$newScores = self::getCollectionFromDb("SELECT player_id, player_score FROM player", true );
self::notifyAllPlayers( "newScores", '', array( 'newScores' => $newScores ) );

///// Test if this is the end of the game
foreach ( $newScores as $player_id => $score ) {
if ($score <= -100) {
// Trigger the end of the game !
$this->gamestate->nextState("endGame");
return;
}
}

$this->gamestate->nextState("nextHand");
}
</pre>

So it should more less work now, including end of game condition. Try to play it!

== Additional stuff ==

The following things were not implemented and can add them yourself by looking at the code of original hearts game:

* Remove debug code from setupNewGame to deal cards, cards are now dealt in stNewHand state handler
* Rule checking and rule enforcements in playCard function
* Start scoring with 100 points each and end when <= 0
* Fix scoring rules with Q of spades and 26 point reverse scoring
* First player one with 2 club
* Add progress handling
* Add statistics
* Add card exchange states
* Add game option to start with 75 points instead of 100

Main game logic: yourgamename.game.php

2019-08-01T03:04:42Z

Amadannabriona: /* States functions */

This is the main file for your game logic. Here you initialize the game, persist data, implement the rules and notify the client interface of changes.

== File Structure ==

The details of how the file is structured are described directly with comments in the code skeleton provided to you.

Here is the basic structure:

* EmptyGame (constructor): where you define global variables.
* setupNewGame: initial setup of the game.
* getAllDatas: where you retrieve all game data during a complete reload of the game.
* getGameProgression: where you compute the game progression indicator.
* Utility functions: your utility functions.
* Player actions: the entry points for players actions.
* Game state arguments: methods to return additional data on specific game states ([http://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php#args more info here]).
* Game state actions: the logic to run when entering a new game state ([http://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php#action more info here]).
* zombieTurn: what to do it's the turn of a zombie player.

== Accessing player information ==

'''Important''': In the following methods, be mindful of the difference between the "active" player and the "current" player. The '''active''' player is the player whose turn it is - not necessarily the player who sent a request! The '''current''' player is the player who sent the request and will see the results returned by your methods: not necessarily the player whose turn it is!

; getPlayersNumber()
: Returns the number of players playing at the table
: Note: doesn't work in setupNewGame (use count($players) instead).

; getActivePlayerId()
: Get the "active_player", whatever what is the current state type.
: Note: it does NOT mean that this player is active right now, because state type could be "game" or "multiplayer"
: Note: avoid using this method in a "multiplayer" state because it does not mean anything.

; getActivePlayerName()
: Get the "active_player" name
: Note: avoid using this method in a "multiplayer" state because it does not mean anything.

; loadPlayersBasicInfos()
: Get an associative array with generic data about players (ie: not game specific data).
: The key of the associative array is the player id. The returned table is cached, so ok to call multiple times without performance concerns.
: The content of each value is:
: * player_name - the name of the player
: * player_color (ex: ff0000) - the color code of the player
: * player_no - the position of the player at the start of the game in natural table order, i.e. 1,2,3

; getCurrentPlayerId()
: Get the "current_player". The current player is the one from which the action originated (the one who sent the request).
: '''Be careful''': This is not necessarily the active player!
: In general, you shouldn't use this method, unless you are in "multiplayer" state.

; getCurrentPlayerName()
: Get the "current_player" name
: Be careful using this method (see above).

; getCurrentPlayerColor()
: Get the "current_player" color
: Be careful using this method (see above).

; isCurrentPlayerZombie()
: Check the "current_player" zombie status. If true, player is zombie, i.e. left or was kicked out of the game.

== Accessing the database ==

The main game logic should be the only point from which you should access the game database. You access your database using SQL queries with the methods below.

'''IMPORTANT'''

BGA uses [http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/sql-syntax-transactions.html database transactions]. This means that your database changes WON'T BE APPLIED to the database until your request ends normally. Using transactions is in fact very useful for you; at any time, if your game logic detects that something is wrong (example: a disallowed move), you just have to throw an exception and all changes to the game situation will be removed.

; DbQuery( $sql )
: This is the generic method to access the database.
: It can execute any type of SELECT/UPDATE/DELETE/REPLACE query on the database.
: You should use it for UPDATE/DELETE/REPLACE queries. For SELECT queries, the specialized methods below are much better.

; getUniqueValueFromDB( $sql )
: Returns a unique value from DB or null if no value is found.
: $sql must be a SELECT query.
: Raise an exception if more than 1 row is returned.

; getCollectionFromDB( $sql, $bSingleValue=false )
: Returns an associative array of rows for a sql SELECT query.
: The key of the resulting associative array is the first field specified in the SELECT query.
: The value of the resulting associative array if an associative array with all the field specified in the SELECT query and associated values.
: First column must be a primary or alternate key.
: The resulting collection can be empty.
: If you specified $bSingleValue=true and if your SQL query request 2 fields A and B, the method returns an associative array "A=>B"

Example 1:
<pre>
self::getCollectionFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name, player_score score FROM player" );

Result:
array(
1234 => array( 'id'=>1234, 'name'=>'myuser0', 'score'=>1 ),
1235 => array( 'id'=>1235, 'name'=>'myuser1', 'score'=>0 )
)
</pre>
Example 2:
<pre>
self::getCollectionFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name FROM player", true );

Result:
array(
1234 => 'myuser0',
1235 => 'myuser1'
)

</pre>

; getNonEmptyCollectionFromDB( $sql )
: Idem than previous one, but raise an exception if the collection is empty

; getObjectFromDB( $sql )
: Returns one row for the sql SELECT query as an associative array or null if there is no result
: Raise an exception if the query return more than one row

Example:
<pre>
self::getObjectFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name, player_score score FROM player WHERE player_id='$player_id'" );

Result:
array(
'id'=>1234, 'name'=>'myuser0', 'score'=>1
)
</pre>

; getNonEmptyObjectFromDB( $sql )
: Idem than previous one, but raise an exception if no row is found

; getObjectListFromDB( $sql, $bUniqueValue=false )
: Return an array of rows for a sql SELECT query.
: the result if the same than "getCollectionFromDB" except that the result is a simple array (and not an associative array).
: The result can be empty.
: If you specified $bUniqueValue=true and if your SQL query request 1 field, the method returns directly an array of values.

Example 1:
<pre>
self::getObjectListFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name, player_score score FROM player" );

Result:
array(
array( 'id'=>1234, 'name'=>'myuser0', 'score'=>1 ),
array( 'id'=>1235, 'name'=>'myuser1', 'score'=>0 )
)
</pre>
Example 2:
<pre>
self::getObjectListFromDB( "SELECT player_name name FROM player", true );

Result:
array(
'myuser0',
'myuser1'
)

</pre>

; getDoubleKeyCollectionFromDB( $sql, $bSingleValue=false )
: Return an associative array of associative array, from a SQL SELECT query.
: First array level correspond to first column specified in SQL query.
: Second array level correspond to second column specified in SQL query.
: If bSingleValue = true, keep only third column on result

; DbGetLastId()
: Return the PRIMARY key of the last inserted row (see PHP mysql_insert_id function).

; DbAffectedRow()
: Return the number of row affected by the last operation

; escapeStringForDB( $string )
: You must use this function on every string type data in your database that contains unsafe data.
: (unsafe = can be modified by a player).
: This method makes sure that no SQL injection will be done through the string used.
: Note: if you using standard types in ajax actions, like AT_alphanum it is sanitized before arrival,
: this is only needed if you manage to get unchecked string, like in the games where user has to enter text as a response.

<pre>

</pre>

Note: see Editing [[Game database model: dbmodel.sql]] to know how to define your database model.

== Use globals ==

Sometimes, you want a single global integer value for your game, and you don't want to create a DB table specifically for it.

You can do this with the BGA framework "global." Your value will be stored in the "global" table in the database, and you can access it with simple methods.

'''initGameStateLabels'''

This method should be located at the beginning of ''yourgamename.php.'' This is where you define the globals used in your game logic, by assigning them IDs.

You can define up to 79 globals, with IDs from 10 to 89 (inclusive). You must '''not''' use globals outside this range, as those values are used by other components of the framework.

<pre>
self::initGameStateLabels( array(
"my_first_global_variable" => 10,
"my_second_global_variable" => 11
) );
</pre>

'''setGameStateInitialValue( $value_label, $value_value )'''

Initialize your global value. Must be called before any use of your global, so you should call this method from your "setupNewGame" method.

'''getGameStateValue( $value_label )'''

Retrieve the current value of a global.

'''setGameStateValue( $value_label, $value_value )'''

Set the current value of a global.

'''incGameStateValue( $value_label, $increment )'''

Increment the current value of a global. If increment is negative, decrement the value of the global.

Return the final value of the global.

== Game states and active players ==

=== Activate player handling ===

; $this->activeNextPlayer()
: Make the next player active in the natural player order.
: Note: you CANT use this method in a "activeplayer" or "multipleactiveplayer" state. You must use a "game" type game state for this.

; $this->activePrevPlayer()
: Make the previous player active (in the natural player order).
: Note: you CANT use this method in a "activeplayer" or "multipleactiveplayer" state. You must use a "game" type game state for this.

; $this->gamestate->changeActivePlayer( $player_id )
: You can call this method to make any player active.
: Note: you CANT use this method in a "activeplayer" or "multipleactiveplayer" state. You must use a "game" type game state for this.

; $this->getActivePlayerId()
: Return the "active_player" id
: Note: it does NOT mean that this player is active right now, because state type could be "game" or "multiplayer"
: Note: avoid using this method in a "multiplayer" state because it does not mean anything.

=== Multiactivate player handling ===

; $this->gamestate->setAllPlayersMultiactive()
: All playing players are made active. Update notification is sent to all players (triggers onUpdateActionButtons).
: Usually, you use this method at the beginning (ex: "st" action method) of a multiplayer game state when all players have to do some action.

; $this->gamestate->setAllPlayersNonMultiactive( $next_state )
: All playing players are made inactive. Transition to next state

; $this->gamestate->setPlayersMultiactive( $players, $next_state, $bExclusive = false )
: Make a specific list of players active during a multiactive gamestate. Update notification is sent to all players who's state changed.
: "players" is the array of player id that should be made active.
: If "exclusive" parameter is not set or false it doesn't deactivate other previously active players. If its set to true, the players who will be multiactive at the end are only these in "$layers" array

: In case "players" is empty, the method trigger the "next_state" transition to go to the next game state.
: returns true if state transition happened, false otherwise

; $this->gamestate->setPlayerNonMultiactive( $player_id, $next_state )
: During a multiactive game state, make the specified player inactive.
: Usually, you call this method during a multiactive game state after a player did his action.
: If this player was the last active player, the method trigger the "next_state" transition to go to the next game state.
: returns true if state transition happened, false otherwise

; $this->gamestate->updateMultiactiveOrNextState( $next_state_if_none )
: Sends update notification about multiplayer changes. All multiactive set* functions above do that, however if you want to change state manually using db queries for complex calculations, you have to call this yourself after. Do not call this if you calling one of the other setters above.
Example: you have player teams and you want to activate all players in one team
<pre>
$sql = "UPDATE player SET player_is_multiactive='0'";
self::DbQuery( $sql );
$sql = "UPDATE player SET player_is_multiactive='1' WHERE player_id='$player_id' AND player_team='$team_no'";
self::DbQuery( $sql );

$this->gamestate->updateMultiactiveOrNextState( 'error' );
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->getActivePlayerList()
: With this method you can retrieve the list of the active player at any time.
: During a "game" type gamestate, it will return a void array.
: During a "activeplayer" type gamestate, it will return an array with one value (the active player id).
: During a "multipleactiveplayer" type gamestate, it will return an array of the active players id.
: Note: you should only use this method in the latter case.

=== States functions ===
; $this->gamestate->nextState( $transition )
: Change current state to a new state. Important: the $transition parameter is the name of the transition, and NOT the name of the target game state, see [[Your game state machine: states.inc.php]] for more information about states.

; $this->checkAction( $actionName, $bThrowException=true )
: Check if an action is valid for the current game state, and optionally, throw an exception if it isn't.
: The action is valid if it is listed in the "possibleactions" array for the current game state (see game state description).
: This method MUST be the first one called in ALL your PHP methods that handle player actions, in order to make sure a player doesn't perform an action not allowed by the rules at the point in the game.
: If "bThrowException" is set to "false", the function returns '''false''' in case of failure instead of throwing an exception. This is useful when several actions are possible, in order to test each of them without throwing exceptions.

; $this->gamestate->checkPossibleAction( $action )
: (rarely used)
: This works exactly like "checkAction" (above), except that it does NOT check if the current player is active.
: This is used specifically in certain game states when you want to authorize additional actions for players that are not active at the moment.
: Example: in ''Libertalia'', you want to authorize players to change their mind about the card played. They are of course not active at the time they change their mind, so you cannot use "checkAction"; use "checkPossibleAction" instead.

; $this->gamestate->state()
: Get an associative array of current game state attributes, see [[Your game state machine: states.inc.php]] for state attributes.
$state=$this->gamestate->state(); if( $state['name'] == 'myGameState' ) {...}

== Players turn order ==

'''getNextPlayerTable()'''

Return an associative array which associate each player with the next player around the table.

In addition, key 0 is associated to the first player to play.

Example: if three player with ID 1, 2 and 3 are around the table, in this order, the method returns:
<pre>
array(
1 => 2,
2 => 3,
3 => 1,
0 => 1
);
</pre>

'''getPrevPlayerTable()'''

Same as above, but the associative array associate the previous player around the table.

'''getPlayerAfter( $player_id )'''

Get player playing after given player in natural playing order.

'''getPlayerBefore( $player_id )'''

Get player playing before given player in natural playing order.

Note: There is no API to modify this order, if you have custom player order you have to maintain it in your database
and have custom function to access it.

== Notify players ==

To understand notifications, please read [http://www.slideshare.net/boardgamearena/the-bga-framework-at-a-glance The BGA Framework at a glance] first.

'''IMPORTANT'''

Notifications are sent at the very end of the request, when it ends normally. It means that if you throw an exception for any reason (ex: move not allowed), no notifications will be sent to players.
Notifications sent between the game start (setupNewGame) and the end of the "action" method of the first active state will never reach their destination.

'''notifyAllPlayers( $notification_type, $notification_log, $notification_args )'''

Send a notification to all players of the game.

* notification_type:
A string that defines the type of your notification.

Your game interface Javascript logic will use this to know what is the type of the received notification (and to trigger the corresponding method).

* notification_log:
A string that defines what is to be displayed in the game log.

You can use an empty string here (""). In this case, nothing is displayed in the game log.

If you define a real string here, you should use "clienttranslate" method to make sure it can be translate.

You can use arguments in your notification_log strings, that refers to values defines in the "notification_args" argument (see below).
Note: Make sure you only use single quotes ('), otherwise PHP will try to interpolate the variable and will ignore the values in the args array.

* notification_args:
The arguments of your notifications, as an associative array.

This array will be transmitted to the game interface logic, in order the game interface can be updated.

Complete notifyAllPlayers example (from "Reversi"):

<pre>
self::notifyAllPlayers( "playDisc", clienttranslate( '${player_name} plays a disc and turns over ${returned_nbr} disc(s)' ),
array(
'player_id' => $player_id,
'player_name' => self::getActivePlayerName(),
'returned_nbr' => count( $turnedOverDiscs ),
'x' => $x,
'y' => $y
) );
</pre>

You can see in the example above the use of the "clienttranslate" method, and the use of 2 arguments "player_name" and "returned_nbr" in the notification log.

Important: NO private data must be sent with this method, as a cheater could see it even it is not used explicitly by the game interface logic. If you want to send private information to a player, please use notifyPlayer below.

Note: you CAN use some HTML inside your notification log, however it not recommended for many reasons:
* Its bad architecture, ui elements leak into server now you have to manage ui in many places
* If you decided to change something in ui in future version, old games reply and tutorials may not work, since they use stored notifications
* When you read log preview for old games its unreadable (this is log before you enter the game reply, useful for troubleshooting or game analysis)
* Its more data to transfer and store in db
* Its nightmare for translators, at least don't put HTML tags inside the "clienttranslate" method. You can use a notification argument instead, and provide your HTML through this argument.

If you still want to have pretty pictures in the log check this [[BGA_Studio_Cookbook#Inject_images_and_styled_html_in_the_log]].

If your notification contains some phrases that build programmatically you may need to use recursive notifications. In this case the argument can be not only the string but
an array itself, which contains 'log' and 'args', i.e.

$this->notifyAllPlayers('playerLog',clienttranslate('Game moves ${token_name_rec}'),
['token_name_rec'=>['log'=>'${token_name} #${token_number}',
'args'=> ['token_name'=>clienttranslate('Boo'), 'token_number'=>$number, 'i18n'=>['token_name'] ]
]
]);

'''notifyPlayer( $player_id, $notification_type, $notification_log, $notification_args )'''

Same as above, except that the notification is sent to one player only.

This method must be used each time some private information must be transmitted to a player.

Important: the variable for player name must be ${player_name} in order to be highlighted with the player color in the game log

== About random and randomness ==

A large number of board games rely on random, most often based on dice, cards shuffling, picking some item in a bag, and so on. This is very important to ensure a high level of randomness for each of these situations.

Here's are a list of techniques you should use in these situations, from the best to the worst.

=== Dices and bga_rand ===

'''bga_rand( min, max )'''
This is a BGA framework function that provides you a random number between "min" and "max" (included), using the best available random method available on the system.

This is the preferred function you should use, because we are updating it when a better method is introduced.

At now, bga_rand is based on the PHP function "random_int", which ensure a cryptographic level of randomness.

In particular, it is '''mandatory''' to use it for all '''dice throw''' (ie: games using other methods for dice throwing will be rejected by BGA during review).

Note: rand() and mt_rand() are deprecated on BGA and should not be used anymore, as their randomness is not as good as "bga_rand".

=== shuffle and cards shuffling ===

To shuffle items, like a pile of cards, the best way is to use the BGA PHP [[Deck]] component and to use "shuffle" method. This ensure you that the best available shuffling method is used, and that if in the future we improve it your game will be up to date.

At now, the Deck component shuffle method is based on PHP "shuffle" method, which has a quite good randomness (even it is not as good as bga_rand). In consequence, we accept other shuffling methods during reviews, as long as their are based on PHP "shuffle" function (or similar, like "array_rand").

=== Other methods ===

Mysql "RAND()" function has not enough randomness to be a valid method to get a random element on BGA. This function has been used in some existing games and has given acceptable results, but now it should be avoided and you should use other methods instead.

== Game statistics ==

There are 2 types of statistics:
* a "player" statistic is a statistic associated to a player
* a "table" statistics is a statistic not associated to a player (global statistic for this game).

See [[Game statistics: stats.inc.php]] to see how you defines statistics for your game.

'''initStat( $table_or_player, $name, $value, $player_id = null )'''

Create a statistic entry with a default value.
This method must be called for each statistics of your game, in your setupNewGame method.

'$table_or_player' must be set to "table" if this is a table statistics, or "player" if this is a player statistics.

'$name' is the name of your statistics, as it has been defined in your stats.inc.php file.

'$value' is the initial value of the statistics. If this is a player statistics and if the player is not specified by "$player_id" argument, the value is set for ALL players.

'''setStat( $value, $name, $player_id = null )'''

Set a statistic $name to $value.

If "$player_id" is not specified, setStat consider it is a TABLE statistic.

If "$player_id" is specified, setStat consider it is a PLAYER statistic.

'''incStat( $delta, $name, $player_id = null )'''

Increment (or decrement) specified statistic value by $delta value. Same behavior as setStat function.

'''getStat( $name, $player_id = null )'''

Return the value of statistic specified by $name. Useful when creating derivative statistics such as average.

== Translations ==

See [[Translations]]

== Manage player scores and Tie breaker ==

=== Normal scoring ===

At the end of the game, players automatically get a rank depending on their score: the player with the biggest score is #1, the player with the second biggest score is #2, and so on...

During the game, you update player's score directly by updating "player_score" field of "player" table in database.

Examples:
<pre>

// +2 points to active player
self::DbQuery( "UPDATE player SET player_score=player_score+2 WHERE player_id='".self::getActivePlayerId()."'" );

// Set score of active player to 5
self::DbQuery( "UPDATE player SET player_score=5 WHERE player_id='".self::getActivePlayerId()."'" );

</pre>

Note: don't forget to notify the client side in order the score control can be updated accordingly.

=== Tie breaker ===

Tie breaker is used when two players get the same score at the end of a game.

Tie breaker is using "player_score_aux" field of "player" table. It is updated exactly like the "player_score" field.

Tie breaker score is displayed only for players who are tied at the end of the game. Most of the time, it is not supposed to be displayed explicitly during the game.

When you are using "player_score_aux" functionality, you must describe the formula to use in your gameinfos.inc.php file like this:

<pre>
'tie_breaker_description' => totranslate("Describe here your tie breaker formula"),
</pre>

This description will be used as a tooltip to explain to players how this auxiliary score has been calculated.

=== Co-operative game ===

To make everyone lose in full-coop game:

Add the following in gameinfos.inc.php :
'is_coop' => 1, // full cooperative

And score zero to everyone.

=== Semi-coop ===

If the game is not full-coop, then everyone lose = everyone is tie. I.e. set score to 0 to everybody.

=== Only "winners" and "losers ===

For some games, there is only a group (or a single) "winner", and everyone else is a "loser", with no "end of game rank" (1st, 2nd, 3rd...).

Examples:
* Coup
* Not Alone
* Werewolves
* Quantum

In this case:
* Set the scores so that the winner has the best score, and the other players have the same (lower) score.
* Add the following lines to gameinfos.php:

<pre>
// If in the game, all losers are equal (no score to rank them or explicit in the rules that losers are not ranked between them), set this to true
// The game end result will display "Winner" for the 1st player and "Loser" for all other players
'losers_not_ranked' => true,
</pre>

Werewolves and Coup are implemented like this, as you can see here:
* https://boardgamearena.com/#!gamepanel?game=werewolves&section=lastresults
* https://boardgamearena.com/#!gamepanel?game=coupcitystate&section=lastresults

Adding this has the following effects:
* On game results for this game, "Winner" or "Loser" is going to appear instead of the usual "1st, 2nd, 3rd, ...".
* When a game is over, the result of the game will be "End of game: Victory" or "End of game: Defeat" depending on the result of the CURRENT player (instead of the usual "Victory of XXX").
* When calculating ELO points, if there is at least one "Loser", no "victorious" player can lose ELO points, and no "losing" player can win ELO point. Usually it may happened because being tie with many players with a low rank is considered as a tie and may cost you points. If losers_not_ranked is set, we prevent this behavior and make sure you only gain/loss ELO when you get the corresponding results.

Important: this SHOULD NOT be used for cooperative games (see is_coop parameter), or for 2 players games (it makes no sense in this case).

=== Solo ===

If game supports solo variant, a negative score means defeat, a positive score means victory.

=== Player elimination ===

In some games, this is useful to eliminate a player from the game in order he/she can start another game without waiting for the current game end.

This case should be rare. Please don't use player elimination feature if some player just has to wait the last 10% of the game for game end. This feature should be used only in games where players are eliminated all along the game (typical examples: "Perudo" or "The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow").

Usage:

* Player to eliminate should NOT be active anymore (preferably use the feature in a "game" type game state).
* In your PHP code:
self::eliminatePlayer( <player_to_eliminate_id> );
* the player is informed in a dialog box that he no longer have to played and can start another game if he/she wants too (whith buttons "stay at this table" "quit table and back to main site"). In any case, the player is free to start & join another table from now.
* When your game is over, all players who have been eliminated before receive a "notification" (the small "!" icon on the top right of the BGA interface) that indicate them that "the game has ended" and invite them to review the game results.

=== Scoring Helper functions ===

// get score
function dbGetScore($player_id) {
return $this->getUniqueValueFromDB("SELECT player_score FROM player WHERE player_id='$player_id'");
}

// set score
function dbSetScore($player_id, $count) {
$this->DbQuery("UPDATE player SET player_score='$count' WHERE player_id='$player_id'");
}

// set aux score (tie breaker)
function dbSetAuxScore($player_id, $score) {
$this->DbQuery("UPDATE player SET player_score_aux=$score WHERE player_id='$player_id'");
}

// increment score (can be negative too)
function dbIncScore($player_id, $inc) {
$count = $this->dbGetScore($player_id);
if ($inc != 0) {
$count += $inc;
$this->dbSetScore($player_id, $count);
}
return $count;
}

== Reflexion time ==

; function giveExtraTime( $player_id, $specific_time=null )
: Give standard extra time to this player.
: Standard extra time depends on the speed of the game (small with "slow" game option, bigger with other options).
: You can also specify an exact time to add, in seconds, with the "specified_time" argument (rarely used).

== Undo moves ==

Please read our [[BGA Undo policy]] before.

'''Important''': Before using these methods, you must also add the following to your "gameinfos.inc.php" file, otherwise these methods are ineffective:
'db_undo_support' => true

; function undoSavepoint( )
: Save the whole game situation inside an "Undo save point".
: There is only ONE undo save point available (see BGA Undo policy).

; function undoRestorePoint()
: Restore the situation previously saved as an "Undo save point".
: You must make sure that the active player is the same after and before the undoRestorePoint (ie: this is your responsibility to ensure that the player that is active when this method is called is exactly the same than the player that was active when the undoSavePoint method has been called).

== Managing errors and exceptions ==

Note: when you throw an exception, all database changes and all notifications are cancelled immediately. This way, the game situation that existed before the request is completely restored.

; throw new BgaUserException ( $error_message)
: Base class to notify a user error
: You must throw this exception when a player wants to do something that he is not allowed to do.
: The error message will be shown to the player as a "red message", so it must be translated.
: Throwing such an exception is NOT considered a bug, so it is not traced in BGA error logs.

Example from Gomoku:
<pre>
throw new BgaUserException( self::_("There is already a stone on this intersection, you can't play there") );
</pre>

; throw new BgaVisibleSystemException ( $error_message)
: You must throw this exception when you detect something that is not supposed to happened in your code.
: The error message is shown to the user as an "Unexpected error", in order that he can report it in the forum.
: The error message is logged in BGA error logs. If it happens regularly, we will report it to you.

; throw new BgaSystemException ( $error_message)
: Base class to notify a system exception. The message will be hidden from the user, but show in the logs. Use this if the message contains technical information.
: You shouldn't use this type of exception except if you think the information shown could be critical. Indeed: a generic error message will be shown to the user, so it's going to be difficult for you to see what happened.

== Zombie mode ==

When a player leaves a game for any reason (expelled, quit), he becomes a "zombie player". In this case, the results of the game won't count for statistics, but this is cool if the other players can finish the game anyway. That's why zombie mode exists: allow the other player to finish the game, even if the situation is not ideal.

While developing your zombie mode, keep in mind that:
* Do not refer to the rules, because this situation is not planned by the rules.
* Try to figure that you are playing with your friends and one of them has to leave: how can we finish the game without killing the spirit of the game?
* The idea is NOT to develop an artificial intelligence for the game.

Most of the time, the best thing to do when it is zombie player turn is to jump immediately to a state where he is not active anymore. For example, if he is in a game state where he has a choice between playing A and playing B, the best thing to do is NOT to choose A or B, but to pass. So, even if there's no "pass" action in the rules, add a "zombiepass" transitition in your game state and use it.

Each time a zombie player must play, your "zombieTurn" method is called.

Parameters:
* $state: the name of the current game state.
* $active_player: the id of the active player.

Most of the time, your zombieTurn method looks like this:

<pre>
function zombieTurn( $state, $active_player )
{
$statename = $state['name'];

if( $statename == 'myFirstGameState'
|| $statename == 'my2ndGameState'
|| $statename == 'my3rdGameState'
....
)
{
$this->gamestate->nextState( "zombiePass" );
}
else
throw new BgaVisibleSystemException( "Zombie mode not supported at this game state: ".$statename );
}
</pre>

Note that in the example above, all corresponding game state should implement "zombiePass" as a transition.

== Player color preferences ==

BGA players (Club members) may now choose their preferred color for playing. For example, if they are used to play green for every board game, they can select "green" in their BGA preferences page.

Making your game compatible with colors preferences is very easy and requires only 1 line of PHP and 1 configuration change :

On your gameinfos.inc.php file, add the following lines :

// Favorite colors support : if set to "true", support attribution of favorite colors based on player's preferences (see reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences PHP method)
'favorite_colors_support' => true,

Then, on your main <your_game>.game.php file, find the "reloadPlayersBasicInfos" call in your "setupNewGame" method and replace :

$sql .= implode( $values, ',' );
self::DbQuery( $sql );
self::reloadPlayersBasicInfos();

By :

$sql .= implode( $values, ',' );
self::DbQuery( $sql );
self::reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences( $players, array( /* LIST HERE THE AVAILABLE COLORS OF YOUR GAME INSTEAD OF THESE ONES */"ff0000", "008000", "0000ff", "ffa500", "773300" ) );
self::reloadPlayersBasicInfos();

The "reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences" method reattributes all colors, taking into account players color preferences and available colors.

Note that you must update the colors to indicate the colors available for your game.

2 important remarks :
* for some games (ex : Chess), the color has an influence on a mechanism of the game, most of the time by giving a special advantage to a player (ex : Starting the game). Color preference mechanism must NOT be used in such a case.
* your logic should NEVER consider that the first player has the color X, that the second player has the color Y, and so on. If this is the case, your game will NOT be compatible with reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences as this method attribute colors to players based on their preferences and not based as their order at the table.

Colours currently listed as a choice in preferences:

* #ff0000 Red
* #008000 Green
* #0000ff Blue
* #ffa500 Yellow
* #000000 Black
* #ffffff White

== Debugging and Tracing ==

To debug php code you can use some tracing functions available from the parent class such as debug, trace, error, warn, dump.

self::debug("Ahh!");
self::dump('my_var',$my_var);

See [[Practical_debugging]] section for complete information about debugging interfaces and where to find logs.

Main game logic: yourgamename.game.php

2019-08-01T01:08:58Z

Amadannabriona: /* Accessing player information */

This is the main file for your game logic. Here you initialize the game, persist data, implement the rules and notify the client interface of changes.

== File Structure ==

The details of how the file is structured are described directly with comments in the code skeleton provided to you.

Here is the basic structure:

* EmptyGame (constructor): where you define global variables.
* setupNewGame: initial setup of the game.
* getAllDatas: where you retrieve all game data during a complete reload of the game.
* getGameProgression: where you compute the game progression indicator.
* Utility functions: your utility functions.
* Player actions: the entry points for players actions.
* Game state arguments: methods to return additional data on specific game states ([http://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php#args more info here]).
* Game state actions: the logic to run when entering a new game state ([http://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php#action more info here]).
* zombieTurn: what to do it's the turn of a zombie player.

== Accessing player information ==

'''Important''': In the following methods, be mindful of the difference between the "active" player and the "current" player. The '''active''' player is the player whose turn it is - not necessarily the player who sent a request! The '''current''' player is the player who sent the request and will see the results returned by your methods: not necessarily the player whose turn it is!

; getPlayersNumber()
: Returns the number of players playing at the table
: Note: doesn't work in setupNewGame (use count($players) instead).

; getActivePlayerId()
: Get the "active_player", whatever what is the current state type.
: Note: it does NOT mean that this player is active right now, because state type could be "game" or "multiplayer"
: Note: avoid using this method in a "multiplayer" state because it does not mean anything.

; getActivePlayerName()
: Get the "active_player" name
: Note: avoid using this method in a "multiplayer" state because it does not mean anything.

; loadPlayersBasicInfos()
: Get an associative array with generic data about players (ie: not game specific data).
: The key of the associative array is the player id. The returned table is cached, so ok to call multiple times without performance concerns.
: The content of each value is:
: * player_name - the name of the player
: * player_color (ex: ff0000) - the color code of the player
: * player_no - the position of the player at the start of the game in natural table order, i.e. 1,2,3

; getCurrentPlayerId()
: Get the "current_player". The current player is the one from which the action originated (the one who sent the request).
: '''Be careful''': This is not necessarily the active player!
: In general, you shouldn't use this method, unless you are in "multiplayer" state.

; getCurrentPlayerName()
: Get the "current_player" name
: Be careful using this method (see above).

; getCurrentPlayerColor()
: Get the "current_player" color
: Be careful using this method (see above).

; isCurrentPlayerZombie()
: Check the "current_player" zombie status. If true, player is zombie, i.e. left or was kicked out of the game.

== Accessing the database ==

The main game logic should be the only point from which you should access the game database. You access your database using SQL queries with the methods below.

'''IMPORTANT'''

BGA uses [http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/sql-syntax-transactions.html database transactions]. This means that your database changes WON'T BE APPLIED to the database until your request ends normally. Using transactions is in fact very useful for you; at any time, if your game logic detects that something is wrong (example: a disallowed move), you just have to throw an exception and all changes to the game situation will be removed.

; DbQuery( $sql )
: This is the generic method to access the database.
: It can execute any type of SELECT/UPDATE/DELETE/REPLACE query on the database.
: You should use it for UPDATE/DELETE/REPLACE queries. For SELECT queries, the specialized methods below are much better.

; getUniqueValueFromDB( $sql )
: Returns a unique value from DB or null if no value is found.
: $sql must be a SELECT query.
: Raise an exception if more than 1 row is returned.

; getCollectionFromDB( $sql, $bSingleValue=false )
: Returns an associative array of rows for a sql SELECT query.
: The key of the resulting associative array is the first field specified in the SELECT query.
: The value of the resulting associative array if an associative array with all the field specified in the SELECT query and associated values.
: First column must be a primary or alternate key.
: The resulting collection can be empty.
: If you specified $bSingleValue=true and if your SQL query request 2 fields A and B, the method returns an associative array "A=>B"

Example 1:
<pre>
self::getCollectionFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name, player_score score FROM player" );

Result:
array(
1234 => array( 'id'=>1234, 'name'=>'myuser0', 'score'=>1 ),
1235 => array( 'id'=>1235, 'name'=>'myuser1', 'score'=>0 )
)
</pre>
Example 2:
<pre>
self::getCollectionFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name FROM player", true );

Result:
array(
1234 => 'myuser0',
1235 => 'myuser1'
)

</pre>

; getNonEmptyCollectionFromDB( $sql )
: Idem than previous one, but raise an exception if the collection is empty

; getObjectFromDB( $sql )
: Returns one row for the sql SELECT query as an associative array or null if there is no result
: Raise an exception if the query return more than one row

Example:
<pre>
self::getObjectFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name, player_score score FROM player WHERE player_id='$player_id'" );

Result:
array(
'id'=>1234, 'name'=>'myuser0', 'score'=>1
)
</pre>

; getNonEmptyObjectFromDB( $sql )
: Idem than previous one, but raise an exception if no row is found

; getObjectListFromDB( $sql, $bUniqueValue=false )
: Return an array of rows for a sql SELECT query.
: the result if the same than "getCollectionFromDB" except that the result is a simple array (and not an associative array).
: The result can be empty.
: If you specified $bUniqueValue=true and if your SQL query request 1 field, the method returns directly an array of values.

Example 1:
<pre>
self::getObjectListFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name, player_score score FROM player" );

Result:
array(
array( 'id'=>1234, 'name'=>'myuser0', 'score'=>1 ),
array( 'id'=>1235, 'name'=>'myuser1', 'score'=>0 )
)
</pre>
Example 2:
<pre>
self::getObjectListFromDB( "SELECT player_name name FROM player", true );

Result:
array(
'myuser0',
'myuser1'
)

</pre>

; getDoubleKeyCollectionFromDB( $sql, $bSingleValue=false )
: Return an associative array of associative array, from a SQL SELECT query.
: First array level correspond to first column specified in SQL query.
: Second array level correspond to second column specified in SQL query.
: If bSingleValue = true, keep only third column on result

; DbGetLastId()
: Return the PRIMARY key of the last inserted row (see PHP mysql_insert_id function).

; DbAffectedRow()
: Return the number of row affected by the last operation

; escapeStringForDB( $string )
: You must use this function on every string type data in your database that contains unsafe data.
: (unsafe = can be modified by a player).
: This method makes sure that no SQL injection will be done through the string used.
: Note: if you using standard types in ajax actions, like AT_alphanum it is sanitized before arrival,
: this is only needed if you manage to get unchecked string, like in the games where user has to enter text as a response.

<pre>

</pre>

Note: see Editing [[Game database model: dbmodel.sql]] to know how to define your database model.

== Use globals ==

Sometimes, you want a single global integer value for your game, and you don't want to create a DB table specifically for it.

You can do this with the BGA framework "global." Your value will be stored in the "global" table in the database, and you can access it with simple methods.

'''initGameStateLabels'''

This method should be located at the beginning of ''yourgamename.php.'' This is where you define the globals used in your game logic, by assigning them IDs.

You can define up to 79 globals, with IDs from 10 to 89 (inclusive). You must '''not''' use globals outside this range, as those values are used by other components of the framework.

<pre>
self::initGameStateLabels( array(
"my_first_global_variable" => 10,
"my_second_global_variable" => 11
) );
</pre>

'''setGameStateInitialValue( $value_label, $value_value )'''

Initialize your global value. Must be called before any use of your global, so you should call this method from your "setupNewGame" method.

'''getGameStateValue( $value_label )'''

Retrieve the current value of a global.

'''setGameStateValue( $value_label, $value_value )'''

Set the current value of a global.

'''incGameStateValue( $value_label, $increment )'''

Increment the current value of a global. If increment is negative, decrement the value of the global.

Return the final value of the global.

== Game states and active players ==

=== Activate player handling ===

; $this->activeNextPlayer()
: Make the next player active in the natural player order.
: Note: you CANT use this method in a "activeplayer" or "multipleactiveplayer" state. You must use a "game" type game state for this.

; $this->activePrevPlayer()
: Make the previous player active (in the natural player order).
: Note: you CANT use this method in a "activeplayer" or "multipleactiveplayer" state. You must use a "game" type game state for this.

; $this->gamestate->changeActivePlayer( $player_id )
: You can call this method to make any player active.
: Note: you CANT use this method in a "activeplayer" or "multipleactiveplayer" state. You must use a "game" type game state for this.

; $this->getActivePlayerId()
: Return the "active_player" id
: Note: it does NOT mean that this player is active right now, because state type could be "game" or "multiplayer"
: Note: avoid using this method in a "multiplayer" state because it does not mean anything.

=== Multiactivate player handling ===

; $this->gamestate->setAllPlayersMultiactive()
: All playing players are made active. Update notification is sent to all players (triggers onUpdateActionButtons).
: Usually, you use this method at the beginning (ex: "st" action method) of a multiplayer game state when all players have to do some action.

; $this->gamestate->setAllPlayersNonMultiactive( $next_state )
: All playing players are made inactive. Transition to next state

; $this->gamestate->setPlayersMultiactive( $players, $next_state, $bExclusive = false )
: Make a specific list of players active during a multiactive gamestate. Update notification is sent to all players who's state changed.
: "players" is the array of player id that should be made active.
: If "exclusive" parameter is not set or false it doesn't deactivate other previously active players. If its set to true, the players who will be multiactive at the end are only these in "$layers" array

: In case "players" is empty, the method trigger the "next_state" transition to go to the next game state.
: returns true if state transition happened, false otherwise

; $this->gamestate->setPlayerNonMultiactive( $player_id, $next_state )
: During a multiactive game state, make the specified player inactive.
: Usually, you call this method during a multiactive game state after a player did his action.
: If this player was the last active player, the method trigger the "next_state" transition to go to the next game state.
: returns true if state transition happened, false otherwise

; $this->gamestate->updateMultiactiveOrNextState( $next_state_if_none )
: Sends update notification about multiplayer changes. All multiactive set* functions above do that, however if you want to change state manually using db queries for complex calculations, you have to call this yourself after. Do not call this if you calling one of the other setters above.
Example: you have player teams and you want to activate all players in one team
<pre>
$sql = "UPDATE player SET player_is_multiactive='0'";
self::DbQuery( $sql );
$sql = "UPDATE player SET player_is_multiactive='1' WHERE player_id='$player_id' AND player_team='$team_no'";
self::DbQuery( $sql );

$this->gamestate->updateMultiactiveOrNextState( 'error' );
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->getActivePlayerList()
: With this method you can retrieve the list of the active player at any time.
: During a "game" type gamestate, it will return a void array.
: During a "activeplayer" type gamestate, it will return an array with one value (the active player id).
: During a "multipleactiveplayer" type gamestate, it will return an array of the active players id.
: Note: you should only use this method in the latter case.

=== States functions ===
; $this->gamestate->nextState( $transition )
: Change current state to a new state. Important: parameter $transition is the name of the transition, and NOT the name of the target game state, see [[Your game state machine: states.inc.php]] for more information about states.

; $this->checkAction( $actionName, $bThrowException=true )
: Check if action is valid regarding current game state (exception if fails).
: The action is valid if it is listed as a "possibleactions" in the current game state (see game state description).
: This method MUST be called in the first place in ALL your PHP methods that handle players action, in order to make sure a player can't do an action when the rules disallow it at this moment of the game.
: if "bThrowException" is set to "false", the function return false in case of failure instead of throwing and exception. This is useful when several actions are possible in order to test each of them without throwing exceptions.

; $this->gamestate->checkPossibleAction( $action )
: (rarely used)
: This works exactly like "checkAction", except that it do NOT check if current player is active.
: This is used specifically in certain game states when you want to authorize some additional actions for players that are not active at the moment.
: Example: in Libertalia game, you want to authorize players to change their mind about card played. They are of course not active at the time they change their mind, so you cannot use "checkAction" and use "checkPossibleAction" instead.

; $this->gamestate->state()
: Get an associative array of current game state attributes, see [[Your game state machine: states.inc.php]] for state attributes.
$state=$this->gamestate->state(); if( $state['name'] == 'myGameState' ) {...}

== Players turn order ==

'''getNextPlayerTable()'''

Return an associative array which associate each player with the next player around the table.

In addition, key 0 is associated to the first player to play.

Example: if three player with ID 1, 2 and 3 are around the table, in this order, the method returns:
<pre>
array(
1 => 2,
2 => 3,
3 => 1,
0 => 1
);
</pre>

'''getPrevPlayerTable()'''

Same as above, but the associative array associate the previous player around the table.

'''getPlayerAfter( $player_id )'''

Get player playing after given player in natural playing order.

'''getPlayerBefore( $player_id )'''

Get player playing before given player in natural playing order.

Note: There is no API to modify this order, if you have custom player order you have to maintain it in your database
and have custom function to access it.

== Notify players ==

To understand notifications, please read [http://www.slideshare.net/boardgamearena/the-bga-framework-at-a-glance The BGA Framework at a glance] first.

'''IMPORTANT'''

Notifications are sent at the very end of the request, when it ends normally. It means that if you throw an exception for any reason (ex: move not allowed), no notifications will be sent to players.
Notifications sent between the game start (setupNewGame) and the end of the "action" method of the first active state will never reach their destination.

'''notifyAllPlayers( $notification_type, $notification_log, $notification_args )'''

Send a notification to all players of the game.

* notification_type:
A string that defines the type of your notification.

Your game interface Javascript logic will use this to know what is the type of the received notification (and to trigger the corresponding method).

* notification_log:
A string that defines what is to be displayed in the game log.

You can use an empty string here (""). In this case, nothing is displayed in the game log.

If you define a real string here, you should use "clienttranslate" method to make sure it can be translate.

You can use arguments in your notification_log strings, that refers to values defines in the "notification_args" argument (see below).
Note: Make sure you only use single quotes ('), otherwise PHP will try to interpolate the variable and will ignore the values in the args array.

* notification_args:
The arguments of your notifications, as an associative array.

This array will be transmitted to the game interface logic, in order the game interface can be updated.

Complete notifyAllPlayers example (from "Reversi"):

<pre>
self::notifyAllPlayers( "playDisc", clienttranslate( '${player_name} plays a disc and turns over ${returned_nbr} disc(s)' ),
array(
'player_id' => $player_id,
'player_name' => self::getActivePlayerName(),
'returned_nbr' => count( $turnedOverDiscs ),
'x' => $x,
'y' => $y
) );
</pre>

You can see in the example above the use of the "clienttranslate" method, and the use of 2 arguments "player_name" and "returned_nbr" in the notification log.

Important: NO private data must be sent with this method, as a cheater could see it even it is not used explicitly by the game interface logic. If you want to send private information to a player, please use notifyPlayer below.

Note: you CAN use some HTML inside your notification log, however it not recommended for many reasons:
* Its bad architecture, ui elements leak into server now you have to manage ui in many places
* If you decided to change something in ui in future version, old games reply and tutorials may not work, since they use stored notifications
* When you read log preview for old games its unreadable (this is log before you enter the game reply, useful for troubleshooting or game analysis)
* Its more data to transfer and store in db
* Its nightmare for translators, at least don't put HTML tags inside the "clienttranslate" method. You can use a notification argument instead, and provide your HTML through this argument.

If you still want to have pretty pictures in the log check this [[BGA_Studio_Cookbook#Inject_images_and_styled_html_in_the_log]].

If your notification contains some phrases that build programmatically you may need to use recursive notifications. In this case the argument can be not only the string but
an array itself, which contains 'log' and 'args', i.e.

$this->notifyAllPlayers('playerLog',clienttranslate('Game moves ${token_name_rec}'),
['token_name_rec'=>['log'=>'${token_name} #${token_number}',
'args'=> ['token_name'=>clienttranslate('Boo'), 'token_number'=>$number, 'i18n'=>['token_name'] ]
]
]);

'''notifyPlayer( $player_id, $notification_type, $notification_log, $notification_args )'''

Same as above, except that the notification is sent to one player only.

This method must be used each time some private information must be transmitted to a player.

Important: the variable for player name must be ${player_name} in order to be highlighted with the player color in the game log

== About random and randomness ==

A large number of board games rely on random, most often based on dice, cards shuffling, picking some item in a bag, and so on. This is very important to ensure a high level of randomness for each of these situations.

Here's are a list of techniques you should use in these situations, from the best to the worst.

=== Dices and bga_rand ===

'''bga_rand( min, max )'''
This is a BGA framework function that provides you a random number between "min" and "max" (included), using the best available random method available on the system.

This is the preferred function you should use, because we are updating it when a better method is introduced.

At now, bga_rand is based on the PHP function "random_int", which ensure a cryptographic level of randomness.

In particular, it is '''mandatory''' to use it for all '''dice throw''' (ie: games using other methods for dice throwing will be rejected by BGA during review).

Note: rand() and mt_rand() are deprecated on BGA and should not be used anymore, as their randomness is not as good as "bga_rand".

=== shuffle and cards shuffling ===

To shuffle items, like a pile of cards, the best way is to use the BGA PHP [[Deck]] component and to use "shuffle" method. This ensure you that the best available shuffling method is used, and that if in the future we improve it your game will be up to date.

At now, the Deck component shuffle method is based on PHP "shuffle" method, which has a quite good randomness (even it is not as good as bga_rand). In consequence, we accept other shuffling methods during reviews, as long as their are based on PHP "shuffle" function (or similar, like "array_rand").

=== Other methods ===

Mysql "RAND()" function has not enough randomness to be a valid method to get a random element on BGA. This function has been used in some existing games and has given acceptable results, but now it should be avoided and you should use other methods instead.

== Game statistics ==

There are 2 types of statistics:
* a "player" statistic is a statistic associated to a player
* a "table" statistics is a statistic not associated to a player (global statistic for this game).

See [[Game statistics: stats.inc.php]] to see how you defines statistics for your game.

'''initStat( $table_or_player, $name, $value, $player_id = null )'''

Create a statistic entry with a default value.
This method must be called for each statistics of your game, in your setupNewGame method.

'$table_or_player' must be set to "table" if this is a table statistics, or "player" if this is a player statistics.

'$name' is the name of your statistics, as it has been defined in your stats.inc.php file.

'$value' is the initial value of the statistics. If this is a player statistics and if the player is not specified by "$player_id" argument, the value is set for ALL players.

'''setStat( $value, $name, $player_id = null )'''

Set a statistic $name to $value.

If "$player_id" is not specified, setStat consider it is a TABLE statistic.

If "$player_id" is specified, setStat consider it is a PLAYER statistic.

'''incStat( $delta, $name, $player_id = null )'''

Increment (or decrement) specified statistic value by $delta value. Same behavior as setStat function.

'''getStat( $name, $player_id = null )'''

Return the value of statistic specified by $name. Useful when creating derivative statistics such as average.

== Translations ==

See [[Translations]]

== Manage player scores and Tie breaker ==

=== Normal scoring ===

At the end of the game, players automatically get a rank depending on their score: the player with the biggest score is #1, the player with the second biggest score is #2, and so on...

During the game, you update player's score directly by updating "player_score" field of "player" table in database.

Examples:
<pre>

// +2 points to active player
self::DbQuery( "UPDATE player SET player_score=player_score+2 WHERE player_id='".self::getActivePlayerId()."'" );

// Set score of active player to 5
self::DbQuery( "UPDATE player SET player_score=5 WHERE player_id='".self::getActivePlayerId()."'" );

</pre>

Note: don't forget to notify the client side in order the score control can be updated accordingly.

=== Tie breaker ===

Tie breaker is used when two players get the same score at the end of a game.

Tie breaker is using "player_score_aux" field of "player" table. It is updated exactly like the "player_score" field.

Tie breaker score is displayed only for players who are tied at the end of the game. Most of the time, it is not supposed to be displayed explicitly during the game.

When you are using "player_score_aux" functionality, you must describe the formula to use in your gameinfos.inc.php file like this:

<pre>
'tie_breaker_description' => totranslate("Describe here your tie breaker formula"),
</pre>

This description will be used as a tooltip to explain to players how this auxiliary score has been calculated.

=== Co-operative game ===

To make everyone lose in full-coop game:

Add the following in gameinfos.inc.php :
'is_coop' => 1, // full cooperative

And score zero to everyone.

=== Semi-coop ===

If the game is not full-coop, then everyone lose = everyone is tie. I.e. set score to 0 to everybody.

=== Only "winners" and "losers ===

For some games, there is only a group (or a single) "winner", and everyone else is a "loser", with no "end of game rank" (1st, 2nd, 3rd...).

Examples:
* Coup
* Not Alone
* Werewolves
* Quantum

In this case:
* Set the scores so that the winner has the best score, and the other players have the same (lower) score.
* Add the following lines to gameinfos.php:

<pre>
// If in the game, all losers are equal (no score to rank them or explicit in the rules that losers are not ranked between them), set this to true
// The game end result will display "Winner" for the 1st player and "Loser" for all other players
'losers_not_ranked' => true,
</pre>

Werewolves and Coup are implemented like this, as you can see here:
* https://boardgamearena.com/#!gamepanel?game=werewolves&section=lastresults
* https://boardgamearena.com/#!gamepanel?game=coupcitystate&section=lastresults

Adding this has the following effects:
* On game results for this game, "Winner" or "Loser" is going to appear instead of the usual "1st, 2nd, 3rd, ...".
* When a game is over, the result of the game will be "End of game: Victory" or "End of game: Defeat" depending on the result of the CURRENT player (instead of the usual "Victory of XXX").
* When calculating ELO points, if there is at least one "Loser", no "victorious" player can lose ELO points, and no "losing" player can win ELO point. Usually it may happened because being tie with many players with a low rank is considered as a tie and may cost you points. If losers_not_ranked is set, we prevent this behavior and make sure you only gain/loss ELO when you get the corresponding results.

Important: this SHOULD NOT be used for cooperative games (see is_coop parameter), or for 2 players games (it makes no sense in this case).

=== Solo ===

If game supports solo variant, a negative score means defeat, a positive score means victory.

=== Player elimination ===

In some games, this is useful to eliminate a player from the game in order he/she can start another game without waiting for the current game end.

This case should be rare. Please don't use player elimination feature if some player just has to wait the last 10% of the game for game end. This feature should be used only in games where players are eliminated all along the game (typical examples: "Perudo" or "The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow").

Usage:

* Player to eliminate should NOT be active anymore (preferably use the feature in a "game" type game state).
* In your PHP code:
self::eliminatePlayer( <player_to_eliminate_id> );
* the player is informed in a dialog box that he no longer have to played and can start another game if he/she wants too (whith buttons "stay at this table" "quit table and back to main site"). In any case, the player is free to start & join another table from now.
* When your game is over, all players who have been eliminated before receive a "notification" (the small "!" icon on the top right of the BGA interface) that indicate them that "the game has ended" and invite them to review the game results.

=== Scoring Helper functions ===

// get score
function dbGetScore($player_id) {
return $this->getUniqueValueFromDB("SELECT player_score FROM player WHERE player_id='$player_id'");
}

// set score
function dbSetScore($player_id, $count) {
$this->DbQuery("UPDATE player SET player_score='$count' WHERE player_id='$player_id'");
}

// set aux score (tie breaker)
function dbSetAuxScore($player_id, $score) {
$this->DbQuery("UPDATE player SET player_score_aux=$score WHERE player_id='$player_id'");
}

// increment score (can be negative too)
function dbIncScore($player_id, $inc) {
$count = $this->dbGetScore($player_id);
if ($inc != 0) {
$count += $inc;
$this->dbSetScore($player_id, $count);
}
return $count;
}

== Reflexion time ==

; function giveExtraTime( $player_id, $specific_time=null )
: Give standard extra time to this player.
: Standard extra time depends on the speed of the game (small with "slow" game option, bigger with other options).
: You can also specify an exact time to add, in seconds, with the "specified_time" argument (rarely used).

== Undo moves ==

Please read our [[BGA Undo policy]] before.

'''Important''': Before using these methods, you must also add the following to your "gameinfos.inc.php" file, otherwise these methods are ineffective:
'db_undo_support' => true

; function undoSavepoint( )
: Save the whole game situation inside an "Undo save point".
: There is only ONE undo save point available (see BGA Undo policy).

; function undoRestorePoint()
: Restore the situation previously saved as an "Undo save point".
: You must make sure that the active player is the same after and before the undoRestorePoint (ie: this is your responsibility to ensure that the player that is active when this method is called is exactly the same than the player that was active when the undoSavePoint method has been called).

== Managing errors and exceptions ==

Note: when you throw an exception, all database changes and all notifications are cancelled immediately. This way, the game situation that existed before the request is completely restored.

; throw new BgaUserException ( $error_message)
: Base class to notify a user error
: You must throw this exception when a player wants to do something that he is not allowed to do.
: The error message will be shown to the player as a "red message", so it must be translated.
: Throwing such an exception is NOT considered a bug, so it is not traced in BGA error logs.

Example from Gomoku:
<pre>
throw new BgaUserException( self::_("There is already a stone on this intersection, you can't play there") );
</pre>

; throw new BgaVisibleSystemException ( $error_message)
: You must throw this exception when you detect something that is not supposed to happened in your code.
: The error message is shown to the user as an "Unexpected error", in order that he can report it in the forum.
: The error message is logged in BGA error logs. If it happens regularly, we will report it to you.

; throw new BgaSystemException ( $error_message)
: Base class to notify a system exception. The message will be hidden from the user, but show in the logs. Use this if the message contains technical information.
: You shouldn't use this type of exception except if you think the information shown could be critical. Indeed: a generic error message will be shown to the user, so it's going to be difficult for you to see what happened.

== Zombie mode ==

When a player leaves a game for any reason (expelled, quit), he becomes a "zombie player". In this case, the results of the game won't count for statistics, but this is cool if the other players can finish the game anyway. That's why zombie mode exists: allow the other player to finish the game, even if the situation is not ideal.

While developing your zombie mode, keep in mind that:
* Do not refer to the rules, because this situation is not planned by the rules.
* Try to figure that you are playing with your friends and one of them has to leave: how can we finish the game without killing the spirit of the game?
* The idea is NOT to develop an artificial intelligence for the game.

Most of the time, the best thing to do when it is zombie player turn is to jump immediately to a state where he is not active anymore. For example, if he is in a game state where he has a choice between playing A and playing B, the best thing to do is NOT to choose A or B, but to pass. So, even if there's no "pass" action in the rules, add a "zombiepass" transitition in your game state and use it.

Each time a zombie player must play, your "zombieTurn" method is called.

Parameters:
* $state: the name of the current game state.
* $active_player: the id of the active player.

Most of the time, your zombieTurn method looks like this:

<pre>
function zombieTurn( $state, $active_player )
{
$statename = $state['name'];

if( $statename == 'myFirstGameState'
|| $statename == 'my2ndGameState'
|| $statename == 'my3rdGameState'
....
)
{
$this->gamestate->nextState( "zombiePass" );
}
else
throw new BgaVisibleSystemException( "Zombie mode not supported at this game state: ".$statename );
}
</pre>

Note that in the example above, all corresponding game state should implement "zombiePass" as a transition.

== Player color preferences ==

BGA players (Club members) may now choose their preferred color for playing. For example, if they are used to play green for every board game, they can select "green" in their BGA preferences page.

Making your game compatible with colors preferences is very easy and requires only 1 line of PHP and 1 configuration change :

On your gameinfos.inc.php file, add the following lines :

// Favorite colors support : if set to "true", support attribution of favorite colors based on player's preferences (see reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences PHP method)
'favorite_colors_support' => true,

Then, on your main <your_game>.game.php file, find the "reloadPlayersBasicInfos" call in your "setupNewGame" method and replace :

$sql .= implode( $values, ',' );
self::DbQuery( $sql );
self::reloadPlayersBasicInfos();

By :

$sql .= implode( $values, ',' );
self::DbQuery( $sql );
self::reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences( $players, array( /* LIST HERE THE AVAILABLE COLORS OF YOUR GAME INSTEAD OF THESE ONES */"ff0000", "008000", "0000ff", "ffa500", "773300" ) );
self::reloadPlayersBasicInfos();

The "reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences" method reattributes all colors, taking into account players color preferences and available colors.

Note that you must update the colors to indicate the colors available for your game.

2 important remarks :
* for some games (ex : Chess), the color has an influence on a mechanism of the game, most of the time by giving a special advantage to a player (ex : Starting the game). Color preference mechanism must NOT be used in such a case.
* your logic should NEVER consider that the first player has the color X, that the second player has the color Y, and so on. If this is the case, your game will NOT be compatible with reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences as this method attribute colors to players based on their preferences and not based as their order at the table.

Colours currently listed as a choice in preferences:

* #ff0000 Red
* #008000 Green
* #0000ff Blue
* #ffa500 Yellow
* #000000 Black
* #ffffff White

== Debugging and Tracing ==

To debug php code you can use some tracing functions available from the parent class such as debug, trace, error, warn, dump.

self::debug("Ahh!");
self::dump('my_var',$my_var);

See [[Practical_debugging]] section for complete information about debugging interfaces and where to find logs.

Main game logic: yourgamename.game.php

2019-08-01T01:04:22Z

Amadannabriona: /* Use globals */

This is the main file for your game logic. Here you initialize the game, persist data, implement the rules and notify the client interface of changes.

== File Structure ==

The details of how the file is structured are described directly with comments in the code skeleton provided to you.

Here is the basic structure:

* EmptyGame (constructor): where you define global variables.
* setupNewGame: initial setup of the game.
* getAllDatas: where you retrieve all game data during a complete reload of the game.
* getGameProgression: where you compute the game progression indicator.
* Utility functions: your utility functions.
* Player actions: the entry points for players actions.
* Game state arguments: methods to return additional data on specific game states ([http://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php#args more info here]).
* Game state actions: the logic to run when entering a new game state ([http://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php#action more info here]).
* zombieTurn: what to do it's the turn of a zombie player.

== Accessing player information ==

; getPlayersNumber()
: Returns the number of players playing at the table
: Note: doesn't work in setupNewGame so use count($players) instead

; getActivePlayerId()
: Get the "active_player", whatever what is the current state type.
: Note: it does NOT mean that this player is active right now, because state type could be "game" or "multiplayer"
: Note: avoid using this method in a "multiplayer" state because it does not mean anything.

; getActivePlayerName()
: Get the "active_player" name
: Note: avoid using this method in a "multiplayer" state because it does not mean anything.

; loadPlayersBasicInfos()
: Get an associative array with generic data about players (ie: not game specific data).
: The key of the associative array is the player id. The returned table is cached, so ok to call multiple times without performance concerns.
: The content of each value is:
: * player_name - the name of the player
: * player_color (ex: ff0000) - the color code of the player
: * player_no - the position of the player at the start of the game in natural table order, i.e. 1,2,3

; getCurrentPlayerId()
: Get the "current_player". The current player is the one from which the action originated (the one who send the request).
: '''Be careful''': It is not always the active player.
: In general, you shouldn't use this method, unless you are in "multiplayer" state.

; getCurrentPlayerName()
: Get the "current_player" name
: Be careful using this method (see above).

; getCurrentPlayerColor()
: Get the "current_player" color
: Be careful using this method (see above).

; isCurrentPlayerZombie()
: Check the "current_player" zombie status. If true, player is zombie, i.e. left or was kicked out of the game.

== Accessing the database ==

The main game logic should be the only point from which you should access the game database. You access your database using SQL queries with the methods below.

'''IMPORTANT'''

BGA uses [http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/sql-syntax-transactions.html database transactions]. This means that your database changes WON'T BE APPLIED to the database until your request ends normally. Using transactions is in fact very useful for you; at any time, if your game logic detects that something is wrong (example: a disallowed move), you just have to throw an exception and all changes to the game situation will be removed.

; DbQuery( $sql )
: This is the generic method to access the database.
: It can execute any type of SELECT/UPDATE/DELETE/REPLACE query on the database.
: You should use it for UPDATE/DELETE/REPLACE queries. For SELECT queries, the specialized methods below are much better.

; getUniqueValueFromDB( $sql )
: Returns a unique value from DB or null if no value is found.
: $sql must be a SELECT query.
: Raise an exception if more than 1 row is returned.

; getCollectionFromDB( $sql, $bSingleValue=false )
: Returns an associative array of rows for a sql SELECT query.
: The key of the resulting associative array is the first field specified in the SELECT query.
: The value of the resulting associative array if an associative array with all the field specified in the SELECT query and associated values.
: First column must be a primary or alternate key.
: The resulting collection can be empty.
: If you specified $bSingleValue=true and if your SQL query request 2 fields A and B, the method returns an associative array "A=>B"

Example 1:
<pre>
self::getCollectionFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name, player_score score FROM player" );

Result:
array(
1234 => array( 'id'=>1234, 'name'=>'myuser0', 'score'=>1 ),
1235 => array( 'id'=>1235, 'name'=>'myuser1', 'score'=>0 )
)
</pre>
Example 2:
<pre>
self::getCollectionFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name FROM player", true );

Result:
array(
1234 => 'myuser0',
1235 => 'myuser1'
)

</pre>

; getNonEmptyCollectionFromDB( $sql )
: Idem than previous one, but raise an exception if the collection is empty

; getObjectFromDB( $sql )
: Returns one row for the sql SELECT query as an associative array or null if there is no result
: Raise an exception if the query return more than one row

Example:
<pre>
self::getObjectFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name, player_score score FROM player WHERE player_id='$player_id'" );

Result:
array(
'id'=>1234, 'name'=>'myuser0', 'score'=>1
)
</pre>

; getNonEmptyObjectFromDB( $sql )
: Idem than previous one, but raise an exception if no row is found

; getObjectListFromDB( $sql, $bUniqueValue=false )
: Return an array of rows for a sql SELECT query.
: the result if the same than "getCollectionFromDB" except that the result is a simple array (and not an associative array).
: The result can be empty.
: If you specified $bUniqueValue=true and if your SQL query request 1 field, the method returns directly an array of values.

Example 1:
<pre>
self::getObjectListFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name, player_score score FROM player" );

Result:
array(
array( 'id'=>1234, 'name'=>'myuser0', 'score'=>1 ),
array( 'id'=>1235, 'name'=>'myuser1', 'score'=>0 )
)
</pre>
Example 2:
<pre>
self::getObjectListFromDB( "SELECT player_name name FROM player", true );

Result:
array(
'myuser0',
'myuser1'
)

</pre>

; getDoubleKeyCollectionFromDB( $sql, $bSingleValue=false )
: Return an associative array of associative array, from a SQL SELECT query.
: First array level correspond to first column specified in SQL query.
: Second array level correspond to second column specified in SQL query.
: If bSingleValue = true, keep only third column on result

; DbGetLastId()
: Return the PRIMARY key of the last inserted row (see PHP mysql_insert_id function).

; DbAffectedRow()
: Return the number of row affected by the last operation

; escapeStringForDB( $string )
: You must use this function on every string type data in your database that contains unsafe data.
: (unsafe = can be modified by a player).
: This method makes sure that no SQL injection will be done through the string used.
: Note: if you using standard types in ajax actions, like AT_alphanum it is sanitized before arrival,
: this is only needed if you manage to get unchecked string, like in the games where user has to enter text as a response.

<pre>

</pre>

Note: see Editing [[Game database model: dbmodel.sql]] to know how to define your database model.

== Use globals ==

Sometimes, you want a single global integer value for your game, and you don't want to create a DB table specifically for it.

You can do this with the BGA framework "global." Your value will be stored in the "global" table in the database, and you can access it with simple methods.

'''initGameStateLabels'''

This method should be located at the beginning of ''yourgamename.php.'' This is where you define the globals used in your game logic, by assigning them IDs.

You can define up to 79 globals, with IDs from 10 to 89 (inclusive). You must '''not''' use globals outside this range, as those values are used by other components of the framework.

<pre>
self::initGameStateLabels( array(
"my_first_global_variable" => 10,
"my_second_global_variable" => 11
) );
</pre>

'''setGameStateInitialValue( $value_label, $value_value )'''

Initialize your global value. Must be called before any use of your global, so you should call this method from your "setupNewGame" method.

'''getGameStateValue( $value_label )'''

Retrieve the current value of a global.

'''setGameStateValue( $value_label, $value_value )'''

Set the current value of a global.

'''incGameStateValue( $value_label, $increment )'''

Increment the current value of a global. If increment is negative, decrement the value of the global.

Return the final value of the global.

== Game states and active players ==

=== Activate player handling ===

; $this->activeNextPlayer()
: Make the next player active in the natural player order.
: Note: you CANT use this method in a "activeplayer" or "multipleactiveplayer" state. You must use a "game" type game state for this.

; $this->activePrevPlayer()
: Make the previous player active (in the natural player order).
: Note: you CANT use this method in a "activeplayer" or "multipleactiveplayer" state. You must use a "game" type game state for this.

; $this->gamestate->changeActivePlayer( $player_id )
: You can call this method to make any player active.
: Note: you CANT use this method in a "activeplayer" or "multipleactiveplayer" state. You must use a "game" type game state for this.

; $this->getActivePlayerId()
: Return the "active_player" id
: Note: it does NOT mean that this player is active right now, because state type could be "game" or "multiplayer"
: Note: avoid using this method in a "multiplayer" state because it does not mean anything.

=== Multiactivate player handling ===

; $this->gamestate->setAllPlayersMultiactive()
: All playing players are made active. Update notification is sent to all players (triggers onUpdateActionButtons).
: Usually, you use this method at the beginning (ex: "st" action method) of a multiplayer game state when all players have to do some action.

; $this->gamestate->setAllPlayersNonMultiactive( $next_state )
: All playing players are made inactive. Transition to next state

; $this->gamestate->setPlayersMultiactive( $players, $next_state, $bExclusive = false )
: Make a specific list of players active during a multiactive gamestate. Update notification is sent to all players who's state changed.
: "players" is the array of player id that should be made active.
: If "exclusive" parameter is not set or false it doesn't deactivate other previously active players. If its set to true, the players who will be multiactive at the end are only these in "$layers" array

: In case "players" is empty, the method trigger the "next_state" transition to go to the next game state.
: returns true if state transition happened, false otherwise

; $this->gamestate->setPlayerNonMultiactive( $player_id, $next_state )
: During a multiactive game state, make the specified player inactive.
: Usually, you call this method during a multiactive game state after a player did his action.
: If this player was the last active player, the method trigger the "next_state" transition to go to the next game state.
: returns true if state transition happened, false otherwise

; $this->gamestate->updateMultiactiveOrNextState( $next_state_if_none )
: Sends update notification about multiplayer changes. All multiactive set* functions above do that, however if you want to change state manually using db queries for complex calculations, you have to call this yourself after. Do not call this if you calling one of the other setters above.
Example: you have player teams and you want to activate all players in one team
<pre>
$sql = "UPDATE player SET player_is_multiactive='0'";
self::DbQuery( $sql );
$sql = "UPDATE player SET player_is_multiactive='1' WHERE player_id='$player_id' AND player_team='$team_no'";
self::DbQuery( $sql );

$this->gamestate->updateMultiactiveOrNextState( 'error' );
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->getActivePlayerList()
: With this method you can retrieve the list of the active player at any time.
: During a "game" type gamestate, it will return a void array.
: During a "activeplayer" type gamestate, it will return an array with one value (the active player id).
: During a "multipleactiveplayer" type gamestate, it will return an array of the active players id.
: Note: you should only use this method in the latter case.

=== States functions ===
; $this->gamestate->nextState( $transition )
: Change current state to a new state. Important: parameter $transition is the name of the transition, and NOT the name of the target game state, see [[Your game state machine: states.inc.php]] for more information about states.

; $this->checkAction( $actionName, $bThrowException=true )
: Check if action is valid regarding current game state (exception if fails).
: The action is valid if it is listed as a "possibleactions" in the current game state (see game state description).
: This method MUST be called in the first place in ALL your PHP methods that handle players action, in order to make sure a player can't do an action when the rules disallow it at this moment of the game.
: if "bThrowException" is set to "false", the function return false in case of failure instead of throwing and exception. This is useful when several actions are possible in order to test each of them without throwing exceptions.

; $this->gamestate->checkPossibleAction( $action )
: (rarely used)
: This works exactly like "checkAction", except that it do NOT check if current player is active.
: This is used specifically in certain game states when you want to authorize some additional actions for players that are not active at the moment.
: Example: in Libertalia game, you want to authorize players to change their mind about card played. They are of course not active at the time they change their mind, so you cannot use "checkAction" and use "checkPossibleAction" instead.

; $this->gamestate->state()
: Get an associative array of current game state attributes, see [[Your game state machine: states.inc.php]] for state attributes.
$state=$this->gamestate->state(); if( $state['name'] == 'myGameState' ) {...}

== Players turn order ==

'''getNextPlayerTable()'''

Return an associative array which associate each player with the next player around the table.

In addition, key 0 is associated to the first player to play.

Example: if three player with ID 1, 2 and 3 are around the table, in this order, the method returns:
<pre>
array(
1 => 2,
2 => 3,
3 => 1,
0 => 1
);
</pre>

'''getPrevPlayerTable()'''

Same as above, but the associative array associate the previous player around the table.

'''getPlayerAfter( $player_id )'''

Get player playing after given player in natural playing order.

'''getPlayerBefore( $player_id )'''

Get player playing before given player in natural playing order.

Note: There is no API to modify this order, if you have custom player order you have to maintain it in your database
and have custom function to access it.

== Notify players ==

To understand notifications, please read [http://www.slideshare.net/boardgamearena/the-bga-framework-at-a-glance The BGA Framework at a glance] first.

'''IMPORTANT'''

Notifications are sent at the very end of the request, when it ends normally. It means that if you throw an exception for any reason (ex: move not allowed), no notifications will be sent to players.
Notifications sent between the game start (setupNewGame) and the end of the "action" method of the first active state will never reach their destination.

'''notifyAllPlayers( $notification_type, $notification_log, $notification_args )'''

Send a notification to all players of the game.

* notification_type:
A string that defines the type of your notification.

Your game interface Javascript logic will use this to know what is the type of the received notification (and to trigger the corresponding method).

* notification_log:
A string that defines what is to be displayed in the game log.

You can use an empty string here (""). In this case, nothing is displayed in the game log.

If you define a real string here, you should use "clienttranslate" method to make sure it can be translate.

You can use arguments in your notification_log strings, that refers to values defines in the "notification_args" argument (see below).
Note: Make sure you only use single quotes ('), otherwise PHP will try to interpolate the variable and will ignore the values in the args array.

* notification_args:
The arguments of your notifications, as an associative array.

This array will be transmitted to the game interface logic, in order the game interface can be updated.

Complete notifyAllPlayers example (from "Reversi"):

<pre>
self::notifyAllPlayers( "playDisc", clienttranslate( '${player_name} plays a disc and turns over ${returned_nbr} disc(s)' ),
array(
'player_id' => $player_id,
'player_name' => self::getActivePlayerName(),
'returned_nbr' => count( $turnedOverDiscs ),
'x' => $x,
'y' => $y
) );
</pre>

You can see in the example above the use of the "clienttranslate" method, and the use of 2 arguments "player_name" and "returned_nbr" in the notification log.

Important: NO private data must be sent with this method, as a cheater could see it even it is not used explicitly by the game interface logic. If you want to send private information to a player, please use notifyPlayer below.

Note: you CAN use some HTML inside your notification log, however it not recommended for many reasons:
* Its bad architecture, ui elements leak into server now you have to manage ui in many places
* If you decided to change something in ui in future version, old games reply and tutorials may not work, since they use stored notifications
* When you read log preview for old games its unreadable (this is log before you enter the game reply, useful for troubleshooting or game analysis)
* Its more data to transfer and store in db
* Its nightmare for translators, at least don't put HTML tags inside the "clienttranslate" method. You can use a notification argument instead, and provide your HTML through this argument.

If you still want to have pretty pictures in the log check this [[BGA_Studio_Cookbook#Inject_images_and_styled_html_in_the_log]].

If your notification contains some phrases that build programmatically you may need to use recursive notifications. In this case the argument can be not only the string but
an array itself, which contains 'log' and 'args', i.e.

$this->notifyAllPlayers('playerLog',clienttranslate('Game moves ${token_name_rec}'),
['token_name_rec'=>['log'=>'${token_name} #${token_number}',
'args'=> ['token_name'=>clienttranslate('Boo'), 'token_number'=>$number, 'i18n'=>['token_name'] ]
]
]);

'''notifyPlayer( $player_id, $notification_type, $notification_log, $notification_args )'''

Same as above, except that the notification is sent to one player only.

This method must be used each time some private information must be transmitted to a player.

Important: the variable for player name must be ${player_name} in order to be highlighted with the player color in the game log

== About random and randomness ==

A large number of board games rely on random, most often based on dice, cards shuffling, picking some item in a bag, and so on. This is very important to ensure a high level of randomness for each of these situations.

Here's are a list of techniques you should use in these situations, from the best to the worst.

=== Dices and bga_rand ===

'''bga_rand( min, max )'''
This is a BGA framework function that provides you a random number between "min" and "max" (included), using the best available random method available on the system.

This is the preferred function you should use, because we are updating it when a better method is introduced.

At now, bga_rand is based on the PHP function "random_int", which ensure a cryptographic level of randomness.

In particular, it is '''mandatory''' to use it for all '''dice throw''' (ie: games using other methods for dice throwing will be rejected by BGA during review).

Note: rand() and mt_rand() are deprecated on BGA and should not be used anymore, as their randomness is not as good as "bga_rand".

=== shuffle and cards shuffling ===

To shuffle items, like a pile of cards, the best way is to use the BGA PHP [[Deck]] component and to use "shuffle" method. This ensure you that the best available shuffling method is used, and that if in the future we improve it your game will be up to date.

At now, the Deck component shuffle method is based on PHP "shuffle" method, which has a quite good randomness (even it is not as good as bga_rand). In consequence, we accept other shuffling methods during reviews, as long as their are based on PHP "shuffle" function (or similar, like "array_rand").

=== Other methods ===

Mysql "RAND()" function has not enough randomness to be a valid method to get a random element on BGA. This function has been used in some existing games and has given acceptable results, but now it should be avoided and you should use other methods instead.

== Game statistics ==

There are 2 types of statistics:
* a "player" statistic is a statistic associated to a player
* a "table" statistics is a statistic not associated to a player (global statistic for this game).

See [[Game statistics: stats.inc.php]] to see how you defines statistics for your game.

'''initStat( $table_or_player, $name, $value, $player_id = null )'''

Create a statistic entry with a default value.
This method must be called for each statistics of your game, in your setupNewGame method.

'$table_or_player' must be set to "table" if this is a table statistics, or "player" if this is a player statistics.

'$name' is the name of your statistics, as it has been defined in your stats.inc.php file.

'$value' is the initial value of the statistics. If this is a player statistics and if the player is not specified by "$player_id" argument, the value is set for ALL players.

'''setStat( $value, $name, $player_id = null )'''

Set a statistic $name to $value.

If "$player_id" is not specified, setStat consider it is a TABLE statistic.

If "$player_id" is specified, setStat consider it is a PLAYER statistic.

'''incStat( $delta, $name, $player_id = null )'''

Increment (or decrement) specified statistic value by $delta value. Same behavior as setStat function.

'''getStat( $name, $player_id = null )'''

Return the value of statistic specified by $name. Useful when creating derivative statistics such as average.

== Translations ==

See [[Translations]]

== Manage player scores and Tie breaker ==

=== Normal scoring ===

At the end of the game, players automatically get a rank depending on their score: the player with the biggest score is #1, the player with the second biggest score is #2, and so on...

During the game, you update player's score directly by updating "player_score" field of "player" table in database.

Examples:
<pre>

// +2 points to active player
self::DbQuery( "UPDATE player SET player_score=player_score+2 WHERE player_id='".self::getActivePlayerId()."'" );

// Set score of active player to 5
self::DbQuery( "UPDATE player SET player_score=5 WHERE player_id='".self::getActivePlayerId()."'" );

</pre>

Note: don't forget to notify the client side in order the score control can be updated accordingly.

=== Tie breaker ===

Tie breaker is used when two players get the same score at the end of a game.

Tie breaker is using "player_score_aux" field of "player" table. It is updated exactly like the "player_score" field.

Tie breaker score is displayed only for players who are tied at the end of the game. Most of the time, it is not supposed to be displayed explicitly during the game.

When you are using "player_score_aux" functionality, you must describe the formula to use in your gameinfos.inc.php file like this:

<pre>
'tie_breaker_description' => totranslate("Describe here your tie breaker formula"),
</pre>

This description will be used as a tooltip to explain to players how this auxiliary score has been calculated.

=== Co-operative game ===

To make everyone lose in full-coop game:

Add the following in gameinfos.inc.php :
'is_coop' => 1, // full cooperative

And score zero to everyone.

=== Semi-coop ===

If the game is not full-coop, then everyone lose = everyone is tie. I.e. set score to 0 to everybody.

=== Only "winners" and "losers ===

For some games, there is only a group (or a single) "winner", and everyone else is a "loser", with no "end of game rank" (1st, 2nd, 3rd...).

Examples:
* Coup
* Not Alone
* Werewolves
* Quantum

In this case:
* Set the scores so that the winner has the best score, and the other players have the same (lower) score.
* Add the following lines to gameinfos.php:

<pre>
// If in the game, all losers are equal (no score to rank them or explicit in the rules that losers are not ranked between them), set this to true
// The game end result will display "Winner" for the 1st player and "Loser" for all other players
'losers_not_ranked' => true,
</pre>

Werewolves and Coup are implemented like this, as you can see here:
* https://boardgamearena.com/#!gamepanel?game=werewolves&section=lastresults
* https://boardgamearena.com/#!gamepanel?game=coupcitystate&section=lastresults

Adding this has the following effects:
* On game results for this game, "Winner" or "Loser" is going to appear instead of the usual "1st, 2nd, 3rd, ...".
* When a game is over, the result of the game will be "End of game: Victory" or "End of game: Defeat" depending on the result of the CURRENT player (instead of the usual "Victory of XXX").
* When calculating ELO points, if there is at least one "Loser", no "victorious" player can lose ELO points, and no "losing" player can win ELO point. Usually it may happened because being tie with many players with a low rank is considered as a tie and may cost you points. If losers_not_ranked is set, we prevent this behavior and make sure you only gain/loss ELO when you get the corresponding results.

Important: this SHOULD NOT be used for cooperative games (see is_coop parameter), or for 2 players games (it makes no sense in this case).

=== Solo ===

If game supports solo variant, a negative score means defeat, a positive score means victory.

=== Player elimination ===

In some games, this is useful to eliminate a player from the game in order he/she can start another game without waiting for the current game end.

This case should be rare. Please don't use player elimination feature if some player just has to wait the last 10% of the game for game end. This feature should be used only in games where players are eliminated all along the game (typical examples: "Perudo" or "The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow").

Usage:

* Player to eliminate should NOT be active anymore (preferably use the feature in a "game" type game state).
* In your PHP code:
self::eliminatePlayer( <player_to_eliminate_id> );
* the player is informed in a dialog box that he no longer have to played and can start another game if he/she wants too (whith buttons "stay at this table" "quit table and back to main site"). In any case, the player is free to start & join another table from now.
* When your game is over, all players who have been eliminated before receive a "notification" (the small "!" icon on the top right of the BGA interface) that indicate them that "the game has ended" and invite them to review the game results.

=== Scoring Helper functions ===

// get score
function dbGetScore($player_id) {
return $this->getUniqueValueFromDB("SELECT player_score FROM player WHERE player_id='$player_id'");
}

// set score
function dbSetScore($player_id, $count) {
$this->DbQuery("UPDATE player SET player_score='$count' WHERE player_id='$player_id'");
}

// set aux score (tie breaker)
function dbSetAuxScore($player_id, $score) {
$this->DbQuery("UPDATE player SET player_score_aux=$score WHERE player_id='$player_id'");
}

// increment score (can be negative too)
function dbIncScore($player_id, $inc) {
$count = $this->dbGetScore($player_id);
if ($inc != 0) {
$count += $inc;
$this->dbSetScore($player_id, $count);
}
return $count;
}

== Reflexion time ==

; function giveExtraTime( $player_id, $specific_time=null )
: Give standard extra time to this player.
: Standard extra time depends on the speed of the game (small with "slow" game option, bigger with other options).
: You can also specify an exact time to add, in seconds, with the "specified_time" argument (rarely used).

== Undo moves ==

Please read our [[BGA Undo policy]] before.

'''Important''': Before using these methods, you must also add the following to your "gameinfos.inc.php" file, otherwise these methods are ineffective:
'db_undo_support' => true

; function undoSavepoint( )
: Save the whole game situation inside an "Undo save point".
: There is only ONE undo save point available (see BGA Undo policy).

; function undoRestorePoint()
: Restore the situation previously saved as an "Undo save point".
: You must make sure that the active player is the same after and before the undoRestorePoint (ie: this is your responsibility to ensure that the player that is active when this method is called is exactly the same than the player that was active when the undoSavePoint method has been called).

== Managing errors and exceptions ==

Note: when you throw an exception, all database changes and all notifications are cancelled immediately. This way, the game situation that existed before the request is completely restored.

; throw new BgaUserException ( $error_message)
: Base class to notify a user error
: You must throw this exception when a player wants to do something that he is not allowed to do.
: The error message will be shown to the player as a "red message", so it must be translated.
: Throwing such an exception is NOT considered a bug, so it is not traced in BGA error logs.

Example from Gomoku:
<pre>
throw new BgaUserException( self::_("There is already a stone on this intersection, you can't play there") );
</pre>

; throw new BgaVisibleSystemException ( $error_message)
: You must throw this exception when you detect something that is not supposed to happened in your code.
: The error message is shown to the user as an "Unexpected error", in order that he can report it in the forum.
: The error message is logged in BGA error logs. If it happens regularly, we will report it to you.

; throw new BgaSystemException ( $error_message)
: Base class to notify a system exception. The message will be hidden from the user, but show in the logs. Use this if the message contains technical information.
: You shouldn't use this type of exception except if you think the information shown could be critical. Indeed: a generic error message will be shown to the user, so it's going to be difficult for you to see what happened.

== Zombie mode ==

When a player leaves a game for any reason (expelled, quit), he becomes a "zombie player". In this case, the results of the game won't count for statistics, but this is cool if the other players can finish the game anyway. That's why zombie mode exists: allow the other player to finish the game, even if the situation is not ideal.

While developing your zombie mode, keep in mind that:
* Do not refer to the rules, because this situation is not planned by the rules.
* Try to figure that you are playing with your friends and one of them has to leave: how can we finish the game without killing the spirit of the game?
* The idea is NOT to develop an artificial intelligence for the game.

Most of the time, the best thing to do when it is zombie player turn is to jump immediately to a state where he is not active anymore. For example, if he is in a game state where he has a choice between playing A and playing B, the best thing to do is NOT to choose A or B, but to pass. So, even if there's no "pass" action in the rules, add a "zombiepass" transitition in your game state and use it.

Each time a zombie player must play, your "zombieTurn" method is called.

Parameters:
* $state: the name of the current game state.
* $active_player: the id of the active player.

Most of the time, your zombieTurn method looks like this:

<pre>
function zombieTurn( $state, $active_player )
{
$statename = $state['name'];

if( $statename == 'myFirstGameState'
|| $statename == 'my2ndGameState'
|| $statename == 'my3rdGameState'
....
)
{
$this->gamestate->nextState( "zombiePass" );
}
else
throw new BgaVisibleSystemException( "Zombie mode not supported at this game state: ".$statename );
}
</pre>

Note that in the example above, all corresponding game state should implement "zombiePass" as a transition.

== Player color preferences ==

BGA players (Club members) may now choose their preferred color for playing. For example, if they are used to play green for every board game, they can select "green" in their BGA preferences page.

Making your game compatible with colors preferences is very easy and requires only 1 line of PHP and 1 configuration change :

On your gameinfos.inc.php file, add the following lines :

// Favorite colors support : if set to "true", support attribution of favorite colors based on player's preferences (see reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences PHP method)
'favorite_colors_support' => true,

Then, on your main <your_game>.game.php file, find the "reloadPlayersBasicInfos" call in your "setupNewGame" method and replace :

$sql .= implode( $values, ',' );
self::DbQuery( $sql );
self::reloadPlayersBasicInfos();

By :

$sql .= implode( $values, ',' );
self::DbQuery( $sql );
self::reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences( $players, array( /* LIST HERE THE AVAILABLE COLORS OF YOUR GAME INSTEAD OF THESE ONES */"ff0000", "008000", "0000ff", "ffa500", "773300" ) );
self::reloadPlayersBasicInfos();

The "reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences" method reattributes all colors, taking into account players color preferences and available colors.

Note that you must update the colors to indicate the colors available for your game.

2 important remarks :
* for some games (ex : Chess), the color has an influence on a mechanism of the game, most of the time by giving a special advantage to a player (ex : Starting the game). Color preference mechanism must NOT be used in such a case.
* your logic should NEVER consider that the first player has the color X, that the second player has the color Y, and so on. If this is the case, your game will NOT be compatible with reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences as this method attribute colors to players based on their preferences and not based as their order at the table.

Colours currently listed as a choice in preferences:

* #ff0000 Red
* #008000 Green
* #0000ff Blue
* #ffa500 Yellow
* #000000 Black
* #ffffff White

== Debugging and Tracing ==

To debug php code you can use some tracing functions available from the parent class such as debug, trace, error, warn, dump.

self::debug("Ahh!");
self::dump('my_var',$my_var);

See [[Practical_debugging]] section for complete information about debugging interfaces and where to find logs.

Counter

2019-08-01T00:59:53Z

Amadannabriona: /* Dependency */

== Dependency ==

Don't forget to add '''ebg/counter''' as a dependency:

// in your game js
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter" /// <==== HERE],

== Setup a counter ==

<pre>
player.handSizeCounter = new ebg.counter();
player.handSizeCounter.create('hand_size_player_' + player_id);
</pre>

== Update counter ==

<pre>
player.handSizeCounter.setValue(player.handSize);
</pre>

== Players panels ==

=== Adding stuff to player's panel ===

First, create a new JS template string in your template (tpl) file.

From the ''Gomoku'' example:

<pre>
var jstpl_player_board = '\<div class="cp_board">\
<div id="stoneicon_p${id}" class="gmk_stoneicon gmk_stoneicon_${color}"></div><span id="stonecount_p${id}">0</span>\
</div>';
</pre>

Then, add this piece of code in the '''setup''' function of your JS file to add this template to each player panel:

<pre>
// Setting up player boards
for( var player_id in gamedatas.players )
{
var player = gamedatas.players[player_id];

// Setting up players boards if needed
var player_board_div = $('player_board_'+player_id);
dojo.place( this.format_block('jstpl_player_board', player ), player_board_div );
}
</pre>

Often, you have to distinguish between the current player and other players. In this case, create another JS template (ex: jstpl_otherplayer_board) and use it where "player_id" is different than "this.player_id".

Counter

2018-10-08T00:44:05Z

Amadannabriona: /* Adding stuff to player's panel */

== Dependency ==

Don't forget to add "ebg/counter" as a dependency:

// in you game js
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter" /// <==== HERE],

== updateCounters(counters) ==

: Useful for updating game counters in the player panel (such as resources).
: The 'counters' arg is an associative array [counter_name_value => [ 'counter_name' => counter_name_value, 'counter_value' => counter_value_value], ... ]
: All counters must be referenced in '''this.gamedatas.counters''' and will be updated. Therefore if you add a counter during the game, you need to update the counters like that (through a notification management for example):
<pre>
this.gamedatas.counters['hammercount_p' + notif.args.player_id] = {'counter_name': 'hammercount_p' + notif.args.player_id, 'counter_value' : '0'};
</pre>
: DOM objects referenced by 'counter_name' will have their innerHTML updated with 'counter_value'.

== Players panels ==

=== Adding stuff to player's panel ===

First, create a new JS template string in your template (tpl) file.

From the ''Gomoku'' example:

<pre>
var jstpl_player_board = '\<div class="cp_board">\
<div id="stoneicon_p${id}" class="gmk_stoneicon gmk_stoneicon_${color}"></div><span id="stonecount_p${id}">0</span>\
</div>';
</pre>

Then, add this piece of code in the '''setup''' function of your JS file to add this template to each player panel:

<pre>
// Setting up player boards
for( var player_id in gamedatas.players )
{
var player = gamedatas.players[player_id];

// Setting up players boards if needed
var player_board_div = $('player_board_'+player_id);
dojo.place( this.format_block('jstpl_player_board', player ), player_board_div );
}
</pre>

Often, you have to distinguish between the current player and other players. In this case, create another JS template (ex: jstpl_otherplayer_board) and use it where "player_id" is different than "this.player_id".

Counter

2018-10-08T00:40:14Z

Amadannabriona: /* updateCounters(counters) */

== Dependency ==

Don't forget to add "ebg/counter" as a dependency:

// in you game js
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter" /// <==== HERE],

== updateCounters(counters) ==

: Useful for updating game counters in the player panel (such as resources).
: The 'counters' arg is an associative array [counter_name_value => [ 'counter_name' => counter_name_value, 'counter_value' => counter_value_value], ... ]
: All counters must be referenced in '''this.gamedatas.counters''' and will be updated. Therefore if you add a counter during the game, you need to update the counters like that (through a notification management for example):
<pre>
this.gamedatas.counters['hammercount_p' + notif.args.player_id] = {'counter_name': 'hammercount_p' + notif.args.player_id, 'counter_value' : '0'};
</pre>
: DOM objects referenced by 'counter_name' will have their innerHTML updated with 'counter_value'.

== Players panels ==

=== Adding stuff to player's panel ===

At first, create a new "JS template" string in your template (tpl) file:

(from Gomoku example)
<pre>
var jstpl_player_board = '\<div class="cp_board">\
<div id="stoneicon_p${id}" class="gmk_stoneicon gmk_stoneicon_${color}"></div><span id="stonecount_p${id}">0</span>\
</div>';
</pre>

Then, you add this piece of code in your JS file to add this template to each player panel:

<pre>
// Setting up player boards
for( var player_id in gamedatas.players )
{
var player = gamedatas.players[player_id];

// Setting up players boards if needed
var player_board_div = $('player_board_'+player_id);
dojo.place( this.format_block('jstpl_player_board', player ), player_board_div );
}
</pre>

(Note: the code above is of course from your "setup" function in your Javascript).

Very often, you have to distinguish current player and others players. In this case, you just have to create another JS template (ex: jstpl_otherplayer_board) and use it when "player_id" is different than "this.player_id".

Counter

2018-10-08T00:39:58Z

Amadannabriona: /* updateCounters(counters) */

== Dependency ==

Don't forget to add "ebg/counter" as a dependency:

// in you game js
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter" /// <==== HERE],

== updateCounters(counters) ==

: Useful for updating game counters in the player panel (such as resources).
: The 'counters' arg is an associative array [counter_name_value => [ 'counter_name' => counter_name_value, 'counter_value' => counter_value_value], ... ]
: All counters must be referenced in '''this.gamedatas.counters''' and will be updated. Therefore if you add a counter during the game, you need to update the counters like that (through a notification management for example):
<pre>
this.gamedatas.counters['hammercount_p' + notif.args.player_id] = {'counter_name': 'hammercount_p' + notif.args.player_id, 'counter_value' : '0'};
</pre?
: DOM objects referenced by 'counter_name' will have their innerHTML updated with 'counter_value'.

== Players panels ==

=== Adding stuff to player's panel ===

At first, create a new "JS template" string in your template (tpl) file:

(from Gomoku example)
<pre>
var jstpl_player_board = '\<div class="cp_board">\
<div id="stoneicon_p${id}" class="gmk_stoneicon gmk_stoneicon_${color}"></div><span id="stonecount_p${id}">0</span>\
</div>';
</pre>

Then, you add this piece of code in your JS file to add this template to each player panel:

<pre>
// Setting up player boards
for( var player_id in gamedatas.players )
{
var player = gamedatas.players[player_id];

// Setting up players boards if needed
var player_board_div = $('player_board_'+player_id);
dojo.place( this.format_block('jstpl_player_board', player ), player_board_div );
}
</pre>

(Note: the code above is of course from your "setup" function in your Javascript).

Very often, you have to distinguish current player and others players. In this case, you just have to create another JS template (ex: jstpl_otherplayer_board) and use it when "player_id" is different than "this.player_id".

Counter

2018-10-08T00:38:25Z

Amadannabriona: /* Dependency */

== Dependency ==

Don't forget to add "ebg/counter" as a dependency:

// in you game js
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter" /// <==== HERE],

== updateCounters(counters) ==

: Useful for updating game counters in the player panel (such as resources).
: 'counters' arg is an associative array [counter_name_value => [ 'counter_name' => counter_name_value, 'counter_value' => counter_value_value], ... ]
: All counters must be referenced in this.gamedatas.counters and will be updated. Therefore if you add a counter during the game, you need to update the counters like that (through a notification management for example):
this.gamedatas.counters['hammercount_p' + notif.args.player_id] = {'counter_name': 'hammercount_p' + notif.args.player_id, 'counter_value' : '0'};
: DOM objects referenced by 'counter_name' will have their innerHTML updated with 'counter_value'.

== Players panels ==

=== Adding stuff to player's panel ===

At first, create a new "JS template" string in your template (tpl) file:

(from Gomoku example)
<pre>
var jstpl_player_board = '\<div class="cp_board">\
<div id="stoneicon_p${id}" class="gmk_stoneicon gmk_stoneicon_${color}"></div><span id="stonecount_p${id}">0</span>\
</div>';
</pre>

Then, you add this piece of code in your JS file to add this template to each player panel:

<pre>
// Setting up player boards
for( var player_id in gamedatas.players )
{
var player = gamedatas.players[player_id];

// Setting up players boards if needed
var player_board_div = $('player_board_'+player_id);
dojo.place( this.format_block('jstpl_player_board', player ), player_board_div );
}
</pre>

(Note: the code above is of course from your "setup" function in your Javascript).

Very often, you have to distinguish current player and others players. In this case, you just have to create another JS template (ex: jstpl_otherplayer_board) and use it when "player_id" is different than "this.player_id".

Game layout: view and template: yourgamename.view.php and yourgamename yourgamename.tpl

2018-10-06T23:24:33Z

Amadannabriona: /* Blocks */

These 2 files work together to provide the HTML layout of your game.

Using these 2 files, you specify what HTML is rendered in your game client interface.

In <yourgame.tpl>, you can directly write raw HTML that will be displayed by the browser.

Example: extract of "hearts_hearts.tpl":

<pre>
<div id="myhand_wrap" class="whiteblock">
<h3>{MY_HAND}</h3>
<div id="myhand">
</div>
</div>
</pre>

== WARNING ==

Your view and your template are supposed to generate only the BASE layout of the game

You shouldn't try to setup the current game situation in the view: this is the role of your Javascript code. Why? Because you'll have to write Javascript code to put game elements in place anyway, and you don't want to write it twice :)

Example of things to generate in your view:
* The overall layout of your game interface (what is displayed where).
* The board and fixed elements on the board (ex: places for cards, squares, ...).

Example of things that shouldn't be generate by your view:
* Game elements that come and go from the game area.
* Game elements that normally hidden from players (other players cards, cards in the deck).

== phplib template system ==

BGA is using the phplib template system, used for example in PHPbb forums.

More details about how to use phplib template system here:
http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/david20000512.php3

== Variables ==

In your template ("tpl") file, you can use variables. Then in your view (".view.php") file, you fill these variables with value.

In the example above, "{MY_HAND}" is a variable. As you can see, a variable is uppercase characters border by "{" and "}".

To give a value to this variable in your view.php:

Examples:
<pre>

// Display a translated version of "My hand" at the place of the variable in the template
$this->tpl['MY_HAND'] = self::_("My hand");

// Display some raw HTML material at the place of the variable
$this->tpl['MY_HAND'] = self::raw( "<div class='myhand_icon'></div>" );

</pre>

WARNING: do not use a variable called {id} as it will interfere with action buttons.

== Blocks ==

Using "blocks", you can repeat a piece of HTML from your template several time.

You should use "blocks" whenever you have a block of HTML that must be repeated many times. For example, for ''Reversi'', we have to generate 64 (8x8) squares:

<pre>

(in reversi_reversi.tpl)

<div id="board">

<div id="square_{X}_{Y}" class="square" style="left: {LEFT}px; top: {TOP}px;"></div>


<div id="discs">
</div>
</div>

(in reversi.view.php)

$this->page->begin_block( "reversi_reversi", "square" );

$hor_scale = 64.8;
$ver_scale = 64.4;
for( $x=1; $x<=8; $x++ )
{
for( $y=1; $y<=8; $y++ )
{
$this->page->insert_block( "square", array(
'X' => $x,
'Y' => $y,
'LEFT' => round( ($x-1)*$hor_scale+10 ),
'TOP' => round( ($y-1)*$ver_scale+7 )
) );
}
}

</pre>

Explanations:
* You specify a block in your template file, using "BEGIN" and "END" keywords. In the example above, we are creating a block named "square".
* In your view, you declare your block using "begin_block" method.
* Then, you can insert as many block as you want to, using "insert_block" method.

The insert_block method takes 2 parameters:
* the name of the block to insert.
* an associative array you can use to assign values to template variables of this block. In the example above, there are 4 parameters in the block (X, Y, LEFT and TOP).

== Nested blocks ==

You can use nested blocks. In the example below, we are going to add a mini-board for each player of the game, with 4 card places on each of it:

<pre>

(In template file)


<div class="miniboard" id="miniboard_{PLAYER_ID}">

<div class="card_places">

<div id="card_place_{PLAYER_ID}_{PLACE_ID}">
</div>

</div>

</div>


(In view file)

$this->page->begin_block( "mygame_mygame.tpl", "card_place" ); // Nested block must be declared first
$this->page->begin_block( "mygame_mygame.tpl", "player" );

foreach( $players as $player_id => $player )
{
// Important: nested block must be reset here, otherwise the second player miniboard will
// have 8 card_place, the third will have 12 card_place, and so one...
$this->page->reset_subblocks( 'card_place' );

for( $i=1; $i<=4; $i++ )
{
$this->page->insert_block( "card_place", array(
'PLAYER_ID' => $player_id,
'PLACE_ID' => $i
);
}

$this->page->insert_block( 'player', array( 'PLAYER_ID' => $player_id );
}

</pre>

== Javascript templates ==

For game elements that come and go from the game area, we suggest you to define a Javascript template.

A Javascript template is defined in your template file like this:

(Reversi Token from Reversi example):
<pre>
<script type="text/javascript">

// Templates

var jstpl_disc='<div class="disc disccolor_${color}" id="disc_${xy}"></div>';

</script>
</pre>

Note: a section for javascript templates is already available at the end of your template skeleton file.

Then, you can use this javascript template to insert this piece of HTML in your game interface, like this:

<pre>
dojo.place( this.format_block( 'jstpl_disc', {
xy: x+''+y,
color: color
} ) , 'discs' );
</pre>

WARNING: always use lowercase for substitution variables in your Javascript templates, in order to avoid collision with phplib template variables (in particular, do not use ${ID}).

== How to access game information from .view.php? ==

From your .view.php, you can access the following:

=== Access current player id===

<pre>
global $g_user;
$current_player_id = $g_user->get_id();
</pre>

=== Access game object ===

In your view file, "$this->game" contains an instance of your main game class.

Example:
<pre>

// Access to some game elements description described in your "material.inc.php":
$my_cards_types = $this->game->card_types;

// Access to any (public) method defined in my .game.php file:
$result = $this->game->myMethod();
</pre>

== Tips: displaying a nice button ==

From time to time, you need to display a standard button in your interface. BGA framework provides you a standard button that you can use directly in your interface:

<pre>
<a href="#" id="my_button_id" class="bgabutton bgabutton_blue"><span>My blue button</span></a>
</pre>
<pre>
<a href="#" id="my_button_id" class="bgabutton bgabutton_gray"><span>My gray button</span></a>
</pre>
<pre>
<a href="#" id="my_button_id" class="bgabutton bgabutton_red"><span>My red button</span></a>
</pre>
<pre>
<a href="#" id="my_button_id" class="bgabutton bgabutton_red bgabutton_big"><span>My big red button</span></a>
</pre>

Note: To see it in action, check for example a Coloretto game

Stock

2018-10-06T23:10:28Z

Amadannabriona: /* Tips when adding/removing items to/from Stock components */

'''Stock''' is a javascript component that you can use in your game interface to display a set of elements of the same size that need to be arranged in single or multiple lines.

Stock is very flexible and is the most used component in BGA games.

Examples of stock use cases:

* Display a set of cards, typically hands (examples: ''Hearts'', ''Seasons'', ''The Boss'', ''Race for the Galaxy'').
* Display items in player panels (examples: ''Takenoko'', ''Amyitis'', ...)
* ... Many other situations. For example, black dice and cubes on cards in ''Troyes'' are displayed with stock components.

Using stock:

* Your items are arranged nicely and sorted by type.
* When adding or removing items to a set, all items slide smoothly to their new position in the set.
* Selecting and unselecting items are built-in functions.
* You don't have to worry about inserting/removing HTML code; the entire life cycle of the stock is managed by the component.

== Using stock: a simple example ==

Let's have a look on how the stock is used in the game ''Hearts'' to display a hand of standard cards.

First, don't forget to add "ebg/stock" as a dependency in your js file:

<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <==== HERE
],
</pre>

The stock is initialized in the Javascript "setup" method like this:

<pre>
// Player hand
this.playerHand = new ebg.stock();
this.playerHand.create( this, $('myhand'), this.cardwidth, this.cardheight );
</pre>

Explanations:
* We create a new stock object for the player hand.
* As parameters of the "create" method, we provide the width/height of an item (a card), and the div container "myhand" - which is a simple empty "div" element defined in our HTML template (.tpl).

Then, we must tell the stock what items it is going to display during its life: the 52 cards of a standard card game. Of course, we did not create 52 different images, but a "CSS sprite" image named "cards.jpg" with the cards arranged in 4 rows and 13 columns.

Here's how we tell stock what items to display:

<pre>
// Specify that there are 13 images per row in the CSS sprite image
this.playerHand.image_items_per_row = 13;

// Create card types:
for( var color=1;color<=4;color++ )
{
for( var value=2;value<=14;value++ )
{
// Build card type id
var card_type_id = this.getCardUniqueId( color, value );
this.playerHand.addItemType( card_type_id, card_type_id, g_gamethemeurl+'img/cards.jpg', card_type_id );
}
}
</pre>

Explanation:

* First, we tell the stock component that our CSS sprite contains 13 items per row. This way, it can find the correct image for each card type id.
* Then for the 4x13 cards, we call the "addItemType" method that creates the type. The arguments are the type id, the weight of the card (for sorting purpose), the URL of our CSS sprite, and the position of our card image in the CSS sprite.

Note: In this specific example we need to generate a unique ID for each type of card based on its color and value. This is the only purpose of "getCardUniqueId".

From now on, if we need to add a card - for example, the 5 of Hearts - to a player's hand, we can do this:

<pre>
this.playerHand.addToStock( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ) );
</pre>

In reality, cards have some IDs, which are useful to manipulate them. This is the reason we are using "addToStockWithId" instead:

<pre>
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ), my_card_id );
</pre>

If afterwards we want to remove this card from the stock:

<pre>
this.playerHand.removeFromStockById( my_card_id );
</pre>

== Complete stock component reference ==

'''create( page, container_div, item_width, item_height ):'''

With create, you create a new stock component.

Parameters:
* page: the container page. Usually: "this".
* container_div: the container "div" element (a void div element in your template, with an id).
* width and height (in pixels) for the stock component.

(See ''Hearts'' example above).

'''count():'''

Return the total number of items in the stock right now.

'''addItemType( type, weight, image, image_position ):'''

Define a new type of item and add it to the stock.

This is mandatory to define a new item type before adding it to the stock. Example: if you want to have a stock contain cubes of 3 different colors, you must add 3 item types (one for each color).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the type to add. You can choose any positive integer. All item types must have distinct IDs.
* weight: weight of items of this type. Weight value is used to sort items of the stock during the display. Note that you can specify the same weight for all items; in this case, they are not sorted and their order might change randomly at any time.
* image: URL of item image. Most of the time, you will use a CSS sprite for stock items, so you have to specify CSS sprite image here.

Be careful: you must specify the image url as this:

<pre>
g_gamethemeurl+'img/yourimage.png'
</pre>

* image_position: if "image" specify the URL of a CSS sprite, you must specify the position of the item image in this CSS sprite. For example, if you have a CSS sprite with 3 cubes with a size of 20x20 pixels each (so your CSS image has for example a size of 20x60 or 60x20), you specify "0" for the first cube image, 1 for the second, 2 for the third.

''Important'': if there is more than one line of items in your CSS sprite, you must specify how many items per line you have in your CSS sprite like this:

<pre>
// Specify that there are 10 image items per row in images used in "myStockObject" control.
this.myStockObject.image_items_per_row = 10;
</pre>

'''addToStock( type, from )'''

Add an item to the stock, with the specified type, but without a unique ID.

To make your life easier, in most cases we suggest you use '''addToStockWithId''' in order to give an ID to the item added. '''addToStock''' is suitable when you are using a stock to control items that are generic game materials that don't need to be addressed individually (example: a bunch of money tokens).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the item type to use (as specified in "addItemType")
* from: OPTIONAL: if you specify an HTML item here, the item will appear on this item and will be slid to its position on the stock item.

Example:
<pre>
// Add a money token to the "player money" stock.
// The money token will appear on "player_id" player panel and will move to its position.
this.playerMoney.addToStock( MONEY_TOKEN, 'overall_player_board_'+player_id );
</pre>

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either '''addToStock''' or '''addToStockWithId''', but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''addToStockWithId( type, id, from )'''

This is the same method as '''addToStock''', except that it also associates an ID with the newly created item.

This is especially useful:

* When you need to know which item(s) have been selected by the user (see '''getSelectedItems''').
* When you need to remove a specific item from the stock with '''removeFromStockById'''.

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either '''addToStock''' or '''addToStockWithId''', but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''removeFromStock( type, to )'''

Remove an item of the specific type from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeFromStockById( id, to )'''

Remove an item with a specific ID from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeAll()'''

Remove all items from the stock.

'''getPresentTypeList()'''

Return an array with all the types of items present in the stock right now.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.removeAll();
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 34 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 89 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );

// The following returns: { 34:1, 65:1, 89:1 }
var item_types = this.myStockControl.getPresentTypeList();
</pre>

'''resetItemsPosition()'''

If you moved an item from the stock control manually (ex: after a drag'n'drop) and want to reset their positions to their original ones, you can call this method.

'''item_margin'''

By default, there is a margin of 5px between the items of a stock. You can change the member variable "item_margin" to change this.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.item_margin=5;
</pre>

'''changeItemsWeight( newWeights )'''

With this method you can change dynamically the weight of the item types in a stock control.

Items are immediately re-sorted with the new weight.

Example: with a stock control that contains classic cards, you can order them by value or by color. Using changeItemsWeight you can switch from one sort method to another when a player request this.

newWeights is an associative array: item type id => new weight.

Example:
<pre>
// Item type 1 gets a new weight of 10, 2 a new weight of 20, 3 a new weight of 30.
this.myStockControl.changeItemsWeight( { 1: 10, 2: 20, 3: 30 } );
</pre>

'''setSelectionMode( mode )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection mode:
* 0: no item can be selected by the player.
* 1: a maximum of one item can be selected by the player at a time.
* 2 (default): multiple items can be selected by the player at the same time.

'''setSelectionAppearance( type )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection highlighting type:
* 'border': there will be a red border around selected items (this is the default). The attribute 'apparenceBorderWidth' can be used to manage the width of the border (in pixels).
* 'disappear': the selected item will fade out and disappear. This is useful when the selection has the effect of destroying the item.
* 'class': there will be an extra '''stockitem_selected''' css class added to the element when it is selected (and removed when unselected). You can override this class in the css file for your game.

By default this class definition is:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid red ! important;
}
</pre>

If you want to override it (for example, to change the border color) add this in your <game>.css file:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid orange ! important;
}
</pre>

NB: the 'class' highlighting type has not yet been deployed on the studio - 24/02/2014. This warning will be removed after the next upgrade.

'''isSelected( id )'''

Return a boolean indicating whether the specified item id has been selected.

'''selectItem( id )'''

Select the specified item.

'''unselectItem( id )'''

Unselect the specified item.

'''unselectAll()'''

Unselect all items of the stock.

'''onChangeSelection'''

This callback method is called when the player selects/unselects an item of the stock.

You can connect this to one of your methods like this:

<pre>
dojo.connect( this.myStockControl, 'onChangeSelection', this, 'onMyMethodToCall' );

(...)

onMyMethodToCall: function( control_name )
{
// This method is called when myStockControl selected items changed
var items = this.myStockControl.getSelectedItems();

// (do something)
},
</pre>

Note: The "control_name" argument is the ID (the "DOM" id) of the "div" container of your stock control. Using "control_name", you can use the same callback method for different Stock control and see which one trigger the method.

'''getSelectedItems()'''

Return the list of selected items, as an array with the following format:
<pre>
[
{ type:1, id: 1001 },
{ type:1, id: 1002 },
{ type:3, id: 1003 }
...
]
</pre>

'''getUnselectedItems()'''

Same as the previous one, but return unselected item instead of seleted ones.

'''getAllItems()'''

Get all items (same format as getSelectedItems and getUnselectedItems).

'''getItemDivId(id)'''

Get the div id using the stock item id (to manipulate element properties directly).

'''setOverlap( horizontal_percent, vertical_percent )'''

Make items of the stock control "overlap" each other, to save space.

By default, horizontal_overlap and vertical_overlap are 0.

When horizontal_overlap=20, it means that a stock item will overlap over 20% of the width of the previous item. horizontal_overlap can't be greater than 100.

vertical_overlap works differently: one items on two are shifted up.

See the games "Jaipur" or "Koryŏ" to see examples of use of this function.

'''onItemCreate'''

Using onItemCreate, you can trigger a method each time a new item is added to the Stock, in order to customize it.

Complete example:
<pre>
// During "setup" phase, we associate our method "setupNewCard" with the creation of a new stock item:
this.myStockItem.onItemCreate = dojo.hitch( this, 'setupNewCard' );

(...)

// And here is our "setupNewCard":
setupNewCard: function( card_div, card_type_id, card_id )
{
// Add a special tooltip on the card:
this.addTooltip( card_div.id, _("Some nice tooltip for this item"), '' );

// Note that "card_type_id" contains the type of the item, so you can do special actions depending on the item type

// Add some custom HTML content INSIDE the Stock item:
dojo.place( this.format_block( 'jstpl_my_card_content', {
....
} ), card_div.id );
}

</pre>

== Tips when adding/removing items to/from Stock components ==

Most cases will be one of the following situations:

'''Situation A''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is '''not''' coming from another stock:

* Use '''addToStockWithId''' with a "from" argument set to the element of your interface where the card should come from.

'''Situation B''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is coming from another stock:

* On the destination Stock, use '''addToStockWithId''' with a "from" argument which is the HTML id of the corresponding item in the source Stock. For example, if the source stock id is "myHand", then the HTML id of card 48 is "myHand_item_48".
* Then, remove the source item with '''removeFromStockById'''.

(Note that it's important to do things in this order, because the source item must still exist when you use it as the origin of the slide.)

'''Situation C''':

When you move a card from a stock item to something that is not a stock item:

* Insert the card as a classic HTML template (dojo.place / this.format_block).
* Place it on the Stock item with '''this.placeOnObject''', using the Stock item HTML id (see above).
* Slide it to its new position with '''this.slideToObject'''.
* Remove the card from the Stock item with '''removeFromStockById'''.

Using the methods above, your cards should slide to, from, and between your Stock controls smoothly.

You can customize this (showing the default value):
<pre>

this.mystock.jstpl_stock_item= "<div id=\"${id}\" class=\"stockitem\" style=\"top:${top}px;left:${left}px;width:${width}px;height:${height}px;z-index:${position};background-image:url('${image}');\"></div>";
</pre>
To produce a different type of stock item

Stock

2018-10-06T21:29:39Z

Amadannabriona: /* Complete stock component reference */

'''Stock''' is a javascript component that you can use in your game interface to display a set of elements of the same size that need to be arranged in single or multiple lines.

Stock is very flexible and is the most used component in BGA games.

Examples of stock use cases:

* Display a set of cards, typically hands (examples: ''Hearts'', ''Seasons'', ''The Boss'', ''Race for the Galaxy'').
* Display items in player panels (examples: ''Takenoko'', ''Amyitis'', ...)
* ... Many other situations. For example, black dice and cubes on cards in ''Troyes'' are displayed with stock components.

Using stock:

* Your items are arranged nicely and sorted by type.
* When adding or removing items to a set, all items slide smoothly to their new position in the set.
* Selecting and unselecting items are built-in functions.
* You don't have to worry about inserting/removing HTML code; the entire life cycle of the stock is managed by the component.

== Using stock: a simple example ==

Let's have a look on how the stock is used in the game ''Hearts'' to display a hand of standard cards.

First, don't forget to add "ebg/stock" as a dependency in your js file:

<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <==== HERE
],
</pre>

The stock is initialized in the Javascript "setup" method like this:

<pre>
// Player hand
this.playerHand = new ebg.stock();
this.playerHand.create( this, $('myhand'), this.cardwidth, this.cardheight );
</pre>

Explanations:
* We create a new stock object for the player hand.
* As parameters of the "create" method, we provide the width/height of an item (a card), and the div container "myhand" - which is a simple empty "div" element defined in our HTML template (.tpl).

Then, we must tell the stock what items it is going to display during its life: the 52 cards of a standard card game. Of course, we did not create 52 different images, but a "CSS sprite" image named "cards.jpg" with the cards arranged in 4 rows and 13 columns.

Here's how we tell stock what items to display:

<pre>
// Specify that there are 13 images per row in the CSS sprite image
this.playerHand.image_items_per_row = 13;

// Create card types:
for( var color=1;color<=4;color++ )
{
for( var value=2;value<=14;value++ )
{
// Build card type id
var card_type_id = this.getCardUniqueId( color, value );
this.playerHand.addItemType( card_type_id, card_type_id, g_gamethemeurl+'img/cards.jpg', card_type_id );
}
}
</pre>

Explanation:

* First, we tell the stock component that our CSS sprite contains 13 items per row. This way, it can find the correct image for each card type id.
* Then for the 4x13 cards, we call the "addItemType" method that creates the type. The arguments are the type id, the weight of the card (for sorting purpose), the URL of our CSS sprite, and the position of our card image in the CSS sprite.

Note: In this specific example we need to generate a unique ID for each type of card based on its color and value. This is the only purpose of "getCardUniqueId".

From now on, if we need to add a card - for example, the 5 of Hearts - to a player's hand, we can do this:

<pre>
this.playerHand.addToStock( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ) );
</pre>

In reality, cards have some IDs, which are useful to manipulate them. This is the reason we are using "addToStockWithId" instead:

<pre>
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ), my_card_id );
</pre>

If afterwards we want to remove this card from the stock:

<pre>
this.playerHand.removeFromStockById( my_card_id );
</pre>

== Complete stock component reference ==

'''create( page, container_div, item_width, item_height ):'''

With create, you create a new stock component.

Parameters:
* page: the container page. Usually: "this".
* container_div: the container "div" element (a void div element in your template, with an id).
* width and height (in pixels) for the stock component.

(See ''Hearts'' example above).

'''count():'''

Return the total number of items in the stock right now.

'''addItemType( type, weight, image, image_position ):'''

Define a new type of item and add it to the stock.

This is mandatory to define a new item type before adding it to the stock. Example: if you want to have a stock contain cubes of 3 different colors, you must add 3 item types (one for each color).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the type to add. You can choose any positive integer. All item types must have distinct IDs.
* weight: weight of items of this type. Weight value is used to sort items of the stock during the display. Note that you can specify the same weight for all items; in this case, they are not sorted and their order might change randomly at any time.
* image: URL of item image. Most of the time, you will use a CSS sprite for stock items, so you have to specify CSS sprite image here.

Be careful: you must specify the image url as this:

<pre>
g_gamethemeurl+'img/yourimage.png'
</pre>

* image_position: if "image" specify the URL of a CSS sprite, you must specify the position of the item image in this CSS sprite. For example, if you have a CSS sprite with 3 cubes with a size of 20x20 pixels each (so your CSS image has for example a size of 20x60 or 60x20), you specify "0" for the first cube image, 1 for the second, 2 for the third.

''Important'': if there is more than one line of items in your CSS sprite, you must specify how many items per line you have in your CSS sprite like this:

<pre>
// Specify that there are 10 image items per row in images used in "myStockObject" control.
this.myStockObject.image_items_per_row = 10;
</pre>

'''addToStock( type, from )'''

Add an item to the stock, with the specified type, but without a unique ID.

To make your life easier, in most cases we suggest you use '''addToStockWithId''' in order to give an ID to the item added. '''addToStock''' is suitable when you are using a stock to control items that are generic game materials that don't need to be addressed individually (example: a bunch of money tokens).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the item type to use (as specified in "addItemType")
* from: OPTIONAL: if you specify an HTML item here, the item will appear on this item and will be slid to its position on the stock item.

Example:
<pre>
// Add a money token to the "player money" stock.
// The money token will appear on "player_id" player panel and will move to its position.
this.playerMoney.addToStock( MONEY_TOKEN, 'overall_player_board_'+player_id );
</pre>

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either '''addToStock''' or '''addToStockWithId''', but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''addToStockWithId( type, id, from )'''

This is the same method as '''addToStock''', except that it also associates an ID with the newly created item.

This is especially useful:

* When you need to know which item(s) have been selected by the user (see '''getSelectedItems''').
* When you need to remove a specific item from the stock with '''removeFromStockById'''.

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either '''addToStock''' or '''addToStockWithId''', but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''removeFromStock( type, to )'''

Remove an item of the specific type from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeFromStockById( id, to )'''

Remove an item with a specific ID from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeAll()'''

Remove all items from the stock.

'''getPresentTypeList()'''

Return an array with all the types of items present in the stock right now.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.removeAll();
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 34 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 89 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );

// The following returns: { 34:1, 65:1, 89:1 }
var item_types = this.myStockControl.getPresentTypeList();
</pre>

'''resetItemsPosition()'''

If you moved an item from the stock control manually (ex: after a drag'n'drop) and want to reset their positions to their original ones, you can call this method.

'''item_margin'''

By default, there is a margin of 5px between the items of a stock. You can change the member variable "item_margin" to change this.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.item_margin=5;
</pre>

'''changeItemsWeight( newWeights )'''

With this method you can change dynamically the weight of the item types in a stock control.

Items are immediately re-sorted with the new weight.

Example: with a stock control that contains classic cards, you can order them by value or by color. Using changeItemsWeight you can switch from one sort method to another when a player request this.

newWeights is an associative array: item type id => new weight.

Example:
<pre>
// Item type 1 gets a new weight of 10, 2 a new weight of 20, 3 a new weight of 30.
this.myStockControl.changeItemsWeight( { 1: 10, 2: 20, 3: 30 } );
</pre>

'''setSelectionMode( mode )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection mode:
* 0: no item can be selected by the player.
* 1: a maximum of one item can be selected by the player at a time.
* 2 (default): multiple items can be selected by the player at the same time.

'''setSelectionAppearance( type )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection highlighting type:
* 'border': there will be a red border around selected items (this is the default). The attribute 'apparenceBorderWidth' can be used to manage the width of the border (in pixels).
* 'disappear': the selected item will fade out and disappear. This is useful when the selection has the effect of destroying the item.
* 'class': there will be an extra '''stockitem_selected''' css class added to the element when it is selected (and removed when unselected). You can override this class in the css file for your game.

By default this class definition is:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid red ! important;
}
</pre>

If you want to override it (for example, to change the border color) add this in your <game>.css file:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid orange ! important;
}
</pre>

NB: the 'class' highlighting type has not yet been deployed on the studio - 24/02/2014. This warning will be removed after the next upgrade.

'''isSelected( id )'''

Return a boolean indicating whether the specified item id has been selected.

'''selectItem( id )'''

Select the specified item.

'''unselectItem( id )'''

Unselect the specified item.

'''unselectAll()'''

Unselect all items of the stock.

'''onChangeSelection'''

This callback method is called when the player selects/unselects an item of the stock.

You can connect this to one of your methods like this:

<pre>
dojo.connect( this.myStockControl, 'onChangeSelection', this, 'onMyMethodToCall' );

(...)

onMyMethodToCall: function( control_name )
{
// This method is called when myStockControl selected items changed
var items = this.myStockControl.getSelectedItems();

// (do something)
},
</pre>

Note: The "control_name" argument is the ID (the "DOM" id) of the "div" container of your stock control. Using "control_name", you can use the same callback method for different Stock control and see which one trigger the method.

'''getSelectedItems()'''

Return the list of selected items, as an array with the following format:
<pre>
[
{ type:1, id: 1001 },
{ type:1, id: 1002 },
{ type:3, id: 1003 }
...
]
</pre>

'''getUnselectedItems()'''

Same as the previous one, but return unselected item instead of seleted ones.

'''getAllItems()'''

Get all items (same format as getSelectedItems and getUnselectedItems).

'''getItemDivId(id)'''

Get the div id using the stock item id (to manipulate element properties directly).

'''setOverlap( horizontal_percent, vertical_percent )'''

Make items of the stock control "overlap" each other, to save space.

By default, horizontal_overlap and vertical_overlap are 0.

When horizontal_overlap=20, it means that a stock item will overlap over 20% of the width of the previous item. horizontal_overlap can't be greater than 100.

vertical_overlap works differently: one items on two are shifted up.

See the games "Jaipur" or "Koryŏ" to see examples of use of this function.

'''onItemCreate'''

Using onItemCreate, you can trigger a method each time a new item is added to the Stock, in order to customize it.

Complete example:
<pre>
// During "setup" phase, we associate our method "setupNewCard" with the creation of a new stock item:
this.myStockItem.onItemCreate = dojo.hitch( this, 'setupNewCard' );

(...)

// And here is our "setupNewCard":
setupNewCard: function( card_div, card_type_id, card_id )
{
// Add a special tooltip on the card:
this.addTooltip( card_div.id, _("Some nice tooltip for this item"), '' );

// Note that "card_type_id" contains the type of the item, so you can do special actions depending on the item type

// Add some custom HTML content INSIDE the Stock item:
dojo.place( this.format_block( 'jstpl_my_card_content', {
....
} ), card_div.id );
}

</pre>

== Tips when adding/removing items to/from Stock components ==

The usual way is the following:

'''Situation A''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is '''not''' coming from another stock: use "addToStockWithId" with a "from" argument set to the element of your interface where card should come from.

'''Situation B''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is coming from another stock:
* on the destination Stock, use "addToStockWithId" with a "from" equals to the HTML id of the corresponding item in the source Stock. For example, If the source stock id is "myHand", then the HTML id of card 48 is "myHand_item_48".
* then, remove the source item with "removeFromStockById".
(note that it's important to do things in this order, because source item must still exists when you use it as the origin of the slide).

'''Situation C''':

When you move a card from a stock item to something that is not a stock item:
* insert the card as a classic HTML template (dojo.place / this.format_block).
* place it on the Stock item with "this.placeOnObject", using Stock item HTML id (see above).
* slide it to its new position with "this.slideToObject"
* remove the card from the Stock item with "removeFromStockById".

Using the methods above, your cards should slide to, from and between your Stock controls smoothly

You can customize this (showing the default value):
<pre>

this.mystock.jstpl_stock_item= "<div id=\"${id}\" class=\"stockitem\" style=\"top:${top}px;left:${left}px;width:${width}px;height:${height}px;z-index:${position};background-image:url('${image}');\"></div>";
</pre>
To produce a different type of stock item

Game interface logic: yourgamename.js

2018-10-06T21:27:14Z

Amadannabriona: /* Other useful stuff */

This is the main file for your game interface. Here you will define:

* Which actions on the page will generate calls to the server.
* What happens when you get a notification for a change from the server and how it will show in the browser.

== File structure ==

The details of how the file is structured are described below with comments on the code skeleton provided to you.

Here is the basic structure:

* '''constructor''': here you can define global variables for your whole interface.
* '''setup''': this method is called when the page is refreshed, and sets up the game interface.
* '''onEnteringState''': this method is called when entering a new game state. You can use it to customize the view for each game state.
* '''onLeavingState''': this method is called when leaving a game state.
* '''onUpdateActionButtons''': called when entering a new state, in order to add action buttons to the status bar.
* ''(utility methods)'': this is where you can define your utility methods.
* ''(player's actions)'': this is where you can write your handlers for player actions on the interface (example: click on an item).
* '''setupNotifications''': this method associates notifications with notification handlers. For each game notification, you can trigger a javascript method to handle it and update the game interface.
* ''(notification handlers)'': this is where you define the notifications handlers associated with notifications in '''setupNotifications''', above.

== General tips ==

; this.player_id
: ID of the player on whose browser the code is running.

; this.isSpectator
: Flag set to true if the user at the table is a spectator (not a player).
: Note: This is a variable, not a function.
: Note: If you want to hide an element from spectators, you should use [[Game_interface_stylesheet:_yourgamename.css#spectatorMode|CSS 'spectatorMode' class]].

; this.gamedatas
: Contains the initial set of data to init the game, created at game start or by game refresh (F5).
: You can update it as needed to keep an up-to-date reference of the game on the client side if you need it. (Most of the time this is unnecessary).

; this.isCurrentPlayerActive()
: Returns true if the player on whose browser the code is running is currently active (it's his turn to play).

; this.getActivePlayerId()
: Return the ID of the active player, or null if we are not in an "activeplayer" type state.

; this.getActivePlayers()
: Return an array with the IDs of players who are currently active (or an empty array if there are none).

== Dojo framework ==

BGA uses the [http://dojotoolkit.org/ Dojo Javascript framework].

The Dojo framework allows us to do complex things more easily. The BGA framework uses Dojo extensively.

To implement a game, you only need to use a few parts of the Dojo framework. All the Dojo methods you need are described on this page.

== Shrinksafe minimization ==

For performance reasons, when deploying a game the js code is minimized using Shrinksafe (based on ECMASCRIPT version 3). Some advanced syntax may not be compatible with this process. In particular:
* You should not use reserved keywords from the javascript language as variables.
* You should not declare default argument values in function declarations. The following syntax is invalid for Shrinksafe: '''function myFunc(requiredArg, optionalArg = 'defaultValue') {}'''

== Accessing and manipulating the DOM ==

'''$('some_html_element_id')'''

The $() function is used to get an HTML element using its "id" attribute.

Example 1: modify the content of a "span" element:

<pre>
In your HTML code:
<span id="a_value_in_the_game_interface">1234</span>

In your Javascript code:
$('a_value_in_the_game_interface').innerHTML = "9999";
</pre>

Note: $() is the standard method to access some HTML element with the BGA Framework. You should not use the '''getElementById''' function.

'''dojo.style'''

With dojo.style you can modify the CSS property of any HTML element in your interface.

Examples:

<pre>
// Make an element disappear
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'display', 'none' );

// Give an element a 2px border
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'borderWidth', '2px' );

// Change the background position of an element
// (very practical when you are using CSS sprites to transform an element to another)
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'backgroundPosition', '-20px -50px' );
</pre>

Note: you must always use dojo.style to modify the CSS properties of HTML elements.

Note²: if you have to modify several CSS properties of an element, or if you have a complex CSS transformation to do, you should consider using dojo.addClass/dojo.removeClass (see below).

'''dojo CSS classes manipulation'''

In many situations, many small CSS property updates can be replaced by a CSS class change (i.e., you add a CSS class to your element instead of applying all modifications manually).

Advantages are:
* All your CSS stuff remains in your CSS file.
* You can add/remove a list of CSS modifications with a simple function and without error.
* You can test whether you applied the CSS to an element with the '''dojo.hasClass''' method.

Example from ''Reversi'':

<pre>
// We add "possibleMove" to an element
dojo.addClass( 'square_'+x+'_'+y, 'possibleMove' );

// In our CSS file, the class is defined as:
.possibleMove {
background-color: white;
opacity: 0.2;
filter:alpha(opacity=20); /* For IE8 and earlier */
cursor: pointer;
}

// So we've applied 4 CSS property changes in one line of code.

// ... and when we need to check if a square is a possible move on the client side:
if( dojo.hasClass( 'square_'+x+'_'+y, 'possibleMove' ) )
{ ... }

// ... and if we want to remove all possible moves in one line of code (see "dojo.query" method):
dojo.query( '.possibleMove' ).removeClass( 'possibleMove' );
</pre>

Conclusion: We encourage you to use '''dojo.addClass''', '''dojo.removeClass''' and '''dojo.hasClass''' to make your life easier :)

'''dojo.query'''

With dojo.query, you can query a bunch of HTML elements with a single function, with a "CSS selector" style.

Example:
<pre>
// All elements with class "possibleMove":
var elements = dojo.query( '.possibleMove' );

// Count number of tokens (i.e., elements of class "token") on the board (i.e., the element with id "board"):
dojo.query( '#board .token' ).length;
</pre>

But what is really cool with dojo.query is that you can combine it with almost all methods above.

Examples:
<pre>
// Trigger a method when the mouse enter in any element with class "meeple":
dojo.query( '.meeple' ).connect( 'onmouseenter', this, 'myMethodToTrigger' );

// Hide all meeples who are on the board
dojo.query( '#board .meeple' ).style( 'display', 'none' );
</pre>

'''dojo.place'''

dojo.place is the best function to insert HTML code somewhere in your game interface without breaking something. It is much better to use than the '''innerHTML=''' method if you must insert HTML tags and not only values.

<pre>
// Insert your HTML code as a child of a container element
dojo.place( "<your html code>", "your_container_element_id" );

// Replace the container element with your new html
dojo.place( "<your html code>", "your_container_element_id", "replace" );

</pre>

The third parameter of dojo.place can take various interesting value.

values possibles :

"replace" : (see description above).

"first" : Places the node as a child of the reference node. The node is placed as the first child.

"last" : Places the node as a child of the reference node. The node is placed as the last child.

"before" : places the node right before the reference node.

"last (value by default) " : places the node right after the reference node.

"only" : replaces all children of the reference node with the node.

positif integer : This parameter can be a positif integer. In this case, the node will be placed as a child of the reference node with this number (counting from 0). If the number is more than number of children, the node will be appended to the reference node making it the last child.

See also full doc on dojo.place : [http://dojotoolkit.org/reference-guide/1.7/dojo/place.]

Usually, when you want to insert some piece of HTML in your game interface, you should use "[[Game_layout:_view_and_template:_yourgamename.view.php_and_yourgamename_yourgamename.tpl#Javascript_templates|Javascript templates]]".

'''addStyleToClass: function( cssClassName, cssProperty, propertyValue )'''

Same as dojo.style(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName

=== Animations ===

'''Dojo Animations'''

BGA animations is based on Dojo Animation ([http://dojotoolkit.org/documentation/tutorials/1.8/animation/ see tutorial here]).

However, most of the time, you can just use methods below, which are built on top of Dojo Animation.

Note: one interesting method from Dojo that could be useful from time to time is "Dojo.Animation". It allows you to make any CSS property "slide" from one value to another.

'''this.slideToObject( mobile_obj, target_obj, duration, delay )'''

You can use slideToObject to "slide" an element to a target position.

Sliding element on the game area is the recommended and the most used way to animate your game interface. Using slides allow players to figure out what is happening on the game, as if they were playing with the real boardgame.

The parameters are:
* mobile_obj: the ID of the object to move. This object must be "relative" or "absolute" positioned.
* target_obj: the ID of the target object. This object must be "relative" or "absolute" positioned. Note that it is not mandatory that mobile_obj and target_obj have the same size. If their size are different, the system slides the center of mobile_obj to the center of target_obj.
* duration: (optional) defines the duration in millisecond of the slide. The default is 500 milliseconds.
* delay: (optional). If you defines a delay, the slide will start only after this delay. This is particularly useful when you want to slide several object from the same position to the same position: you can give a 0ms delay to the first object, a 100ms delay to the second one, a 200ms delay to the third one, ... this way they won't be superposed during the slide.

BE CAREFUL: The method returns an dojo.fx animation, so you can combine it with other animation if you want to. It means that you have to call the "play()" method, otherwise the animation WON'T START.

Example:
<pre>
this.slideToObject( "some_token", "some_place_on_board" ).play();
</pre>

'''this.slideToObjectPos( mobile_obj, target_obj, target_x, target_y, duration, delay )'''

This method does exactly the same as "slideToObject", except than you can specify some (x,y) coordinates. This way, "mobile_obj" will slide to the specified x,y position relatively to "target_obj".

Example: slide a token to some place on the board, 10 pixels to the bottom:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectPos( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 0, 10 ).play();
</pre>

'''this.slideTemporaryObject( mobile_obj_html, mobile_obj_parent, from, to, duration, delay )'''

This method is useful when you want to slide a temporary HTML object from one place to another. As this object does not exists before the animation and won't remain after, it could be complex to create this object (with dojo.place), to place it at its origin (with placeOnObject) to slide it (with slideToObject) and to make it disappear at the end.

slideTemporaryObject does all of this for you:
* mobile_obj_html is a piece of HTML code that represent the object to slide.
* mobile_obj_parent is the ID of an HTML element of your interface that will be the parent of this temporary HTML object.
* from is the ID of the origin of the slide.
* to is the ID of the target of the slide.
* duration/delay works exactly like in "slideToObject"

Example:
<pre>
this.slideTemporaryObject( '<div class="token_icon"></div>', 'tokens', 'my_origin_div', 'my_target_div' );
</pre>

'''this.slideToObjectAndDestroy: function( node, to, time, delay )'''

This method is a handy shortcut to slide an existing HTML object to some place then destroy it upon arrival. It can be used for example to move a victory token or a card from the board to the player panel to show that the player earns it, then destroy it when we don't need to keep it visible on the player panel.

It works the same as this.slideToObject and takes the same arguments.

Example:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectAndDestroy( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 1000, 0 );
</pre>

'''this.fadeOutAndDestroy( node, duration, delay )'''

This function fade out the target HTML node, then destroy it.

Example:
<pre>
this.fadeOutAndDestroy( "a_card_that_must_disappear" );
</pre>

CAREFUL: the HTML node still exists until during few milliseconds, until the fadeOut has been completed.

'''Rotating elements'''

You can check here [http://jimfulton.info/demos/dojo-animated-rotate.html an example of use] of Dojo to make an element rotate.

This example combines "Dojo.Animation" method and a CSS3 property that allow you to rotate the element.

IMPORTANT: to asses browser compatibility, you must select the CSS property to use just like in the example (see sourcecode below):

<pre>
var transform;
dojo.forEach(
['transform', 'WebkitTransform', 'msTransform',
'MozTransform', 'OTransform'],
function (name) {
if (typeof dojo.body().style[name] != 'undefined') {
transform = name;
}
});
// ... and then use "transform" as the name of your CSS property for rotation
</pre>

=== Moving elements ===

'''this.placeOnObject( mobile_obj, target_obj )'''

placeOnObject works exactly like "slideToObject", except that the effect is immediate.

This is not really an animation, but placeOnObject is frequently used before starting an animation.

Example:
<pre>
// (We just created an object "my_new_token")

// Place the new token on current player board
this.placeOnObject( "my_new_token", "overall_player_board_"+this.player_id );

// Then slide it to its position on the board
this.slideToObject( "my_new_token", "a_place_on_board" ).play();
</pre>

'''this.placeOnObjectPos( mobile_obj, target_obj, target_x, target_y )'''

This method works exactly like placeOnObject, except than you can specify some (x,y) coordinates. This way, "mobile_obj" will be placed to the specified x,y position relatively to "target_obj".

'''this.attachToNewParent( mobile_obj, target_obj )'''

With this method, you change the HTML parent of "mobile_obj" element. "target_obj" is the new parent of this element. The beauty of
attachToNewParent is that the mobile_obj element DOES NOT MOVE during this process.

Note: what happens is that the method calculate a relative position of mobile_obj to make sure it does not move after the HTML parent changes.

Why using this method?

Changing the HTML parent of an element can be useful for the following reasons:
* When the HTML parent moves, all its child are moving with them. If some game elements is no more linked with a parent HTML object, you may want to attach it to another place.
* The z_order (vertical order of display) depends on the position in the DOM, so you may need to change the parent of some game elements when they are moving in your game area.

CAREFUL: this function destroys original object and places a clone onto a new parent, this will break all references to this HTML element (ex: dojo.connect).

== Players input ==

'''dojo.connect'''

Used to associate a player event with one of your notification method.

Example: associate a click on an element ("my_element") with one of our method ("onClickOnMyElement"):
<pre>
dojo.connect( $('my_element'), 'onclick', this, 'onClickOnMyElement' );
</pre>

Note: this is the only possible correct way to associate a player input event to your code, and you must not use anything else.

'''this.checkAction( "my_action_name" )'''

Usage: checkAction: function( action, nomessage )

Check if player can do the specified action by taking into account:
* current game state
* interface locking (a player can't do any action if an action is already in progress)

return true if action is authorized (ie: the action is listed as a "possibleaction" in current game state).

return false and display an error message if not (display no message if nomessage parameter is true). The displayed error message could be either "This move is not allowed at this moment" or "An action is already in progress".

Example:
<pre>
function onClickOnGameElement( evt )
{
if( this.checkAction( "my_action" ) )
{
// Do the action
}
}
</pre>

'''this.ajaxcall( url, parameters, obj_callback, callback, callback_error )'''

This method must be used to send a player input to the game server.

* url: the url of the action to perform. For a game, it must be: "/<mygame>/<mygame>/myAction.html"
* parameters: an array of parameter to send to the game server. Note that "lock:true" must always be specified in this list of parameter in order the interface can be locked during the server call.
* obj_callback: must be set to "this".
* callback: a function to trigger when the server returns and everything went fine.
* callback_error: (optional and rarely used) a function to trigger when the server returns an error.

Usage:
<pre>
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/myaction.html', { lock: true,
arg1: myarg1,
arg2: myarg2,
...
}, this, function( result ) {
// Do some stuff after a successful call
} );
</pre>

Restricted arguments names (please don't use them):
* "action"
* "module"
* "class"

'''this.confirmationDialog()'''

Display a confirmation dialog with a yes/no choice.

We advice you to NOT use this function unless the player action is really critical and could ruins the game, because it slows down the game and upset players.

Usage: this.confirmationDialog( "Question to displayed", callback_function_if_click_on_yes );

Example:
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure to use this bonus (points penalty at the end of the game) ?'),
dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.ajaxcall( '/seasons/seasons/useBonus.html',
{ id:bonus_id, lock:true }, this, function( result ) {} );
} ) );
</pre>

; addEventToClass: function( cssClassName, eventName, functionName )
: Same as dojo.connect(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName

'''this.addActionButton( id, label, method, (opt)destination, (opt)blinking, (opt)color )'''

You can use this method to add an action button in the main action status bar.

Arguments:
* id: an element ID that should be unique in your HTML DOM document.
* label: the text of the button. Should be translatable (use _() function).
* method: the name of your method that must be triggered when the player clicks on this button.
* destination (optional): deprecated, do not use this. Use '''null''' as value if you need to specify other arguments.
* blinking (optional): if set to '''true''', the button is going blink to catch player's attention. Please don't abuse of blinking button.
* color: could be '''blue''' (default), '''red''' or '''gray'''.

You should only use this method in your "onUpdateActionButtons" method. Usually, you use it like this (from Hears example):

<pre>
onUpdateActionButtons: function( stateName, args ) {

if (this.isCurrentPlayerActive()) {
switch( stateName ) {
case 'giveCards':
this.addActionButton( 'giveCards_button', _('Give selected cards'), 'onGiveCards' );
break;
}
}
},
</pre>

In the example above, we are adding a "Give selected cards" button in the case we are on game state "giveCards". When player clicks on this button, it triggers our "onGiveCards" method.

Example using blinking red button:
<pre>
this.addActionButton( 'commit_button', _('Confirm'), 'onConfirm', null, true, 'red');
</pre>

Note: at least in studio example above will make button huge, because it sets it display of blinking things to '''block''',
if you don't like it you have to change css display value
of the button to inline-block (the id of the button is the first argument, i.e 'commit_button' in example above)

== Translations ==

See [[Translations]]

== Notifications ==

When something happens on the server side, your game interface Javascript logic received a notification.

Here's how you can handle these notifications on the client side.

=== Subscribe to notifications ===

Your Javascript "setupNotifications" method is the place where you can subscribe to notifications from your PHP code.

Here's how you associate one of your Javascript method to a notification "playDisc" (from Reversi example):

<pre>
// In setupNotifications method:
dojo.subscribe( 'playDisc', this, "notif_playDisc" );
</pre>

Note: the "playDisc" corresponds to the name of the notification you define it in your PHP code, in your "notifyAllPlayers" or "notifyPlayer" method.

Then, you have to define your "notif_playDisc" method:

<pre>
notif_playDisc: function( notif )
{
// Remove current possible moves (makes the board more clear)
dojo.query( '.possibleMove' ).removeClass( 'possibleMove' );

this.addDiscOnBoard( notif.args.x, notif.args.y, notif.args.player_id );
},
</pre>

In a notification handler like our "notif_playDisc" method, you can access to all notifications arguments with "notif.args".

Example:
<pre>
// If you did this on PHP side:
self::notifyAllPlayers( "myNotification", '', array( "myArgument" => 3 ) );

// On Javascript side, you can access the "myArgument" like this:
notif_myNotification: function( notif )
{
alert( "myArgument = " + notif.args.myArgument );
}
</pre>

=== Synchronous notifications ===

When several notifications are received by your game interface, these notifications are processed immediately, one after the other, in the same exact order they have been generated in your PHP game logic.

However, sometimes, you need to give some time to the players to figure out what happened on the game before jumping to the next notification. Indeed, in many games, they are a lot of automatic actions, and the computer is going to resolve all these actions very fast if you don't tell it not to do so.

As an example, for Reversi, when someone is playing a disc, we want to wait 500 milliseconds before doing anything else in order the opponent player can figure out what move has been played.

Here's how we do this, right after our subscription:
<pre>
dojo.subscribe( 'playDisc', this, "notif_playDisc" );
this.notifqueue.setSynchronous( 'playDisc', 500 ); // Wait 500 milliseconds after executing the playDisc handler
</pre>

=== Pre-defined notification types ===

'''tableWindow''' - This defines notification to display [[Game_interface_logic:_yourgamename.js#Scoring_dialogs|Scoring Dialogs]], see below.

'''message''' - This defines notification that shows on players log and have no other effect

// You can call this on php side without doing anything on client side
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'message', 'hello', array( ) );

== Tooltips ==

'''this.addTooltip( nodeId, _( helpString ), _( actionString ), delay )'''

Add a simple text tooltip to the DOM node.

Specify 'helpString' to display some information about "what is this game element?".
Specify 'actionString' to display some information about "what happens when I click on this element?".

You must specify both helpString and actionString. Most of the time, you should use only one and specify a void string ("") for the other one.

Usually, _() must be used for the text to be marked for translation.

"Delay" is an optional parameter. Usually, it is primarily used to specify a zero delay for some game element when the tooltip gives really important information for the game - but remember: no essential information must be placed in tooltips as they won't be displayed in some browsers (see [[BGA_Studio_Guidelines|Guidelines]]).

Example:
<pre>
this.addTooltip( 'cardcount', _('Number of cards in hand'), '' );
</pre>

'''this.addTooltipHtml( nodeId, html, delay )'''

Add an HTML tooltip to the DOM node (for more elaborate content such as presenting a bigger version of a card).

'''this.addTooltipToClass( cssClass, _( helpString ), _( actionString ), delay )'''

Add a simple text tooltip to all the DOM nodes set with this cssClass.

IMPORTANT: all concerned nodes must have IDs to get tooltips.

'''this.addTooltipHtmlToClass( cssClass, html, delay )'''

Add an HTML tooltip to to all the DOM nodes set with this cssClass (for more elaborate content such as presenting a bigger version of a card).

IMPORTANT: all concerned nodes must have IDs to get tooltips

'''this.removeTooltip( nodeId )'''

Remove a tooltip from the DOM node.

== Dialogs, warning messages, confirmation dialogs, ... ==

=== Warning messages ===

Sometimes, there is something important that is happening on the game and you have to make sure all players get the message. Most of the time, the evolution of the game situation or the game log is enough, but sometimes you need something more visible.

Ex: someone fulfill one of the end of the game condition, so this is the last turn.

'''this.showMessage( msg, type )'''

showMessage shows a message in a big rectangular area on the top of the screen of current player.

* "msg" is the string to display. It should be translated.
* "type" can be set to "info" or "error". If set to "info", the message will be an informative message on a white background. If set to "error", the message will be an error message on a red background.

Important: the normal way to inform players about the progression of the game is the game log. "showMessage" is intrusive and should not be used often.

=== Confirmation dialog ===

'''confirmationDialog( message, yesHandler, noHandler )'''

When an important action with a lot of consequences is triggered by the player, you may want to propose a confirmation dialog.

CAREFUL: the general guidelines of BGA is to AVOID the use of confirmation dialog. Confirmation dialogs slow down the game and bother players. The players knows that they have to pay attention about each move when they are playing online.

The situation where you should use a confirmation dialog are the following:
* It must not happen very often during a game.
* It must be linked to an action that can really "kill a game" if the player do not pay attention.
* It must be something that can be done by mistake (ex: a link on the action status bar).

How to display a confirmation dialog:
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure you want to bake the pie?'), dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.bakeThePie();
} ) );
return; // nothing should be called or done after calling this, all action must be done in the handler
</pre>

=== Multiple choice dialog ===
You can use this dialog to give user a choice with small amount of options:
<pre>
var keys = [1,5,10];
this.multipleChoiceDialog(
_('How many bugs to fix?"), keys,
dojo.hitch(this, function(choice) {
var bugchoice = keys[choice];
console.log('dialog callback with '+bugchoice);
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/fixBugs.html', { bugs: bugchoice}, this, function( result ) {} ); }));
</pre>

=== Dialogs ===

At first, you shouldn't use dialogs windows.

BGA guidelines specify that all game elements should be displayed on the main screen. Players can eventually scroll down to see game elements they don't need to see anytime, and you may eventually create anchors to move between game area section. Of course dialogs windows are very practical, but the thing is: all players know how to scroll down, and not all players know how to show up your dialog window. In addition, when the dialog shows up, players can't access the other game components.

Sometimes although, you need to display a dialog window. Here is how you do this:

// Create the new dialog. You should store the handler in a member variable to access it later
this.myDlg = new dijit.Dialog({ title: _("my dialog title to translate") });

// Create the HTML of my dialog.
// The best practice here is to use [[Game_layout:_view_and_template:_yourgamename.view.php_and_yourgamename_yourgamename.tpl#Javascript_templates|Javascript templates]]
var html = this.format_block( 'jstpl_myDialogTemplate', {
arg1: myArg1,
arg2: myArg2,
...
} );

// Show the dialog
this.myDlg.attr("content", html );
this.myDlg.show();

// Now that the dialog has been displayed, you can connect your method to some dialog elements
// Example, a "close" button:
dojo.connect( $('closeDlg'), 'onclick', this, function(evt){
evt.preventDefault();
this.myDlg.hide();
} );

Tip: be careful with "hide()" method to close your dialog: the dialog and its content is not completely removed from the DOM. It can cause you problems if you try to display the same dialog several times. A good practice is to wrap all the content of your dialog in a <nowiki><div id='myDlgContent'></nowiki> div element, and to call "dojo.destroy('myDlgContent')" before displaying your dialog.

=== Scoring dialogs ===

Sometimes at the end of a round you want to display a big table that details the points wins in each section of the game.

Example: in Hearts game, we display at the end of each round the number of "heart" cards collected by each player, the player who collected the Queen of Spades, and the total number of points loose by each player.

Scoring dialogs are managed entirely on '''PHP side''', but they are described here as their effects are visible only on client side.

Displaying a scoring dialog is quite simple and is using a special notification type: "tableWindow":
<pre>
// on PHP side:
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "tableWindow", '', array(
"id" => 'finalScoring',
"title" => clienttranslate("Title of the scoring dialog"),
"table" => $table
) );
</pre>

The "table" argument is a 2 dimensional PHP array that describe the table you want to display, line by line and column by column.

Example: display an 3x3 array of strings
<pre>
$table = array(
array( "one", "two", "three" ), // This is my first line
array( "four", "five", "six" ), // This is my second line
array( "seven", "height", "nine" ) // This is my third line
);
</pre>

As you can see above, in each "cell" of your array you can display a simple string value. But you can also display a complex value with a template and associated arguments like this:
<pre>
$table = array(
array( "one", "two", array( "str" => "a string with an ${argument}", "args" => array( 'argument' => 'argument_value' ) ) ),
array( "four", "five", "six" ),
array( "seven", "height", "nine" )
);
</pre>

This is especially useful when you want to display player names with colors. Example from "Hearts":
<pre>
$firstRow = array( '' );
foreach( $players as $player_id => $player )
{
$firstRow[] = array( 'str' => '${player_name}',
'args' => array( 'player_name' => $player['player_name'] ),
'type' => 'header'
);
}
$table[] = $firstRow;
</pre>

You can also use three extra attributes in the parameter array for the notification:

<pre>
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "tableWindow", '', array(
"id" => 'finalScoring',
"title" => clienttranslate("Title of the scoring dialog"),
"table" => $table,
"header" => array('str' => clienttranslate('Table header with parameter ${number}'),
'args' => array( 'number' => 3 ),
),
"footer" => '<div>Some footer</div>',
"closing" => clienttranslate( "Closing button label" )
) );
</pre>

*'''header''': the content for this parameter will display before the table (also, the html will be parsed and player names will be colored according to the current game colors).
*'''footer''': the content for this parameter will display after the table (no parsing for coloring the player names)
*'''closing''': if this parameter is used, a button will be displayed with this label at the bottom of the popup and will allow players to close it (more easily than by clicking the top right 'cross' icon).

=== Scoring animated display ===

Sometimes (Terra Mystica final scoring for example), you may want to display a score value over an element to make the scoring easier to follow for the players.
You can do it with:

<pre>
this.displayScoring( anchor_id, color, score );
</pre>

=== Speech bubble ===

For better interactivity in some games (Love Letter for example), you may use comic book style speech bubbles to express the players voices.
This is done with:

<pre>
this.showBubble( anchor_id, text, delay, duration, custom_class )
</pre>

delay in milliseconds is optional (default 0)

duration in milliseconds is optional (default 3000)

custom_class is optional, if you need to override the default bubble style

== Update players score ==

Increase a player score (with a positive or negative number):

<pre>
this.scoreCtrl[ player_id ].incValue( score_delta );
</pre>

Set a player score to a specific value:

<pre>
this.scoreCtrl[ player_id ].setValue( new_score );
</pre>

== Players panels ==

=== Adding stuff to player's panel ===

At first, create a new "JS template" string in your template (tpl) file:

(from Gomoku example)
<pre>
var jstpl_player_board = '\<div class="cp_board">\
<div id="stoneicon_p${id}" class="gmk_stoneicon gmk_stoneicon_${color}"></div><span id="stonecount_p${id}">0</span>\
</div>';
</pre>

Then, you add this piece of code in your JS file to add this template to each player panel:

<pre>
// Setting up player boards
for( var player_id in gamedatas.players )
{
var player = gamedatas.players[player_id];

// Setting up players boards if needed
var player_board_div = $('player_board_'+player_id);
dojo.place( this.format_block('jstpl_player_board', player ), player_board_div );
}
</pre>

(Note: the code above is of course from your "setup" function in your Javascript).

Very often, you have to distinguish current player and others players. In this case, you just have to create another JS template (ex: jstpl_otherplayer_board) and use it when "player_id" is different than "this.player_id".

=== Player's panel disabling/enabling ===

'''this.disablePlayerPanel( player_id )'''

Disable given player panel (the panel background become gray).

Usually, this is used to signal that this played passes, or will be inactive during a while.

Note that the only effect of this is visual. There are no consequences on the behaviour of the panel itself.

'''this.enablePlayerPanel( player_id )'''

Enable a player panel that has been disabled before.

'''this.enableAllPlayerPanels()'''

Enable all player panels that has been disabled before.

== Image loading ==

See also [[Game_art:_img_directory]].

'''Be careful''': by default, ALL images of your img directory are loaded on a player's browser when he loads the game. For this reason, don't let in your img directory images that are not useful, otherwise it's going to slowdown the game load.

'''dontPreloadImage( image_file_name )'''

Using dontPreloadImage, you tell the interface to not preload a specific image in your img directory.

Example of use:
<pre>
this.dontPreloadImage( 'cards.png' );
</pre>

This is particularly useful if for example you have 2 different themes for a game. To accelerate the loading of the game, you can specify to not preload images corresponding to the other theme.

Another example of use: in "Gosu" game with Kamakor extension, you play with 5 sets of cards among 10 available. Cards images are organized by sets, and we only preload the images corresponding to the 5 current sets with '''ensureSpecificGameImageLoading( image_file_names_array )'''.
<pre>
// By default, do not preload anything
this.dontPreloadImage( 'cards.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan1.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan2.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan3.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan4.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan5.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan6.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan7.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan8.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan9.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan10.png' );
var to_preload = [];
for( i in this.gamedatas.clans )
{
var clan_id = this.gamedatas.clans[i];
to_preload.push( 'clan'+clan_id+'.png' );
}
if( to_preload.length == 5 )
{
this.ensureSpecificGameImageLoading( to_preload );
}
</pre>

'''Note:''' You don't need to specify to not preload game box images (game_box.png, game_box75.png...) since they are not preloaded by default.

== Other useful stuff ==

'''dojo.hitch'''

With dojo.hitch, you can create a callback function that will run with your game object context whatever happen.

Typical example: display a BGA confirmation dialog with a callback function created with dojo.hitch:

<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure you want to make this?'), dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/makeThis.html', { lock:true }, this, function( result ) {} );
} ) );
</pre>

In the example above, using dojo.hitch, we ensure that the "this" object will be set when the callback is called.

; updateCounters(counters)
: Useful for updating game counters in the player panel (such as resources).
: 'counters' arg is an associative array [counter_name_value => [ 'counter_name' => counter_name_value, 'counter_value' => counter_value_value], ... ]
: All counters must be referenced in this.gamedatas.counters and will be updated.
: DOM objects referenced by 'counter_name' will have their innerHTML updated with 'counter_value'.

== BGA GUI components ==

BGA framework provides some useful ready-to-use components for the game interface:

[[Studio#BGA_Studio_game_components_reference]]

Note that each time you are using an additional component, you must declare it at the top of your Javascript file in the list of modules used.

Example if you are using "ebg.stock":
<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <=== we are using ebg.stock module
],
</pre>

BGA Studio Guidelines

2018-10-06T20:20:02Z

Amadannabriona: /* II-6 Avoid move confirmations */

= BGA Studio Guidelines =

Originally From: https://www.slideshare.net/boardgamearena/bga-studio-guidelines

== Why guidelines? ==
More and mode game publishers are choosing Board Game Arena for their game adaptations because the quality of these adaptations is high.
If we want to continue to have nice games in the future, we have to make sure that every game published in the BGA platform is matching the quality standards of BGA.
These guidelines are here to help you to make your game easy to use by BGA players, and to make sure its going to be validated by the game publisher.

== General guidelines ==
The 3 main important guidelines
* If a player knows the real board game, he should be able to play your adaptation with no learning.
* Fidelity to the original game is an absolute requirement.
* Don't try to create a video game: make your game interface as close as possible to how the original board game looks like.

== Game layout ==
=== I-1 Don't hide game elements ===

Many board games have a lot of material to display, and computer screens are sometimes too small.
But you are lucky: your game will be on a webpage with a scrolling functionality.
Basically, you always have some more space available .
Don't hide game elements behind menus, submenus, dialogs, etc, but display them directly on the main page.

Tips: eventually, you can use HTML anchor link to jump between the different elements of the page if the page height is very big.

Examples:

In Amyitis, characters cards are elements you don't have to check all the time. Thus, we placed them at the bottom of the page and you have to scroll to see them.

In Madeira, additional game board are shown at the bottom, but when player needs to use it it moved up.

=== I-2 Make it fluid ===

BGA game interface is «fluid». It means the interface width can vary in order to use extra space on the screen when available.
HTML and CSS give us a lot of possibilities to adapt a web content to a given browser width.
You have to use HTML and CSS:
* To allow players owning a big screen to enjoy the game comfortably without scrolling the page.
* To allow players with a screen of just 1024px

Tips: for each element of the game, answer this question « how many times during a game do I need to check/use this element? ».Less frequently used elements can be placed below.
You can listen on display resize in JS to do more sophisticated layouts.

Examples:

Caylus: when we have a 1024px small width to play the game – even if they have to screen, available buildings are placed scroll on the the right and below the board.
On larger screen, these tiles are placed on the right of the board. This is a very basic usage of the others. « float:left » CSS property.

=== I-3 Use whiteblocks ===
White blocks are '''div''' HTML element with the '''whiteblock''' class (white and transparent background). This is the recommended way to gather game elements together in your game interface when they are not directly on a board. Whiteblocks helps you to organize the space in order it can be easily understood by players.

If game contains individual player boards with distinct colors or marking you don't need these boards inside the whiteblock.

''Tips: you can use a '''h3''' title inside the whiteblock to help players to understand what is inside or to who it belongs.''

In The Year of the Dragon game interface, with whiteblocks and h3 titles /picture here/

=== I-4 Use player panels ===

BGA players are used to look at player panels when they need an information about a player.
Using player panels can allow you to save a lot of space on the main game space. In general, the following information is placed in the player panel:
* Players resources (i.e. small game elements the player is keeping in front of him in the real game).
* Summary information about player (i.e. number of cards in hand, number of cards played...).
* « First player » token.
* Score.

Player panels in Seasons. /picture/ A lot of useful information can fit into these small spaces :)

Note: for all games, you must always use the standard BGA score counter (with the star). Players are used to check this counter to see who is winning the game.

=== I-5 Use status bar actions ===

When some game action is particular to a specific game state, the good practice is to use a status bar action (HTML link).
Don't try to place some icon in your main gameinterface that will be useless 95% of the time: it takes space and makes the interface more complex to understand.

Status bar actions in Tobago /picture/

== Game usability ==

=== II-1 Use tooltips ===

With BGA Studio its very easy to associate a tooltip on any element of the game. Each time this is possible: add a tooltip to explain to the players:
* What is this game element?
* What happens if I click on it?
However, tooltips should NOT be used to display dynamic information about the current game to save space on the game interface.
Typically, regular players should be able to card tooltip play with no tooltips.
However you can display some dynamic stuff if its available otherwise but just annoying to calculate. For example in Lewis and Clark author asked to put
tooltips of how many river space available ahead of explorer.

Tips: you can place any HTML element in tooltips. So you can make them as rich and beautiful as you need :)

=== II-2 Use left click only ===
* The whole game should be playable with only simple left button mouse click.
* Context menus should not be used.
* Drag-n-drop should be avoided (if you want to use it anyway, you should make a click based alternative available).
* Mouse icon must change on clickable elements (« cursor:pointer » CSS property).

=== II-3 Make your interface intuitive ===
If your testers have different opinions about « how to trigger some game action », maybe
the best is to make several options possible for this game action. In the case there is a complex action to do by the player (ex: select some cards, then click on an action button), design your error messages in order they can guide the player(ex : « please select some cards first »).

''Tips: For complex games, it is simple and useful to highlight the area of the interface where player should focus his attention (using onEnteringState/onLeavingState and CSS class, i.e. 'active_slot').''

The Boss: when a player clicks on a card with no selected cubes, the interface tells us to select some cube first.

=== II-4 Use the gamelog ===
With BGA Studio it is very easy to place sometext (or HTML code) in the gamelog.
Don't hesitate to use the game log.
Players are not always in front of the game page when their opponents are making their moves.
In addition, the computer manipulates game elements faster than you usually do with the real board game and even regular players can get behind of what happened sometimes.
You should be able to understand the « game story » by reading the game log.

=== II-5 Tell players about automatic actions ===
Very often, during a game you are in a situation where:
* Only one action is possible for the activeplayer, or
* A series of action has to be done (according to the rules) without any players actions.
In these situation, you must or you may trigger these actions automatically.
In any case, you must make sure that players understand what is happening, otherwise they will probably report a bug.

Stone Age: people are fed automatically at the end of the turn, but players can always see what happened exactly in the gamelog.

* Use the game log to trace all actions performed automatically.
* Use synchronous notifications handlers to slow down the execution of automatic actions,so that players can understand what is happening.
=== II-6 Avoid move confirmations ===
As a rule of thumb, don't require move confirmation. Confirming a move slows down the user interface and thus, the game flow. You can allow a player to confirm a move if this is a very critical step in a game, and if it is possible to trigger an action by accident. If client interactions are very complex and allow cancellation, the final move can be confirmed with a "Done" button.

''Hawaii'': Ending a turn is a critical action that happens only 5 times per player in a game. In this case, it is acceptable (and a good idea) to have a confirmation dialog.

''Hive'': Each move has to be confirmed with click on the location because it is very easy to click by accident.

''Russian Railroads'': Each move involves multiple interactions and can contains dozens of subactions. When the player is done "planning" he presses a "Done" button to submit the move to the server.

=== II-7 Translatable interface ===
With BGA Studio its very easy to translate your game in any language, using BGA collaborative translation system. Check the FAQ and the example games to learn how to declare your strings so that every message in your code can be managed by the internationalization system.

Diams 100 % translated in Polish

== Original game representation ==
=== III-1 Use the original art===
The less you are modifying the original art of the game, the better.
Its important for publishers that a board game adaptation looks like the real board game. Sometimes it can be useful to modify some elements of the game to save some space on the screen – but try to avoid it.
Tips: if you have not enough space on the screen, reduce the size of the game elements.
Try to make sure they are recognizable for players who played regularly, and add a tooltip to help beginners to figure out what they are.
Gosu : the original cards are used, with tooltips.

=== III-2 Be careful about player assistance ===
As a rule of thumb, in order to respect the original board games, you should not introduce any player assistance feature.
An assistance must not be introduced if it directly helps the player to figure out if his move is good or bad.
An assistance may be introduced if it can helps the payer to figure out what moves are available.
Gygès : the assistance shows you available moves, but is not alerting you about stupid moves (like the upper left one).

=== III-3 Cancel a move ===
As a rule of thumb, do not allow players to cancel one of their moves. Cancelling a move can cause many issues, including allowing players to reveal some private information intentionally.
You can allow a player to cancel a move only if he is in the middle of a multiple steps game action and if no private information has been revealed yet.

=== III-4 Available information ===
Every information visible by players in the real game should be accessible in the adaptation. Pay attention to some information like the number of cards in the opponents hand, or the number of remaining cards in the deck.
If it is explicitly forbidden to count cards in the discard pile, so this information is not available.

== Game technical quality ==
=== IV-1 Don't use exotic stuff ===
BGA Studio provides a set of useful tools to build board games adaptations (i.e. card management, confirmation dialog, tooltips,…).
Use them, and don't use exotic libraries, plugins or tricks.
Why? Because BGA Framework will evolve in the future to provide new features to players, and it could make your game incompatible with the new version.
On the contrary, if you are using standard Haggis using BGA standard card stuff, you will enjoy these enhancements without any effort.
If you feel that you really need some exotic thing: don't hesitate to ask us.

=== IV-2 Write in (simple) English ===
Some other person may have to look on your code:
* We (BGA team) are here to help you if you need us
* Some other BGA developer wanting to help you
For all these reasons, your code must be written in English (variables, methods,comments...).
If English is not your mother tongue don't be afraid: the whole idea here is to be understood, not to write an essay :)

=== IV-3 Page refresh ===
A page refresh (F5) must allow players to reset the game interface to a stable state at any moment of the game.
BGA Studio framework allows you to do this with the « getAllDatas » PHP method and the « setup » Javascript method.
Note: this « refresh » feature is also quite useful during the development process:)

=== IV-4 Private information ===
A private game element must be visible only to the player owning it. It must not be visible by his opponents, by any means.
In particular:
* getAllDatas PHP method must not return any element that are hidden from current player, even if the Javascript « setup » method ignores them.
* you must not send via the « notifyAllPlayers » function some information that is hidden from one player (use « notifyPlayer » instead).

Hearts: each player is alerted about his new cards using notifyPlayer, and cards from the other players remains secret

=== IV-5 Game progression ===
Game progression should be as accurate as possible.
Of course, its not always easy (or even possible) to compute game progression, but a vague approximation is better than nothing.
Stone Age: there are 2 different end game conditions (building cards and civilization cards).
Both are taken into account to increase the accuracy of the game progression.

=== IV-6 Game statistics ===
Using BGA Studio you can define a set of statistics for your game. Statistics will be displayed at the end of the game, and help players to figure out why they win/loose a game,
and what they should improve. Try to choose interesting statistics that distinguish the different strategies for your game, in order it can help players to understand their game.

Seasons : statistics
== Summary ==
These guidelines are here to help you to make sure that the players, the game publisher and the game author are going to enjoy your adaptation of the game. We created these guidelines based on our personal experience (which includes many mistakes along the way) implementing a lot of games on BGA platform. Don't hesitate to contact us if you feel uncomfortable with one of these guidelines in some particular context with your game: these guidelines are here to help and not to prevent you to do smart things, and have fun while programing your game ;)

Game interface logic: yourgamename.js

2018-10-06T20:15:00Z

Amadannabriona: /* Tooltips */

This is the main file for your game interface. Here you will define:

* Which actions on the page will generate calls to the server.
* What happens when you get a notification for a change from the server and how it will show in the browser.

== File structure ==

The details of how the file is structured are described below with comments on the code skeleton provided to you.

Here is the basic structure:

* '''constructor''': here you can define global variables for your whole interface.
* '''setup''': this method is called when the page is refreshed, and sets up the game interface.
* '''onEnteringState''': this method is called when entering a new game state. You can use it to customize the view for each game state.
* '''onLeavingState''': this method is called when leaving a game state.
* '''onUpdateActionButtons''': called when entering a new state, in order to add action buttons to the status bar.
* ''(utility methods)'': this is where you can define your utility methods.
* ''(player's actions)'': this is where you can write your handlers for player actions on the interface (example: click on an item).
* '''setupNotifications''': this method associates notifications with notification handlers. For each game notification, you can trigger a javascript method to handle it and update the game interface.
* ''(notification handlers)'': this is where you define the notifications handlers associated with notifications in '''setupNotifications''', above.

== General tips ==

; this.player_id
: ID of the player on whose browser the code is running.

; this.isSpectator
: Flag set to true if the user at the table is a spectator (not a player).
: Note: This is a variable, not a function.
: Note: If you want to hide an element from spectators, you should use [[Game_interface_stylesheet:_yourgamename.css#spectatorMode|CSS 'spectatorMode' class]].

; this.gamedatas
: Contains the initial set of data to init the game, created at game start or by game refresh (F5).
: You can update it as needed to keep an up-to-date reference of the game on the client side if you need it. (Most of the time this is unnecessary).

; this.isCurrentPlayerActive()
: Returns true if the player on whose browser the code is running is currently active (it's his turn to play).

; this.getActivePlayerId()
: Return the ID of the active player, or null if we are not in an "activeplayer" type state.

; this.getActivePlayers()
: Return an array with the IDs of players who are currently active (or an empty array if there are none).

== Dojo framework ==

BGA uses the [http://dojotoolkit.org/ Dojo Javascript framework].

The Dojo framework allows us to do complex things more easily. The BGA framework uses Dojo extensively.

To implement a game, you only need to use a few parts of the Dojo framework. All the Dojo methods you need are described on this page.

== Shrinksafe minimization ==

For performance reasons, when deploying a game the js code is minimized using Shrinksafe (based on ECMASCRIPT version 3). Some advanced syntax may not be compatible with this process. In particular:
* You should not use reserved keywords from the javascript language as variables.
* You should not declare default argument values in function declarations. The following syntax is invalid for Shrinksafe: '''function myFunc(requiredArg, optionalArg = 'defaultValue') {}'''

== Accessing and manipulating the DOM ==

'''$('some_html_element_id')'''

The $() function is used to get an HTML element using its "id" attribute.

Example 1: modify the content of a "span" element:

<pre>
In your HTML code:
<span id="a_value_in_the_game_interface">1234</span>

In your Javascript code:
$('a_value_in_the_game_interface').innerHTML = "9999";
</pre>

Note: $() is the standard method to access some HTML element with the BGA Framework. You should not use the '''getElementById''' function.

'''dojo.style'''

With dojo.style you can modify the CSS property of any HTML element in your interface.

Examples:

<pre>
// Make an element disappear
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'display', 'none' );

// Give an element a 2px border
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'borderWidth', '2px' );

// Change the background position of an element
// (very practical when you are using CSS sprites to transform an element to another)
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'backgroundPosition', '-20px -50px' );
</pre>

Note: you must always use dojo.style to modify the CSS properties of HTML elements.

Note²: if you have to modify several CSS properties of an element, or if you have a complex CSS transformation to do, you should consider using dojo.addClass/dojo.removeClass (see below).

'''dojo CSS classes manipulation'''

In many situations, many small CSS property updates can be replaced by a CSS class change (i.e., you add a CSS class to your element instead of applying all modifications manually).

Advantages are:
* All your CSS stuff remains in your CSS file.
* You can add/remove a list of CSS modifications with a simple function and without error.
* You can test whether you applied the CSS to an element with the '''dojo.hasClass''' method.

Example from ''Reversi'':

<pre>
// We add "possibleMove" to an element
dojo.addClass( 'square_'+x+'_'+y, 'possibleMove' );

// In our CSS file, the class is defined as:
.possibleMove {
background-color: white;
opacity: 0.2;
filter:alpha(opacity=20); /* For IE8 and earlier */
cursor: pointer;
}

// So we've applied 4 CSS property changes in one line of code.

// ... and when we need to check if a square is a possible move on the client side:
if( dojo.hasClass( 'square_'+x+'_'+y, 'possibleMove' ) )
{ ... }

// ... and if we want to remove all possible moves in one line of code (see "dojo.query" method):
dojo.query( '.possibleMove' ).removeClass( 'possibleMove' );
</pre>

Conclusion: We encourage you to use '''dojo.addClass''', '''dojo.removeClass''' and '''dojo.hasClass''' to make your life easier :)

'''dojo.query'''

With dojo.query, you can query a bunch of HTML elements with a single function, with a "CSS selector" style.

Example:
<pre>
// All elements with class "possibleMove":
var elements = dojo.query( '.possibleMove' );

// Count number of tokens (i.e., elements of class "token") on the board (i.e., the element with id "board"):
dojo.query( '#board .token' ).length;
</pre>

But what is really cool with dojo.query is that you can combine it with almost all methods above.

Examples:
<pre>
// Trigger a method when the mouse enter in any element with class "meeple":
dojo.query( '.meeple' ).connect( 'onmouseenter', this, 'myMethodToTrigger' );

// Hide all meeples who are on the board
dojo.query( '#board .meeple' ).style( 'display', 'none' );
</pre>

'''dojo.place'''

dojo.place is the best function to insert HTML code somewhere in your game interface without breaking something. It is much better to use than the '''innerHTML=''' method if you must insert HTML tags and not only values.

<pre>
// Insert your HTML code as a child of a container element
dojo.place( "<your html code>", "your_container_element_id" );

// Replace the container element with your new html
dojo.place( "<your html code>", "your_container_element_id", "replace" );

</pre>

The third parameter of dojo.place can take various interesting value.

values possibles :

"replace" : (see description above).

"first" : Places the node as a child of the reference node. The node is placed as the first child.

"last" : Places the node as a child of the reference node. The node is placed as the last child.

"before" : places the node right before the reference node.

"last (value by default) " : places the node right after the reference node.

"only" : replaces all children of the reference node with the node.

positif integer : This parameter can be a positif integer. In this case, the node will be placed as a child of the reference node with this number (counting from 0). If the number is more than number of children, the node will be appended to the reference node making it the last child.

See also full doc on dojo.place : [http://dojotoolkit.org/reference-guide/1.7/dojo/place.]

Usually, when you want to insert some piece of HTML in your game interface, you should use "[[Game_layout:_view_and_template:_yourgamename.view.php_and_yourgamename_yourgamename.tpl#Javascript_templates|Javascript templates]]".

'''addStyleToClass: function( cssClassName, cssProperty, propertyValue )'''

Same as dojo.style(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName

=== Animations ===

'''Dojo Animations'''

BGA animations is based on Dojo Animation ([http://dojotoolkit.org/documentation/tutorials/1.8/animation/ see tutorial here]).

However, most of the time, you can just use methods below, which are built on top of Dojo Animation.

Note: one interesting method from Dojo that could be useful from time to time is "Dojo.Animation". It allows you to make any CSS property "slide" from one value to another.

'''this.slideToObject( mobile_obj, target_obj, duration, delay )'''

You can use slideToObject to "slide" an element to a target position.

Sliding element on the game area is the recommended and the most used way to animate your game interface. Using slides allow players to figure out what is happening on the game, as if they were playing with the real boardgame.

The parameters are:
* mobile_obj: the ID of the object to move. This object must be "relative" or "absolute" positioned.
* target_obj: the ID of the target object. This object must be "relative" or "absolute" positioned. Note that it is not mandatory that mobile_obj and target_obj have the same size. If their size are different, the system slides the center of mobile_obj to the center of target_obj.
* duration: (optional) defines the duration in millisecond of the slide. The default is 500 milliseconds.
* delay: (optional). If you defines a delay, the slide will start only after this delay. This is particularly useful when you want to slide several object from the same position to the same position: you can give a 0ms delay to the first object, a 100ms delay to the second one, a 200ms delay to the third one, ... this way they won't be superposed during the slide.

BE CAREFUL: The method returns an dojo.fx animation, so you can combine it with other animation if you want to. It means that you have to call the "play()" method, otherwise the animation WON'T START.

Example:
<pre>
this.slideToObject( "some_token", "some_place_on_board" ).play();
</pre>

'''this.slideToObjectPos( mobile_obj, target_obj, target_x, target_y, duration, delay )'''

This method does exactly the same as "slideToObject", except than you can specify some (x,y) coordinates. This way, "mobile_obj" will slide to the specified x,y position relatively to "target_obj".

Example: slide a token to some place on the board, 10 pixels to the bottom:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectPos( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 0, 10 ).play();
</pre>

'''this.slideTemporaryObject( mobile_obj_html, mobile_obj_parent, from, to, duration, delay )'''

This method is useful when you want to slide a temporary HTML object from one place to another. As this object does not exists before the animation and won't remain after, it could be complex to create this object (with dojo.place), to place it at its origin (with placeOnObject) to slide it (with slideToObject) and to make it disappear at the end.

slideTemporaryObject does all of this for you:
* mobile_obj_html is a piece of HTML code that represent the object to slide.
* mobile_obj_parent is the ID of an HTML element of your interface that will be the parent of this temporary HTML object.
* from is the ID of the origin of the slide.
* to is the ID of the target of the slide.
* duration/delay works exactly like in "slideToObject"

Example:
<pre>
this.slideTemporaryObject( '<div class="token_icon"></div>', 'tokens', 'my_origin_div', 'my_target_div' );
</pre>

'''this.slideToObjectAndDestroy: function( node, to, time, delay )'''

This method is a handy shortcut to slide an existing HTML object to some place then destroy it upon arrival. It can be used for example to move a victory token or a card from the board to the player panel to show that the player earns it, then destroy it when we don't need to keep it visible on the player panel.

It works the same as this.slideToObject and takes the same arguments.

Example:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectAndDestroy( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 1000, 0 );
</pre>

'''this.fadeOutAndDestroy( node, duration, delay )'''

This function fade out the target HTML node, then destroy it.

Example:
<pre>
this.fadeOutAndDestroy( "a_card_that_must_disappear" );
</pre>

CAREFUL: the HTML node still exists until during few milliseconds, until the fadeOut has been completed.

'''Rotating elements'''

You can check here [http://jimfulton.info/demos/dojo-animated-rotate.html an example of use] of Dojo to make an element rotate.

This example combines "Dojo.Animation" method and a CSS3 property that allow you to rotate the element.

IMPORTANT: to asses browser compatibility, you must select the CSS property to use just like in the example (see sourcecode below):

<pre>
var transform;
dojo.forEach(
['transform', 'WebkitTransform', 'msTransform',
'MozTransform', 'OTransform'],
function (name) {
if (typeof dojo.body().style[name] != 'undefined') {
transform = name;
}
});
// ... and then use "transform" as the name of your CSS property for rotation
</pre>

=== Moving elements ===

'''this.placeOnObject( mobile_obj, target_obj )'''

placeOnObject works exactly like "slideToObject", except that the effect is immediate.

This is not really an animation, but placeOnObject is frequently used before starting an animation.

Example:
<pre>
// (We just created an object "my_new_token")

// Place the new token on current player board
this.placeOnObject( "my_new_token", "overall_player_board_"+this.player_id );

// Then slide it to its position on the board
this.slideToObject( "my_new_token", "a_place_on_board" ).play();
</pre>

'''this.placeOnObjectPos( mobile_obj, target_obj, target_x, target_y )'''

This method works exactly like placeOnObject, except than you can specify some (x,y) coordinates. This way, "mobile_obj" will be placed to the specified x,y position relatively to "target_obj".

'''this.attachToNewParent( mobile_obj, target_obj )'''

With this method, you change the HTML parent of "mobile_obj" element. "target_obj" is the new parent of this element. The beauty of
attachToNewParent is that the mobile_obj element DOES NOT MOVE during this process.

Note: what happens is that the method calculate a relative position of mobile_obj to make sure it does not move after the HTML parent changes.

Why using this method?

Changing the HTML parent of an element can be useful for the following reasons:
* When the HTML parent moves, all its child are moving with them. If some game elements is no more linked with a parent HTML object, you may want to attach it to another place.
* The z_order (vertical order of display) depends on the position in the DOM, so you may need to change the parent of some game elements when they are moving in your game area.

CAREFUL: this function destroys original object and places a clone onto a new parent, this will break all references to this HTML element (ex: dojo.connect).

== Players input ==

'''dojo.connect'''

Used to associate a player event with one of your notification method.

Example: associate a click on an element ("my_element") with one of our method ("onClickOnMyElement"):
<pre>
dojo.connect( $('my_element'), 'onclick', this, 'onClickOnMyElement' );
</pre>

Note: this is the only possible correct way to associate a player input event to your code, and you must not use anything else.

'''this.checkAction( "my_action_name" )'''

Usage: checkAction: function( action, nomessage )

Check if player can do the specified action by taking into account:
* current game state
* interface locking (a player can't do any action if an action is already in progress)

return true if action is authorized (ie: the action is listed as a "possibleaction" in current game state).

return false and display an error message if not (display no message if nomessage parameter is true). The displayed error message could be either "This move is not allowed at this moment" or "An action is already in progress".

Example:
<pre>
function onClickOnGameElement( evt )
{
if( this.checkAction( "my_action" ) )
{
// Do the action
}
}
</pre>

'''this.ajaxcall( url, parameters, obj_callback, callback, callback_error )'''

This method must be used to send a player input to the game server.

* url: the url of the action to perform. For a game, it must be: "/<mygame>/<mygame>/myAction.html"
* parameters: an array of parameter to send to the game server. Note that "lock:true" must always be specified in this list of parameter in order the interface can be locked during the server call.
* obj_callback: must be set to "this".
* callback: a function to trigger when the server returns and everything went fine.
* callback_error: (optional and rarely used) a function to trigger when the server returns an error.

Usage:
<pre>
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/myaction.html', { lock: true,
arg1: myarg1,
arg2: myarg2,
...
}, this, function( result ) {
// Do some stuff after a successful call
} );
</pre>

Restricted arguments names (please don't use them):
* "action"
* "module"
* "class"

'''this.confirmationDialog()'''

Display a confirmation dialog with a yes/no choice.

We advice you to NOT use this function unless the player action is really critical and could ruins the game, because it slows down the game and upset players.

Usage: this.confirmationDialog( "Question to displayed", callback_function_if_click_on_yes );

Example:
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure to use this bonus (points penalty at the end of the game) ?'),
dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.ajaxcall( '/seasons/seasons/useBonus.html',
{ id:bonus_id, lock:true }, this, function( result ) {} );
} ) );
</pre>

; addEventToClass: function( cssClassName, eventName, functionName )
: Same as dojo.connect(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName

'''this.addActionButton( id, label, method, (opt)destination, (opt)blinking, (opt)color )'''

You can use this method to add an action button in the main action status bar.

Arguments:
* id: an element ID that should be unique in your HTML DOM document.
* label: the text of the button. Should be translatable (use _() function).
* method: the name of your method that must be triggered when the player clicks on this button.
* destination (optional): deprecated, do not use this. Use '''null''' as value if you need to specify other arguments.
* blinking (optional): if set to '''true''', the button is going blink to catch player's attention. Please don't abuse of blinking button.
* color: could be '''blue''' (default), '''red''' or '''gray'''.

You should only use this method in your "onUpdateActionButtons" method. Usually, you use it like this (from Hears example):

<pre>
onUpdateActionButtons: function( stateName, args ) {

if (this.isCurrentPlayerActive()) {
switch( stateName ) {
case 'giveCards':
this.addActionButton( 'giveCards_button', _('Give selected cards'), 'onGiveCards' );
break;
}
}
},
</pre>

In the example above, we are adding a "Give selected cards" button in the case we are on game state "giveCards". When player clicks on this button, it triggers our "onGiveCards" method.

Example using blinking red button:
<pre>
this.addActionButton( 'commit_button', _('Confirm'), 'onConfirm', null, true, 'red');
</pre>

Note: at least in studio example above will make button huge, because it sets it display of blinking things to '''block''',
if you don't like it you have to change css display value
of the button to inline-block (the id of the button is the first argument, i.e 'commit_button' in example above)

== Translations ==

See [[Translations]]

== Notifications ==

When something happens on the server side, your game interface Javascript logic received a notification.

Here's how you can handle these notifications on the client side.

=== Subscribe to notifications ===

Your Javascript "setupNotifications" method is the place where you can subscribe to notifications from your PHP code.

Here's how you associate one of your Javascript method to a notification "playDisc" (from Reversi example):

<pre>
// In setupNotifications method:
dojo.subscribe( 'playDisc', this, "notif_playDisc" );
</pre>

Note: the "playDisc" corresponds to the name of the notification you define it in your PHP code, in your "notifyAllPlayers" or "notifyPlayer" method.

Then, you have to define your "notif_playDisc" method:

<pre>
notif_playDisc: function( notif )
{
// Remove current possible moves (makes the board more clear)
dojo.query( '.possibleMove' ).removeClass( 'possibleMove' );

this.addDiscOnBoard( notif.args.x, notif.args.y, notif.args.player_id );
},
</pre>

In a notification handler like our "notif_playDisc" method, you can access to all notifications arguments with "notif.args".

Example:
<pre>
// If you did this on PHP side:
self::notifyAllPlayers( "myNotification", '', array( "myArgument" => 3 ) );

// On Javascript side, you can access the "myArgument" like this:
notif_myNotification: function( notif )
{
alert( "myArgument = " + notif.args.myArgument );
}
</pre>

=== Synchronous notifications ===

When several notifications are received by your game interface, these notifications are processed immediately, one after the other, in the same exact order they have been generated in your PHP game logic.

However, sometimes, you need to give some time to the players to figure out what happened on the game before jumping to the next notification. Indeed, in many games, they are a lot of automatic actions, and the computer is going to resolve all these actions very fast if you don't tell it not to do so.

As an example, for Reversi, when someone is playing a disc, we want to wait 500 milliseconds before doing anything else in order the opponent player can figure out what move has been played.

Here's how we do this, right after our subscription:
<pre>
dojo.subscribe( 'playDisc', this, "notif_playDisc" );
this.notifqueue.setSynchronous( 'playDisc', 500 ); // Wait 500 milliseconds after executing the playDisc handler
</pre>

=== Pre-defined notification types ===

'''tableWindow''' - This defines notification to display [[Game_interface_logic:_yourgamename.js#Scoring_dialogs|Scoring Dialogs]], see below.

'''message''' - This defines notification that shows on players log and have no other effect

// You can call this on php side without doing anything on client side
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'message', 'hello', array( ) );

== Tooltips ==

'''this.addTooltip( nodeId, _( helpString ), _( actionString ), delay )'''

Add a simple text tooltip to the DOM node.

Specify 'helpString' to display some information about "what is this game element?".
Specify 'actionString' to display some information about "what happens when I click on this element?".

You must specify both helpString and actionString. Most of the time, you should use only one and specify a void string ("") for the other one.

Usually, _() must be used for the text to be marked for translation.

"Delay" is an optional parameter. Usually, it is primarily used to specify a zero delay for some game element when the tooltip gives really important information for the game - but remember: no essential information must be placed in tooltips as they won't be displayed in some browsers (see [[BGA_Studio_Guidelines|Guidelines]]).

Example:
<pre>
this.addTooltip( 'cardcount', _('Number of cards in hand'), '' );
</pre>

'''this.addTooltipHtml( nodeId, html, delay )'''

Add an HTML tooltip to the DOM node (for more elaborate content such as presenting a bigger version of a card).

'''this.addTooltipToClass( cssClass, _( helpString ), _( actionString ), delay )'''

Add a simple text tooltip to all the DOM nodes set with this cssClass.

IMPORTANT: all concerned nodes must have IDs to get tooltips.

'''this.addTooltipHtmlToClass( cssClass, html, delay )'''

Add an HTML tooltip to to all the DOM nodes set with this cssClass (for more elaborate content such as presenting a bigger version of a card).

IMPORTANT: all concerned nodes must have IDs to get tooltips

'''this.removeTooltip( nodeId )'''

Remove a tooltip from the DOM node.

== Dialogs, warning messages, confirmation dialogs, ... ==

=== Warning messages ===

Sometimes, there is something important that is happening on the game and you have to make sure all players get the message. Most of the time, the evolution of the game situation or the game log is enough, but sometimes you need something more visible.

Ex: someone fulfill one of the end of the game condition, so this is the last turn.

'''this.showMessage( msg, type )'''

showMessage shows a message in a big rectangular area on the top of the screen of current player.

* "msg" is the string to display. It should be translated.
* "type" can be set to "info" or "error". If set to "info", the message will be an informative message on a white background. If set to "error", the message will be an error message on a red background.

Important: the normal way to inform players about the progression of the game is the game log. "showMessage" is intrusive and should not be used often.

=== Confirmation dialog ===

'''confirmationDialog( message, yesHandler, noHandler )'''

When an important action with a lot of consequences is triggered by the player, you may want to propose a confirmation dialog.

CAREFUL: the general guidelines of BGA is to AVOID the use of confirmation dialog. Confirmation dialogs slow down the game and bother players. The players knows that they have to pay attention about each move when they are playing online.

The situation where you should use a confirmation dialog are the following:
* It must not happen very often during a game.
* It must be linked to an action that can really "kill a game" if the player do not pay attention.
* It must be something that can be done by mistake (ex: a link on the action status bar).

How to display a confirmation dialog:
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure you want to bake the pie?'), dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.bakeThePie();
} ) );
return; // nothing should be called or done after calling this, all action must be done in the handler
</pre>

=== Multiple choice dialog ===
You can use this dialog to give user a choice with small amount of options:
<pre>
var keys = [1,5,10];
this.multipleChoiceDialog(
_('How many bugs to fix?"), keys,
dojo.hitch(this, function(choice) {
var bugchoice = keys[choice];
console.log('dialog callback with '+bugchoice);
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/fixBugs.html', { bugs: bugchoice}, this, function( result ) {} ); }));
</pre>

=== Dialogs ===

At first, you shouldn't use dialogs windows.

BGA guidelines specify that all game elements should be displayed on the main screen. Players can eventually scroll down to see game elements they don't need to see anytime, and you may eventually create anchors to move between game area section. Of course dialogs windows are very practical, but the thing is: all players know how to scroll down, and not all players know how to show up your dialog window. In addition, when the dialog shows up, players can't access the other game components.

Sometimes although, you need to display a dialog window. Here is how you do this:

// Create the new dialog. You should store the handler in a member variable to access it later
this.myDlg = new dijit.Dialog({ title: _("my dialog title to translate") });

// Create the HTML of my dialog.
// The best practice here is to use [[Game_layout:_view_and_template:_yourgamename.view.php_and_yourgamename_yourgamename.tpl#Javascript_templates|Javascript templates]]
var html = this.format_block( 'jstpl_myDialogTemplate', {
arg1: myArg1,
arg2: myArg2,
...
} );

// Show the dialog
this.myDlg.attr("content", html );
this.myDlg.show();

// Now that the dialog has been displayed, you can connect your method to some dialog elements
// Example, a "close" button:
dojo.connect( $('closeDlg'), 'onclick', this, function(evt){
evt.preventDefault();
this.myDlg.hide();
} );

Tip: be careful with "hide()" method to close your dialog: the dialog and its content is not completely removed from the DOM. It can cause you problems if you try to display the same dialog several times. A good practice is to wrap all the content of your dialog in a <nowiki><div id='myDlgContent'></nowiki> div element, and to call "dojo.destroy('myDlgContent')" before displaying your dialog.

=== Scoring dialogs ===

Sometimes at the end of a round you want to display a big table that details the points wins in each section of the game.

Example: in Hearts game, we display at the end of each round the number of "heart" cards collected by each player, the player who collected the Queen of Spades, and the total number of points loose by each player.

Scoring dialogs are managed entirely on '''PHP side''', but they are described here as their effects are visible only on client side.

Displaying a scoring dialog is quite simple and is using a special notification type: "tableWindow":
<pre>
// on PHP side:
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "tableWindow", '', array(
"id" => 'finalScoring',
"title" => clienttranslate("Title of the scoring dialog"),
"table" => $table
) );
</pre>

The "table" argument is a 2 dimensional PHP array that describe the table you want to display, line by line and column by column.

Example: display an 3x3 array of strings
<pre>
$table = array(
array( "one", "two", "three" ), // This is my first line
array( "four", "five", "six" ), // This is my second line
array( "seven", "height", "nine" ) // This is my third line
);
</pre>

As you can see above, in each "cell" of your array you can display a simple string value. But you can also display a complex value with a template and associated arguments like this:
<pre>
$table = array(
array( "one", "two", array( "str" => "a string with an ${argument}", "args" => array( 'argument' => 'argument_value' ) ) ),
array( "four", "five", "six" ),
array( "seven", "height", "nine" )
);
</pre>

This is especially useful when you want to display player names with colors. Example from "Hearts":
<pre>
$firstRow = array( '' );
foreach( $players as $player_id => $player )
{
$firstRow[] = array( 'str' => '${player_name}',
'args' => array( 'player_name' => $player['player_name'] ),
'type' => 'header'
);
}
$table[] = $firstRow;
</pre>

You can also use three extra attributes in the parameter array for the notification:

<pre>
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "tableWindow", '', array(
"id" => 'finalScoring',
"title" => clienttranslate("Title of the scoring dialog"),
"table" => $table,
"header" => array('str' => clienttranslate('Table header with parameter ${number}'),
'args' => array( 'number' => 3 ),
),
"footer" => '<div>Some footer</div>',
"closing" => clienttranslate( "Closing button label" )
) );
</pre>

*'''header''': the content for this parameter will display before the table (also, the html will be parsed and player names will be colored according to the current game colors).
*'''footer''': the content for this parameter will display after the table (no parsing for coloring the player names)
*'''closing''': if this parameter is used, a button will be displayed with this label at the bottom of the popup and will allow players to close it (more easily than by clicking the top right 'cross' icon).

=== Scoring animated display ===

Sometimes (Terra Mystica final scoring for example), you may want to display a score value over an element to make the scoring easier to follow for the players.
You can do it with:

<pre>
this.displayScoring( anchor_id, color, score );
</pre>

=== Speech bubble ===

For better interactivity in some games (Love Letter for example), you may use comic book style speech bubbles to express the players voices.
This is done with:

<pre>
this.showBubble( anchor_id, text, delay, duration, custom_class )
</pre>

delay in milliseconds is optional (default 0)

duration in milliseconds is optional (default 3000)

custom_class is optional, if you need to override the default bubble style

== Update players score ==

Increase a player score (with a positive or negative number):

<pre>
this.scoreCtrl[ player_id ].incValue( score_delta );
</pre>

Set a player score to a specific value:

<pre>
this.scoreCtrl[ player_id ].setValue( new_score );
</pre>

== Players panels ==

=== Adding stuff to player's panel ===

At first, create a new "JS template" string in your template (tpl) file:

(from Gomoku example)
<pre>
var jstpl_player_board = '\<div class="cp_board">\
<div id="stoneicon_p${id}" class="gmk_stoneicon gmk_stoneicon_${color}"></div><span id="stonecount_p${id}">0</span>\
</div>';
</pre>

Then, you add this piece of code in your JS file to add this template to each player panel:

<pre>
// Setting up player boards
for( var player_id in gamedatas.players )
{
var player = gamedatas.players[player_id];

// Setting up players boards if needed
var player_board_div = $('player_board_'+player_id);
dojo.place( this.format_block('jstpl_player_board', player ), player_board_div );
}
</pre>

(Note: the code above is of course from your "setup" function in your Javascript).

Very often, you have to distinguish current player and others players. In this case, you just have to create another JS template (ex: jstpl_otherplayer_board) and use it when "player_id" is different than "this.player_id".

=== Player's panel disabling/enabling ===

'''this.disablePlayerPanel( player_id )'''

Disable given player panel (the panel background become gray).

Usually, this is used to signal that this played passes, or will be inactive during a while.

Note that the only effect of this is visual. There are no consequences on the behaviour of the panel itself.

'''this.enablePlayerPanel( player_id )'''

Enable a player panel that has been disabled before.

'''this.enableAllPlayerPanels()'''

Enable all player panels that has been disabled before.

== Image loading ==

See also [[Game_art:_img_directory]].

'''Be careful''': by default, ALL images of your img directory are loaded on a player's browser when he loads the game. For this reason, don't let in your img directory images that are not useful, otherwise it's going to slowdown the game load.

'''dontPreloadImage( image_file_name )'''

Using dontPreloadImage, you tell the interface to not preload a specific image in your img directory.

Example of use:
<pre>
this.dontPreloadImage( 'cards.png' );
</pre>

This is particularly useful if for example you have 2 different themes for a game. To accelerate the loading of the game, you can specify to not preload images corresponding to the other theme.

Another example of use: in "Gosu" game with Kamakor extension, you play with 5 sets of cards among 10 available. Cards images are organized by sets, and we only preload the images corresponding to the 5 current sets with '''ensureSpecificGameImageLoading( image_file_names_array )'''.
<pre>
// By default, do not preload anything
this.dontPreloadImage( 'cards.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan1.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan2.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan3.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan4.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan5.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan6.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan7.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan8.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan9.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan10.png' );
var to_preload = [];
for( i in this.gamedatas.clans )
{
var clan_id = this.gamedatas.clans[i];
to_preload.push( 'clan'+clan_id+'.png' );
}
if( to_preload.length == 5 )
{
this.ensureSpecificGameImageLoading( to_preload );
}
</pre>

'''Note:''' You don't need to specify to not preload game box images (game_box.png, game_box75.png...) since they are not preloaded by default.

== Other useful stuff ==

'''dojo.hitch'''

With dojo.hitch, you can create a callback function that will run with your game object context whatever happen.

Typical example: display a BGA confirmation dialog with a callback function created with dojo.hitch:

<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure you want to make this?'), dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/makeThis.html', { lock:true }, this, function( result ) {} );
} ) );
</pre>

In the example above, using dojo.hitch, we are sure that the "this" object will be set when the callback is called.

; updateCounters(counters)
: Useful for updating game counters in the player panel (such as resources).
: 'counters' arg is an associative array [counter_name_value => [ 'counter_name' => counter_name_value, 'counter_value' => counter_value_value], ... ]
: All counters must be referenced in this.gamedatas.counters and will be updated.
: DOM objects referenced by 'counter_name' will have their innerHTML updated with 'counter_value'.

== BGA GUI components ==

BGA framework provides some useful ready-to-use components for the game interface:

[[Studio#BGA_Studio_game_components_reference]]

Note that each time you are using an additional component, you must declare it at the top of your Javascript file in the list of modules used.

Example if you are using "ebg.stock":
<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <=== we are using ebg.stock module
],
</pre>

Stock

2018-10-06T19:34:30Z

Amadannabriona: /* Complete stock component reference */

'''Stock''' is a javascript component that you can use in your game interface to display a set of elements of the same size that need to be arranged in single or multiple lines.

Stock is very flexible and is the most used component in BGA games.

Examples of stock use cases:

* Display a set of cards, typically hands (examples: ''Hearts'', ''Seasons'', ''The Boss'', ''Race for the Galaxy'').
* Display items in player panels (examples: ''Takenoko'', ''Amyitis'', ...)
* ... Many other situations. For example, black dice and cubes on cards in ''Troyes'' are displayed with stock components.

Using stock:

* Your items are arranged nicely and sorted by type.
* When adding or removing items to a set, all items slide smoothly to their new position in the set.
* Selecting and unselecting items are built-in functions.
* You don't have to worry about inserting/removing HTML code; the entire life cycle of the stock is managed by the component.

== Using stock: a simple example ==

Let's have a look on how the stock is used in the game ''Hearts'' to display a hand of standard cards.

First, don't forget to add "ebg/stock" as a dependency in your js file:

<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <==== HERE
],
</pre>

The stock is initialized in the Javascript "setup" method like this:

<pre>
// Player hand
this.playerHand = new ebg.stock();
this.playerHand.create( this, $('myhand'), this.cardwidth, this.cardheight );
</pre>

Explanations:
* We create a new stock object for the player hand.
* As parameters of the "create" method, we provide the width/height of an item (a card), and the div container "myhand" - which is a simple empty "div" element defined in our HTML template (.tpl).

Then, we must tell the stock what items it is going to display during its life: the 52 cards of a standard card game. Of course, we did not create 52 different images, but a "CSS sprite" image named "cards.jpg" with the cards arranged in 4 rows and 13 columns.

Here's how we tell stock what items to display:

<pre>
// Specify that there are 13 images per row in the CSS sprite image
this.playerHand.image_items_per_row = 13;

// Create card types:
for( var color=1;color<=4;color++ )
{
for( var value=2;value<=14;value++ )
{
// Build card type id
var card_type_id = this.getCardUniqueId( color, value );
this.playerHand.addItemType( card_type_id, card_type_id, g_gamethemeurl+'img/cards.jpg', card_type_id );
}
}
</pre>

Explanation:

* First, we tell the stock component that our CSS sprite contains 13 items per row. This way, it can find the correct image for each card type id.
* Then for the 4x13 cards, we call the "addItemType" method that creates the type. The arguments are the type id, the weight of the card (for sorting purpose), the URL of our CSS sprite, and the position of our card image in the CSS sprite.

Note: In this specific example we need to generate a unique ID for each type of card based on its color and value. This is the only purpose of "getCardUniqueId".

From now on, if we need to add a card - for example, the 5 of Hearts - to a player's hand, we can do this:

<pre>
this.playerHand.addToStock( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ) );
</pre>

In reality, cards have some IDs, which are useful to manipulate them. This is the reason we are using "addToStockWithId" instead:

<pre>
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ), my_card_id );
</pre>

If afterwards we want to remove this card from the stock:

<pre>
this.playerHand.removeFromStockById( my_card_id );
</pre>

== Complete stock component reference ==

'''create( page, container_div, item_width, item_height ):'''

With create, you create a new stock component.

Parameters:
* page: the container page. Usually: "this".
* container_div: the container "div" element (a void div element in your template, with an id).
* width and height (in pixels) for the stock component.

(See ''Hearts'' example above).

'''count():'''

Return the total number of items in the stock right now.

'''addItemType( type, weight, image, image_position ):'''

Define a new type of item and add it to the stock.

This is mandatory to define a new item type before adding it to the stock. Example: if you want to have a stock contain cubes of 3 different colors, you must add 3 item types (one for each color).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the type to add. You can choose any positive integer. All item types must have distinct IDs.
* weight: weight of items of this type. Weight value is used to sort items of the stock during the display. Note that you can specify the same weight for all items; in this case, they are not sorted and their order might change randomly at any time.
* image: URL of item image. Most of the time, you will use a CSS sprite for stock items, so you have to specify CSS sprite image here.

Be careful: you must specify the image url as this:

<pre>
g_gamethemeurl+'img/yourimage.png'
</pre>

* image_position: if "image" specify the URL of a CSS sprite, you must specify the position of the item image in this CSS sprite. For example, if you have a CSS sprite with 3 cubes with a size of 20x20 pixels each (so your CSS image has for example a size of 20x60 or 60x20), you specify "0" for the first cube image, 1 for the second, 2 for the third.

''Important'': if there is more than one line of items in your CSS sprite, you must specify how many items per line you have in your CSS sprite like this:

<pre>
// Specify that there are 10 image items per row in images used in "myStockObject" control.
this.myStockObject.image_items_per_row = 10;
</pre>

'''addToStock( type, from )'''

Add an item to the stock, with the specified type, but without a unique ID.

To make your life easier, in most cases we suggest you use '''addToStockWithId''' in order to give an ID to the item added. '''addToStock''' is suitable when you are using a stock to control items that are generic game materials that don't need to be addressed individually (example: a bunch of money tokens).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the item type to use (as specified in "addItemType")
* from: OPTIONAL: if you specify an HTML item here, the item will appear on this item and will be slid to its position on the stock item.

Example:
<pre>
// Add a money token to the "player money" stock.
// The money token will appear on "player_id" player panel and will move to its position.
this.playerMoney.addToStock( MONEY_TOKEN, 'overall_player_board_'+player_id );
</pre>

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either '''addToStock''' or '''addToStockWithId''', but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''addToStockWithId( type, id, from )'''

This is the same method as '''addToStock''', except that it also associates an ID with the newly created item.

This is especially useful:

* When you need to know which item(s) have been selected by the user (see '''getSelectedItems''').
* When you need to remove a specific item from the stock with '''removeFromStockById'''.

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either '''addToStock''' or '''addToStockWithId''', but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''removeFromStock( type, to )'''

Remove an item of the specific type from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeFromStockById( id, to )'''

Remove an item with a specific ID from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeAll()'''

Remove all items from the stock.

'''getPresentTypeList()'''

Return an array with all the types of items present in the stock right now.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.removeAll();
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 34 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 89 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );

// The following returns: { 34:1, 65:1, 89:1 }
var item_types = this.myStockControl.getPresentTypeList();
</pre>

'''resetItemsPosition()'''

If you moved an item from the stock control manually (ex: after a drag'n'drop) and want to reset their positions to their original ones, you can call this method.

'''item_margin'''

By default, there is a margin of 5px between the items of a stock. You can change the member variable "item_margin" to change this.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.item_margin=5;
</pre>

'''changeItemsWeight( newWeights )'''

With this method you can change dynamically the weight of the item types in a stock control.

Items are immediately re-sorted with the new weight.

Example: with a stock control that contains classic cards, you can order them by value or by color. Using changeItemsWeight you can switch from one sort method to another when a player request this.

newWeights is an associative array: item type id => new weight.

Example:
<pre>
// Item type 1 gets a new weight of 10, 2 a new weight of 20, 3 a new weight of 30.
this.myStockControl.changeItemsWeight( { 1: 10, 2: 20, 3: 30 } );
</pre>

'''setSelectionMode( mode )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection mode:
* 0: no item can be selected by the player.
* 1: a maximum of one item can be selected by the player at a time.
* 2 (default): multiple items can be selected by the player at the same time.

'''setSelectionAppearance( type )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection highlighting type:
* 'border': there will be a red border around selected items (this is the default). The attribute 'apparenceBorderWidth' can be used to manage the width of the border (in pixels).
* 'disappear': the selected item will fade out and disappear. This is useful when the selection has the effect of destroying the item.
* 'class': there will be an extra '''stockitem_selected''' css class added to the element when it is selected (and removed when unselected). You can override this class in the css file for your game.

By default this class definition is:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid red ! important;
}
</pre>

If you want to override it (for example, to change the border color) add this in your <game>.css file:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid orange ! important;
}
</pre>

NB: the 'class' highlighting type has not yet been deployed on the studio - 24/02/2014. This warning will be removed after the next upgrade.

'''isSelected( id )'''

Return a boolean indicating whether the specified item id has been selected.

'''selectItem( id )'''

Select the specified item.

'''unselectItem( id )'''

Unselect the specified item.

'''unselectAll()'''

Unselect all items of the stock.

'''onChangeSelection'''

This callback method is called when the player selects/unselects an item of the stock.

You can connect this to one of your methods like this:

<pre>
dojo.connect( this.myStockControl, 'onChangeSelection', this, 'onMyMethodToCall' );

(...)

onMyMethodToCall: function( control_name )
{
// This method is called when myStockControl selected items changed
var items = this.myStockControl.getSelectedItems();

// (do something)
},
</pre>

Note: The "control_name" argument is the ID (the "DOM" id) of the "div" container of your stock control. Using "control_name", you can use the same callback method for different Stock control and see which one trigger the method.

'''getSelectedItems()'''

Return the list of selected items, as an array with the following format:
<pre>
[
{ type:1, id: 1001 },
{ type:1, id: 1002 },
{ type:3, id: 1003 }
...
]
</pre>

'''getUnselectedItems()'''

Same as the previous one, but return unselected item instead of seleted ones.

'''getAllItems()'''

Get all items (same format as getSelectedItems and getUnselectedItems).

'''getItemDivId(id)'''

Get the div id using the stock item id (to manipulate element properties directly).

'''setOverlap( horizontal_percent, vertical_percent )'''

Make items of the stock control "overlap" each other, to save space.

By default, horizontal_overlap and vertical_overlap are 0.

When horizontal_overlap=20, it means that a stock item will overlap over 20% of the width of the previous item. horizontal_overlap can't be greater than 100.

vertical_overlap works differently: one items on two are shifted up.

See the games "Jaipur" or "Koryŏ" to see examples of use of this function.

'''onItemCreate'''

Using onItemCreate, you can trigger a method each time a new item is added to the Stock, in order you can customize it.

Complete example:
<pre>
// During "setup" phase, we associate our method "setupNewCard" with the creation of a new stock item:
this.myStockItem.onItemCreate = dojo.hitch( this, 'setupNewCard' );

(...)

// And here is our "setupNewCard":
setupNewCard: function( card_div, card_type_id, card_id )
{
// Add a special tooltip on the card:
this.addTooltip( card_div.id, _("Some nice tooltip for this item"), '' );

// Note that "card_type_id" contains the type of the item, so you can do special actions depending on the item type

// Add some custom HTML content INSIDE the Stock item:
dojo.place( this.format_block( 'jstpl_my_card_content', {
....
} ), card_div.id );
}

</pre>

== Tips when adding/removing items to/from Stock components ==

The usual way is the following:

'''Situation A''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is '''not''' coming from another stock: use "addToStockWithId" with a "from" argument set to the element of your interface where card should come from.

'''Situation B''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is coming from another stock:
* on the destination Stock, use "addToStockWithId" with a "from" equals to the HTML id of the corresponding item in the source Stock. For example, If the source stock id is "myHand", then the HTML id of card 48 is "myHand_item_48".
* then, remove the source item with "removeFromStockById".
(note that it's important to do things in this order, because source item must still exists when you use it as the origin of the slide).

'''Situation C''':

When you move a card from a stock item to something that is not a stock item:
* insert the card as a classic HTML template (dojo.place / this.format_block).
* place it on the Stock item with "this.placeOnObject", using Stock item HTML id (see above).
* slide it to its new position with "this.slideToObject"
* remove the card from the Stock item with "removeFromStockById".

Using the methods above, your cards should slide to, from and between your Stock controls smoothly

You can customize this (showing the default value):
<pre>

this.mystock.jstpl_stock_item= "<div id=\"${id}\" class=\"stockitem\" style=\"top:${top}px;left:${left}px;width:${width}px;height:${height}px;z-index:${position};background-image:url('${image}');\"></div>";
</pre>
To produce a different type of stock item

Stock

2018-10-06T19:23:15Z

Amadannabriona: /* Complete stock component reference */

'''Stock''' is a javascript component that you can use in your game interface to display a set of elements of the same size that need to be arranged in single or multiple lines.

Stock is very flexible and is the most used component in BGA games.

Examples of stock use cases:

* Display a set of cards, typically hands (examples: ''Hearts'', ''Seasons'', ''The Boss'', ''Race for the Galaxy'').
* Display items in player panels (examples: ''Takenoko'', ''Amyitis'', ...)
* ... Many other situations. For example, black dice and cubes on cards in ''Troyes'' are displayed with stock components.

Using stock:

* Your items are arranged nicely and sorted by type.
* When adding or removing items to a set, all items slide smoothly to their new position in the set.
* Selecting and unselecting items are built-in functions.
* You don't have to worry about inserting/removing HTML code; the entire life cycle of the stock is managed by the component.

== Using stock: a simple example ==

Let's have a look on how the stock is used in the game ''Hearts'' to display a hand of standard cards.

First, don't forget to add "ebg/stock" as a dependency in your js file:

<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <==== HERE
],
</pre>

The stock is initialized in the Javascript "setup" method like this:

<pre>
// Player hand
this.playerHand = new ebg.stock();
this.playerHand.create( this, $('myhand'), this.cardwidth, this.cardheight );
</pre>

Explanations:
* We create a new stock object for the player hand.
* As parameters of the "create" method, we provide the width/height of an item (a card), and the div container "myhand" - which is a simple empty "div" element defined in our HTML template (.tpl).

Then, we must tell the stock what items it is going to display during its life: the 52 cards of a standard card game. Of course, we did not create 52 different images, but a "CSS sprite" image named "cards.jpg" with the cards arranged in 4 rows and 13 columns.

Here's how we tell stock what items to display:

<pre>
// Specify that there are 13 images per row in the CSS sprite image
this.playerHand.image_items_per_row = 13;

// Create card types:
for( var color=1;color<=4;color++ )
{
for( var value=2;value<=14;value++ )
{
// Build card type id
var card_type_id = this.getCardUniqueId( color, value );
this.playerHand.addItemType( card_type_id, card_type_id, g_gamethemeurl+'img/cards.jpg', card_type_id );
}
}
</pre>

Explanation:

* First, we tell the stock component that our CSS sprite contains 13 items per row. This way, it can find the correct image for each card type id.
* Then for the 4x13 cards, we call the "addItemType" method that creates the type. The arguments are the type id, the weight of the card (for sorting purpose), the URL of our CSS sprite, and the position of our card image in the CSS sprite.

Note: In this specific example we need to generate a unique ID for each type of card based on its color and value. This is the only purpose of "getCardUniqueId".

From now on, if we need to add a card - for example, the 5 of Hearts - to a player's hand, we can do this:

<pre>
this.playerHand.addToStock( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ) );
</pre>

In reality, cards have some IDs, which are useful to manipulate them. This is the reason we are using "addToStockWithId" instead:

<pre>
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ), my_card_id );
</pre>

If afterwards we want to remove this card from the stock:

<pre>
this.playerHand.removeFromStockById( my_card_id );
</pre>

== Complete stock component reference ==

'''create( page, container_div, item_width, item_height ):'''

With create, you create a new stock component.

Parameters:
* page: the container page. Usually: "this".
* container_div: the container "div" element (a void div element in your template, with an id).
* width and height (in pixels) for the stock component.

(See ''Hearts'' example above).

'''count():'''

Return the total number of items in the stock right now.

'''addItemType( type, weight, image, image_position ):'''

Define a new type of item and add it to the stock.

This is mandatory to define a new item type before adding it to the stock. Example: if you want to have a stock contain cubes of 3 different colors, you must add 3 item types (one for each color).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the type to add. You can choose any positive integer. All item types must have distinct IDs.
* weight: weight of items of this type. Weight value is used to sort items of the stock during the display. Note that you can specify the same weight for all items; in this case, they are not sorted and their order might change randomly at any time.
* image: URL of item image. Most of the time, you will use a CSS sprite for stock items, so you have to specify CSS sprite image here.

Be careful: you must specify the image url as this:

<pre>
g_gamethemeurl+'img/yourimage.png'
</pre>

* image_position: if "image" specify the URL of a CSS sprite, you must specify the position of the item image in this CSS sprite. For example, if you have a CSS sprite with 3 cubes with a size of 20x20 pixels each (so your CSS image has for example a size of 20x60 or 60x20), you specify "0" for the first cube image, 1 for the second, 2 for the third.

''Important'': if there is more than one line of items in your CSS sprite, you must specify how many items per line you have in your CSS sprite like this:

<pre>
// Specify that there are 10 image items per row in images used in "myStockObject" control.
this.myStockObject.image_items_per_row = 10;
</pre>

'''addToStock( type, from )'''

Add an item to the stock, with the specified type, but without a unique ID.

To make your life easier, in most cases we suggest you use '''addToStockWithId''' in order to give an ID to the item added. '''addToStock''' is suitable when you are using a stock to control items that are generic game materials that don't need to be addressed individually (example: a bunch of money tokens).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the item type to use (as specified in "addItemType")
* from: OPTIONAL: if you specify an HTML item here, the item will appear on this item and will be slid to its position on the stock item.

Example:
<pre>
// Add a money token to the "player money" stock.
// The money token will appear on "player_id" player panel and will move to its position.
this.playerMoney.addToStock( MONEY_TOKEN, 'overall_player_board_'+player_id );
</pre>

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either '''addToStock''' or '''addToStockWithId''', but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''addToStockWithId( type, id, from )'''

This is the same method as '''addToStock''', except that it also associates an ID with the newly created item.

This is especially useful:

* When you need to know which item(s) have been selected by the user (see '''getSelectedItems''').
* When you need to remove a specific item from the stock with '''removeFromStockById'''.

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either '''addToStock''' or '''addToStockWithId''', but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''removeFromStock( type, to )'''

Remove an item of the specific type from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeFromStockById( id, to )'''

Remove an item with a specific ID from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeAll()'''

Remove all items from the stock.

'''getPresentTypeList()'''

Return an array with all the types of items present in the stock right now.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.removeAll();
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 34 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 89 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );

// The following returns: { 34:1, 65:1, 89:1 }
var item_types = this.myStockControl.getPresentTypeList();
</pre>

'''resetItemsPosition()'''

If you moved an item from the stock control manually (ex: after a drag'n'drop) and want to reset their positions to their original ones, you can call this method.

'''item_margin'''

By default, there is a margin of 5px between the items of a stock. You can change the member variable "item_margin" to change this.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.item_margin=5;
</pre>

'''changeItemsWeight( newWeights )'''

With this method you can change dynamically the weight of the item types in a stock control.

Items are immediately re-sorted with the new weight.

Example: with a stock control that contains classic cards, you can order them by value or by color. Using changeItemsWeight you can switch from one sort method to another when a player request this.

newWeights is an associative array: item type id => new weight.

Example:
<pre>
// Item type 1 gets a new weight of 10, 2 a new weight of 20, 3 a new weight of 30.
this.myStockControl.changeItemsWeight( { 1: 10, 2: 20, 3: 30 } );
</pre>

'''setSelectionMode( mode )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection mode:
* 0: no item can be selected by the player.
* 1: a maximum of one item can be selected by the player at a time.
* 2 (default): multiple items can be selected by the player at the same time.

'''setSelectionAppearance( type )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection highlighting type:
* 'border': there will be a red border around selected items (this is the default). The attribute 'apparenceBorderWidth' can be used to manage the width of the border (in pixels).
* 'disappear': the selected item will fade out and disappear. This is useful when the selection has the effect of destroying the item.
* 'class': there will be an extra '''stockitem_selected''' css class added to the element when it is selected (and removed when unselected). You can override this class in the css file for your game.

By default this class definition is:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid red ! important;
}
</pre>

If you want to override it (for example, to change the border color) add this in your <game>.css file:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid orange ! important;
}
</pre>

NB: the 'class' highlighting type has not yet been deployed on the studio - 24/02/2014. This warning will be removed after the next upgrade.

'''isSelected( id )'''

Return a boolean indicating whether the specified item id has been selected.

'''selectItem( id )'''

Select the specified item.

'''unselectItem( id )'''

Unselect the specified item.

'''unselectAll()'''

Unselect all items of the stock.

'''onChangeSelection'''

This callback method is called when the player selects/unselects an item of the stock.

You can connect this to one of your methods like this:

<pre>
dojo.connect( this.myStockControl, 'onChangeSelection', this, 'onMyMethodToCall' );

(...)

onMyMethodToCall: function( control_name )
{
// This method is called when myStockControl selected items changed
var items = this.myStockControl.getSelectedItems();

// (do something)
},
</pre>

Note: The "control_name" argument is the ID (the "DOM" id) of the "div" container of your stock control. Using "control_name", you can use the same callback method for different Stock control and see which one trigger the method.

'''getSelectedItems()'''

Return the list of selected items, as an array with the following format:
<pre>
[
{ type:1, id: 1001 },
{ type:1, id: 1002 },
{ type:3, id: 1003 }
...
]
</pre>

'''getUnselectedItems()'''

Same as the previous one, but return unselected item instead of seleted ones.

'''getAllItems()'''

Get all items (same format than getSelectedItems and getUnselectedItems).

'''getItemDivId(id)'''

Get div id using stock item id (to manipulate element properties directly).

'''setOverlap( horizontal_percent, vertical_percent )'''

Make items on the stock control "overlap" on each other, to save space.

By default, horizontal_overlap and vertical_overlap are 0.

When horizontal_overlap=20, it means that a stock item must overlap on 20% of the width of the previous item. horizontal_overlap can't be over 100.

vertical_overlap works differently: one items on two are shifted up.

See "Jaipur" game to see an example to use of this function.

'''onItemCreate'''

Using onItemCreate, you can trigger a method each time a new item is added to the Stock, in order you can customize it.

Complete example:
<pre>
// During "setup" phase, we associate our method "setupNewCard" with the creation of a new stock item:
this.myStockItem.onItemCreate = dojo.hitch( this, 'setupNewCard' );

(...)

// And here is our "setupNewCard":
setupNewCard: function( card_div, card_type_id, card_id )
{
// Add a special tooltip on the card:
this.addTooltip( card_div.id, _("Some nice tooltip for this item"), '' );

// Note that "card_type_id" contains the type of the item, so you can do special actions depending on the item type

// Add some custom HTML content INSIDE the Stock item:
dojo.place( this.format_block( 'jstpl_my_card_content', {
....
} ), card_div.id );
}

</pre>

== Tips when adding/removing items to/from Stock components ==

The usual way is the following:

'''Situation A''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is '''not''' coming from another stock: use "addToStockWithId" with a "from" argument set to the element of your interface where card should come from.

'''Situation B''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is coming from another stock:
* on the destination Stock, use "addToStockWithId" with a "from" equals to the HTML id of the corresponding item in the source Stock. For example, If the source stock id is "myHand", then the HTML id of card 48 is "myHand_item_48".
* then, remove the source item with "removeFromStockById".
(note that it's important to do things in this order, because source item must still exists when you use it as the origin of the slide).

'''Situation C''':

When you move a card from a stock item to something that is not a stock item:
* insert the card as a classic HTML template (dojo.place / this.format_block).
* place it on the Stock item with "this.placeOnObject", using Stock item HTML id (see above).
* slide it to its new position with "this.slideToObject"
* remove the card from the Stock item with "removeFromStockById".

Using the methods above, your cards should slide to, from and between your Stock controls smoothly

You can customize this (showing the default value):
<pre>

this.mystock.jstpl_stock_item= "<div id=\"${id}\" class=\"stockitem\" style=\"top:${top}px;left:${left}px;width:${width}px;height:${height}px;z-index:${position};background-image:url('${image}');\"></div>";
</pre>
To produce a different type of stock item

Stock

2018-10-06T18:40:29Z

Amadannabriona:

'''Stock''' is a javascript component that you can use in your game interface to display a set of elements of the same size that need to be arranged in single or multiple lines.

Stock is very flexible and is the most used component in BGA games.

Examples of stock use cases:

* Display a set of cards, typically hands (examples: ''Hearts'', ''Seasons'', ''The Boss'', ''Race for the Galaxy'').
* Display items in player panels (examples: ''Takenoko'', ''Amyitis'', ...)
* ... Many other situations. For example, black dice and cubes on cards in ''Troyes'' are displayed with stock components.

Using stock:

* Your items are arranged nicely and sorted by type.
* When adding or removing items to a set, all items slide smoothly to their new position in the set.
* Selecting and unselecting items are built-in functions.
* You don't have to worry about inserting/removing HTML code; the entire life cycle of the stock is managed by the component.

== Using stock: a simple example ==

Let's have a look on how the stock is used in the game ''Hearts'' to display a hand of standard cards.

First, don't forget to add "ebg/stock" as a dependency in your js file:

<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <==== HERE
],
</pre>

The stock is initialized in the Javascript "setup" method like this:

<pre>
// Player hand
this.playerHand = new ebg.stock();
this.playerHand.create( this, $('myhand'), this.cardwidth, this.cardheight );
</pre>

Explanations:
* We create a new stock object for the player hand.
* As parameters of the "create" method, we provide the width/height of an item (a card), and the div container "myhand" - which is a simple empty "div" element defined in our HTML template (.tpl).

Then, we must tell the stock what items it is going to display during its life: the 52 cards of a standard card game. Of course, we did not create 52 different images, but a "CSS sprite" image named "cards.jpg" with the cards arranged in 4 rows and 13 columns.

Here's how we tell stock what items to display:

<pre>
// Specify that there are 13 images per row in the CSS sprite image
this.playerHand.image_items_per_row = 13;

// Create card types:
for( var color=1;color<=4;color++ )
{
for( var value=2;value<=14;value++ )
{
// Build card type id
var card_type_id = this.getCardUniqueId( color, value );
this.playerHand.addItemType( card_type_id, card_type_id, g_gamethemeurl+'img/cards.jpg', card_type_id );
}
}
</pre>

Explanation:

* First, we tell the stock component that our CSS sprite contains 13 items per row. This way, it can find the correct image for each card type id.
* Then for the 4x13 cards, we call the "addItemType" method that creates the type. The arguments are the type id, the weight of the card (for sorting purpose), the URL of our CSS sprite, and the position of our card image in the CSS sprite.

Note: In this specific example we need to generate a unique ID for each type of card based on its color and value. This is the only purpose of "getCardUniqueId".

From now on, if we need to add a card - for example, the 5 of Hearts - to a player's hand, we can do this:

<pre>
this.playerHand.addToStock( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ) );
</pre>

In reality, cards have some IDs, which are useful to manipulate them. This is the reason we are using "addToStockWithId" instead:

<pre>
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ), my_card_id );
</pre>

If afterwards we want to remove this card from the stock:

<pre>
this.playerHand.removeFromStockById( my_card_id );
</pre>

== Complete stock component reference ==

'''create( page, container_div, item_width, item_height ):'''

With create, you create a new stock component.

Parameters:
* page: the container page. Usually: "this".
* container_div: the container "div" element (a void div element in your template, with an id).
* width and height (in pixels) for the stock component.

(See ''Hearts'' example above).

'''count():'''

Return the total number of items in the stock right now.

'''addItemType( type, weight, image, image_position ):'''

Define a new type of item and add it to the stock.

This is mandatory to define a new item type before adding it to the stock. Example: if you want to have a stock contain cubes of 3 different colors, you must add 3 item types (one for each color).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the type to add. You can choose any positive integer. All item types must have distinct IDs.
* weight: weight of items of this type. Weight value is used to sort items of the stock during the display. Note that you can specify the same weight for all items; in this case, they are not sorted and their order might change randomly at any time.
* image: URL of item image. Most of the time, you will use a CSS sprite for stock items, so you have to specify CSS sprite image here.

Be careful: you must specify the image url as this:

<pre>
g_gamethemeurl+'img/yourimage.png'
</pre>

* image_position: if "image" specify the URL of a CSS sprite, you must specify the position of the item image in this CSS sprite. For example, if you have a CSS sprite with 3 cubes with a size of 20x20 pixels each (so your CSS image has for example a size of 20x60 or 60x20), you specify "0" for the first cube image, 1 for the second, 2 for the third.

''Important'': if there is more than one line of items in your CSS sprite, you must specify how many items per line you have in your CSS sprite like this:

<pre>
// Specify that there are 10 image items per row in images used in "myStockObject" control.
this.myStockObject.image_items_per_row = 10;
</pre>

'''addToStock( type, from )'''

Add an item to the stock, with the specified type, but without a unique ID.

To make your life easier, in most cases we suggest you use '''addToStockWithId''' in order to give an ID to the item added. '''addToStock''' is suitable when you are using a stock to control items that are generic game materials that don't need to be addressed individually (example: a bunch of money tokens).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the item type to use (as specified in "addItemType")
* from: OPTIONAL: if you specify an HTML item here, the item will appear on this item and will be slid to its position on the stock item.

Example:
<pre>
// Add a money token to the "player money" stock.
// The money token will appear on "player_id" player panel and will move to its position.
this.playerMoney.addToStock( MONEY_TOKEN, 'overall_player_board_'+player_id );
</pre>

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either '''addToStock''' or '''addToStockWithId''', but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''addToStockWithId( type, id, from )'''

This is the same method as '''addToStock''', except that it also associates an ID with the newly created item.

This is especially useful:

* When you need to know which item(s) have been selected by the user (see '''getSelectedItems''').
* When you need to remove a specific item from the stock with '''removeFromStockById'''.

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either '''addToStock''' or '''addToStockWithId''', but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''removeFromStock( type, to )'''

Remove an item of the specific type from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeFromStockById( id, to )'''

Remove an item with a specific ID from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeAll()'''

Remove all items from the stock.

'''getPresentTypeList()'''

Return an array with all the types of items present in the stock right now.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.removeAll();
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 34 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 89 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );

// The following returns: { 34:1, 65:1, 89:1 }
var item_types = this.myStockControl.getPresentTypeList();
</pre>

'''resetItemsPosition()'''

If you moved an item from the stock control manually (ex: after a drag'n'drop) and want to reset their position to their original ones, you can call this method.

'''item_margin'''

By default, there is a margin of 5px between the items of a stock. You can change the member variable "item_margin" to change this.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.item_margin=5;
</pre>

'''changeItemsWeight( newWeights )'''

With this method you can change dynamically the weight of the item types in a stock control.

Items are immediately re-sorted with the new weight.

Example: with a stock control that contains classic cards, you can order them by value or by color. Using changeItemsWeight you can switch from one sort method to another when a player request this.

newWeights is an associative array: item type id => new weight.

Example:
<pre>
// Item type 1 gets a new weight of 10, 2 a new weight of 20, 3 a new weight of 30.
this.myStockControl.changeItemsWeight( { 1: 10, 2: 20, 3: 30 } );
</pre>

'''setSelectionMode( mode )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection mode:
* 0: no item can be selected by the player.
* 1: a maximum of one item can be selected by the player at the same time.
* 2 (default): several items can be selected by the player at the same time.

'''setSelectionAppearance( type )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection highlighting type:
* 'border': there will be a red border around selected items (this is the default). The attribute 'apparenceBorderWidth' can be used to manage the width of the border (in pixels).
* 'disappear': the selected item will fade out and disappear. This is useful when the selection has the effect of destroying the item.
* 'class': there will be an extra 'stockitem_selecte' css class added to the element when it is selected (and removed when unselected). You can override this class in the css file for your game.

By default this class definition is:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid red ! important;
}
</pre>

If you want to override it for example to change the border color add this in your <game>.css file:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid orange ! important;
}
</pre>

NB: the 'class' highlighting type has not yet been deployed on the studio - 24/02/2014. This warning will be removed after the next upgrade.

'''isSelected( id )'''

Return true/false wether the specified item id has been selected or not.

'''selectItem( id )'''

Select the specified item.

'''unselectItem( id )'''

Unselect the specified item.

'''unselectAll()'''

Unselect all items of the stock.

'''onChangeSelection'''

This callback method is called when the player select/unselect an item of the stock.

You can connect this to one of your method like this:
<pre>
dojo.connect( this.myStockControl, 'onChangeSelection', this, 'onMyMethodToCall' );

(...)

onMyMethodToCall: function( control_name )
{
// This method is called when myStockControl selected items changed
var items = this.myStockControl.getSelectedItems();

// (do something)
},
</pre>

Note: The "control_name" argument is the ID (the "DOM" id) of the "div" container of your stock control. Using "control_name", you can use the same callback method for different Stock control and see which one trigger the method.

'''getSelectedItems()'''

Return the list of selected items, as an array with the following format:
<pre>
[
{ type:1, id: 1001 },
{ type:1, id: 1002 },
{ type:3, id: 1003 }
...
]
</pre>

'''getUnselectedItems()'''

Same as the previous one, but return unselected item instead of seleted ones.

'''getAllItems()'''

Get all items (same format than getSelectedItems and getUnselectedItems).

'''getItemDivId(id)'''

Get div id using stock item id (to manipulate element properties directly).

'''setOverlap( horizontal_percent, vertical_percent )'''

Make items on the stock control "overlap" on each other, to save space.

By default, horizontal_overlap and vertical_overlap are 0.

When horizontal_overlap=20, it means that a stock item must overlap on 20% of the width of the previous item. horizontal_overlap can't be over 100.

vertical_overlap works differently: one items on two are shifted up.

See "Jaipur" game to see an example to use of this function.

'''onItemCreate'''

Using onItemCreate, you can trigger a method each time a new item is added to the Stock, in order you can customize it.

Complete example:
<pre>
// During "setup" phase, we associate our method "setupNewCard" with the creation of a new stock item:
this.myStockItem.onItemCreate = dojo.hitch( this, 'setupNewCard' );

(...)

// And here is our "setupNewCard":
setupNewCard: function( card_div, card_type_id, card_id )
{
// Add a special tooltip on the card:
this.addTooltip( card_div.id, _("Some nice tooltip for this item"), '' );

// Note that "card_type_id" contains the type of the item, so you can do special actions depending on the item type

// Add some custom HTML content INSIDE the Stock item:
dojo.place( this.format_block( 'jstpl_my_card_content', {
....
} ), card_div.id );
}

</pre>

== Tips when adding/removing items to/from Stock components ==

The usual way is the following:

'''Situation A''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is '''not''' coming from another stock: use "addToStockWithId" with a "from" argument set to the element of your interface where card should come from.

'''Situation B''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is coming from another stock:
* on the destination Stock, use "addToStockWithId" with a "from" equals to the HTML id of the corresponding item in the source Stock. For example, If the source stock id is "myHand", then the HTML id of card 48 is "myHand_item_48".
* then, remove the source item with "removeFromStockById".
(note that it's important to do things in this order, because source item must still exists when you use it as the origin of the slide).

'''Situation C''':

When you move a card from a stock item to something that is not a stock item:
* insert the card as a classic HTML template (dojo.place / this.format_block).
* place it on the Stock item with "this.placeOnObject", using Stock item HTML id (see above).
* slide it to its new position with "this.slideToObject"
* remove the card from the Stock item with "removeFromStockById".

Using the methods above, your cards should slide to, from and between your Stock controls smoothly

You can customize this (showing the default value):
<pre>

this.mystock.jstpl_stock_item= "<div id=\"${id}\" class=\"stockitem\" style=\"top:${top}px;left:${left}px;width:${width}px;height:${height}px;z-index:${position};background-image:url('${image}');\"></div>";
</pre>
To produce a different type of stock item

Game database model: dbmodel.sql

2018-10-06T16:56:22Z

Amadannabriona: /* CREATE TABLES */

In this file you specify the database schema of your game.

This file contains SQL queries that will be executed during the creation of your game table.

'''Note:''' you can't change the database schema during the game.

== Create your schema ==

To build this file, we recommend you to build the tables you need with the PhpMyAdmin tool (see BGA user guide), and then to export them and to copy/paste the content inside this file.

'''Note:''' you must not use for a column the same name as for the table, as the framework replay function relies on regexp substitution to save/restore a previous state in a clone table with another name.

== Default tables ==

Important: by default, BGA creates 4 tables for your game: global, stats, gamelog, and player.

You must not modify the schema of global, stats and gamelog tables (and you must not access them directly with SQL queries in your PHP code).

You may add columns to "player" table. This is very practical to add simple values associated with players.

Example:
<pre>
ALTER TABLE `player` ADD `player_reserve_size` SMALLINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL DEFAULT '7';
</pre>

For your information, the useful columns of default "player" table are:
* player_no: the index of player in natural playing order.
* player_id
* player_name: (note: you should better access this date with getActivePlayerName() or loadPlayersBasicInfos() methods)
* player_score: the current score of the player (displayed in the player panel). You must update this field to update player's scores.
* player_score_aux: the secondary score, used as a tie breaker. You must update this field according to tie breaking rules of the game (see also: [[Main_game_logic:_yourgamename.game.php#Manage_player_scores_and_Tie_breaker|Manage_player_scores_and_Tie_breaker]])

== CREATE TABLES ==
you can create tables, using engine InnoDB
<pre>
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `hands`
(
`id` INT(10) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`player_id` TINYINT(1) NOT NULL,
`1` BOOL NOT NULL DEFAULT 1,
`2` BOOL NOT NULL DEFAULT 1,
`3` BOOL NOT NULL DEFAULT 1,
`4` BOOL NOT NULL DEFAULT 1,
`5` BOOL NOT NULL DEFAULT 1,
`6` BOOL NOT NULL DEFAULT 1,
`7` BOOL NOT NULL DEFAULT 1,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;
</pre>

'''Note''': if you put comments, you cannot do it in the same line as code.

Example:

<pre>
`3` BOOL NOT NULL DEFAULT 1, -- activated or not
</pre>

will also comment out `3` BOOL, and that code will not be executed.

== Link ==
You can add your Db inits in function SetupNewGame() from file 'gamename.game.php'

== Errors Log ==
To trace Database creation check the logs that you can access in /admin/studio.

== Post-release database modification ==
If you want to modify your database schema after the first release of your game in production, you should consult the [[Post-release phase#Updating the database schema|related section]]

Deck

2018-09-20T01:00:27Z

Amadannabriona: /* The 5 properties of each card */

"Deck" is one of the most useful component on the PHP side. With "Deck", you can manage the cards in your game on the server side.

Using "deck", you will be able to use the following features without writing a single SQL database request:
* Place cards in a pile, shuffle cards, draw cards one by one or many at a time.
* "Auto-reshuffle" the discard pile into the deck when the deck is empty.
* Move cards between different locations: hands of players, the table, etc.

== Using Deck: Hearts example ==

The Deck component is extensively used in the sample ''Hearts'' card game. You will find in "hearts.game.php" that the object "$this->cards" is used many times.

== Deck overview ==

With Deck component, you manage all cards of your game.

=== The 5 properties of each card ===

Using the Deck component, each card will have 5 properties:
* '''id''': This is the unique ID of each card.
* '''type''' and '''type_arg''': These two values define the type of your card (i.e., what sort of card is this?).
* '''location''' and '''location_arg''': These two values define where the card is at now.

The id, type, and type_arg properties are constants throughout the game. location and location_arg change when your cards move from one place to another in the game area.

'''id''' is the unique ID of each card. Two cards cannot have the same ID. IDs are generated automatically by the Deck component when you create cards during the Setup phase of your game.

'''type''' and '''type_arg''' defines the type of your card.

'''type''' is a short string, and '''type_arg''' is an integer.

You can use these two values as you like to make sure you will be able to identify the different cards in the game. See usage of "type" and "type_arg" below.

Examples of usage of "type" and "type_arg":
* In ''Hearts'', "type" represents the color (suite) of the card (1 to 4) and "type_arg" is the value of the card (1, 2, ... 10, J, Q, K).
* In ''Seasons'', "type" represents the type of the card (e.g., 1 is Amulet of Air, 2 is Amulet of Fire, etc...). type_arg is not used.
* In ''Takenoko'', a Deck component is used for objective cards. "type" is the kind of objective (irrigation/panda/plot) and "type_arg" is the ID of the specific objective to realize (e.g., "green bamboo x4"). Note that a second Deck component is used in ''Takenoko'' to manage the "garden plot" pile.

'''location''' and '''location_arg''' define where a card is at now. '''location''' is a short string, and '''location_arg''' is an integer.

You can use 'location' and 'location_arg' as you like, to move your card within the game area.

There are 3 special 'location' values that Deck manages automatically. You can choose to use these locations or not, depending on your needs:
* 'deck': the 'deck' location is a standard draw deck. Cards are placed face down in a stack and are drawn in sequential order during the game. 'location_arg' is used to specify where the card is located within the stack (the card with the highest location_arg value is the next to be drawn).
* 'hand': the 'hand' location represents cards in a player's hand. 'location_arg' is set to the ID of each player.
* 'discard': the 'discard' location is used for discard piles. Card in 'discard' may be reshuffled into the deck if needed (see "autoreshuffle").

Tips: using the Deck component, you will use generic properties ("location", "type_arg",...) for specific purposes in your game. Thus, during the design step before realizing your game, take a few minutes to write down the exact meaning of each of these generic properties in the context of your game.

=== Create a new Deck component ===

For each Deck component in your game, you need to create a dedicated table in the SQL database. This table has a standard format. In practice, if you just want to have a Deck component named "card", you can copy/paste the following into your "dbmodel.sql" file:

<pre>
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `card` (
`card_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`card_type` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_type_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
`card_location` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_location_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`card_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;
</pre>

Note: the database schema of this table does not have to be exactly what is listed above. You can increase the size of the fields or add more fields. For additional fields
you just have to do manual queries.

Once you have done this (and restarted your game), you can declare the Deck component in your PHP code in your class constructor. For ''Hearts'' for example, I added to the "Hearts()" method:

<pre>
$this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
$this->cards->init( "card" );
</pre>

Note that we specify "card" here: the name of our previously created table. This means you can create several "Deck" components with multiple tables. Most of the time this is not useful; a Deck component should manage all objects of the same kind (i.e., all cards in the game).

Afterwards, we can initialize your "Deck" by creating all the cards of the game. Generally, this is done only once during the game, in the "setupNewGame" method.

The "Deck" component provides a fast way to initialize all your cards at once: createCards. Here is how it is used for "Hearts":
<pre>
// Create cards
$cards = array();
foreach( $this->colors as $color_id => $color ) // spade, heart, diamond, club
{
for( $value=2; $value<=14; $value++ ) // 2, 3, 4, ... K, A
{
$cards[] = array( 'type' => $color_id, 'type_arg' => $value, 'nbr' => 1);
}
}

$this->cards->createCards( $cards, 'deck' );
</pre>

As you can see, "createCards" takes a description of all cards of the game. For each type of card, you have to specify its "type", "type_arg" and the number of card to create. "createCards" create all cards and place them into the "deck" location (as specified in the second argument).

Now, you are ready to use "Deck"!

=== Simple examples using Deck ===

(Most examples are from "Hearts" game)

<pre>
// In "getAllDatas', we need to send to the current player all the cards he has in hand:
$result['hand'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'hand', $player_id );
</pre>

<pre>
// At some time we want to check if all the cards (52) are in player's hands:
if( $this->cards->countCardInLocation( 'hand' ) == 52 )
// do something
</pre>

<pre>
// When a player plays a card in front of him on the table:
$this->cards->moveCard( $card_id, 'cardsontable', $player_id );

// Note the use of the custom location 'cardsontable' here to keep track of cards on the table.
</pre>

<pre>
// This is a new hand: let's gather all cards from everywhere in the deck:
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation( null, "deck" );

// And then shuffle the deck
$this->cards->shuffle( 'deck' );

// And then deal 13 cards to each player
// Deal 13 cards to each players
// Create deck, shuffle it and give 13 initial cards
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach( $players as $player_id => $player )
{
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards( 13, 'deck', $player_id );

// Notify player about his cards
self::notifyPlayer( $player_id, 'newHand', '', array(
'cards' => $cards
) );
}

// Note the use of "notifyPlayer" instead of "notifyAllPlayers": new cards is a private information ;)
</pre>

== Deck component reference ==

=== Initializing Deck component ===

'''init( $table_name )'''

Initialize the Deck component.

Argument:
* table_name: name of the DB table used by this Deck component.

Must be called before any other Deck method.

Usually, init is called in your game constructor.

Example with Hearts:

<pre>
function Hearts( )
{
(...)

$this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
$this->cards->init( "card" );
}
</pre>

'''createCards( $cards, $location='deck', $location_arg=null )'''

Create card items in your deck component. Usually, all card items are created once, during the setup phase of the game.

"cards" describe all cards that need to be created. "cards" is an array with the following format:

<pre>
// Create 1 card of type "1" with type_arg=99,
// and 4 cards of type "2" with type_arg=12,
// and 2 cards of type "3" with type_arg=33

$cards = array(
array( 'type' => 1, 'type_arg' => 99, 'nbr' => 1 ),
array( 'type' => 2, 'type_arg' => 12, 'nbr' => 4 ),
array( 'type' => 3, 'type_arg' => 33, 'nbr' => 2 )
...
);
</pre>

Note: During the "createCards" process, Deck generates unique IDs for all card items.

Note: createCards is optimized to create a lot of cards at once. Do not use it to create cards one by one.

If "location" and "location_arg" arguments are not set, newly created cards are placed in the "deck" location. If "location" (and optionally location_arg) is specified, cards are created for this specific location.

=== Card standard format ===

When Deck component methods are returning one or several cards, the following format is used:

<pre>
array(
'id' => .., // the card ID
'type' => .., // the card type
'type_arg' => .., // the card type argument
'location' => .., // the card location
'location_arg' => .. // the card location argument
);
</pre>

=== Picking cards ===

'''pickCard( $location, $player_id )'''

Pick a card from a "pile" location (ex: "deck") and place it in the "hand" of specified player.

Return the card picked or "null" if there are no more card in given location.

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below).

'''pickCards( $nbr, $location, $player_id )'''

Pick "$nbr" cards from a "pile" location (ex: "deck") and place them in the "hand" of specified player.

Return an array with the cards picked, or "null" if there are no more card in given location.

Note that the number of cards picked can be less than "$nbr" in case there are not enough cards in the pile location.

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below). In case there are not enough cards in the pile, all remaining cards are picked first, then the auto-reshuffle is triggered, then the other cards are picked.

'''pickCardForLocation( $from_location, $to_location, $location_arg=0 )'''

This method is similar to 'pickCard', except that you can pick a card for any sort of location and not only the "hand" location.

* from_location is the "pile" style location from where you are picking a card.
* to_location is the location where you will place the card picked.
* if "location_arg" is specified, the card picked will be set with this "location_arg".

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below).

'''pickCardsForLocation( $nbr, $from_location, $to_location, $location_arg=0, $no_deck_reform=false )'''

This method is similar to 'pickCards', except that you can pick cards for any sort of location and not only the "hand" location.

* from_location is the "pile" style location from where you are picking some cards.
* to_location is the location where you will place the cards picked.
* if "location_arg" is specified, the cards picked will be set with this "location_arg".
* if "no_deck_reform" is set to "true", the auto-reshuffle feature is disabled during this method call.

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below).

=== Moving cards ===

'''moveCard( $card_id, $location, $location_arg=0 )'''

Move the specific card to given location.

* card_id: ID of the card to move.
* location: location where to move the card.
* location_arg: if specified, location_arg where to move the card. If not specified "location_arg" will be set to 0.

'''moveCards( $cards, $location, $location_arg )'''

Move the specific cards to given location.

* cards: an array of IDs of cards to move.
* location: location where to move the cards.
* location_arg: if specified, location_arg where to move the cards. If not specified "location_arg" will be set to 0.

'''insertCard( $card_id, $location, $location_arg )'''

Move a card to a specific "pile" location where card are ordered.

If location_arg place is already taken, increment all cards after location_arg in order to insert new card at this precise location.

(note: insertCardOnExtremePosition method below is more useful in most of the case)

'''insertCardOnExtremePosition( $card_id, $location, $bOnTop )'''

Move a card on top or at bottom of given "pile" type location.

'''moveAllCardsInLocation( $from_location, $to_location, $from_location_arg=null, $to_location_arg=0 )'''

Move all cards in specified "from" location to given location.

* from_location: where to take the cards
* to_location: where to put the cards
* from_location (optional): if specified, only cards with given "location_arg" are moved.
* to_location (optional): if specified, cards moved "location_arg" is set to given value. Otherwise location_arg is set to zero.

Note: if you want to keep "location_arg" untouched, you should use "moveAllCardsInLocationKeepOrder" below.

'''moveAllCardsInLocationKeepOrder( $from_location, $to_location )'''

Move all cards in specified "from" location to given "to" location. This method does not modify the "location_arg" of cards.

'''playCard( $card_id )'''

Move specified card at the top of the "discard" location.

Note: this is an alias for: insertCardOnExtremePosition( $card_id, "discard", true )

=== Get cards informations ===

'''getCard( $card_id )'''

Get specific card information.

Return null if this card is not found.

'''getCards( $cards_array )'''

Get specific cards information.

cards_array is an array of cards ID.

If some cards are not found or if some cards IDs are specified multiple times, the method throws an (unexpected) Exception.

'''getCardsInLocation( $location, $location_arg = null, $order_by = null )'''

Get all cards in specific location, as an array. Return an empty array if the location is empty.

* location (string): the location where to get the cards.
* location_arg (optional): if specified, return only cards with the specified "location_arg".
* order_by (optional): if specified, returned cards are ordered by the given database field. Example: "card_id" or "card_type".

'''countCardInLocation( $location, $location_arg=null )'''

Return the number of cards in specified location.

* location (string): the location where to count the cards.
* location_arg (optional): if specified, count only cards with the specified "location_arg".

'''countCardsInLocations()'''

Return the number of cards in each location of the game.

The method returns an associative array with the format "location" => "number of cards".

Example:
<pre>
array(
'deck' => 12,
'hand' => 21,
'discard' => 54,
'ontable' => 3
);
</pre>

'''countCardsByLocationArgs( $location )'''

Return the number of cards in each "location_arg" for the given location.

The method returns an associative array with the format "location_arg" => "number of cards".

Example: count the number of cards in each player's hand:
<pre>
countCardsByLocationArgs( 'hand' );

// Result:
array(
122345 => 5, // player 122345 has 5 cards in hand
123456 => 4 // and player 123456 has 4 cards in hand
);
</pre>

'''getPlayerHand( $player_id )'''

Get all cards in given player hand.

Note: This is an alias for:
getCardsInLocation( "hand", $player_id )

'''getCardOnTop( $location )'''

Get the card on top of the given ("pile" style) location, or null if the location is empty.

Note that the card pile won't be "auto-reshuffled" if there is no more card available.

'''getCardsOnTop( $nbr, $location )'''

Get the "$nbr" cards on top of the given ("pile" style) location.

The method return an array with at most "$nbr" elements (or a void array if there is no card in this location).

Note that the card pile won't be "auto-reshuffled" if there is not enough cards available.

'''getExtremePosition( $bGetMax ,$location )'''

(rarely used)

Get the position of cards at the top of the given location / at the bottom of the given location.

Of course this method works only on location in "pile" where you are using "location_arg" to specify the position of each card (example: "deck" location).

If bGetMax=true, return the location of the top card of the pile.

If bGetMax=false, return the location of the bottom card of the pile.

'''getCardsOfType( $type, $type_arg=null )'''

Get all cards of a specific type (rarely used).

Return an array of cards, or an empty array if there is no cards of the specified type.

* type: the type of cards
* type_arg: if specified, return only cards with the specified "type_arg".

=== Shuffling ===

'''shuffle( $location )'''

Shuffle all cards in specific location.

Shuffle only works on locations where cards are on a "pile" (ex: "deck").

Please note that all "location_arg" will be reset to reflect the new order of the cards in the pile.

Deck

2018-09-20T00:59:22Z

Amadannabriona: /* The 5 properties of each card */

"Deck" is one of the most useful component on the PHP side. With "Deck", you can manage the cards in your game on the server side.

Using "deck", you will be able to use the following features without writing a single SQL database request:
* Place cards in a pile, shuffle cards, draw cards one by one or many at a time.
* "Auto-reshuffle" the discard pile into the deck when the deck is empty.
* Move cards between different locations: hands of players, the table, etc.

== Using Deck: Hearts example ==

The Deck component is extensively used in the sample ''Hearts'' card game. You will find in "hearts.game.php" that the object "$this->cards" is used many times.

== Deck overview ==

With Deck component, you manage all cards of your game.

=== The 5 properties of each card ===

Using the Deck component, each card will have 5 properties:
* '''id''': This is the unique ID of each card.
* '''type''' and '''type_arg''': These two values define the type of your card (i.e., what sort of card is this?).
* '''location''' and '''location_arg''': These two values define where the card is at now.

The id, type, and type_arg properties are constants throughout the game. location and location_arg change when your cards move from one place to another in the game area.

'''id''' is the unique ID of each card. Two cards cannot have the same ID. IDs are generated automatically by the Deck component when you create cards during the Setup phase of your game.

'''type''' and '''type_arg''' defines the type of your card.

'''type''' is a short string, and '''type_arg''' is a string.

You can use these two values as you like to make sure you will be able to identify the different cards in the game. See usage of "type" and "type_arg" below.

Examples of usage of "type" and "type_arg":
* In ''Hearts'', "type" represents the color (suite) of the card (1 to 4) and "type_arg" is the value of the card (1, 2, ... 10, J, Q, K).
* In ''Seasons'', "type" represents the type of the card (e.g., 1 is Amulet of Air, 2 is Amulet of Fire, etc...). type_arg is not used.
* In ''Takenoko'', a Deck component is used for objective cards. "type" is the kind of objective (irrigation/panda/plot) and "type_arg" is the ID of the specific objective to realize (e.g., "green bamboo x4"). Note that a second Deck component is used in ''Takenoko'' to manage the "garden plot" pile.

'''location''' and '''location_arg''' define where a card is at now. '''location''' is a short string, and '''location_arg''' is an integer.

You can use 'location' and 'location_arg' as you like, to move your card within the game area.

There are 3 special 'location' values that Deck manages automatically. You can choose to use these locations or not, depending on your needs:
* 'deck': the 'deck' location is a standard draw deck. Cards are placed face down in a stack and are drawn in sequential order during the game. 'location_arg' is used to specify where the card is located within the stack (the card with the highest location_arg value is the next to be drawn).
* 'hand': the 'hand' location represents cards in a player's hand. 'location_arg' is set to the ID of each player.
* 'discard': the 'discard' location is used for discard piles. Card in 'discard' may be reshuffled into the deck if needed (see "autoreshuffle").

Tips: using the Deck component, you will use generic properties ("location", "type_arg",...) for specific purposes in your game. Thus, during the design step before realizing your game, take a few minutes to write down the exact meaning of each of these generic properties in the context of your game.

=== Create a new Deck component ===

For each Deck component in your game, you need to create a dedicated table in the SQL database. This table has a standard format. In practice, if you just want to have a Deck component named "card", you can copy/paste the following into your "dbmodel.sql" file:

<pre>
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `card` (
`card_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`card_type` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_type_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
`card_location` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_location_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`card_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;
</pre>

Note: the database schema of this table does not have to be exactly what is listed above. You can increase the size of the fields or add more fields. For additional fields
you just have to do manual queries.

Once you have done this (and restarted your game), you can declare the Deck component in your PHP code in your class constructor. For ''Hearts'' for example, I added to the "Hearts()" method:

<pre>
$this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
$this->cards->init( "card" );
</pre>

Note that we specify "card" here: the name of our previously created table. This means you can create several "Deck" components with multiple tables. Most of the time this is not useful; a Deck component should manage all objects of the same kind (i.e., all cards in the game).

Afterwards, we can initialize your "Deck" by creating all the cards of the game. Generally, this is done only once during the game, in the "setupNewGame" method.

The "Deck" component provides a fast way to initialize all your cards at once: createCards. Here is how it is used for "Hearts":
<pre>
// Create cards
$cards = array();
foreach( $this->colors as $color_id => $color ) // spade, heart, diamond, club
{
for( $value=2; $value<=14; $value++ ) // 2, 3, 4, ... K, A
{
$cards[] = array( 'type' => $color_id, 'type_arg' => $value, 'nbr' => 1);
}
}

$this->cards->createCards( $cards, 'deck' );
</pre>

As you can see, "createCards" takes a description of all cards of the game. For each type of card, you have to specify its "type", "type_arg" and the number of card to create. "createCards" create all cards and place them into the "deck" location (as specified in the second argument).

Now, you are ready to use "Deck"!

=== Simple examples using Deck ===

(Most examples are from "Hearts" game)

<pre>
// In "getAllDatas', we need to send to the current player all the cards he has in hand:
$result['hand'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'hand', $player_id );
</pre>

<pre>
// At some time we want to check if all the cards (52) are in player's hands:
if( $this->cards->countCardInLocation( 'hand' ) == 52 )
// do something
</pre>

<pre>
// When a player plays a card in front of him on the table:
$this->cards->moveCard( $card_id, 'cardsontable', $player_id );

// Note the use of the custom location 'cardsontable' here to keep track of cards on the table.
</pre>

<pre>
// This is a new hand: let's gather all cards from everywhere in the deck:
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation( null, "deck" );

// And then shuffle the deck
$this->cards->shuffle( 'deck' );

// And then deal 13 cards to each player
// Deal 13 cards to each players
// Create deck, shuffle it and give 13 initial cards
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach( $players as $player_id => $player )
{
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards( 13, 'deck', $player_id );

// Notify player about his cards
self::notifyPlayer( $player_id, 'newHand', '', array(
'cards' => $cards
) );
}

// Note the use of "notifyPlayer" instead of "notifyAllPlayers": new cards is a private information ;)
</pre>

== Deck component reference ==

=== Initializing Deck component ===

'''init( $table_name )'''

Initialize the Deck component.

Argument:
* table_name: name of the DB table used by this Deck component.

Must be called before any other Deck method.

Usually, init is called in your game constructor.

Example with Hearts:

<pre>
function Hearts( )
{
(...)

$this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
$this->cards->init( "card" );
}
</pre>

'''createCards( $cards, $location='deck', $location_arg=null )'''

Create card items in your deck component. Usually, all card items are created once, during the setup phase of the game.

"cards" describe all cards that need to be created. "cards" is an array with the following format:

<pre>
// Create 1 card of type "1" with type_arg=99,
// and 4 cards of type "2" with type_arg=12,
// and 2 cards of type "3" with type_arg=33

$cards = array(
array( 'type' => 1, 'type_arg' => 99, 'nbr' => 1 ),
array( 'type' => 2, 'type_arg' => 12, 'nbr' => 4 ),
array( 'type' => 3, 'type_arg' => 33, 'nbr' => 2 )
...
);
</pre>

Note: During the "createCards" process, Deck generates unique IDs for all card items.

Note: createCards is optimized to create a lot of cards at once. Do not use it to create cards one by one.

If "location" and "location_arg" arguments are not set, newly created cards are placed in the "deck" location. If "location" (and optionally location_arg) is specified, cards are created for this specific location.

=== Card standard format ===

When Deck component methods are returning one or several cards, the following format is used:

<pre>
array(
'id' => .., // the card ID
'type' => .., // the card type
'type_arg' => .., // the card type argument
'location' => .., // the card location
'location_arg' => .. // the card location argument
);
</pre>

=== Picking cards ===

'''pickCard( $location, $player_id )'''

Pick a card from a "pile" location (ex: "deck") and place it in the "hand" of specified player.

Return the card picked or "null" if there are no more card in given location.

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below).

'''pickCards( $nbr, $location, $player_id )'''

Pick "$nbr" cards from a "pile" location (ex: "deck") and place them in the "hand" of specified player.

Return an array with the cards picked, or "null" if there are no more card in given location.

Note that the number of cards picked can be less than "$nbr" in case there are not enough cards in the pile location.

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below). In case there are not enough cards in the pile, all remaining cards are picked first, then the auto-reshuffle is triggered, then the other cards are picked.

'''pickCardForLocation( $from_location, $to_location, $location_arg=0 )'''

This method is similar to 'pickCard', except that you can pick a card for any sort of location and not only the "hand" location.

* from_location is the "pile" style location from where you are picking a card.
* to_location is the location where you will place the card picked.
* if "location_arg" is specified, the card picked will be set with this "location_arg".

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below).

'''pickCardsForLocation( $nbr, $from_location, $to_location, $location_arg=0, $no_deck_reform=false )'''

This method is similar to 'pickCards', except that you can pick cards for any sort of location and not only the "hand" location.

* from_location is the "pile" style location from where you are picking some cards.
* to_location is the location where you will place the cards picked.
* if "location_arg" is specified, the cards picked will be set with this "location_arg".
* if "no_deck_reform" is set to "true", the auto-reshuffle feature is disabled during this method call.

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below).

=== Moving cards ===

'''moveCard( $card_id, $location, $location_arg=0 )'''

Move the specific card to given location.

* card_id: ID of the card to move.
* location: location where to move the card.
* location_arg: if specified, location_arg where to move the card. If not specified "location_arg" will be set to 0.

'''moveCards( $cards, $location, $location_arg )'''

Move the specific cards to given location.

* cards: an array of IDs of cards to move.
* location: location where to move the cards.
* location_arg: if specified, location_arg where to move the cards. If not specified "location_arg" will be set to 0.

'''insertCard( $card_id, $location, $location_arg )'''

Move a card to a specific "pile" location where card are ordered.

If location_arg place is already taken, increment all cards after location_arg in order to insert new card at this precise location.

(note: insertCardOnExtremePosition method below is more useful in most of the case)

'''insertCardOnExtremePosition( $card_id, $location, $bOnTop )'''

Move a card on top or at bottom of given "pile" type location.

'''moveAllCardsInLocation( $from_location, $to_location, $from_location_arg=null, $to_location_arg=0 )'''

Move all cards in specified "from" location to given location.

* from_location: where to take the cards
* to_location: where to put the cards
* from_location (optional): if specified, only cards with given "location_arg" are moved.
* to_location (optional): if specified, cards moved "location_arg" is set to given value. Otherwise location_arg is set to zero.

Note: if you want to keep "location_arg" untouched, you should use "moveAllCardsInLocationKeepOrder" below.

'''moveAllCardsInLocationKeepOrder( $from_location, $to_location )'''

Move all cards in specified "from" location to given "to" location. This method does not modify the "location_arg" of cards.

'''playCard( $card_id )'''

Move specified card at the top of the "discard" location.

Note: this is an alias for: insertCardOnExtremePosition( $card_id, "discard", true )

=== Get cards informations ===

'''getCard( $card_id )'''

Get specific card information.

Return null if this card is not found.

'''getCards( $cards_array )'''

Get specific cards information.

cards_array is an array of cards ID.

If some cards are not found or if some cards IDs are specified multiple times, the method throws an (unexpected) Exception.

'''getCardsInLocation( $location, $location_arg = null, $order_by = null )'''

Get all cards in specific location, as an array. Return an empty array if the location is empty.

* location (string): the location where to get the cards.
* location_arg (optional): if specified, return only cards with the specified "location_arg".
* order_by (optional): if specified, returned cards are ordered by the given database field. Example: "card_id" or "card_type".

'''countCardInLocation( $location, $location_arg=null )'''

Return the number of cards in specified location.

* location (string): the location where to count the cards.
* location_arg (optional): if specified, count only cards with the specified "location_arg".

'''countCardsInLocations()'''

Return the number of cards in each location of the game.

The method returns an associative array with the format "location" => "number of cards".

Example:
<pre>
array(
'deck' => 12,
'hand' => 21,
'discard' => 54,
'ontable' => 3
);
</pre>

'''countCardsByLocationArgs( $location )'''

Return the number of cards in each "location_arg" for the given location.

The method returns an associative array with the format "location_arg" => "number of cards".

Example: count the number of cards in each player's hand:
<pre>
countCardsByLocationArgs( 'hand' );

// Result:
array(
122345 => 5, // player 122345 has 5 cards in hand
123456 => 4 // and player 123456 has 4 cards in hand
);
</pre>

'''getPlayerHand( $player_id )'''

Get all cards in given player hand.

Note: This is an alias for:
getCardsInLocation( "hand", $player_id )

'''getCardOnTop( $location )'''

Get the card on top of the given ("pile" style) location, or null if the location is empty.

Note that the card pile won't be "auto-reshuffled" if there is no more card available.

'''getCardsOnTop( $nbr, $location )'''

Get the "$nbr" cards on top of the given ("pile" style) location.

The method return an array with at most "$nbr" elements (or a void array if there is no card in this location).

Note that the card pile won't be "auto-reshuffled" if there is not enough cards available.

'''getExtremePosition( $bGetMax ,$location )'''

(rarely used)

Get the position of cards at the top of the given location / at the bottom of the given location.

Of course this method works only on location in "pile" where you are using "location_arg" to specify the position of each card (example: "deck" location).

If bGetMax=true, return the location of the top card of the pile.

If bGetMax=false, return the location of the bottom card of the pile.

'''getCardsOfType( $type, $type_arg=null )'''

Get all cards of a specific type (rarely used).

Return an array of cards, or an empty array if there is no cards of the specified type.

* type: the type of cards
* type_arg: if specified, return only cards with the specified "type_arg".

=== Shuffling ===

'''shuffle( $location )'''

Shuffle all cards in specific location.

Shuffle only works on locations where cards are on a "pile" (ex: "deck").

Please note that all "location_arg" will be reset to reflect the new order of the cards in the pile.

Stock

2018-09-16T23:18:36Z

Amadannabriona: /* Complete stock component reference */

"Stock" is a javascript component that you can use in your game interface to display a set of elements of the same size that need to be arranged in one or multiple lines.

Stock is very flexible and is the most used component in BGA games.

Examples of stock use cases:

* Display a set of cards, typically hands (examples: ''Hearts'', ''Seasons'', ''The Boss'', ''Race for the Galaxy'').
* Display items in player panels (examples: ''Takenoko'', ''Amyitis'', ...)
* ... Many other situations. For example, black dice and cubes on cards in ''Troyes'' are displayed with stock components.

Using stock:
* Your items are arranged nicely and sorted by type.
* When adding or removing items to the set, all items slide smoothly to their new position in the set.
* Selecting and unselecting items is a built-in functionality.
* You don't have to care about inserting/removing HTML code: the entire life cycle of the stock is managed by the component.

== Using stock: a simple example ==

Let's have a look on how the stock is used in the game ''Hearts'' to display a hand of standard cards.

First, don't forget to add "ebg/stock" as a dependency in your js file:

<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <==== HERE
],
</pre>

The stock is initialized in the Javascript "setup" method like this:

<pre>
// Player hand
this.playerHand = new ebg.stock();
this.playerHand.create( this, $('myhand'), this.cardwidth, this.cardheight );
</pre>

Explanations:
* We create a new stock object for the player hand.
* As parameters of the "create" method, we provide the width/height of an item (=a card), and the container div "myhand" - which is a simple void "div" element defined in our HTML template (.tpl).

Then, we must tell the stock what items it is going to display during its life: the 52 cards of a standard card game. Of course, we did not create 52 different images, but a "CSS sprite" image named "cards.jpg" with all the cards arranged in 4 rows and 13 columns.

Here's how we tell stock what are the items to display:

<pre>
// Specify that there are 13 images per row in the CSS sprite image
this.playerHand.image_items_per_row = 13;

// Create card types:
for( var color=1;color<=4;color++ )
{
for( var value=2;value<=14;value++ )
{
// Build card type id
var card_type_id = this.getCardUniqueId( color, value );
this.playerHand.addItemType( card_type_id, card_type_id, g_gamethemeurl+'img/cards.jpg', card_type_id );
}
}
</pre>

Explanation:
* First, we tell the stock component that our CSS sprite contains 13 items per row. This way, it can find the correct image for each card type id.
* Then for the 4x13 cards, we call "addItemType" method that creates the type. The arguments are the type id, the weight of the card (for sorting purpose), the URL of our CSS sprite, and the position of our card image in the CSS sprite.

Note: In this specific example we need to generate a unique ID for each type of card based on its color and value. This is the only purpose of "getCardUniqueId".

From now on, if we need to add a card - for example, the 5 of Hearts - to a player's hand, we can do this:

<pre>
this.playerHand.addToStock( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ) );
</pre>

In reality, cards have some IDs, which are useful to manipulate them. This is the reason we are using "addToStockWithId" instead:

<pre>
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ), my_card_id );
</pre>

If afterwards we want to remove this card from the stock:

<pre>
this.playerHand.removeFromStockById( my_card_id );
</pre>

== Complete stock component reference ==

'''create( page, container_div, item_width, item_height ):'''

With create, you create a new stock component.

Parameters:
* page: the container page. Usually: "this".
* container_div: the container "div" element (a void div element in your template, with an id).
* width and height (in pixels) for the stock component.

(See ''Hearts'' example above).

'''count():'''

Return the total number of items in the stock right now.

'''addItemType( type, weight, image, image_position ):'''

Define a new type of item and add it to the stock.

This is mandatory to define a new item type before adding it to the stock. Example: if you want to have a stock contain cubes of 3 different colors, you must add 3 item types (one for each color).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the type to add. You can choose any positive integer. All item types must have distinct IDs.
* weight: weight of items of this type. Weight value is used to sort items of the stock during the display. Note that you can specify the same weight for all items; in this case, they are not sorted and their order might change randomly at any time.
* image: URL of item image. Most of the time, you will use a CSS sprite for stock items, so you have to specify CSS sprite image here.

Be careful: you must specify the image url as this:

<pre>
g_gamethemeurl+'img/yourimage.png'
</pre>

* image_position: if "image" specify the URL of a CSS sprite, you must specify the position of the item image in this CSS sprite. For example, if you have a CSS sprite with 3 cubes with a size of 20x20 pixels each (so your CSS image has for example a size of 20x60 or 60x20), you specify "0" for the first cube image, 1 for the second, 2 for the third.

''Important'': if there is more than one line of items in your CSS sprite, you must specify how many items per line you have in your CSS sprite like this:

<pre>
// Specify that there are 10 image items per row in images used in "myStockObject" control.
this.myStockObject.image_items_per_row = 10;
</pre>

'''addToStock( type, from )'''

Add an item to the stock, with the specified type, but without a unique ID.

To make your life easier, in most cases we suggest you use '''addToStockWithId''' in order to give an ID to the item added. '''addToStock''' is suitable when you are using a stock to control items that are generic game materials that don't need to be addressed individually (example: a bunch of money tokens).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the item type to use (as specified in "addItemType")
* from: OPTIONAL: if you specify an HTML item here, the item will appear on this item and will be slid to its position on the stock item.

Example:
<pre>
// Add a money token to the "player money" stock.
// The money token will appear on "player_id" player panel and will move to its position.
this.playerMoney.addToStock( MONEY_TOKEN, 'overall_player_board_'+player_id );
</pre>

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either '''addToStock''' or '''addToStockWithId''', but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''addToStockWithId( type, id, from )'''

This is the same method as '''addToStock''', except that it also associates an ID with the newly created item.

This is especially useful:

* When you need to know which item(s) have been selected by the user (see '''getSelectedItems''').
* When you need to remove a specific item from the stock with '''removeFromStockById'''.

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either '''addToStock''' or '''addToStockWithId''', but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''removeFromStock( type, to )'''

Remove an item of the specific type from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeFromStockById( id, to )'''

Remove an item with a specific ID from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeAll()'''

Remove all items from the stock.

'''getPresentTypeList()'''

Return an array with all the types of items present in the stock right now.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.removeAll();
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 34 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 89 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );

// The following returns: { 34:1, 65:1, 89:1 }
var item_types = this.myStockControl.getPresentTypeList();
</pre>

'''resetItemsPosition()'''

If you moved an item from the stock control manually (ex: after a drag'n'drop) and want to reset their position to their original ones, you can call this method.

'''item_margin'''

By default, there is a margin of 5px between the items of a stock. You can change the member variable "item_margin" to change this.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.item_margin=5;
</pre>

'''changeItemsWeight( newWeights )'''

With this method you can change dynamically the weight of the item types in a stock control.

Items are immediately re-sorted with the new weight.

Example: with a stock control that contains classic cards, you can order them by value or by color. Using changeItemsWeight you can switch from one sort method to another when a player request this.

newWeights is an associative array: item type id => new weight.

Example:
<pre>
// Item type 1 gets a new weight of 10, 2 a new weight of 20, 3 a new weight of 30.
this.myStockControl.changeItemsWeight( { 1: 10, 2: 20, 3: 30 } );
</pre>

'''setSelectionMode( mode )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection mode:
* 0: no item can be selected by the player.
* 1: a maximum of one item can be selected by the player at the same time.
* 2 (default): several items can be selected by the player at the same time.

'''setSelectionAppearance( type )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection highlighting type:
* 'border': there will be a red border around selected items (this is the default). The attribute 'apparenceBorderWidth' can be used to manage the width of the border (in pixels).
* 'disappear': the selected item will fade out and disappear. This is useful when the selection has the effect of destroying the item.
* 'class': there will be an extra 'stockitem_selecte' css class added to the element when it is selected (and removed when unselected). You can override this class in the css file for your game.

By default this class definition is:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid red ! important;
}
</pre>

If you want to override it for example to change the border color add this in your <game>.css file:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid orange ! important;
}
</pre>

NB: the 'class' highlighting type has not yet been deployed on the studio - 24/02/2014. This warning will be removed after the next upgrade.

'''isSelected( id )'''

Return true/false wether the specified item id has been selected or not.

'''selectItem( id )'''

Select the specified item.

'''unselectItem( id )'''

Unselect the specified item.

'''unselectAll()'''

Unselect all items of the stock.

'''onChangeSelection'''

This callback method is called when the player select/unselect an item of the stock.

You can connect this to one of your method like this:
<pre>
dojo.connect( this.myStockControl, 'onChangeSelection', this, 'onMyMethodToCall' );

(...)

onMyMethodToCall: function( control_name )
{
// This method is called when myStockControl selected items changed
var items = this.myStockControl.getSelectedItems();

// (do something)
},
</pre>

Note: The "control_name" argument is the ID (the "DOM" id) of the "div" container of your stock control. Using "control_name", you can use the same callback method for different Stock control and see which one trigger the method.

'''getSelectedItems()'''

Return the list of selected items, as an array with the following format:
<pre>
[
{ type:1, id: 1001 },
{ type:1, id: 1002 },
{ type:3, id: 1003 }
...
]
</pre>

'''getUnselectedItems()'''

Same as the previous one, but return unselected item instead of seleted ones.

'''getAllItems()'''

Get all items (same format than getSelectedItems and getUnselectedItems).

'''getItemDivId(id)'''

Get div id using stock item id (to manipulate element properties directly).

'''setOverlap( horizontal_percent, vertical_percent )'''

Make items on the stock control "overlap" on each other, to save space.

By default, horizontal_overlap and vertical_overlap are 0.

When horizontal_overlap=20, it means that a stock item must overlap on 20% of the width of the previous item. horizontal_overlap can't be over 100.

vertical_overlap works differently: one items on two are shifted up.

See "Jaipur" game to see an example to use of this function.

'''onItemCreate'''

Using onItemCreate, you can trigger a method each time a new item is added to the Stock, in order you can customize it.

Complete example:
<pre>
// During "setup" phase, we associate our method "setupNewCard" with the creation of a new stock item:
this.myStockItem.onItemCreate = dojo.hitch( this, 'setupNewCard' );

(...)

// And here is our "setupNewCard":
setupNewCard: function( card_div, card_type_id, card_id )
{
// Add a special tooltip on the card:
this.addTooltip( card_div.id, _("Some nice tooltip for this item"), '' );

// Note that "card_type_id" contains the type of the item, so you can do special actions depending on the item type

// Add some custom HTML content INSIDE the Stock item:
dojo.place( this.format_block( 'jstpl_my_card_content', {
....
} ), card_div.id );
}

</pre>

== Tips when adding/removing items to/from Stock components ==

The usual way is the following:

'''Situation A''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is '''not''' coming from another stock: use "addToStockWithId" with a "from" argument set to the element of your interface where card should come from.

'''Situation B''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is coming from another stock:
* on the destination Stock, use "addToStockWithId" with a "from" equals to the HTML id of the corresponding item in the source Stock. For example, If the source stock id is "myHand", then the HTML id of card 48 is "myHand_item_48".
* then, remove the source item with "removeFromStockById".
(note that it's important to do things in this order, because source item must still exists when you use it as the origin of the slide).

'''Situation C''':

When you move a card from a stock item to something that is not a stock item:
* insert the card as a classic HTML template (dojo.place / this.format_block).
* place it on the Stock item with "this.placeOnObject", using Stock item HTML id (see above).
* slide it to its new position with "this.slideToObject"
* remove the card from the Stock item with "removeFromStockById".

Using the methods above, your cards should slide to, from and between your Stock controls smoothly

You can customize this (showing the default value):
<pre>

this.mystock.jstpl_stock_item= "<div id=\"${id}\" class=\"stockitem\" style=\"top:${top}px;left:${left}px;width:${width}px;height:${height}px;z-index:${position};background-image:url('${image}');\"></div>";
</pre>
To produce a different type of stock item

Stock

2018-09-16T23:11:21Z

Amadannabriona: /* Using stock: a simple example */

"Stock" is a javascript component that you can use in your game interface to display a set of elements of the same size that need to be arranged in one or multiple lines.

Stock is very flexible and is the most used component in BGA games.

Examples of stock use cases:

* Display a set of cards, typically hands (examples: ''Hearts'', ''Seasons'', ''The Boss'', ''Race for the Galaxy'').
* Display items in player panels (examples: ''Takenoko'', ''Amyitis'', ...)
* ... Many other situations. For example, black dice and cubes on cards in ''Troyes'' are displayed with stock components.

Using stock:
* Your items are arranged nicely and sorted by type.
* When adding or removing items to the set, all items slide smoothly to their new position in the set.
* Selecting and unselecting items is a built-in functionality.
* You don't have to care about inserting/removing HTML code: the entire life cycle of the stock is managed by the component.

== Using stock: a simple example ==

Let's have a look on how the stock is used in the game ''Hearts'' to display a hand of standard cards.

First, don't forget to add "ebg/stock" as a dependency in your js file:

<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <==== HERE
],
</pre>

The stock is initialized in the Javascript "setup" method like this:

<pre>
// Player hand
this.playerHand = new ebg.stock();
this.playerHand.create( this, $('myhand'), this.cardwidth, this.cardheight );
</pre>

Explanations:
* We create a new stock object for the player hand.
* As parameters of the "create" method, we provide the width/height of an item (=a card), and the container div "myhand" - which is a simple void "div" element defined in our HTML template (.tpl).

Then, we must tell the stock what items it is going to display during its life: the 52 cards of a standard card game. Of course, we did not create 52 different images, but a "CSS sprite" image named "cards.jpg" with all the cards arranged in 4 rows and 13 columns.

Here's how we tell stock what are the items to display:

<pre>
// Specify that there are 13 images per row in the CSS sprite image
this.playerHand.image_items_per_row = 13;

// Create card types:
for( var color=1;color<=4;color++ )
{
for( var value=2;value<=14;value++ )
{
// Build card type id
var card_type_id = this.getCardUniqueId( color, value );
this.playerHand.addItemType( card_type_id, card_type_id, g_gamethemeurl+'img/cards.jpg', card_type_id );
}
}
</pre>

Explanation:
* First, we tell the stock component that our CSS sprite contains 13 items per row. This way, it can find the correct image for each card type id.
* Then for the 4x13 cards, we call "addItemType" method that creates the type. The arguments are the type id, the weight of the card (for sorting purpose), the URL of our CSS sprite, and the position of our card image in the CSS sprite.

Note: In this specific example we need to generate a unique ID for each type of card based on its color and value. This is the only purpose of "getCardUniqueId".

From now on, if we need to add a card - for example, the 5 of Hearts - to a player's hand, we can do this:

<pre>
this.playerHand.addToStock( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ) );
</pre>

In reality, cards have some IDs, which are useful to manipulate them. This is the reason we are using "addToStockWithId" instead:

<pre>
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ), my_card_id );
</pre>

If afterwards we want to remove this card from the stock:

<pre>
this.playerHand.removeFromStockById( my_card_id );
</pre>

== Complete stock component reference ==

'''create( page, container_div, item_width, item_height ):'''

With create, you create a new stock component.
Parameters:
* page: the container page. Usually: "this".
* container_div: the container "div" element (a void div element in your template, with an id).
* a stock item width and height, in pixels.

(See "Hearts" example above).

'''count():'''

Return the total number of items in the stock right now.

'''addItemType( type, weight, image, image_position ):'''

Define a new type of item to the stock.

This is mandatory to define a new item type before adding it to the stock. Example: if you want to have a stock control that can contains cubes of 3 different colors, you must add 3 item types (one for each color).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the type to add. You can choose any positive integer. All item types must have distinct IDs.
* weight: weight of items of this type. Weight value is used to sort items of the stock during the display. Note that you can specify the same weight for all items (in this case they are not sorted and their order might change randomly at any time).
* image: URL of item image. Most of the time, you will use a CSS sprite for stock item, so you have to specify CSS sprite image here.

Be careful: you must specify the image url as this:
<pre>
g_gamethemeurl+'img/yourimage.png'
</pre>
* image_position: if "image" specify the URL of a CSS sprite, you must specify the position of the item image in this CSS sprite. For example, if you have a CSS sprite with 3 cubes with a size of 20x20 pixels each (so your CSS image has for example a size of 20x60 or 60x20), you specify "0" for the first cube image, 1 for the second, 2 for the third.
Important: there are more than one line of items in your CSS sprite, you must specify how many items per line you have in your CSS sprite like this:
<pre>
// Specify that there is 10 image items per row in images used in "myStockObject" control.
this.myStockObject.image_items_per_row = 10;
</pre>

'''addToStock( type, from )'''

Add an item to the stock, with the specified type.

To make your life easy, in most of the case we suggest you to use "addToStockWithId" in order to give an ID to the item added. "addToStock" is perfect when you are using a stock controls with items that are generic game material that does not need to be addressed individually (ex: a bunch of money tokens).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the item type to use (as specified in "addItemType")
* from: OPTIONNAL: if you specify a HTML item here, the item will appear on this item and will be slided to its position on the stock item.

Example:
<pre>
// Add a money token to the "player money" stock.
// The money token will appear on "player_id" player panel and will move to its position.
this.playerMoney.addToStock( MONEY_TOKEN, 'overall_player_board_'+player_id );
</pre>

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either addToStock or addToStockWithId, but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''addToStockWithId( type, id, from )'''

This is exactly the same method than "addToStock", except that you associate an ID to the newly created item.

This is especially useful:
* When you need to know which item(s) has been selected by the user (see "getSelectedItems").
* When you need to remove a specific item from the stock with "removeFromStockById"

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either addToStock or addToStockWithId, but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''removeFromStock( type, to )'''

Remove an item of the specific type from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeFromStockById( id, to )'''

Remove an item with a specific ID from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeAll()'''

Remove all items from the stock.

'''getPresentTypeList()'''

Return an array with all the types of items present in the stock right now.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.removeAll();
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 34 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 89 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );

// The following returns: { 34:1, 65:1, 89:1 }
var item_types = this.myStockControl.getPresentTypeList();
</pre>

'''resetItemsPosition()'''

If you moved an item from the stock control manually (ex: after a drag'n'drop) and want to reset their position to their original ones, you can call this method.

'''item_margin'''

By default, there is a margin of 5px between the items of a stock. You can change the member variable "item_margin" to change this.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.item_margin=5;
</pre>

'''changeItemsWeight( newWeights )'''

With this method you can change dynamically the weight of the item types in a stock control.

Items are immediately re-sorted with the new weight.

Example: with a stock control that contains classic cards, you can order them by value or by color. Using changeItemsWeight you can switch from one sort method to another when a player request this.

newWeights is an associative array: item type id => new weight.

Example:
<pre>
// Item type 1 gets a new weight of 10, 2 a new weight of 20, 3 a new weight of 30.
this.myStockControl.changeItemsWeight( { 1: 10, 2: 20, 3: 30 } );
</pre>

'''setSelectionMode( mode )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection mode:
* 0: no item can be selected by the player.
* 1: a maximum of one item can be selected by the player at the same time.
* 2 (default): several items can be selected by the player at the same time.

'''setSelectionAppearance( type )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection highlighting type:
* 'border': there will be a red border around selected items (this is the default). The attribute 'apparenceBorderWidth' can be used to manage the width of the border (in pixels).
* 'disappear': the selected item will fade out and disappear. This is useful when the selection has the effect of destroying the item.
* 'class': there will be an extra 'stockitem_selecte' css class added to the element when it is selected (and removed when unselected). You can override this class in the css file for your game.

By default this class definition is:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid red ! important;
}
</pre>

If you want to override it for example to change the border color add this in your <game>.css file:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid orange ! important;
}
</pre>

NB: the 'class' highlighting type has not yet been deployed on the studio - 24/02/2014. This warning will be removed after the next upgrade.

'''isSelected( id )'''

Return true/false wether the specified item id has been selected or not.

'''selectItem( id )'''

Select the specified item.

'''unselectItem( id )'''

Unselect the specified item.

'''unselectAll()'''

Unselect all items of the stock.

'''onChangeSelection'''

This callback method is called when the player select/unselect an item of the stock.

You can connect this to one of your method like this:
<pre>
dojo.connect( this.myStockControl, 'onChangeSelection', this, 'onMyMethodToCall' );

(...)

onMyMethodToCall: function( control_name )
{
// This method is called when myStockControl selected items changed
var items = this.myStockControl.getSelectedItems();

// (do something)
},
</pre>

Note: The "control_name" argument is the ID (the "DOM" id) of the "div" container of your stock control. Using "control_name", you can use the same callback method for different Stock control and see which one trigger the method.

'''getSelectedItems()'''

Return the list of selected items, as an array with the following format:
<pre>
[
{ type:1, id: 1001 },
{ type:1, id: 1002 },
{ type:3, id: 1003 }
...
]
</pre>

'''getUnselectedItems()'''

Same as the previous one, but return unselected item instead of seleted ones.

'''getAllItems()'''

Get all items (same format than getSelectedItems and getUnselectedItems).

'''getItemDivId(id)'''

Get div id using stock item id (to manipulate element properties directly).

'''setOverlap( horizontal_percent, vertical_percent )'''

Make items on the stock control "overlap" on each other, to save space.

By default, horizontal_overlap and vertical_overlap are 0.

When horizontal_overlap=20, it means that a stock item must overlap on 20% of the width of the previous item. horizontal_overlap can't be over 100.

vertical_overlap works differently: one items on two are shifted up.

See "Jaipur" game to see an example to use of this function.

'''onItemCreate'''

Using onItemCreate, you can trigger a method each time a new item is added to the Stock, in order you can customize it.

Complete example:
<pre>
// During "setup" phase, we associate our method "setupNewCard" with the creation of a new stock item:
this.myStockItem.onItemCreate = dojo.hitch( this, 'setupNewCard' );

(...)

// And here is our "setupNewCard":
setupNewCard: function( card_div, card_type_id, card_id )
{
// Add a special tooltip on the card:
this.addTooltip( card_div.id, _("Some nice tooltip for this item"), '' );

// Note that "card_type_id" contains the type of the item, so you can do special actions depending on the item type

// Add some custom HTML content INSIDE the Stock item:
dojo.place( this.format_block( 'jstpl_my_card_content', {
....
} ), card_div.id );
}

</pre>

== Tips when adding/removing items to/from Stock components ==

The usual way is the following:

'''Situation A''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is '''not''' coming from another stock: use "addToStockWithId" with a "from" argument set to the element of your interface where card should come from.

'''Situation B''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is coming from another stock:
* on the destination Stock, use "addToStockWithId" with a "from" equals to the HTML id of the corresponding item in the source Stock. For example, If the source stock id is "myHand", then the HTML id of card 48 is "myHand_item_48".
* then, remove the source item with "removeFromStockById".
(note that it's important to do things in this order, because source item must still exists when you use it as the origin of the slide).

'''Situation C''':

When you move a card from a stock item to something that is not a stock item:
* insert the card as a classic HTML template (dojo.place / this.format_block).
* place it on the Stock item with "this.placeOnObject", using Stock item HTML id (see above).
* slide it to its new position with "this.slideToObject"
* remove the card from the Stock item with "removeFromStockById".

Using the methods above, your cards should slide to, from and between your Stock controls smoothly

You can customize this (showing the default value):
<pre>

this.mystock.jstpl_stock_item= "<div id=\"${id}\" class=\"stockitem\" style=\"top:${top}px;left:${left}px;width:${width}px;height:${height}px;z-index:${position};background-image:url('${image}');\"></div>";
</pre>
To produce a different type of stock item

Stock

2018-09-16T23:10:59Z

Amadannabriona: /* Using stock: a simple example */

"Stock" is a javascript component that you can use in your game interface to display a set of elements of the same size that need to be arranged in one or multiple lines.

Stock is very flexible and is the most used component in BGA games.

Examples of stock use cases:

* Display a set of cards, typically hands (examples: ''Hearts'', ''Seasons'', ''The Boss'', ''Race for the Galaxy'').
* Display items in player panels (examples: ''Takenoko'', ''Amyitis'', ...)
* ... Many other situations. For example, black dice and cubes on cards in ''Troyes'' are displayed with stock components.

Using stock:
* Your items are arranged nicely and sorted by type.
* When adding or removing items to the set, all items slide smoothly to their new position in the set.
* Selecting and unselecting items is a built-in functionality.
* You don't have to care about inserting/removing HTML code: the entire life cycle of the stock is managed by the component.

== Using stock: a simple example ==

Let's have a look on how the stock is used in the game ''Hearts'' to display a hand of standard cards.

First, don't forget to add "ebg/stock" as a dependency in your js file:

<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <==== HERE
],
</pre>

The stock is initialized in the Javascript "setup" method like this:

<pre>
// Player hand
this.playerHand = new ebg.stock();
this.playerHand.create( this, $('myhand'), this.cardwidth, this.cardheight );
</pre>

Explanations:
* We create a new stock object for the player hand.
* As parameters of the "create" method, we provide the width/height of an item (=a card), and the container div "myhand" - which is a simple void "div" element defined in our HTML template (.tpl).

Then, we must tell the stock what items it is going to display during its life: the 52 cards of a standard card game. Of course, we did not create 52 different images, but a "CSS sprite" image named "cards.jpg" with all the cards arranged in 4 rows and 13 columns.

Here's how we tell stock what are the items to display:

<pre>
// Specify that there are 13 images per row in the CSS sprite image
this.playerHand.image_items_per_row = 13;

// Create card types:
for( var color=1;color<=4;color++ )
{
for( var value=2;value<=14;value++ )
{
// Build card type id
var card_type_id = this.getCardUniqueId( color, value );
this.playerHand.addItemType( card_type_id, card_type_id, g_gamethemeurl+'img/cards.jpg', card_type_id );
}
}
</pre>

Explanation:
* First, we tell the stock component that our CSS sprite contains 13 items per row. This way, it can find the correct image for each card type id.
* Then for the 4x13 cards, we call "addItemType" method that creates the type. The arguments are the type id, the weight of the card (for sorting purpose), the URL of our CSS sprite, and the position of our card image in the CSS sprite.

Note: In this specific example we need to generate a unique ID for each type of card based on its color and value. This is the only purpose of "getCardUniqueId".

From now on, if we need to add a card - for example, the 5 of Hearts - to a player's hand, we can do this:

<pre>
this.playerHand.addToStock( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ) );
</pre>

In reality, cards have some IDs, which are useful to manipulate them. This is the reason we are using "addToStockWithId" instead:

this.playerHand.addToStockWithId( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ), my_card_id );

If afterwards we want to remove this card from the stock:

this.playerHand.removeFromStockById( my_card_id );

== Complete stock component reference ==

'''create( page, container_div, item_width, item_height ):'''

With create, you create a new stock component.
Parameters:
* page: the container page. Usually: "this".
* container_div: the container "div" element (a void div element in your template, with an id).
* a stock item width and height, in pixels.

(See "Hearts" example above).

'''count():'''

Return the total number of items in the stock right now.

'''addItemType( type, weight, image, image_position ):'''

Define a new type of item to the stock.

This is mandatory to define a new item type before adding it to the stock. Example: if you want to have a stock control that can contains cubes of 3 different colors, you must add 3 item types (one for each color).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the type to add. You can choose any positive integer. All item types must have distinct IDs.
* weight: weight of items of this type. Weight value is used to sort items of the stock during the display. Note that you can specify the same weight for all items (in this case they are not sorted and their order might change randomly at any time).
* image: URL of item image. Most of the time, you will use a CSS sprite for stock item, so you have to specify CSS sprite image here.

Be careful: you must specify the image url as this:
<pre>
g_gamethemeurl+'img/yourimage.png'
</pre>
* image_position: if "image" specify the URL of a CSS sprite, you must specify the position of the item image in this CSS sprite. For example, if you have a CSS sprite with 3 cubes with a size of 20x20 pixels each (so your CSS image has for example a size of 20x60 or 60x20), you specify "0" for the first cube image, 1 for the second, 2 for the third.
Important: there are more than one line of items in your CSS sprite, you must specify how many items per line you have in your CSS sprite like this:
<pre>
// Specify that there is 10 image items per row in images used in "myStockObject" control.
this.myStockObject.image_items_per_row = 10;
</pre>

'''addToStock( type, from )'''

Add an item to the stock, with the specified type.

To make your life easy, in most of the case we suggest you to use "addToStockWithId" in order to give an ID to the item added. "addToStock" is perfect when you are using a stock controls with items that are generic game material that does not need to be addressed individually (ex: a bunch of money tokens).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the item type to use (as specified in "addItemType")
* from: OPTIONNAL: if you specify a HTML item here, the item will appear on this item and will be slided to its position on the stock item.

Example:
<pre>
// Add a money token to the "player money" stock.
// The money token will appear on "player_id" player panel and will move to its position.
this.playerMoney.addToStock( MONEY_TOKEN, 'overall_player_board_'+player_id );
</pre>

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either addToStock or addToStockWithId, but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''addToStockWithId( type, id, from )'''

This is exactly the same method than "addToStock", except that you associate an ID to the newly created item.

This is especially useful:
* When you need to know which item(s) has been selected by the user (see "getSelectedItems").
* When you need to remove a specific item from the stock with "removeFromStockById"

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either addToStock or addToStockWithId, but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''removeFromStock( type, to )'''

Remove an item of the specific type from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeFromStockById( id, to )'''

Remove an item with a specific ID from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeAll()'''

Remove all items from the stock.

'''getPresentTypeList()'''

Return an array with all the types of items present in the stock right now.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.removeAll();
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 34 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 89 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );

// The following returns: { 34:1, 65:1, 89:1 }
var item_types = this.myStockControl.getPresentTypeList();
</pre>

'''resetItemsPosition()'''

If you moved an item from the stock control manually (ex: after a drag'n'drop) and want to reset their position to their original ones, you can call this method.

'''item_margin'''

By default, there is a margin of 5px between the items of a stock. You can change the member variable "item_margin" to change this.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.item_margin=5;
</pre>

'''changeItemsWeight( newWeights )'''

With this method you can change dynamically the weight of the item types in a stock control.

Items are immediately re-sorted with the new weight.

Example: with a stock control that contains classic cards, you can order them by value or by color. Using changeItemsWeight you can switch from one sort method to another when a player request this.

newWeights is an associative array: item type id => new weight.

Example:
<pre>
// Item type 1 gets a new weight of 10, 2 a new weight of 20, 3 a new weight of 30.
this.myStockControl.changeItemsWeight( { 1: 10, 2: 20, 3: 30 } );
</pre>

'''setSelectionMode( mode )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection mode:
* 0: no item can be selected by the player.
* 1: a maximum of one item can be selected by the player at the same time.
* 2 (default): several items can be selected by the player at the same time.

'''setSelectionAppearance( type )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection highlighting type:
* 'border': there will be a red border around selected items (this is the default). The attribute 'apparenceBorderWidth' can be used to manage the width of the border (in pixels).
* 'disappear': the selected item will fade out and disappear. This is useful when the selection has the effect of destroying the item.
* 'class': there will be an extra 'stockitem_selecte' css class added to the element when it is selected (and removed when unselected). You can override this class in the css file for your game.

By default this class definition is:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid red ! important;
}
</pre>

If you want to override it for example to change the border color add this in your <game>.css file:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid orange ! important;
}
</pre>

NB: the 'class' highlighting type has not yet been deployed on the studio - 24/02/2014. This warning will be removed after the next upgrade.

'''isSelected( id )'''

Return true/false wether the specified item id has been selected or not.

'''selectItem( id )'''

Select the specified item.

'''unselectItem( id )'''

Unselect the specified item.

'''unselectAll()'''

Unselect all items of the stock.

'''onChangeSelection'''

This callback method is called when the player select/unselect an item of the stock.

You can connect this to one of your method like this:
<pre>
dojo.connect( this.myStockControl, 'onChangeSelection', this, 'onMyMethodToCall' );

(...)

onMyMethodToCall: function( control_name )
{
// This method is called when myStockControl selected items changed
var items = this.myStockControl.getSelectedItems();

// (do something)
},
</pre>

Note: The "control_name" argument is the ID (the "DOM" id) of the "div" container of your stock control. Using "control_name", you can use the same callback method for different Stock control and see which one trigger the method.

'''getSelectedItems()'''

Return the list of selected items, as an array with the following format:
<pre>
[
{ type:1, id: 1001 },
{ type:1, id: 1002 },
{ type:3, id: 1003 }
...
]
</pre>

'''getUnselectedItems()'''

Same as the previous one, but return unselected item instead of seleted ones.

'''getAllItems()'''

Get all items (same format than getSelectedItems and getUnselectedItems).

'''getItemDivId(id)'''

Get div id using stock item id (to manipulate element properties directly).

'''setOverlap( horizontal_percent, vertical_percent )'''

Make items on the stock control "overlap" on each other, to save space.

By default, horizontal_overlap and vertical_overlap are 0.

When horizontal_overlap=20, it means that a stock item must overlap on 20% of the width of the previous item. horizontal_overlap can't be over 100.

vertical_overlap works differently: one items on two are shifted up.

See "Jaipur" game to see an example to use of this function.

'''onItemCreate'''

Using onItemCreate, you can trigger a method each time a new item is added to the Stock, in order you can customize it.

Complete example:
<pre>
// During "setup" phase, we associate our method "setupNewCard" with the creation of a new stock item:
this.myStockItem.onItemCreate = dojo.hitch( this, 'setupNewCard' );

(...)

// And here is our "setupNewCard":
setupNewCard: function( card_div, card_type_id, card_id )
{
// Add a special tooltip on the card:
this.addTooltip( card_div.id, _("Some nice tooltip for this item"), '' );

// Note that "card_type_id" contains the type of the item, so you can do special actions depending on the item type

// Add some custom HTML content INSIDE the Stock item:
dojo.place( this.format_block( 'jstpl_my_card_content', {
....
} ), card_div.id );
}

</pre>

== Tips when adding/removing items to/from Stock components ==

The usual way is the following:

'''Situation A''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is '''not''' coming from another stock: use "addToStockWithId" with a "from" argument set to the element of your interface where card should come from.

'''Situation B''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is coming from another stock:
* on the destination Stock, use "addToStockWithId" with a "from" equals to the HTML id of the corresponding item in the source Stock. For example, If the source stock id is "myHand", then the HTML id of card 48 is "myHand_item_48".
* then, remove the source item with "removeFromStockById".
(note that it's important to do things in this order, because source item must still exists when you use it as the origin of the slide).

'''Situation C''':

When you move a card from a stock item to something that is not a stock item:
* insert the card as a classic HTML template (dojo.place / this.format_block).
* place it on the Stock item with "this.placeOnObject", using Stock item HTML id (see above).
* slide it to its new position with "this.slideToObject"
* remove the card from the Stock item with "removeFromStockById".

Using the methods above, your cards should slide to, from and between your Stock controls smoothly

You can customize this (showing the default value):
<pre>

this.mystock.jstpl_stock_item= "<div id=\"${id}\" class=\"stockitem\" style=\"top:${top}px;left:${left}px;width:${width}px;height:${height}px;z-index:${position};background-image:url('${image}');\"></div>";
</pre>
To produce a different type of stock item

Stock

2018-09-16T23:09:27Z

Amadannabriona: /* Using stock: a simple example */

"Stock" is a javascript component that you can use in your game interface to display a set of elements of the same size that need to be arranged in one or multiple lines.

Stock is very flexible and is the most used component in BGA games.

Examples of stock use cases:

* Display a set of cards, typically hands (examples: ''Hearts'', ''Seasons'', ''The Boss'', ''Race for the Galaxy'').
* Display items in player panels (examples: ''Takenoko'', ''Amyitis'', ...)
* ... Many other situations. For example, black dice and cubes on cards in ''Troyes'' are displayed with stock components.

Using stock:
* Your items are arranged nicely and sorted by type.
* When adding or removing items to the set, all items slide smoothly to their new position in the set.
* Selecting and unselecting items is a built-in functionality.
* You don't have to care about inserting/removing HTML code: the entire life cycle of the stock is managed by the component.

== Using stock: a simple example ==

Let's have a look on how the stock is used in the game ''Hearts'' to display a hand of standard cards.

First, don't forget to add "ebg/stock" as a dependency in your js file:

<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <==== HERE
],
</pre>

The stock is initialized in the Javascript "setup" method like this:

<pre>
// Player hand
this.playerHand = new ebg.stock();
this.playerHand.create( this, $('myhand'), this.cardwidth, this.cardheight );
</pre>

Explanations:
* We create a new stock object for the player hand.
* As parameters of the "create" method, we provide the width/height of an item (=a card), and the container div "myhand" - which is a simple void "div" element defined in our HTML template (.tpl).

Then, we must tell the stock what items it is going to display during its life: the 52 cards of a standard card game. Of course, we did not create 52 different images, but a "CSS sprite" image named "cards.jpg" with all the cards arranged in 4 rows and 13 columns.

Here's how we tell stock what are the items to display:

<pre>
// Specify that there are 13 images per row in the CSS sprite image
this.playerHand.image_items_per_row = 13;

// Create card types:
for( var color=1;color<=4;color++ )
{
for( var value=2;value<=14;value++ )
{
// Build card type id
var card_type_id = this.getCardUniqueId( color, value );
this.playerHand.addItemType( card_type_id, card_type_id, g_gamethemeurl+'img/cards.jpg', card_type_id );
}
}
</pre>

Explanation:
* First, we tell the stock component that our CSS sprite contains 13 items per row. This way, it can find the correct image for each card type id.
* Then for the 4x13 cards, we call "addItemType" method that creates the type. The arguments are the type id, the weight of the card (for sorting purpose), the URL of our CSS sprite, and the position of our card image in the CSS sprite.

Note: in this specific example we need to generate a unique ID for each type of card based on its color and value. This is the only purpose of "getCardUniqueId".

From now, if we need to add - for example - the 5 of Heart to player's hand, we can do this.
this.playerHand.addToStock( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ) );

In reality, cards have some IDs, which are useful to manipulate them. This is the reason we are using "addToStockWithId" instead:
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ), my_card_id );

If afterwards we want to remove this card from the stock:
this.playerHand.removeFromStockById( my_card_id );

== Complete stock component reference ==

'''create( page, container_div, item_width, item_height ):'''

With create, you create a new stock component.
Parameters:
* page: the container page. Usually: "this".
* container_div: the container "div" element (a void div element in your template, with an id).
* a stock item width and height, in pixels.

(See "Hearts" example above).

'''count():'''

Return the total number of items in the stock right now.

'''addItemType( type, weight, image, image_position ):'''

Define a new type of item to the stock.

This is mandatory to define a new item type before adding it to the stock. Example: if you want to have a stock control that can contains cubes of 3 different colors, you must add 3 item types (one for each color).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the type to add. You can choose any positive integer. All item types must have distinct IDs.
* weight: weight of items of this type. Weight value is used to sort items of the stock during the display. Note that you can specify the same weight for all items (in this case they are not sorted and their order might change randomly at any time).
* image: URL of item image. Most of the time, you will use a CSS sprite for stock item, so you have to specify CSS sprite image here.

Be careful: you must specify the image url as this:
<pre>
g_gamethemeurl+'img/yourimage.png'
</pre>
* image_position: if "image" specify the URL of a CSS sprite, you must specify the position of the item image in this CSS sprite. For example, if you have a CSS sprite with 3 cubes with a size of 20x20 pixels each (so your CSS image has for example a size of 20x60 or 60x20), you specify "0" for the first cube image, 1 for the second, 2 for the third.
Important: there are more than one line of items in your CSS sprite, you must specify how many items per line you have in your CSS sprite like this:
<pre>
// Specify that there is 10 image items per row in images used in "myStockObject" control.
this.myStockObject.image_items_per_row = 10;
</pre>

'''addToStock( type, from )'''

Add an item to the stock, with the specified type.

To make your life easy, in most of the case we suggest you to use "addToStockWithId" in order to give an ID to the item added. "addToStock" is perfect when you are using a stock controls with items that are generic game material that does not need to be addressed individually (ex: a bunch of money tokens).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the item type to use (as specified in "addItemType")
* from: OPTIONNAL: if you specify a HTML item here, the item will appear on this item and will be slided to its position on the stock item.

Example:
<pre>
// Add a money token to the "player money" stock.
// The money token will appear on "player_id" player panel and will move to its position.
this.playerMoney.addToStock( MONEY_TOKEN, 'overall_player_board_'+player_id );
</pre>

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either addToStock or addToStockWithId, but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''addToStockWithId( type, id, from )'''

This is exactly the same method than "addToStock", except that you associate an ID to the newly created item.

This is especially useful:
* When you need to know which item(s) has been selected by the user (see "getSelectedItems").
* When you need to remove a specific item from the stock with "removeFromStockById"

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either addToStock or addToStockWithId, but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''removeFromStock( type, to )'''

Remove an item of the specific type from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeFromStockById( id, to )'''

Remove an item with a specific ID from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeAll()'''

Remove all items from the stock.

'''getPresentTypeList()'''

Return an array with all the types of items present in the stock right now.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.removeAll();
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 34 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 89 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );

// The following returns: { 34:1, 65:1, 89:1 }
var item_types = this.myStockControl.getPresentTypeList();
</pre>

'''resetItemsPosition()'''

If you moved an item from the stock control manually (ex: after a drag'n'drop) and want to reset their position to their original ones, you can call this method.

'''item_margin'''

By default, there is a margin of 5px between the items of a stock. You can change the member variable "item_margin" to change this.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.item_margin=5;
</pre>

'''changeItemsWeight( newWeights )'''

With this method you can change dynamically the weight of the item types in a stock control.

Items are immediately re-sorted with the new weight.

Example: with a stock control that contains classic cards, you can order them by value or by color. Using changeItemsWeight you can switch from one sort method to another when a player request this.

newWeights is an associative array: item type id => new weight.

Example:
<pre>
// Item type 1 gets a new weight of 10, 2 a new weight of 20, 3 a new weight of 30.
this.myStockControl.changeItemsWeight( { 1: 10, 2: 20, 3: 30 } );
</pre>

'''setSelectionMode( mode )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection mode:
* 0: no item can be selected by the player.
* 1: a maximum of one item can be selected by the player at the same time.
* 2 (default): several items can be selected by the player at the same time.

'''setSelectionAppearance( type )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection highlighting type:
* 'border': there will be a red border around selected items (this is the default). The attribute 'apparenceBorderWidth' can be used to manage the width of the border (in pixels).
* 'disappear': the selected item will fade out and disappear. This is useful when the selection has the effect of destroying the item.
* 'class': there will be an extra 'stockitem_selecte' css class added to the element when it is selected (and removed when unselected). You can override this class in the css file for your game.

By default this class definition is:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid red ! important;
}
</pre>

If you want to override it for example to change the border color add this in your <game>.css file:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid orange ! important;
}
</pre>

NB: the 'class' highlighting type has not yet been deployed on the studio - 24/02/2014. This warning will be removed after the next upgrade.

'''isSelected( id )'''

Return true/false wether the specified item id has been selected or not.

'''selectItem( id )'''

Select the specified item.

'''unselectItem( id )'''

Unselect the specified item.

'''unselectAll()'''

Unselect all items of the stock.

'''onChangeSelection'''

This callback method is called when the player select/unselect an item of the stock.

You can connect this to one of your method like this:
<pre>
dojo.connect( this.myStockControl, 'onChangeSelection', this, 'onMyMethodToCall' );

(...)

onMyMethodToCall: function( control_name )
{
// This method is called when myStockControl selected items changed
var items = this.myStockControl.getSelectedItems();

// (do something)
},
</pre>

Note: The "control_name" argument is the ID (the "DOM" id) of the "div" container of your stock control. Using "control_name", you can use the same callback method for different Stock control and see which one trigger the method.

'''getSelectedItems()'''

Return the list of selected items, as an array with the following format:
<pre>
[
{ type:1, id: 1001 },
{ type:1, id: 1002 },
{ type:3, id: 1003 }
...
]
</pre>

'''getUnselectedItems()'''

Same as the previous one, but return unselected item instead of seleted ones.

'''getAllItems()'''

Get all items (same format than getSelectedItems and getUnselectedItems).

'''getItemDivId(id)'''

Get div id using stock item id (to manipulate element properties directly).

'''setOverlap( horizontal_percent, vertical_percent )'''

Make items on the stock control "overlap" on each other, to save space.

By default, horizontal_overlap and vertical_overlap are 0.

When horizontal_overlap=20, it means that a stock item must overlap on 20% of the width of the previous item. horizontal_overlap can't be over 100.

vertical_overlap works differently: one items on two are shifted up.

See "Jaipur" game to see an example to use of this function.

'''onItemCreate'''

Using onItemCreate, you can trigger a method each time a new item is added to the Stock, in order you can customize it.

Complete example:
<pre>
// During "setup" phase, we associate our method "setupNewCard" with the creation of a new stock item:
this.myStockItem.onItemCreate = dojo.hitch( this, 'setupNewCard' );

(...)

// And here is our "setupNewCard":
setupNewCard: function( card_div, card_type_id, card_id )
{
// Add a special tooltip on the card:
this.addTooltip( card_div.id, _("Some nice tooltip for this item"), '' );

// Note that "card_type_id" contains the type of the item, so you can do special actions depending on the item type

// Add some custom HTML content INSIDE the Stock item:
dojo.place( this.format_block( 'jstpl_my_card_content', {
....
} ), card_div.id );
}

</pre>

== Tips when adding/removing items to/from Stock components ==

The usual way is the following:

'''Situation A''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is '''not''' coming from another stock: use "addToStockWithId" with a "from" argument set to the element of your interface where card should come from.

'''Situation B''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is coming from another stock:
* on the destination Stock, use "addToStockWithId" with a "from" equals to the HTML id of the corresponding item in the source Stock. For example, If the source stock id is "myHand", then the HTML id of card 48 is "myHand_item_48".
* then, remove the source item with "removeFromStockById".
(note that it's important to do things in this order, because source item must still exists when you use it as the origin of the slide).

'''Situation C''':

When you move a card from a stock item to something that is not a stock item:
* insert the card as a classic HTML template (dojo.place / this.format_block).
* place it on the Stock item with "this.placeOnObject", using Stock item HTML id (see above).
* slide it to its new position with "this.slideToObject"
* remove the card from the Stock item with "removeFromStockById".

Using the methods above, your cards should slide to, from and between your Stock controls smoothly

You can customize this (showing the default value):
<pre>

this.mystock.jstpl_stock_item= "<div id=\"${id}\" class=\"stockitem\" style=\"top:${top}px;left:${left}px;width:${width}px;height:${height}px;z-index:${position};background-image:url('${image}');\"></div>";
</pre>
To produce a different type of stock item

Stock

2018-09-16T21:48:14Z

Amadannabriona:

"Stock" is a javascript component that you can use in your game interface to display a set of elements of the same size that need to be arranged in one or multiple lines.

Stock is very flexible and is the most used component in BGA games.

Examples of stock use cases:

* Display a set of cards, typically hands (examples: ''Hearts'', ''Seasons'', ''The Boss'', ''Race for the Galaxy'').
* Display items in player panels (examples: ''Takenoko'', ''Amyitis'', ...)
* ... Many other situations. For example, black dice and cubes on cards in ''Troyes'' are displayed with stock components.

Using stock:
* Your items are arranged nicely and sorted by type.
* When adding or removing items to the set, all items slide smoothly to their new position in the set.
* Selecting and unselecting items is a built-in functionality.
* You don't have to care about inserting/removing HTML code: the entire life cycle of the stock is managed by the component.

== Using stock: a simple example ==

Let's have a look on how the stock is used in the game ''Hearts'' to display a hand of standard cards.

First, don't forget to add "ebg/stock" as a dependency in your js file:

<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <==== HERE
],
</pre>

The stock is initialized in the Javascript "setup" method like this:

<pre>
// Player hand
this.playerHand = new ebg.stock();
this.playerHand.create( this, $('myhand'), this.cardwidth, this.cardheight );
</pre>

Explanations:
* We create a new stock object for the player hand.
* As parameters of the "create" method, we provide the width/height of an item (=a card), and the container div "myhand" - which is a simple void "div" element defines in our HTML template (.tpl).

Then, we must tell the stock what are the items it is going to display during its life: the 52 cards of a standard card game. Of course, we did not create 52 different images, but create a "CSS sprite" image named "cards.jpg" with all the cards arranged in 4 rows and 13 columns.

Here's how we tell stock what are the items type to display:
<pre>
// Explain there are 13 images per row in the CSS sprite image
this.playerHand.image_items_per_row = 13;

// Create cards types:
for( var color=1;color<=4;color++ )
{
for( var value=2;value<=14;value++ )
{
// Build card type id
var card_type_id = this.getCardUniqueId( color, value );
this.playerHand.addItemType( card_type_id, card_type_id, g_gamethemeurl+'img/cards.jpg', card_type_id );
}
}
</pre>

Explanations:
* At first, we tell the stock component that our CSS sprite contains 13 items per row. This way, it can find the correct image for each card type id.
* Then for the 4x13 cards, we call "addItemType" method that create the type. The arguments are the type id, the weight of the card (for sorting purpose), the URL of our CSS sprite, and the position of our card image in the CSS sprite.

Note: in this specific example we need to generate a unique ID for each type of card based on its color and value. This is the only purpose of "getCardUniqueId".

From now, if we need to add - for example - the 5 of Heart to player's hand, we can do this.
this.playerHand.addToStock( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ) );

In reality, cards have some IDs, which are useful to manipulate them. This is the reason we are using "addToStockWithId" instead:
this.playerHand.addToStockWithId( this.getCardUniqueId( 2 /* 2=hearts */, 5 ), my_card_id );

If afterwards we want to remove this card from the stock:
this.playerHand.removeFromStockById( my_card_id );

== Complete stock component reference ==

'''create( page, container_div, item_width, item_height ):'''

With create, you create a new stock component.
Parameters:
* page: the container page. Usually: "this".
* container_div: the container "div" element (a void div element in your template, with an id).
* a stock item width and height, in pixels.

(See "Hearts" example above).

'''count():'''

Return the total number of items in the stock right now.

'''addItemType( type, weight, image, image_position ):'''

Define a new type of item to the stock.

This is mandatory to define a new item type before adding it to the stock. Example: if you want to have a stock control that can contains cubes of 3 different colors, you must add 3 item types (one for each color).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the type to add. You can choose any positive integer. All item types must have distinct IDs.
* weight: weight of items of this type. Weight value is used to sort items of the stock during the display. Note that you can specify the same weight for all items (in this case they are not sorted and their order might change randomly at any time).
* image: URL of item image. Most of the time, you will use a CSS sprite for stock item, so you have to specify CSS sprite image here.

Be careful: you must specify the image url as this:
<pre>
g_gamethemeurl+'img/yourimage.png'
</pre>
* image_position: if "image" specify the URL of a CSS sprite, you must specify the position of the item image in this CSS sprite. For example, if you have a CSS sprite with 3 cubes with a size of 20x20 pixels each (so your CSS image has for example a size of 20x60 or 60x20), you specify "0" for the first cube image, 1 for the second, 2 for the third.
Important: there are more than one line of items in your CSS sprite, you must specify how many items per line you have in your CSS sprite like this:
<pre>
// Specify that there is 10 image items per row in images used in "myStockObject" control.
this.myStockObject.image_items_per_row = 10;
</pre>

'''addToStock( type, from )'''

Add an item to the stock, with the specified type.

To make your life easy, in most of the case we suggest you to use "addToStockWithId" in order to give an ID to the item added. "addToStock" is perfect when you are using a stock controls with items that are generic game material that does not need to be addressed individually (ex: a bunch of money tokens).

Parameters:
* type: ID of the item type to use (as specified in "addItemType")
* from: OPTIONNAL: if you specify a HTML item here, the item will appear on this item and will be slided to its position on the stock item.

Example:
<pre>
// Add a money token to the "player money" stock.
// The money token will appear on "player_id" player panel and will move to its position.
this.playerMoney.addToStock( MONEY_TOKEN, 'overall_player_board_'+player_id );
</pre>

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either addToStock or addToStockWithId, but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''addToStockWithId( type, id, from )'''

This is exactly the same method than "addToStock", except that you associate an ID to the newly created item.

This is especially useful:
* When you need to know which item(s) has been selected by the user (see "getSelectedItems").
* When you need to remove a specific item from the stock with "removeFromStockById"

Important: for a given stock control, you must use either addToStock or addToStockWithId, but NEVER BOTH OF THEM.

'''removeFromStock( type, to )'''

Remove an item of the specific type from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeFromStockById( id, to )'''

Remove an item with a specific ID from the stock.

"to" is an optional parameter. If "to" contains the ID of an HTML element, the item removed from the stock is slided to this HTML element before it disappear.

'''removeAll()'''

Remove all items from the stock.

'''getPresentTypeList()'''

Return an array with all the types of items present in the stock right now.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.removeAll();
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 34 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 89 );
this.myStockControl.addToStock( 65 );

// The following returns: { 34:1, 65:1, 89:1 }
var item_types = this.myStockControl.getPresentTypeList();
</pre>

'''resetItemsPosition()'''

If you moved an item from the stock control manually (ex: after a drag'n'drop) and want to reset their position to their original ones, you can call this method.

'''item_margin'''

By default, there is a margin of 5px between the items of a stock. You can change the member variable "item_margin" to change this.

Example:
<pre>
this.myStockControl.item_margin=5;
</pre>

'''changeItemsWeight( newWeights )'''

With this method you can change dynamically the weight of the item types in a stock control.

Items are immediately re-sorted with the new weight.

Example: with a stock control that contains classic cards, you can order them by value or by color. Using changeItemsWeight you can switch from one sort method to another when a player request this.

newWeights is an associative array: item type id => new weight.

Example:
<pre>
// Item type 1 gets a new weight of 10, 2 a new weight of 20, 3 a new weight of 30.
this.myStockControl.changeItemsWeight( { 1: 10, 2: 20, 3: 30 } );
</pre>

'''setSelectionMode( mode )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection mode:
* 0: no item can be selected by the player.
* 1: a maximum of one item can be selected by the player at the same time.
* 2 (default): several items can be selected by the player at the same time.

'''setSelectionAppearance( type )'''

For each stock control, you can specify a selection highlighting type:
* 'border': there will be a red border around selected items (this is the default). The attribute 'apparenceBorderWidth' can be used to manage the width of the border (in pixels).
* 'disappear': the selected item will fade out and disappear. This is useful when the selection has the effect of destroying the item.
* 'class': there will be an extra 'stockitem_selecte' css class added to the element when it is selected (and removed when unselected). You can override this class in the css file for your game.

By default this class definition is:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid red ! important;
}
</pre>

If you want to override it for example to change the border color add this in your <game>.css file:
<pre>
.stockitem_selected {
border: 2px solid orange ! important;
}
</pre>

NB: the 'class' highlighting type has not yet been deployed on the studio - 24/02/2014. This warning will be removed after the next upgrade.

'''isSelected( id )'''

Return true/false wether the specified item id has been selected or not.

'''selectItem( id )'''

Select the specified item.

'''unselectItem( id )'''

Unselect the specified item.

'''unselectAll()'''

Unselect all items of the stock.

'''onChangeSelection'''

This callback method is called when the player select/unselect an item of the stock.

You can connect this to one of your method like this:
<pre>
dojo.connect( this.myStockControl, 'onChangeSelection', this, 'onMyMethodToCall' );

(...)

onMyMethodToCall: function( control_name )
{
// This method is called when myStockControl selected items changed
var items = this.myStockControl.getSelectedItems();

// (do something)
},
</pre>

Note: The "control_name" argument is the ID (the "DOM" id) of the "div" container of your stock control. Using "control_name", you can use the same callback method for different Stock control and see which one trigger the method.

'''getSelectedItems()'''

Return the list of selected items, as an array with the following format:
<pre>
[
{ type:1, id: 1001 },
{ type:1, id: 1002 },
{ type:3, id: 1003 }
...
]
</pre>

'''getUnselectedItems()'''

Same as the previous one, but return unselected item instead of seleted ones.

'''getAllItems()'''

Get all items (same format than getSelectedItems and getUnselectedItems).

'''getItemDivId(id)'''

Get div id using stock item id (to manipulate element properties directly).

'''setOverlap( horizontal_percent, vertical_percent )'''

Make items on the stock control "overlap" on each other, to save space.

By default, horizontal_overlap and vertical_overlap are 0.

When horizontal_overlap=20, it means that a stock item must overlap on 20% of the width of the previous item. horizontal_overlap can't be over 100.

vertical_overlap works differently: one items on two are shifted up.

See "Jaipur" game to see an example to use of this function.

'''onItemCreate'''

Using onItemCreate, you can trigger a method each time a new item is added to the Stock, in order you can customize it.

Complete example:
<pre>
// During "setup" phase, we associate our method "setupNewCard" with the creation of a new stock item:
this.myStockItem.onItemCreate = dojo.hitch( this, 'setupNewCard' );

(...)

// And here is our "setupNewCard":
setupNewCard: function( card_div, card_type_id, card_id )
{
// Add a special tooltip on the card:
this.addTooltip( card_div.id, _("Some nice tooltip for this item"), '' );

// Note that "card_type_id" contains the type of the item, so you can do special actions depending on the item type

// Add some custom HTML content INSIDE the Stock item:
dojo.place( this.format_block( 'jstpl_my_card_content', {
....
} ), card_div.id );
}

</pre>

== Tips when adding/removing items to/from Stock components ==

The usual way is the following:

'''Situation A''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is '''not''' coming from another stock: use "addToStockWithId" with a "from" argument set to the element of your interface where card should come from.

'''Situation B''':

When you add a card to a stock item, and this card is coming from another stock:
* on the destination Stock, use "addToStockWithId" with a "from" equals to the HTML id of the corresponding item in the source Stock. For example, If the source stock id is "myHand", then the HTML id of card 48 is "myHand_item_48".
* then, remove the source item with "removeFromStockById".
(note that it's important to do things in this order, because source item must still exists when you use it as the origin of the slide).

'''Situation C''':

When you move a card from a stock item to something that is not a stock item:
* insert the card as a classic HTML template (dojo.place / this.format_block).
* place it on the Stock item with "this.placeOnObject", using Stock item HTML id (see above).
* slide it to its new position with "this.slideToObject"
* remove the card from the Stock item with "removeFromStockById".

Using the methods above, your cards should slide to, from and between your Stock controls smoothly

You can customize this (showing the default value):
<pre>

this.mystock.jstpl_stock_item= "<div id=\"${id}\" class=\"stockitem\" style=\"top:${top}px;left:${left}px;width:${width}px;height:${height}px;z-index:${position};background-image:url('${image}');\"></div>";
</pre>
To produce a different type of stock item

Game interface logic: yourgamename.js

2018-09-16T21:27:05Z

Amadannabriona: /* Accessing and manipulating the DOM */

This is the main file for your game interface. Here you will define:

* Which actions on the page will generate calls to the server.
* What happens when you get a notification for a change from the server and how it will show in the browser.

== File structure ==

The details of how the file is structured are described below with comments on the code skeleton provided to you.

Here is the basic structure:

* '''constructor''': here you can define global variables for your whole interface.
* '''setup''': this method is called when the page is refreshed, and sets up the game interface.
* '''onEnteringState''': this method is called when entering a new game state. You can use it to customize the view for each game state.
* '''onLeavingState''': this method is called when leaving a game state.
* '''onUpdateActionButtons''': called when entering a new state, in order to add action buttons to the status bar.
* ''(utility methods)'': this is where you can define your utility methods.
* ''(player's actions)'': this is where you can write your handlers for player actions on the interface (example: click on an item).
* '''setupNotifications''': this method associates notifications with notification handlers. For each game notification, you can trigger a javascript method to handle it and update the game interface.
* ''(notification handlers)'': this is where you define the notifications handlers associated with notifications in '''setupNotifications''', above.

== General tips ==

; this.player_id
: ID of the player on whose browser the code is running.

; this.isSpectator
: Flag set to true if the user at the table is a spectator (not a player).
: Note: This is a variable, not a function.
: Note: If you want to hide an element from spectators, you should use [[Game_interface_stylesheet:_yourgamename.css#spectatorMode|CSS 'spectatorMode' class]].

; this.gamedatas
: Contains the initial set of data to init the game, created at game start or by game refresh (F5).
: You can update it as needed to keep an up-to-date reference of the game on the client side if you need it. (Most of the time this is unnecessary).

; this.isCurrentPlayerActive()
: Returns true if the player on whose browser the code is running is currently active (it's his turn to play).

; this.getActivePlayerId()
: Return the ID of the active player, or null if we are not in an "activeplayer" type state.

; this.getActivePlayers()
: Return an array with the IDs of players who are currently active (or an empty array if there are none).

== Dojo framework ==

BGA uses the [http://dojotoolkit.org/ Dojo Javascript framework].

The Dojo framework allows us to do complex things more easily. The BGA framework uses Dojo extensively.

To implement a game, you only need to use a few parts of the Dojo framework. All the Dojo methods you need are described on this page.

== Shrinksafe minimization ==

For performance reasons, when deploying a game the js code is minimized using Shrinksafe (based on ECMASCRIPT version 3). Some advanced syntax may not be compatible with this process. In particular:
* You should not use reserved keywords from the javascript language as variables.
* You should not declare default argument values in function declarations. The following syntax is invalid for Shrinksafe: '''function myFunc(requiredArg, optionalArg = 'defaultValue') {}'''

== Accessing and manipulating the DOM ==

'''$('some_html_element_id')'''

The $() function is used to get an HTML element using its "id" attribute.

Example 1: modify the content of a "span" element:

<pre>
In your HTML code:
<span id="a_value_in_the_game_interface">1234</span>

In your Javascript code:
$('a_value_in_the_game_interface').innerHTML = "9999";
</pre>

Note: $() is the standard method to access some HTML element with the BGA Framework. You should not use the '''getElementById''' function.

'''dojo.style'''

With dojo.style you can modify the CSS property of any HTML element in your interface.

Examples:

<pre>
// Make an element disappear
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'display', 'none' );

// Give an element a 2px border
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'borderWidth', '2px' );

// Change the background position of an element
// (very practical when you are using CSS sprites to transform an element to another)
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'backgroundPosition', '-20px -50px' );
</pre>

Note: you must always use dojo.style to modify the CSS properties of HTML elements.

Note²: if you have to modify several CSS properties of an element, or if you have a complex CSS transformation to do, you should consider using dojo.addClass/dojo.removeClass (see below).

'''dojo CSS classes manipulation'''

In many situations, many small CSS property updates can be replaced by a CSS class change (i.e., you add a CSS class to your element instead of applying all modifications manually).

Advantages are:
* All your CSS stuff remains in your CSS file.
* You can add/remove a list of CSS modifications with a simple function and without error.
* You can test whether you applied the CSS to an element with the '''dojo.hasClass''' method.

Example from ''Reversi'':

<pre>
// We add "possibleMove" to an element
dojo.addClass( 'square_'+x+'_'+y, 'possibleMove' );

// In our CSS file, the class is defined as:
.possibleMove {
background-color: white;
opacity: 0.2;
filter:alpha(opacity=20); /* For IE8 and earlier */
cursor: pointer;
}

// So we've applied 4 CSS property changes in one line of code.

// ... and when we need to check if a square is a possible move on the client side:
if( dojo.hasClass( 'square_'+x+'_'+y, 'possibleMove' ) )
{ ... }

// ... and if we want to remove all possible moves in one line of code (see "dojo.query" method):
dojo.query( '.possibleMove' ).removeClass( 'possibleMove' );
</pre>

Conclusion: We encourage you to use '''dojo.addClass''', '''dojo.removeClass''' and '''dojo.hasClass''' to make your life easier :)

'''dojo.query'''

With dojo.query, you can query a bunch of HTML elements with a single function, with a "CSS selector" style.

Example:
<pre>
// All elements with class "possibleMove":
var elements = dojo.query( '.possibleMove' );

// Count number of tokens (i.e., elements of class "token") on the board (i.e., the element with id "board"):
dojo.query( '#board .token' ).length;
</pre>

But what is really cool with dojo.query is that you can combine it with almost all methods above.

Examples:
<pre>
// Trigger a method when the mouse enter in any element with class "meeple":
dojo.query( '.meeple' ).connect( 'onmouseenter', this, 'myMethodToTrigger' );

// Hide all meeples who are on the board
dojo.query( '#board .meeple' ).style( 'display', 'none' );
</pre>

'''dojo.place'''

dojo.place is the best function to insert HTML code somewhere in your game interface without breaking something. It is much better to use than the '''innerHTML=''' method if you must insert HTML tags and not only values.

<pre>
// Insert your HTML code as a child of a container element
dojo.place( "<your html code>", "your_container_element_id" );

// Replace the container element with your new html
dojo.place( "<your html code>", "your_container_element_id", "replace" );

</pre>

The third parameter of dojo.place can take various interesting value.

values possibles :

"replace" : (see description above).

"first" : Places the node as a child of the reference node. The node is placed as the first child.

"last" : Places the node as a child of the reference node. The node is placed as the last child.

"before" : places the node right before the reference node.

"last (value by default) " : places the node right after the reference node.

"only" : replaces all children of the reference node with the node.

positif integer : This parameter can be a positif integer. In this case, the node will be placed as a child of the reference node with this number (counting from 0). If the number is more than number of children, the node will be appended to the reference node making it the last child.

See also full doc on dojo.place : [http://dojotoolkit.org/reference-guide/1.7/dojo/place.]

Usually, when you want to insert some piece of HTML in your game interface, you should use "[[Game_layout:_view_and_template:_yourgamename.view.php_and_yourgamename_yourgamename.tpl#Javascript_templates|Javascript templates]]".

'''addStyleToClass: function( cssClassName, cssProperty, propertyValue )'''

Same as dojo.style(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName

=== Animations ===

'''Dojo Animations'''

BGA animations is based on Dojo Animation ([http://dojotoolkit.org/documentation/tutorials/1.8/animation/ see tutorial here]).

However, most of the time, you can just use methods below, which are built on top of Dojo Animation.

Note: one interesting method from Dojo that could be useful from time to time is "Dojo.Animation". It allows you to make any CSS property "slide" from one value to another.

'''this.slideToObject( mobile_obj, target_obj, duration, delay )'''

You can use slideToObject to "slide" an element to a target position.

Sliding element on the game area is the recommended and the most used way to animate your game interface. Using slides allow players to figure out what is happening on the game, as if they were playing with the real boardgame.

The parameters are:
* mobile_obj: the ID of the object to move. This object must be "relative" or "absolute" positioned.
* target_obj: the ID of the target object. This object must be "relative" or "absolute" positioned. Note that it is not mandatory that mobile_obj and target_obj have the same size. If their size are different, the system slides the center of mobile_obj to the center of target_obj.
* duration: (optional) defines the duration in millisecond of the slide. The default is 500 milliseconds.
* delay: (optional). If you defines a delay, the slide will start only after this delay. This is particularly useful when you want to slide several object from the same position to the same position: you can give a 0ms delay to the first object, a 100ms delay to the second one, a 200ms delay to the third one, ... this way they won't be superposed during the slide.

BE CAREFUL: The method returns an dojo.fx animation, so you can combine it with other animation if you want to. It means that you have to call the "play()" method, otherwise the animation WON'T START.

Example:
<pre>
this.slideToObject( "some_token", "some_place_on_board" ).play();
</pre>

'''this.slideToObjectPos( mobile_obj, target_obj, target_x, target_y, duration, delay )'''

This method does exactly the same as "slideToObject", except than you can specify some (x,y) coordinates. This way, "mobile_obj" will slide to the specified x,y position relatively to "target_obj".

Example: slide a token to some place on the board, 10 pixels to the bottom:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectPos( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 0, 10 ).play();
</pre>

'''this.slideTemporaryObject( mobile_obj_html, mobile_obj_parent, from, to, duration, delay )'''

This method is useful when you want to slide a temporary HTML object from one place to another. As this object does not exists before the animation and won't remain after, it could be complex to create this object (with dojo.place), to place it at its origin (with placeOnObject) to slide it (with slideToObject) and to make it disappear at the end.

slideTemporaryObject does all of this for you:
* mobile_obj_html is a piece of HTML code that represent the object to slide.
* mobile_obj_parent is the ID of an HTML element of your interface that will be the parent of this temporary HTML object.
* from is the ID of the origin of the slide.
* to is the ID of the target of the slide.
* duration/delay works exactly like in "slideToObject"

Example:
<pre>
this.slideTemporaryObject( '<div class="token_icon"></div>', 'tokens', 'my_origin_div', 'my_target_div' );
</pre>

'''this.slideToObjectAndDestroy: function( node, to, time, delay )'''

This method is a handy shortcut to slide an existing HTML object to some place then destroy it upon arrival. It can be used for example to move a victory token or a card from the board to the player panel to show that the player earns it, then destroy it when we don't need to keep it visible on the player panel.

It works the same as this.slideToObject and takes the same arguments.

Example:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectAndDestroy( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 1000, 0 );
</pre>

'''this.fadeOutAndDestroy( node, duration, delay )'''

This function fade out the target HTML node, then destroy it.

Example:
<pre>
this.fadeOutAndDestroy( "a_card_that_must_disappear" );
</pre>

CAREFUL: the HTML node still exists until during few milliseconds, until the fadeOut has been completed.

'''Rotating elements'''

You can check here [http://jimfulton.info/demos/dojo-animated-rotate.html an example of use] of Dojo to make an element rotate.

This example combines "Dojo.Animation" method and a CSS3 property that allow you to rotate the element.

IMPORTANT: to asses browser compatibility, you must select the CSS property to use just like in the example (see sourcecode below):

<pre>
var transform;
dojo.forEach(
['transform', 'WebkitTransform', 'msTransform',
'MozTransform', 'OTransform'],
function (name) {
if (typeof dojo.body().style[name] != 'undefined') {
transform = name;
}
});
// ... and then use "transform" as the name of your CSS property for rotation
</pre>

=== Moving elements ===

'''this.placeOnObject( mobile_obj, target_obj )'''

placeOnObject works exactly like "slideToObject", except that the effect is immediate.

This is not really an animation, but placeOnObject is frequently used before starting an animation.

Example:
<pre>
// (We just created an object "my_new_token")

// Place the new token on current player board
this.placeOnObject( "my_new_token", "overall_player_board_"+this.player_id );

// Then slide it to its position on the board
this.slideToObject( "my_new_token", "a_place_on_board" ).play();
</pre>

'''this.placeOnObjectPos( mobile_obj, target_obj, target_x, target_y )'''

This method works exactly like placeOnObject, except than you can specify some (x,y) coordinates. This way, "mobile_obj" will be placed to the specified x,y position relatively to "target_obj".

'''this.attachToNewParent( mobile_obj, target_obj )'''

With this method, you change the HTML parent of "mobile_obj" element. "target_obj" is the new parent of this element. The beauty of
attachToNewParent is that the mobile_obj element DOES NOT MOVE during this process.

Note: what happens is that the method calculate a relative position of mobile_obj to make sure it does not move after the HTML parent changes.

Why using this method?

Changing the HTML parent of an element can be useful for the following reasons:
* When the HTML parent moves, all its child are moving with them. If some game elements is no more linked with a parent HTML object, you may want to attach it to another place.
* The z_order (vertical order of display) depends on the position in the DOM, so you may need to change the parent of some game elements when they are moving in your game area.

CAREFUL: this function destroys original object and places a clone onto a new parent, this will break all references to this HTML element (ex: dojo.connect).

== Players input ==

'''dojo.connect'''

Used to associate a player event with one of your notification method.

Example: associate a click on an element ("my_element") with one of our method ("onClickOnMyElement"):
<pre>
dojo.connect( $('my_element'), 'onclick', this, 'onClickOnMyElement' );
</pre>

Note: this is the only possible correct way to associate a player input event to your code, and you must not use anything else.

'''this.checkAction( "my_action_name" )'''

Usage: checkAction: function( action, nomessage )

Check if player can do the specified action by taking into account:
* current game state
* interface locking (a player can't do any action if an action is already in progress)

return true if action is authorized (ie: the action is listed as a "possibleaction" in current game state).

return false and display an error message if not (display no message if nomessage parameter is true). The displayed error message could be either "This move is not allowed at this moment" or "An action is already in progress".

Example:
<pre>
function onClickOnGameElement( evt )
{
if( this.checkAction( "my_action" ) )
{
// Do the action
}
}
</pre>

'''this.ajaxcall( url, parameters, obj_callback, callback, callback_error )'''

This method must be used to send a player input to the game server.

* url: the url of the action to perform. For a game, it must be: "/<mygame>/<mygame>/myAction.html"
* parameters: an array of parameter to send to the game server. Note that "lock:true" must always be specified in this list of parameter in order the interface can be locked during the server call.
* obj_callback: must be set to "this".
* callback: a function to trigger when the server returns and everything went fine.
* callback_error: (optional and rarely used) a function to trigger when the server returns an error.

Usage:
<pre>
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/myaction.html', { lock: true,
arg1: myarg1,
arg2: myarg2,
...
}, this, function( result ) {
// Do some stuff after a successful call
} );
</pre>

Restricted arguments names (please don't use them):
* "action"
* "module"
* "class"

'''this.confirmationDialog()'''

Display a confirmation dialog with a yes/no choice.

We advice you to NOT use this function unless the player action is really critical and could ruins the game, because it slows down the game and upset players.

Usage: this.confirmationDialog( "Question to displayed", callback_function_if_click_on_yes );

Example:
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure to use this bonus (points penalty at the end of the game) ?'),
dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.ajaxcall( '/seasons/seasons/useBonus.html',
{ id:bonus_id, lock:true }, this, function( result ) {} );
} ) );
</pre>

; addEventToClass: function( cssClassName, eventName, functionName )
: Same as dojo.connect(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName

'''this.addActionButton( id, label, method, (opt)destination, (opt)blinking, (opt)color )'''

You can use this method to add an action button in the main action status bar.

Arguments:
* id: an element ID that should be unique in your HTML DOM document.
* label: the text of the button. Should be translatable (use _() function).
* method: the name of your method that must be triggered when the player clicks on this button.
* destination (optional): deprecated, do not use this. Use '''null''' as value if you need to specify other arguments.
* blinking (optional): if set to '''true''', the button is going blink to catch player's attention. Please don't abuse of blinking button.
* color: could be '''blue''' (default), '''red''' or '''gray'''.

You should only use this method in your "onUpdateActionButtons" method. Usually, you use it like this (from Hears example):

<pre>
onUpdateActionButtons: function( stateName, args ) {

if (this.isCurrentPlayerActive()) {
switch( stateName ) {
case 'giveCards':
this.addActionButton( 'giveCards_button', _('Give selected cards'), 'onGiveCards' );
break;
}
}
},
</pre>

In the example above, we are adding a "Give selected cards" button in the case we are on game state "giveCards". When player clicks on this button, it triggers our "onGiveCards" method.

Example using blinking red button:
<pre>
this.addActionButton( 'commit_button', _('Confirm'), 'onConfirm', null, true, 'red');
</pre>

Note: at least in studio example above will make button huge, because it sets it display of blinking things to '''block''',
if you don't like it you have to change css display value
of the button to inline-block (the id of the button is the first argument, i.e 'commit_button' in example above)

== Translations ==

See [[Translations]]

== Notifications ==

When something happens on the server side, your game interface Javascript logic received a notification.

Here's how you can handle these notifications on the client side.

=== Subscribe to notifications ===

Your Javascript "setupNotifications" method is the place where you can subscribe to notifications from your PHP code.

Here's how you associate one of your Javascript method to a notification "playDisc" (from Reversi example):

<pre>
// In setupNotifications method:
dojo.subscribe( 'playDisc', this, "notif_playDisc" );
</pre>

Note: the "playDisc" corresponds to the name of the notification you define it in your PHP code, in your "notifyAllPlayers" or "notifyPlayer" method.

Then, you have to define your "notif_playDisc" method:

<pre>
notif_playDisc: function( notif )
{
// Remove current possible moves (makes the board more clear)
dojo.query( '.possibleMove' ).removeClass( 'possibleMove' );

this.addDiscOnBoard( notif.args.x, notif.args.y, notif.args.player_id );
},
</pre>

In a notification handler like our "notif_playDisc" method, you can access to all notifications arguments with "notif.args".

Example:
<pre>
// If you did this on PHP side:
self::notifyAllPlayers( "myNotification", '', array( "myArgument" => 3 ) );

// On Javascript side, you can access the "myArgument" like this:
notif_myNotification: function( notif )
{
alert( "myArgument = " + notif.args.myArgument );
}
</pre>

=== Synchronous notifications ===

When several notifications are received by your game interface, these notifications are processed immediately, one after the other, in the same exact order they have been generated in your PHP game logic.

However, sometimes, you need to give some time to the players to figure out what happened on the game before jumping to the next notification. Indeed, in many games, they are a lot of automatic actions, and the computer is going to resolve all these actions very fast if you don't tell it not to do so.

As an example, for Reversi, when someone is playing a disc, we want to wait 500 milliseconds before doing anything else in order the opponent player can figure out what move has been played.

Here's how we do this, right after our subscription:
<pre>
dojo.subscribe( 'playDisc', this, "notif_playDisc" );
this.notifqueue.setSynchronous( 'playDisc', 500 ); // Wait 500 milliseconds after executing the playDisc handler
</pre>

=== Pre-defined notification types ===

'''tableWindow''' - This defines notification to display [[Game_interface_logic:_yourgamename.js#Scoring_dialogs|Scoring Dialogs]], see below.

'''message''' - This defines notification that shows on players log and have no other effect

// You can call this on php side without doing anything on client side
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'message', 'hello', array( ) );

== Tooltips ==

'''this.addTooltip( nodeId, _( helpString ), _( actionString ), delay )'''

Add a simple text tooltip to the DOM node.

Specify 'helpString' to display some information about "what is this game element?".
Specify 'actionString' to display some information about "what happens when I click on this element?".

You must specify both helpString and actionString. Most of the time, you use only one and specify a void string ("") for the other one.

Usually, _() must be used for the text to be marked for translation.

"Delay" is an optional parameter. Usually, it is primarily used to specify a zero delay for some game element when the tooltip gives really important information for the game - but remember: no essential information must be placed in tooltips as they won't be displayed in some browser (see Guidelines).

Example:
<pre>
this.addTooltip( 'cardcount', _('Number of cards in hand'), '' );
</pre>

'''this.addTooltipHtml( nodeId, html, delay )'''

Add an HTML tooltip to the DOM node (for more elaborate content such as presenting a bigger version of a card).

'''this.addTooltipToClass( cssClass, _( helpString ), _( actionString ), delay )'''

Add a simple text tooltip to all the DOM nodes set with this cssClass.

IMPORTANT: all concerned nodes must have IDs to get tooltips.

'''this.addTooltipHtmlToClass( cssClass, html, delay )'''

Add an HTML tooltip to to all the DOM nodes set with this cssClass (for more elaborate content such as presenting a bigger version of a card).

IMPORTANT: all concerned nodes must have IDs to get tooltips

'''this.removeTooltip( nodeId )'''

Remove a tooltip from the DOM node.

== Dialogs, warning messages, confirmation dialogs, ... ==

=== Warning messages ===

Sometimes, there is something important that is happening on the game and you have to make sure all players get the message. Most of the time, the evolution of the game situation or the game log is enough, but sometimes you need something more visible.

Ex: someone fulfill one of the end of the game condition, so this is the last turn.

'''this.showMessage( msg, type )'''

showMessage shows a message in a big rectangular area on the top of the screen of current player.

* "msg" is the string to display. It should be translated.
* "type" can be set to "info" or "error". If set to "info", the message will be an informative message on a white background. If set to "error", the message will be an error message on a red background.

Important: the normal way to inform players about the progression of the game is the game log. "showMessage" is intrusive and should not be used often.

=== Confirmation dialog ===

'''confirmationDialog( message, yesHandler, noHandler )'''

When an important action with a lot of consequences is triggered by the player, you may want to propose a confirmation dialog.

CAREFUL: the general guidelines of BGA is to AVOID the use of confirmation dialog. Confirmation dialogs slow down the game and bother players. The players knows that they have to pay attention about each move when they are playing online.

The situation where you should use a confirmation dialog are the following:
* It must not happen very often during a game.
* It must be linked to an action that can really "kill a game" if the player do not pay attention.
* It must be something that can be done by mistake (ex: a link on the action status bar).

How to display a confirmation dialog:
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure you want to bake the pie?'), dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.bakeThePie();
} ) );
return; // nothing should be called or done after calling this, all action must be done in the handler
</pre>

=== Multiple choice dialog ===
You can use this dialog to give user a choice with small amount of options:
<pre>
var keys = [1,5,10];
this.multipleChoiceDialog(
_('How many bugs to fix?"), keys,
dojo.hitch(this, function(choice) {
var bugchoice = keys[choice];
console.log('dialog callback with '+bugchoice);
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/fixBugs.html', { bugs: bugchoice}, this, function( result ) {} ); }));
</pre>

=== Dialogs ===

At first, you shouldn't use dialogs windows.

BGA guidelines specify that all game elements should be displayed on the main screen. Players can eventually scroll down to see game elements they don't need to see anytime, and you may eventually create anchors to move between game area section. Of course dialogs windows are very practical, but the thing is: all players know how to scroll down, and not all players know how to show up your dialog window. In addition, when the dialog shows up, players can't access the other game components.

Sometimes although, you need to display a dialog window. Here is how you do this:

// Create the new dialog. You should store the handler in a member variable to access it later
this.myDlg = new dijit.Dialog({ title: _("my dialog title to translate") });

// Create the HTML of my dialog.
// The best practice here is to use [[Game_layout:_view_and_template:_yourgamename.view.php_and_yourgamename_yourgamename.tpl#Javascript_templates|Javascript templates]]
var html = this.format_block( 'jstpl_myDialogTemplate', {
arg1: myArg1,
arg2: myArg2,
...
} );

// Show the dialog
this.myDlg.attr("content", html );
this.myDlg.show();

// Now that the dialog has been displayed, you can connect your method to some dialog elements
// Example, a "close" button:
dojo.connect( $('closeDlg'), 'onclick', this, function(evt){
evt.preventDefault();
this.myDlg.hide();
} );

Tip: be careful with "hide()" method to close your dialog: the dialog and its content is not completely removed from the DOM. It can cause you problems if you try to display the same dialog several times. A good practice is to wrap all the content of your dialog in a <nowiki><div id='myDlgContent'></nowiki> div element, and to call "dojo.destroy('myDlgContent')" before displaying your dialog.

=== Scoring dialogs ===

Sometimes at the end of a round you want to display a big table that details the points wins in each section of the game.

Example: in Hearts game, we display at the end of each round the number of "heart" cards collected by each player, the player who collected the Queen of Spades, and the total number of points loose by each player.

Scoring dialogs are managed entirely on '''PHP side''', but they are described here as their effects are visible only on client side.

Displaying a scoring dialog is quite simple and is using a special notification type: "tableWindow":
<pre>
// on PHP side:
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "tableWindow", '', array(
"id" => 'finalScoring',
"title" => clienttranslate("Title of the scoring dialog"),
"table" => $table
) );
</pre>

The "table" argument is a 2 dimensional PHP array that describe the table you want to display, line by line and column by column.

Example: display an 3x3 array of strings
<pre>
$table = array(
array( "one", "two", "three" ), // This is my first line
array( "four", "five", "six" ), // This is my second line
array( "seven", "height", "nine" ) // This is my third line
);
</pre>

As you can see above, in each "cell" of your array you can display a simple string value. But you can also display a complex value with a template and associated arguments like this:
<pre>
$table = array(
array( "one", "two", array( "str" => "a string with an ${argument}", "args" => array( 'argument' => 'argument_value' ) ) ),
array( "four", "five", "six" ),
array( "seven", "height", "nine" )
);
</pre>

This is especially useful when you want to display player names with colors. Example from "Hearts":
<pre>
$firstRow = array( '' );
foreach( $players as $player_id => $player )
{
$firstRow[] = array( 'str' => '${player_name}',
'args' => array( 'player_name' => $player['player_name'] ),
'type' => 'header'
);
}
$table[] = $firstRow;
</pre>

You can also use three extra attributes in the parameter array for the notification:

<pre>
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "tableWindow", '', array(
"id" => 'finalScoring',
"title" => clienttranslate("Title of the scoring dialog"),
"table" => $table,
"header" => array('str' => clienttranslate('Table header with parameter ${number}'),
'args' => array( 'number' => 3 ),
),
"footer" => '<div>Some footer</div>',
"closing" => clienttranslate( "Closing button label" )
) );
</pre>

*'''header''': the content for this parameter will display before the table (also, the html will be parsed and player names will be colored according to the current game colors).
*'''footer''': the content for this parameter will display after the table (no parsing for coloring the player names)
*'''closing''': if this parameter is used, a button will be displayed with this label at the bottom of the popup and will allow players to close it (more easily than by clicking the top right 'cross' icon).

=== Scoring animated display ===

Sometimes (Terra Mystica final scoring for example), you may want to display a score value over an element to make the scoring easier to follow for the players.
You can do it with:

<pre>
this.displayScoring( anchor_id, color, score );
</pre>

=== Speech bubble ===

For better interactivity in some games (Love Letter for example), you may use comic book style speech bubbles to express the players voices.
This is done with:

<pre>
this.showBubble( anchor_id, text, delay, duration, custom_class )
</pre>

delay in milliseconds is optional (default 0)

duration in milliseconds is optional (default 3000)

custom_class is optional, if you need to override the default bubble style

== Update players score ==

Increase a player score (with a positive or negative number):

<pre>
this.scoreCtrl[ player_id ].incValue( score_delta );
</pre>

Set a player score to a specific value:

<pre>
this.scoreCtrl[ player_id ].setValue( new_score );
</pre>

== Players panels ==

=== Adding stuff to player's panel ===

At first, create a new "JS template" string in your template (tpl) file:

(from Gomoku example)
<pre>
var jstpl_player_board = '\<div class="cp_board">\
<div id="stoneicon_p${id}" class="gmk_stoneicon gmk_stoneicon_${color}"></div><span id="stonecount_p${id}">0</span>\
</div>';
</pre>

Then, you add this piece of code in your JS file to add this template to each player panel:

<pre>
// Setting up player boards
for( var player_id in gamedatas.players )
{
var player = gamedatas.players[player_id];

// Setting up players boards if needed
var player_board_div = $('player_board_'+player_id);
dojo.place( this.format_block('jstpl_player_board', player ), player_board_div );
}
</pre>

(Note: the code above is of course from your "setup" function in your Javascript).

Very often, you have to distinguish current player and others players. In this case, you just have to create another JS template (ex: jstpl_otherplayer_board) and use it when "player_id" is different than "this.player_id".

=== Player's panel disabling/enabling ===

'''this.disablePlayerPanel( player_id )'''

Disable given player panel (the panel background become gray).

Usually, this is used to signal that this played passes, or will be inactive during a while.

Note that the only effect of this is visual. There are no consequences on the behaviour of the panel itself.

'''this.enablePlayerPanel( player_id )'''

Enable a player panel that has been disabled before.

'''this.enableAllPlayerPanels()'''

Enable all player panels that has been disabled before.

== Image loading ==

See also [[Game_art:_img_directory]].

'''Be careful''': by default, ALL images of your img directory are loaded on a player's browser when he loads the game. For this reason, don't let in your img directory images that are not useful, otherwise it's going to slowdown the game load.

'''dontPreloadImage( image_file_name )'''

Using dontPreloadImage, you tell the interface to not preload a specific image in your img directory.

Example of use:
<pre>
this.dontPreloadImage( 'cards.png' );
</pre>

This is particularly useful if for example you have 2 different themes for a game. To accelerate the loading of the game, you can specify to not preload images corresponding to the other theme.

Another example of use: in "Gosu" game with Kamakor extension, you play with 5 sets of cards among 10 available. Cards images are organized by sets, and we only preload the images corresponding to the 5 current sets with '''ensureSpecificGameImageLoading( image_file_names_array )'''.
<pre>
// By default, do not preload anything
this.dontPreloadImage( 'cards.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan1.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan2.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan3.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan4.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan5.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan6.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan7.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan8.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan9.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan10.png' );
var to_preload = [];
for( i in this.gamedatas.clans )
{
var clan_id = this.gamedatas.clans[i];
to_preload.push( 'clan'+clan_id+'.png' );
}
if( to_preload.length == 5 )
{
this.ensureSpecificGameImageLoading( to_preload );
}
</pre>

'''Note:''' You don't need to specify to not preload game box images (game_box.png, game_box75.png...) since they are not preloaded by default.

== Other useful stuff ==

'''dojo.hitch'''

With dojo.hitch, you can create a callback function that will run with your game object context whatever happen.

Typical example: display a BGA confirmation dialog with a callback function created with dojo.hitch:

<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure you want to make this?'), dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/makeThis.html', { lock:true }, this, function( result ) {} );
} ) );
</pre>

In the example above, using dojo.hitch, we are sure that the "this" object will be set when the callback is called.

; updateCounters(counters)
: Useful for updating game counters in the player panel (such as resources).
: 'counters' arg is an associative array [counter_name_value => [ 'counter_name' => counter_name_value, 'counter_value' => counter_value_value], ... ]
: All counters must be referenced in this.gamedatas.counters and will be updated.
: DOM objects referenced by 'counter_name' will have their innerHTML updated with 'counter_value'.

== BGA GUI components ==

BGA framework provides some useful ready-to-use components for the game interface:

[[Studio#BGA_Studio_game_components_reference]]

Note that each time you are using an additional component, you must declare it at the top of your Javascript file in the list of modules used.

Example if you are using "ebg.stock":
<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <=== we are using ebg.stock module
],
</pre>

Game interface logic: yourgamename.js

2018-09-16T21:24:32Z

Amadannabriona: /* Access and manipulate the DOM */

This is the main file for your game interface. Here you will define:

* Which actions on the page will generate calls to the server.
* What happens when you get a notification for a change from the server and how it will show in the browser.

== File structure ==

The details of how the file is structured are described below with comments on the code skeleton provided to you.

Here is the basic structure:

* '''constructor''': here you can define global variables for your whole interface.
* '''setup''': this method is called when the page is refreshed, and sets up the game interface.
* '''onEnteringState''': this method is called when entering a new game state. You can use it to customize the view for each game state.
* '''onLeavingState''': this method is called when leaving a game state.
* '''onUpdateActionButtons''': called when entering a new state, in order to add action buttons to the status bar.
* ''(utility methods)'': this is where you can define your utility methods.
* ''(player's actions)'': this is where you can write your handlers for player actions on the interface (example: click on an item).
* '''setupNotifications''': this method associates notifications with notification handlers. For each game notification, you can trigger a javascript method to handle it and update the game interface.
* ''(notification handlers)'': this is where you define the notifications handlers associated with notifications in '''setupNotifications''', above.

== General tips ==

; this.player_id
: ID of the player on whose browser the code is running.

; this.isSpectator
: Flag set to true if the user at the table is a spectator (not a player).
: Note: This is a variable, not a function.
: Note: If you want to hide an element from spectators, you should use [[Game_interface_stylesheet:_yourgamename.css#spectatorMode|CSS 'spectatorMode' class]].

; this.gamedatas
: Contains the initial set of data to init the game, created at game start or by game refresh (F5).
: You can update it as needed to keep an up-to-date reference of the game on the client side if you need it. (Most of the time this is unnecessary).

; this.isCurrentPlayerActive()
: Returns true if the player on whose browser the code is running is currently active (it's his turn to play).

; this.getActivePlayerId()
: Return the ID of the active player, or null if we are not in an "activeplayer" type state.

; this.getActivePlayers()
: Return an array with the IDs of players who are currently active (or an empty array if there are none).

== Dojo framework ==

BGA uses the [http://dojotoolkit.org/ Dojo Javascript framework].

The Dojo framework allows us to do complex things more easily. The BGA framework uses Dojo extensively.

To implement a game, you only need to use a few parts of the Dojo framework. All the Dojo methods you need are described on this page.

== Shrinksafe minimization ==

For performance reasons, when deploying a game the js code is minimized using Shrinksafe (based on ECMASCRIPT version 3). Some advanced syntax may not be compatible with this process. In particular:
* You should not use reserved keywords from the javascript language as variables.
* You should not declare default argument values in function declarations. The following syntax is invalid for Shrinksafe: '''function myFunc(requiredArg, optionalArg = 'defaultValue') {}'''

== Accessing and manipulating the DOM ==

'''$('some_html_element_id')'''

The $() function is used to get an HTML element using its "id" attribute.

Example 1: modify the content of a "span" element:

<pre>
In your HTML code:
<span id="a_value_in_the_game_interface">1234</span>

In your Javascript code:
$('a_value_in_the_game_interface').innerHTML = "9999";
</pre>

Note: $() is the standard method to access some HTML element with the BGA Framework. You should not use the '''getElementById''' function.

'''dojo.style'''

With dojo.style you can modify the CSS property of any HTML element in your interface.

Examples:

<pre>
// Make an element disappear
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'display', 'none' );

// Give an element a 2px border
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'borderWidth', '2px' );

// Change the background position of an element
// (very practical when you are using CSS sprites to transform an element to another)
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'backgroundPosition', '-20px -50px' );
</pre>

Note: you must always use dojo.style to modify the CSS properties of HTML elements.

Note²: if you have to modify several CSS properties of an element, or if you have a complex CSS transformation to do, you should consider using dojo.addClass/dojo.removeClass (see below).

'''dojo CSS classes manipulation'''

In many situations, many small CSS property updates can be replaced by a CSS class change (i.e., you add a CSS class to your element instead of applying all modifications manually).

Advantages are:
* All your CSS stuff remains in your CSS file.
* You can add/remove a list of CSS modifications with a simple function and without error.
* You can test whether you applied the CSS to an element with the '''dojo.hasClass''' method.

Example from ''Reversi'':

<pre>
// We add "possibleMove" to an element
dojo.addClass( 'square_'+x+'_'+y, 'possibleMove' );

// In our CSS file, the class is defined as:
.possibleMove {
background-color: white;
opacity: 0.2;
filter:alpha(opacity=20); /* For IE8 and earlier */
cursor: pointer;
}

// So we've applied 4 CSS property changes in one line of code.

// ... and when we need to check if a square is a possible move on the client side:
if( dojo.hasClass( 'square_'+x+'_'+y, 'possibleMove' ) )
{ ... }

// ... and if we want to remove all possible moves in one line of code (see "dojo.query" method):
dojo.query( '.possibleMove' ).removeClass( 'possibleMove' );
</pre>

Conclusion: we encourage you to use '''dojo.addClass''', '''dojo.removeClass''' and '''dojo.hasClass''' to make your life easier :)

'''dojo.query'''

With dojo.query, you can query a bunch of HTML elements with a single function, with a "CSS selector" style.

Example:
<pre>
// All elements with class "possibleMove":
var elements = dojo.query( '.possibleMove' );

// Count number of tokens (i.e., elements of class "token") on the board (i.e., the element with id "board"):
dojo.query( '#board .token' ).length;
</pre>

But what is really cool with dojo.query is that you can combine it with almost all methods above.

Examples:
<pre>
// Trigger a method when the mouse enter in any element with class "meeple":
dojo.query( '.meeple' ).connect( 'onmouseenter', this, 'myMethodToTrigger' );

// Hide all meeples who are on the board
dojo.query( '#board .meeple' ).style( 'display', 'none' );
</pre>

'''dojo.place'''

dojo.place is the best function to insert some HTML code somewhere in your game interface without breaking something. It is much better to use that "innerHTML=''" method as soon as you must insert HTML tags and not only values.

<pre>
// Insert your HTML code as a child of a container element
dojo.place( "<your html code>", "your_container_element_id" );

// Replace the container element with your new html
dojo.place( "<your html code>", "your_container_element_id", "replace" );

</pre>

The third parameter of dojo.place can take various interesting value.

values possibles :

"replace" : (see description above).

"first" : Places the node as a child of the reference node. The node is placed as the first child.

"last" : Places the node as a child of the reference node. The node is placed as the last child.

"before" : places the node right before the reference node.

"last (value by default) " : places the node right after the reference node.

"only" : replaces all children of the reference node with the node.

positif integer : This parameter can be a positif integer. In this case, the node will be placed as a child of the reference node with this number (counting from 0). If the number is more than number of children, the node will be appended to the reference node making it the last child.

See also full doc on dojo.place : [http://dojotoolkit.org/reference-guide/1.7/dojo/place.]

Usually, when you want to insert some piece of HTML in your game interface, you should use "[[Game_layout:_view_and_template:_yourgamename.view.php_and_yourgamename_yourgamename.tpl#Javascript_templates|Javascript templates]]".

'''addStyleToClass: function( cssClassName, cssProperty, propertyValue )'''

Same as dojo.style(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName

=== Animations ===

'''Dojo Animations'''

BGA animations is based on Dojo Animation ([http://dojotoolkit.org/documentation/tutorials/1.8/animation/ see tutorial here]).

However, most of the time, you can just use methods below, which are built on top of Dojo Animation.

Note: one interesting method from Dojo that could be useful from time to time is "Dojo.Animation". It allows you to make any CSS property "slide" from one value to another.

'''this.slideToObject( mobile_obj, target_obj, duration, delay )'''

You can use slideToObject to "slide" an element to a target position.

Sliding element on the game area is the recommended and the most used way to animate your game interface. Using slides allow players to figure out what is happening on the game, as if they were playing with the real boardgame.

The parameters are:
* mobile_obj: the ID of the object to move. This object must be "relative" or "absolute" positioned.
* target_obj: the ID of the target object. This object must be "relative" or "absolute" positioned. Note that it is not mandatory that mobile_obj and target_obj have the same size. If their size are different, the system slides the center of mobile_obj to the center of target_obj.
* duration: (optional) defines the duration in millisecond of the slide. The default is 500 milliseconds.
* delay: (optional). If you defines a delay, the slide will start only after this delay. This is particularly useful when you want to slide several object from the same position to the same position: you can give a 0ms delay to the first object, a 100ms delay to the second one, a 200ms delay to the third one, ... this way they won't be superposed during the slide.

BE CAREFUL: The method returns an dojo.fx animation, so you can combine it with other animation if you want to. It means that you have to call the "play()" method, otherwise the animation WON'T START.

Example:
<pre>
this.slideToObject( "some_token", "some_place_on_board" ).play();
</pre>

'''this.slideToObjectPos( mobile_obj, target_obj, target_x, target_y, duration, delay )'''

This method does exactly the same as "slideToObject", except than you can specify some (x,y) coordinates. This way, "mobile_obj" will slide to the specified x,y position relatively to "target_obj".

Example: slide a token to some place on the board, 10 pixels to the bottom:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectPos( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 0, 10 ).play();
</pre>

'''this.slideTemporaryObject( mobile_obj_html, mobile_obj_parent, from, to, duration, delay )'''

This method is useful when you want to slide a temporary HTML object from one place to another. As this object does not exists before the animation and won't remain after, it could be complex to create this object (with dojo.place), to place it at its origin (with placeOnObject) to slide it (with slideToObject) and to make it disappear at the end.

slideTemporaryObject does all of this for you:
* mobile_obj_html is a piece of HTML code that represent the object to slide.
* mobile_obj_parent is the ID of an HTML element of your interface that will be the parent of this temporary HTML object.
* from is the ID of the origin of the slide.
* to is the ID of the target of the slide.
* duration/delay works exactly like in "slideToObject"

Example:
<pre>
this.slideTemporaryObject( '<div class="token_icon"></div>', 'tokens', 'my_origin_div', 'my_target_div' );
</pre>

'''this.slideToObjectAndDestroy: function( node, to, time, delay )'''

This method is a handy shortcut to slide an existing HTML object to some place then destroy it upon arrival. It can be used for example to move a victory token or a card from the board to the player panel to show that the player earns it, then destroy it when we don't need to keep it visible on the player panel.

It works the same as this.slideToObject and takes the same arguments.

Example:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectAndDestroy( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 1000, 0 );
</pre>

'''this.fadeOutAndDestroy( node, duration, delay )'''

This function fade out the target HTML node, then destroy it.

Example:
<pre>
this.fadeOutAndDestroy( "a_card_that_must_disappear" );
</pre>

CAREFUL: the HTML node still exists until during few milliseconds, until the fadeOut has been completed.

'''Rotating elements'''

You can check here [http://jimfulton.info/demos/dojo-animated-rotate.html an example of use] of Dojo to make an element rotate.

This example combines "Dojo.Animation" method and a CSS3 property that allow you to rotate the element.

IMPORTANT: to asses browser compatibility, you must select the CSS property to use just like in the example (see sourcecode below):

<pre>
var transform;
dojo.forEach(
['transform', 'WebkitTransform', 'msTransform',
'MozTransform', 'OTransform'],
function (name) {
if (typeof dojo.body().style[name] != 'undefined') {
transform = name;
}
});
// ... and then use "transform" as the name of your CSS property for rotation
</pre>

=== Moving elements ===

'''this.placeOnObject( mobile_obj, target_obj )'''

placeOnObject works exactly like "slideToObject", except that the effect is immediate.

This is not really an animation, but placeOnObject is frequently used before starting an animation.

Example:
<pre>
// (We just created an object "my_new_token")

// Place the new token on current player board
this.placeOnObject( "my_new_token", "overall_player_board_"+this.player_id );

// Then slide it to its position on the board
this.slideToObject( "my_new_token", "a_place_on_board" ).play();
</pre>

'''this.placeOnObjectPos( mobile_obj, target_obj, target_x, target_y )'''

This method works exactly like placeOnObject, except than you can specify some (x,y) coordinates. This way, "mobile_obj" will be placed to the specified x,y position relatively to "target_obj".

'''this.attachToNewParent( mobile_obj, target_obj )'''

With this method, you change the HTML parent of "mobile_obj" element. "target_obj" is the new parent of this element. The beauty of
attachToNewParent is that the mobile_obj element DOES NOT MOVE during this process.

Note: what happens is that the method calculate a relative position of mobile_obj to make sure it does not move after the HTML parent changes.

Why using this method?

Changing the HTML parent of an element can be useful for the following reasons:
* When the HTML parent moves, all its child are moving with them. If some game elements is no more linked with a parent HTML object, you may want to attach it to another place.
* The z_order (vertical order of display) depends on the position in the DOM, so you may need to change the parent of some game elements when they are moving in your game area.

CAREFUL: this function destroys original object and places a clone onto a new parent, this will break all references to this HTML element (ex: dojo.connect).

== Players input ==

'''dojo.connect'''

Used to associate a player event with one of your notification method.

Example: associate a click on an element ("my_element") with one of our method ("onClickOnMyElement"):
<pre>
dojo.connect( $('my_element'), 'onclick', this, 'onClickOnMyElement' );
</pre>

Note: this is the only possible correct way to associate a player input event to your code, and you must not use anything else.

'''this.checkAction( "my_action_name" )'''

Usage: checkAction: function( action, nomessage )

Check if player can do the specified action by taking into account:
* current game state
* interface locking (a player can't do any action if an action is already in progress)

return true if action is authorized (ie: the action is listed as a "possibleaction" in current game state).

return false and display an error message if not (display no message if nomessage parameter is true). The displayed error message could be either "This move is not allowed at this moment" or "An action is already in progress".

Example:
<pre>
function onClickOnGameElement( evt )
{
if( this.checkAction( "my_action" ) )
{
// Do the action
}
}
</pre>

'''this.ajaxcall( url, parameters, obj_callback, callback, callback_error )'''

This method must be used to send a player input to the game server.

* url: the url of the action to perform. For a game, it must be: "/<mygame>/<mygame>/myAction.html"
* parameters: an array of parameter to send to the game server. Note that "lock:true" must always be specified in this list of parameter in order the interface can be locked during the server call.
* obj_callback: must be set to "this".
* callback: a function to trigger when the server returns and everything went fine.
* callback_error: (optional and rarely used) a function to trigger when the server returns an error.

Usage:
<pre>
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/myaction.html', { lock: true,
arg1: myarg1,
arg2: myarg2,
...
}, this, function( result ) {
// Do some stuff after a successful call
} );
</pre>

Restricted arguments names (please don't use them):
* "action"
* "module"
* "class"

'''this.confirmationDialog()'''

Display a confirmation dialog with a yes/no choice.

We advice you to NOT use this function unless the player action is really critical and could ruins the game, because it slows down the game and upset players.

Usage: this.confirmationDialog( "Question to displayed", callback_function_if_click_on_yes );

Example:
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure to use this bonus (points penalty at the end of the game) ?'),
dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.ajaxcall( '/seasons/seasons/useBonus.html',
{ id:bonus_id, lock:true }, this, function( result ) {} );
} ) );
</pre>

; addEventToClass: function( cssClassName, eventName, functionName )
: Same as dojo.connect(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName

'''this.addActionButton( id, label, method, (opt)destination, (opt)blinking, (opt)color )'''

You can use this method to add an action button in the main action status bar.

Arguments:
* id: an element ID that should be unique in your HTML DOM document.
* label: the text of the button. Should be translatable (use _() function).
* method: the name of your method that must be triggered when the player clicks on this button.
* destination (optional): deprecated, do not use this. Use '''null''' as value if you need to specify other arguments.
* blinking (optional): if set to '''true''', the button is going blink to catch player's attention. Please don't abuse of blinking button.
* color: could be '''blue''' (default), '''red''' or '''gray'''.

You should only use this method in your "onUpdateActionButtons" method. Usually, you use it like this (from Hears example):

<pre>
onUpdateActionButtons: function( stateName, args ) {

if (this.isCurrentPlayerActive()) {
switch( stateName ) {
case 'giveCards':
this.addActionButton( 'giveCards_button', _('Give selected cards'), 'onGiveCards' );
break;
}
}
},
</pre>

In the example above, we are adding a "Give selected cards" button in the case we are on game state "giveCards". When player clicks on this button, it triggers our "onGiveCards" method.

Example using blinking red button:
<pre>
this.addActionButton( 'commit_button', _('Confirm'), 'onConfirm', null, true, 'red');
</pre>

Note: at least in studio example above will make button huge, because it sets it display of blinking things to '''block''',
if you don't like it you have to change css display value
of the button to inline-block (the id of the button is the first argument, i.e 'commit_button' in example above)

== Translations ==

See [[Translations]]

== Notifications ==

When something happens on the server side, your game interface Javascript logic received a notification.

Here's how you can handle these notifications on the client side.

=== Subscribe to notifications ===

Your Javascript "setupNotifications" method is the place where you can subscribe to notifications from your PHP code.

Here's how you associate one of your Javascript method to a notification "playDisc" (from Reversi example):

<pre>
// In setupNotifications method:
dojo.subscribe( 'playDisc', this, "notif_playDisc" );
</pre>

Note: the "playDisc" corresponds to the name of the notification you define it in your PHP code, in your "notifyAllPlayers" or "notifyPlayer" method.

Then, you have to define your "notif_playDisc" method:

<pre>
notif_playDisc: function( notif )
{
// Remove current possible moves (makes the board more clear)
dojo.query( '.possibleMove' ).removeClass( 'possibleMove' );

this.addDiscOnBoard( notif.args.x, notif.args.y, notif.args.player_id );
},
</pre>

In a notification handler like our "notif_playDisc" method, you can access to all notifications arguments with "notif.args".

Example:
<pre>
// If you did this on PHP side:
self::notifyAllPlayers( "myNotification", '', array( "myArgument" => 3 ) );

// On Javascript side, you can access the "myArgument" like this:
notif_myNotification: function( notif )
{
alert( "myArgument = " + notif.args.myArgument );
}
</pre>

=== Synchronous notifications ===

When several notifications are received by your game interface, these notifications are processed immediately, one after the other, in the same exact order they have been generated in your PHP game logic.

However, sometimes, you need to give some time to the players to figure out what happened on the game before jumping to the next notification. Indeed, in many games, they are a lot of automatic actions, and the computer is going to resolve all these actions very fast if you don't tell it not to do so.

As an example, for Reversi, when someone is playing a disc, we want to wait 500 milliseconds before doing anything else in order the opponent player can figure out what move has been played.

Here's how we do this, right after our subscription:
<pre>
dojo.subscribe( 'playDisc', this, "notif_playDisc" );
this.notifqueue.setSynchronous( 'playDisc', 500 ); // Wait 500 milliseconds after executing the playDisc handler
</pre>

=== Pre-defined notification types ===

'''tableWindow''' - This defines notification to display [[Game_interface_logic:_yourgamename.js#Scoring_dialogs|Scoring Dialogs]], see below.

'''message''' - This defines notification that shows on players log and have no other effect

// You can call this on php side without doing anything on client side
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'message', 'hello', array( ) );

== Tooltips ==

'''this.addTooltip( nodeId, _( helpString ), _( actionString ), delay )'''

Add a simple text tooltip to the DOM node.

Specify 'helpString' to display some information about "what is this game element?".
Specify 'actionString' to display some information about "what happens when I click on this element?".

You must specify both helpString and actionString. Most of the time, you use only one and specify a void string ("") for the other one.

Usually, _() must be used for the text to be marked for translation.

"Delay" is an optional parameter. Usually, it is primarily used to specify a zero delay for some game element when the tooltip gives really important information for the game - but remember: no essential information must be placed in tooltips as they won't be displayed in some browser (see Guidelines).

Example:
<pre>
this.addTooltip( 'cardcount', _('Number of cards in hand'), '' );
</pre>

'''this.addTooltipHtml( nodeId, html, delay )'''

Add an HTML tooltip to the DOM node (for more elaborate content such as presenting a bigger version of a card).

'''this.addTooltipToClass( cssClass, _( helpString ), _( actionString ), delay )'''

Add a simple text tooltip to all the DOM nodes set with this cssClass.

IMPORTANT: all concerned nodes must have IDs to get tooltips.

'''this.addTooltipHtmlToClass( cssClass, html, delay )'''

Add an HTML tooltip to to all the DOM nodes set with this cssClass (for more elaborate content such as presenting a bigger version of a card).

IMPORTANT: all concerned nodes must have IDs to get tooltips

'''this.removeTooltip( nodeId )'''

Remove a tooltip from the DOM node.

== Dialogs, warning messages, confirmation dialogs, ... ==

=== Warning messages ===

Sometimes, there is something important that is happening on the game and you have to make sure all players get the message. Most of the time, the evolution of the game situation or the game log is enough, but sometimes you need something more visible.

Ex: someone fulfill one of the end of the game condition, so this is the last turn.

'''this.showMessage( msg, type )'''

showMessage shows a message in a big rectangular area on the top of the screen of current player.

* "msg" is the string to display. It should be translated.
* "type" can be set to "info" or "error". If set to "info", the message will be an informative message on a white background. If set to "error", the message will be an error message on a red background.

Important: the normal way to inform players about the progression of the game is the game log. "showMessage" is intrusive and should not be used often.

=== Confirmation dialog ===

'''confirmationDialog( message, yesHandler, noHandler )'''

When an important action with a lot of consequences is triggered by the player, you may want to propose a confirmation dialog.

CAREFUL: the general guidelines of BGA is to AVOID the use of confirmation dialog. Confirmation dialogs slow down the game and bother players. The players knows that they have to pay attention about each move when they are playing online.

The situation where you should use a confirmation dialog are the following:
* It must not happen very often during a game.
* It must be linked to an action that can really "kill a game" if the player do not pay attention.
* It must be something that can be done by mistake (ex: a link on the action status bar).

How to display a confirmation dialog:
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure you want to bake the pie?'), dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.bakeThePie();
} ) );
return; // nothing should be called or done after calling this, all action must be done in the handler
</pre>

=== Multiple choice dialog ===
You can use this dialog to give user a choice with small amount of options:
<pre>
var keys = [1,5,10];
this.multipleChoiceDialog(
_('How many bugs to fix?"), keys,
dojo.hitch(this, function(choice) {
var bugchoice = keys[choice];
console.log('dialog callback with '+bugchoice);
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/fixBugs.html', { bugs: bugchoice}, this, function( result ) {} ); }));
</pre>

=== Dialogs ===

At first, you shouldn't use dialogs windows.

BGA guidelines specify that all game elements should be displayed on the main screen. Players can eventually scroll down to see game elements they don't need to see anytime, and you may eventually create anchors to move between game area section. Of course dialogs windows are very practical, but the thing is: all players know how to scroll down, and not all players know how to show up your dialog window. In addition, when the dialog shows up, players can't access the other game components.

Sometimes although, you need to display a dialog window. Here is how you do this:

// Create the new dialog. You should store the handler in a member variable to access it later
this.myDlg = new dijit.Dialog({ title: _("my dialog title to translate") });

// Create the HTML of my dialog.
// The best practice here is to use [[Game_layout:_view_and_template:_yourgamename.view.php_and_yourgamename_yourgamename.tpl#Javascript_templates|Javascript templates]]
var html = this.format_block( 'jstpl_myDialogTemplate', {
arg1: myArg1,
arg2: myArg2,
...
} );

// Show the dialog
this.myDlg.attr("content", html );
this.myDlg.show();

// Now that the dialog has been displayed, you can connect your method to some dialog elements
// Example, a "close" button:
dojo.connect( $('closeDlg'), 'onclick', this, function(evt){
evt.preventDefault();
this.myDlg.hide();
} );

Tip: be careful with "hide()" method to close your dialog: the dialog and its content is not completely removed from the DOM. It can cause you problems if you try to display the same dialog several times. A good practice is to wrap all the content of your dialog in a <nowiki><div id='myDlgContent'></nowiki> div element, and to call "dojo.destroy('myDlgContent')" before displaying your dialog.

=== Scoring dialogs ===

Sometimes at the end of a round you want to display a big table that details the points wins in each section of the game.

Example: in Hearts game, we display at the end of each round the number of "heart" cards collected by each player, the player who collected the Queen of Spades, and the total number of points loose by each player.

Scoring dialogs are managed entirely on '''PHP side''', but they are described here as their effects are visible only on client side.

Displaying a scoring dialog is quite simple and is using a special notification type: "tableWindow":
<pre>
// on PHP side:
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "tableWindow", '', array(
"id" => 'finalScoring',
"title" => clienttranslate("Title of the scoring dialog"),
"table" => $table
) );
</pre>

The "table" argument is a 2 dimensional PHP array that describe the table you want to display, line by line and column by column.

Example: display an 3x3 array of strings
<pre>
$table = array(
array( "one", "two", "three" ), // This is my first line
array( "four", "five", "six" ), // This is my second line
array( "seven", "height", "nine" ) // This is my third line
);
</pre>

As you can see above, in each "cell" of your array you can display a simple string value. But you can also display a complex value with a template and associated arguments like this:
<pre>
$table = array(
array( "one", "two", array( "str" => "a string with an ${argument}", "args" => array( 'argument' => 'argument_value' ) ) ),
array( "four", "five", "six" ),
array( "seven", "height", "nine" )
);
</pre>

This is especially useful when you want to display player names with colors. Example from "Hearts":
<pre>
$firstRow = array( '' );
foreach( $players as $player_id => $player )
{
$firstRow[] = array( 'str' => '${player_name}',
'args' => array( 'player_name' => $player['player_name'] ),
'type' => 'header'
);
}
$table[] = $firstRow;
</pre>

You can also use three extra attributes in the parameter array for the notification:

<pre>
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "tableWindow", '', array(
"id" => 'finalScoring',
"title" => clienttranslate("Title of the scoring dialog"),
"table" => $table,
"header" => array('str' => clienttranslate('Table header with parameter ${number}'),
'args' => array( 'number' => 3 ),
),
"footer" => '<div>Some footer</div>',
"closing" => clienttranslate( "Closing button label" )
) );
</pre>

*'''header''': the content for this parameter will display before the table (also, the html will be parsed and player names will be colored according to the current game colors).
*'''footer''': the content for this parameter will display after the table (no parsing for coloring the player names)
*'''closing''': if this parameter is used, a button will be displayed with this label at the bottom of the popup and will allow players to close it (more easily than by clicking the top right 'cross' icon).

=== Scoring animated display ===

Sometimes (Terra Mystica final scoring for example), you may want to display a score value over an element to make the scoring easier to follow for the players.
You can do it with:

<pre>
this.displayScoring( anchor_id, color, score );
</pre>

=== Speech bubble ===

For better interactivity in some games (Love Letter for example), you may use comic book style speech bubbles to express the players voices.
This is done with:

<pre>
this.showBubble( anchor_id, text, delay, duration, custom_class )
</pre>

delay in milliseconds is optional (default 0)

duration in milliseconds is optional (default 3000)

custom_class is optional, if you need to override the default bubble style

== Update players score ==

Increase a player score (with a positive or negative number):

<pre>
this.scoreCtrl[ player_id ].incValue( score_delta );
</pre>

Set a player score to a specific value:

<pre>
this.scoreCtrl[ player_id ].setValue( new_score );
</pre>

== Players panels ==

=== Adding stuff to player's panel ===

At first, create a new "JS template" string in your template (tpl) file:

(from Gomoku example)
<pre>
var jstpl_player_board = '\<div class="cp_board">\
<div id="stoneicon_p${id}" class="gmk_stoneicon gmk_stoneicon_${color}"></div><span id="stonecount_p${id}">0</span>\
</div>';
</pre>

Then, you add this piece of code in your JS file to add this template to each player panel:

<pre>
// Setting up player boards
for( var player_id in gamedatas.players )
{
var player = gamedatas.players[player_id];

// Setting up players boards if needed
var player_board_div = $('player_board_'+player_id);
dojo.place( this.format_block('jstpl_player_board', player ), player_board_div );
}
</pre>

(Note: the code above is of course from your "setup" function in your Javascript).

Very often, you have to distinguish current player and others players. In this case, you just have to create another JS template (ex: jstpl_otherplayer_board) and use it when "player_id" is different than "this.player_id".

=== Player's panel disabling/enabling ===

'''this.disablePlayerPanel( player_id )'''

Disable given player panel (the panel background become gray).

Usually, this is used to signal that this played passes, or will be inactive during a while.

Note that the only effect of this is visual. There are no consequences on the behaviour of the panel itself.

'''this.enablePlayerPanel( player_id )'''

Enable a player panel that has been disabled before.

'''this.enableAllPlayerPanels()'''

Enable all player panels that has been disabled before.

== Image loading ==

See also [[Game_art:_img_directory]].

'''Be careful''': by default, ALL images of your img directory are loaded on a player's browser when he loads the game. For this reason, don't let in your img directory images that are not useful, otherwise it's going to slowdown the game load.

'''dontPreloadImage( image_file_name )'''

Using dontPreloadImage, you tell the interface to not preload a specific image in your img directory.

Example of use:
<pre>
this.dontPreloadImage( 'cards.png' );
</pre>

This is particularly useful if for example you have 2 different themes for a game. To accelerate the loading of the game, you can specify to not preload images corresponding to the other theme.

Another example of use: in "Gosu" game with Kamakor extension, you play with 5 sets of cards among 10 available. Cards images are organized by sets, and we only preload the images corresponding to the 5 current sets with '''ensureSpecificGameImageLoading( image_file_names_array )'''.
<pre>
// By default, do not preload anything
this.dontPreloadImage( 'cards.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan1.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan2.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan3.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan4.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan5.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan6.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan7.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan8.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan9.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan10.png' );
var to_preload = [];
for( i in this.gamedatas.clans )
{
var clan_id = this.gamedatas.clans[i];
to_preload.push( 'clan'+clan_id+'.png' );
}
if( to_preload.length == 5 )
{
this.ensureSpecificGameImageLoading( to_preload );
}
</pre>

'''Note:''' You don't need to specify to not preload game box images (game_box.png, game_box75.png...) since they are not preloaded by default.

== Other useful stuff ==

'''dojo.hitch'''

With dojo.hitch, you can create a callback function that will run with your game object context whatever happen.

Typical example: display a BGA confirmation dialog with a callback function created with dojo.hitch:

<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure you want to make this?'), dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/makeThis.html', { lock:true }, this, function( result ) {} );
} ) );
</pre>

In the example above, using dojo.hitch, we are sure that the "this" object will be set when the callback is called.

; updateCounters(counters)
: Useful for updating game counters in the player panel (such as resources).
: 'counters' arg is an associative array [counter_name_value => [ 'counter_name' => counter_name_value, 'counter_value' => counter_value_value], ... ]
: All counters must be referenced in this.gamedatas.counters and will be updated.
: DOM objects referenced by 'counter_name' will have their innerHTML updated with 'counter_value'.

== BGA GUI components ==

BGA framework provides some useful ready-to-use components for the game interface:

[[Studio#BGA_Studio_game_components_reference]]

Note that each time you are using an additional component, you must declare it at the top of your Javascript file in the list of modules used.

Example if you are using "ebg.stock":
<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <=== we are using ebg.stock module
],
</pre>

Game interface logic: yourgamename.js

2018-09-16T21:16:35Z

Amadannabriona: /* Shrinksafe minification */

This is the main file for your game interface. Here you will define:

* Which actions on the page will generate calls to the server.
* What happens when you get a notification for a change from the server and how it will show in the browser.

== File structure ==

The details of how the file is structured are described below with comments on the code skeleton provided to you.

Here is the basic structure:

* '''constructor''': here you can define global variables for your whole interface.
* '''setup''': this method is called when the page is refreshed, and sets up the game interface.
* '''onEnteringState''': this method is called when entering a new game state. You can use it to customize the view for each game state.
* '''onLeavingState''': this method is called when leaving a game state.
* '''onUpdateActionButtons''': called when entering a new state, in order to add action buttons to the status bar.
* ''(utility methods)'': this is where you can define your utility methods.
* ''(player's actions)'': this is where you can write your handlers for player actions on the interface (example: click on an item).
* '''setupNotifications''': this method associates notifications with notification handlers. For each game notification, you can trigger a javascript method to handle it and update the game interface.
* ''(notification handlers)'': this is where you define the notifications handlers associated with notifications in '''setupNotifications''', above.

== General tips ==

; this.player_id
: ID of the player on whose browser the code is running.

; this.isSpectator
: Flag set to true if the user at the table is a spectator (not a player).
: Note: This is a variable, not a function.
: Note: If you want to hide an element from spectators, you should use [[Game_interface_stylesheet:_yourgamename.css#spectatorMode|CSS 'spectatorMode' class]].

; this.gamedatas
: Contains the initial set of data to init the game, created at game start or by game refresh (F5).
: You can update it as needed to keep an up-to-date reference of the game on the client side if you need it. (Most of the time this is unnecessary).

; this.isCurrentPlayerActive()
: Returns true if the player on whose browser the code is running is currently active (it's his turn to play).

; this.getActivePlayerId()
: Return the ID of the active player, or null if we are not in an "activeplayer" type state.

; this.getActivePlayers()
: Return an array with the IDs of players who are currently active (or an empty array if there are none).

== Dojo framework ==

BGA uses the [http://dojotoolkit.org/ Dojo Javascript framework].

The Dojo framework allows us to do complex things more easily. The BGA framework uses Dojo extensively.

To implement a game, you only need to use a few parts of the Dojo framework. All the Dojo methods you need are described on this page.

== Shrinksafe minimization ==

For performance reasons, when deploying a game the js code is minimized using Shrinksafe (based on ECMASCRIPT version 3). Some advanced syntax may not be compatible with this process. In particular:
* You should not use reserved keywords from the javascript language as variables.
* You should not declare default argument values in function declarations. The following syntax is invalid for Shrinksafe: '''function myFunc(requiredArg, optionalArg = 'defaultValue') {}'''

== Access and manipulate the DOM ==

'''$('some_html_element_id')'''

The $() function is used to get some HTML element using its "id" attribute.

Example 1: modify the content of a "span" element:
<pre>
In your HTML code:
<span id="a_value_in_the_game_interface">1234</span>

In your Javascript code:
$('a_value_in_the_game_interface').innerHTML = "9999";
</pre>

Note: $() is the standard method to access some HTML element with BGA Framework. You must not use "getElementById" function.

'''dojo.style'''

With dojo.style you can modify a CSS property of any HTML element of your interface.

Examples:
<pre>
// Make an element disappear
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'display', 'none' );

// Give an element a 2px border
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'borderWidth', '2px' );

// Change the background position of an element
// (very practical when you are using CSS sprite to transform an element to another)
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'backgroundPosition', '-20px -50px' );
</pre>

Note: you must always use dojo.style to modify CSS properties of HTML elements.

Note²: if you have to modify several CSS properties of an element, or if you have some complex CSS transformation to do, you should consider using dojo.addClass/dojo.removeClass (see below).

'''dojo CSS classes manipulation'''

In many situation, a bunch of many small CSS property update can be replaced by a CSS class change (ie: you add a CSS class to your element instead of applying all modification manually).

Advantages are:
* All your CSS stuff remains in your CSS file.
* You can add/remove a list of CSS modifications with a simple function and whithout error.
* You can test if you applied the stuff to an element with "dojo.hasClass" method.

Example from "Reversi":
<pre>
// We add "possibleMove" to an element
dojo.addClass( 'square_'+x+'_'+y, 'possibleMove' );

// In our CSS file, the class is defined as:
.possibleMove {
background-color: white;
opacity: 0.2;
filter:alpha(opacity=20); /* For IE8 and earlier */
cursor: pointer;
}

// So we've applied 4 CSS property change in one line of code.

// ... and when we need to check if a square is a possible move on client side:
if( dojo.hasClass( 'square_'+x+'_'+y, 'possibleMove' ) )
{ ... }

// ... and if we want to remove all possible moves in one line of code (see "dojo.query" method):
dojo.query( '.possibleMove' ).removeClass( 'possibleMove' );
</pre>

Conclusion: we encourage you to use dojo.addClass, dojo.removeClass and dojo.hasClass to make your life easier :)

'''dojo.query'''

With dojo.query, you can query a bunch of HTML elements with a single function, with a "CSS selector" style.

Example:
<pre>
// All elements with class "possibleMove":
var elements = dojo.query( '.possibleMove' );

// Count number of tokens (ie: elements with class "token") on the board (ie: element with id "board"):
dojo.query( '#board .token' ).length;
</pre>

But what is really cool with dojo.query is that you can combine it with almost all methods above.

Examples:
<pre>
// Trigger a method when the mouse enter in any element with class "meeple":
dojo.query( '.meeple' ).connect( 'onmouseenter', this, 'myMethodToTrigger' );

// Hide all meeples who are on the board
dojo.query( '#board .meeple' ).style( 'display', 'none' );
</pre>

'''dojo.place'''

dojo.place is the best function to insert some HTML code somewhere in your game interface without breaking something. It is much better to use that "innerHTML=''" method as soon as you must insert HTML tags and not only values.

<pre>
// Insert your HTML code as a child of a container element
dojo.place( "<your html code>", "your_container_element_id" );

// Replace the container element with your new html
dojo.place( "<your html code>", "your_container_element_id", "replace" );

</pre>

The third parameter of dojo.place can take various interesting value.

values possibles :

"replace" : (see description above).

"first" : Places the node as a child of the reference node. The node is placed as the first child.

"last" : Places the node as a child of the reference node. The node is placed as the last child.

"before" : places the node right before the reference node.

"last (value by default) " : places the node right after the reference node.

"only" : replaces all children of the reference node with the node.

positif integer : This parameter can be a positif integer. In this case, the node will be placed as a child of the reference node with this number (counting from 0). If the number is more than number of children, the node will be appended to the reference node making it the last child.

See also full doc on dojo.place : [http://dojotoolkit.org/reference-guide/1.7/dojo/place.]

Usually, when you want to insert some piece of HTML in your game interface, you should use "[[Game_layout:_view_and_template:_yourgamename.view.php_and_yourgamename_yourgamename.tpl#Javascript_templates|Javascript templates]]".

'''addStyleToClass: function( cssClassName, cssProperty, propertyValue )'''

Same as dojo.style(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName

=== Animations ===

'''Dojo Animations'''

BGA animations is based on Dojo Animation ([http://dojotoolkit.org/documentation/tutorials/1.8/animation/ see tutorial here]).

However, most of the time, you can just use methods below, which are built on top of Dojo Animation.

Note: one interesting method from Dojo that could be useful from time to time is "Dojo.Animation". It allows you to make any CSS property "slide" from one value to another.

'''this.slideToObject( mobile_obj, target_obj, duration, delay )'''

You can use slideToObject to "slide" an element to a target position.

Sliding element on the game area is the recommended and the most used way to animate your game interface. Using slides allow players to figure out what is happening on the game, as if they were playing with the real boardgame.

The parameters are:
* mobile_obj: the ID of the object to move. This object must be "relative" or "absolute" positioned.
* target_obj: the ID of the target object. This object must be "relative" or "absolute" positioned. Note that it is not mandatory that mobile_obj and target_obj have the same size. If their size are different, the system slides the center of mobile_obj to the center of target_obj.
* duration: (optional) defines the duration in millisecond of the slide. The default is 500 milliseconds.
* delay: (optional). If you defines a delay, the slide will start only after this delay. This is particularly useful when you want to slide several object from the same position to the same position: you can give a 0ms delay to the first object, a 100ms delay to the second one, a 200ms delay to the third one, ... this way they won't be superposed during the slide.

BE CAREFUL: The method returns an dojo.fx animation, so you can combine it with other animation if you want to. It means that you have to call the "play()" method, otherwise the animation WON'T START.

Example:
<pre>
this.slideToObject( "some_token", "some_place_on_board" ).play();
</pre>

'''this.slideToObjectPos( mobile_obj, target_obj, target_x, target_y, duration, delay )'''

This method does exactly the same as "slideToObject", except than you can specify some (x,y) coordinates. This way, "mobile_obj" will slide to the specified x,y position relatively to "target_obj".

Example: slide a token to some place on the board, 10 pixels to the bottom:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectPos( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 0, 10 ).play();
</pre>

'''this.slideTemporaryObject( mobile_obj_html, mobile_obj_parent, from, to, duration, delay )'''

This method is useful when you want to slide a temporary HTML object from one place to another. As this object does not exists before the animation and won't remain after, it could be complex to create this object (with dojo.place), to place it at its origin (with placeOnObject) to slide it (with slideToObject) and to make it disappear at the end.

slideTemporaryObject does all of this for you:
* mobile_obj_html is a piece of HTML code that represent the object to slide.
* mobile_obj_parent is the ID of an HTML element of your interface that will be the parent of this temporary HTML object.
* from is the ID of the origin of the slide.
* to is the ID of the target of the slide.
* duration/delay works exactly like in "slideToObject"

Example:
<pre>
this.slideTemporaryObject( '<div class="token_icon"></div>', 'tokens', 'my_origin_div', 'my_target_div' );
</pre>

'''this.slideToObjectAndDestroy: function( node, to, time, delay )'''

This method is a handy shortcut to slide an existing HTML object to some place then destroy it upon arrival. It can be used for example to move a victory token or a card from the board to the player panel to show that the player earns it, then destroy it when we don't need to keep it visible on the player panel.

It works the same as this.slideToObject and takes the same arguments.

Example:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectAndDestroy( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 1000, 0 );
</pre>

'''this.fadeOutAndDestroy( node, duration, delay )'''

This function fade out the target HTML node, then destroy it.

Example:
<pre>
this.fadeOutAndDestroy( "a_card_that_must_disappear" );
</pre>

CAREFUL: the HTML node still exists until during few milliseconds, until the fadeOut has been completed.

'''Rotating elements'''

You can check here [http://jimfulton.info/demos/dojo-animated-rotate.html an example of use] of Dojo to make an element rotate.

This example combines "Dojo.Animation" method and a CSS3 property that allow you to rotate the element.

IMPORTANT: to asses browser compatibility, you must select the CSS property to use just like in the example (see sourcecode below):

<pre>
var transform;
dojo.forEach(
['transform', 'WebkitTransform', 'msTransform',
'MozTransform', 'OTransform'],
function (name) {
if (typeof dojo.body().style[name] != 'undefined') {
transform = name;
}
});
// ... and then use "transform" as the name of your CSS property for rotation
</pre>

=== Moving elements ===

'''this.placeOnObject( mobile_obj, target_obj )'''

placeOnObject works exactly like "slideToObject", except that the effect is immediate.

This is not really an animation, but placeOnObject is frequently used before starting an animation.

Example:
<pre>
// (We just created an object "my_new_token")

// Place the new token on current player board
this.placeOnObject( "my_new_token", "overall_player_board_"+this.player_id );

// Then slide it to its position on the board
this.slideToObject( "my_new_token", "a_place_on_board" ).play();
</pre>

'''this.placeOnObjectPos( mobile_obj, target_obj, target_x, target_y )'''

This method works exactly like placeOnObject, except than you can specify some (x,y) coordinates. This way, "mobile_obj" will be placed to the specified x,y position relatively to "target_obj".

'''this.attachToNewParent( mobile_obj, target_obj )'''

With this method, you change the HTML parent of "mobile_obj" element. "target_obj" is the new parent of this element. The beauty of
attachToNewParent is that the mobile_obj element DOES NOT MOVE during this process.

Note: what happens is that the method calculate a relative position of mobile_obj to make sure it does not move after the HTML parent changes.

Why using this method?

Changing the HTML parent of an element can be useful for the following reasons:
* When the HTML parent moves, all its child are moving with them. If some game elements is no more linked with a parent HTML object, you may want to attach it to another place.
* The z_order (vertical order of display) depends on the position in the DOM, so you may need to change the parent of some game elements when they are moving in your game area.

CAREFUL: this function destroys original object and places a clone onto a new parent, this will break all references to this HTML element (ex: dojo.connect).

== Players input ==

'''dojo.connect'''

Used to associate a player event with one of your notification method.

Example: associate a click on an element ("my_element") with one of our method ("onClickOnMyElement"):
<pre>
dojo.connect( $('my_element'), 'onclick', this, 'onClickOnMyElement' );
</pre>

Note: this is the only possible correct way to associate a player input event to your code, and you must not use anything else.

'''this.checkAction( "my_action_name" )'''

Usage: checkAction: function( action, nomessage )

Check if player can do the specified action by taking into account:
* current game state
* interface locking (a player can't do any action if an action is already in progress)

return true if action is authorized (ie: the action is listed as a "possibleaction" in current game state).

return false and display an error message if not (display no message if nomessage parameter is true). The displayed error message could be either "This move is not allowed at this moment" or "An action is already in progress".

Example:
<pre>
function onClickOnGameElement( evt )
{
if( this.checkAction( "my_action" ) )
{
// Do the action
}
}
</pre>

'''this.ajaxcall( url, parameters, obj_callback, callback, callback_error )'''

This method must be used to send a player input to the game server.

* url: the url of the action to perform. For a game, it must be: "/<mygame>/<mygame>/myAction.html"
* parameters: an array of parameter to send to the game server. Note that "lock:true" must always be specified in this list of parameter in order the interface can be locked during the server call.
* obj_callback: must be set to "this".
* callback: a function to trigger when the server returns and everything went fine.
* callback_error: (optional and rarely used) a function to trigger when the server returns an error.

Usage:
<pre>
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/myaction.html', { lock: true,
arg1: myarg1,
arg2: myarg2,
...
}, this, function( result ) {
// Do some stuff after a successful call
} );
</pre>

Restricted arguments names (please don't use them):
* "action"
* "module"
* "class"

'''this.confirmationDialog()'''

Display a confirmation dialog with a yes/no choice.

We advice you to NOT use this function unless the player action is really critical and could ruins the game, because it slows down the game and upset players.

Usage: this.confirmationDialog( "Question to displayed", callback_function_if_click_on_yes );

Example:
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure to use this bonus (points penalty at the end of the game) ?'),
dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.ajaxcall( '/seasons/seasons/useBonus.html',
{ id:bonus_id, lock:true }, this, function( result ) {} );
} ) );
</pre>

; addEventToClass: function( cssClassName, eventName, functionName )
: Same as dojo.connect(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName

'''this.addActionButton( id, label, method, (opt)destination, (opt)blinking, (opt)color )'''

You can use this method to add an action button in the main action status bar.

Arguments:
* id: an element ID that should be unique in your HTML DOM document.
* label: the text of the button. Should be translatable (use _() function).
* method: the name of your method that must be triggered when the player clicks on this button.
* destination (optional): deprecated, do not use this. Use '''null''' as value if you need to specify other arguments.
* blinking (optional): if set to '''true''', the button is going blink to catch player's attention. Please don't abuse of blinking button.
* color: could be '''blue''' (default), '''red''' or '''gray'''.

You should only use this method in your "onUpdateActionButtons" method. Usually, you use it like this (from Hears example):

<pre>
onUpdateActionButtons: function( stateName, args ) {

if (this.isCurrentPlayerActive()) {
switch( stateName ) {
case 'giveCards':
this.addActionButton( 'giveCards_button', _('Give selected cards'), 'onGiveCards' );
break;
}
}
},
</pre>

In the example above, we are adding a "Give selected cards" button in the case we are on game state "giveCards". When player clicks on this button, it triggers our "onGiveCards" method.

Example using blinking red button:
<pre>
this.addActionButton( 'commit_button', _('Confirm'), 'onConfirm', null, true, 'red');
</pre>

Note: at least in studio example above will make button huge, because it sets it display of blinking things to '''block''',
if you don't like it you have to change css display value
of the button to inline-block (the id of the button is the first argument, i.e 'commit_button' in example above)

== Translations ==

See [[Translations]]

== Notifications ==

When something happens on the server side, your game interface Javascript logic received a notification.

Here's how you can handle these notifications on the client side.

=== Subscribe to notifications ===

Your Javascript "setupNotifications" method is the place where you can subscribe to notifications from your PHP code.

Here's how you associate one of your Javascript method to a notification "playDisc" (from Reversi example):

<pre>
// In setupNotifications method:
dojo.subscribe( 'playDisc', this, "notif_playDisc" );
</pre>

Note: the "playDisc" corresponds to the name of the notification you define it in your PHP code, in your "notifyAllPlayers" or "notifyPlayer" method.

Then, you have to define your "notif_playDisc" method:

<pre>
notif_playDisc: function( notif )
{
// Remove current possible moves (makes the board more clear)
dojo.query( '.possibleMove' ).removeClass( 'possibleMove' );

this.addDiscOnBoard( notif.args.x, notif.args.y, notif.args.player_id );
},
</pre>

In a notification handler like our "notif_playDisc" method, you can access to all notifications arguments with "notif.args".

Example:
<pre>
// If you did this on PHP side:
self::notifyAllPlayers( "myNotification", '', array( "myArgument" => 3 ) );

// On Javascript side, you can access the "myArgument" like this:
notif_myNotification: function( notif )
{
alert( "myArgument = " + notif.args.myArgument );
}
</pre>

=== Synchronous notifications ===

When several notifications are received by your game interface, these notifications are processed immediately, one after the other, in the same exact order they have been generated in your PHP game logic.

However, sometimes, you need to give some time to the players to figure out what happened on the game before jumping to the next notification. Indeed, in many games, they are a lot of automatic actions, and the computer is going to resolve all these actions very fast if you don't tell it not to do so.

As an example, for Reversi, when someone is playing a disc, we want to wait 500 milliseconds before doing anything else in order the opponent player can figure out what move has been played.

Here's how we do this, right after our subscription:
<pre>
dojo.subscribe( 'playDisc', this, "notif_playDisc" );
this.notifqueue.setSynchronous( 'playDisc', 500 ); // Wait 500 milliseconds after executing the playDisc handler
</pre>

=== Pre-defined notification types ===

'''tableWindow''' - This defines notification to display [[Game_interface_logic:_yourgamename.js#Scoring_dialogs|Scoring Dialogs]], see below.

'''message''' - This defines notification that shows on players log and have no other effect

// You can call this on php side without doing anything on client side
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'message', 'hello', array( ) );

== Tooltips ==

'''this.addTooltip( nodeId, _( helpString ), _( actionString ), delay )'''

Add a simple text tooltip to the DOM node.

Specify 'helpString' to display some information about "what is this game element?".
Specify 'actionString' to display some information about "what happens when I click on this element?".

You must specify both helpString and actionString. Most of the time, you use only one and specify a void string ("") for the other one.

Usually, _() must be used for the text to be marked for translation.

"Delay" is an optional parameter. Usually, it is primarily used to specify a zero delay for some game element when the tooltip gives really important information for the game - but remember: no essential information must be placed in tooltips as they won't be displayed in some browser (see Guidelines).

Example:
<pre>
this.addTooltip( 'cardcount', _('Number of cards in hand'), '' );
</pre>

'''this.addTooltipHtml( nodeId, html, delay )'''

Add an HTML tooltip to the DOM node (for more elaborate content such as presenting a bigger version of a card).

'''this.addTooltipToClass( cssClass, _( helpString ), _( actionString ), delay )'''

Add a simple text tooltip to all the DOM nodes set with this cssClass.

IMPORTANT: all concerned nodes must have IDs to get tooltips.

'''this.addTooltipHtmlToClass( cssClass, html, delay )'''

Add an HTML tooltip to to all the DOM nodes set with this cssClass (for more elaborate content such as presenting a bigger version of a card).

IMPORTANT: all concerned nodes must have IDs to get tooltips

'''this.removeTooltip( nodeId )'''

Remove a tooltip from the DOM node.

== Dialogs, warning messages, confirmation dialogs, ... ==

=== Warning messages ===

Sometimes, there is something important that is happening on the game and you have to make sure all players get the message. Most of the time, the evolution of the game situation or the game log is enough, but sometimes you need something more visible.

Ex: someone fulfill one of the end of the game condition, so this is the last turn.

'''this.showMessage( msg, type )'''

showMessage shows a message in a big rectangular area on the top of the screen of current player.

* "msg" is the string to display. It should be translated.
* "type" can be set to "info" or "error". If set to "info", the message will be an informative message on a white background. If set to "error", the message will be an error message on a red background.

Important: the normal way to inform players about the progression of the game is the game log. "showMessage" is intrusive and should not be used often.

=== Confirmation dialog ===

'''confirmationDialog( message, yesHandler, noHandler )'''

When an important action with a lot of consequences is triggered by the player, you may want to propose a confirmation dialog.

CAREFUL: the general guidelines of BGA is to AVOID the use of confirmation dialog. Confirmation dialogs slow down the game and bother players. The players knows that they have to pay attention about each move when they are playing online.

The situation where you should use a confirmation dialog are the following:
* It must not happen very often during a game.
* It must be linked to an action that can really "kill a game" if the player do not pay attention.
* It must be something that can be done by mistake (ex: a link on the action status bar).

How to display a confirmation dialog:
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure you want to bake the pie?'), dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.bakeThePie();
} ) );
return; // nothing should be called or done after calling this, all action must be done in the handler
</pre>

=== Multiple choice dialog ===
You can use this dialog to give user a choice with small amount of options:
<pre>
var keys = [1,5,10];
this.multipleChoiceDialog(
_('How many bugs to fix?"), keys,
dojo.hitch(this, function(choice) {
var bugchoice = keys[choice];
console.log('dialog callback with '+bugchoice);
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/fixBugs.html', { bugs: bugchoice}, this, function( result ) {} ); }));
</pre>

=== Dialogs ===

At first, you shouldn't use dialogs windows.

BGA guidelines specify that all game elements should be displayed on the main screen. Players can eventually scroll down to see game elements they don't need to see anytime, and you may eventually create anchors to move between game area section. Of course dialogs windows are very practical, but the thing is: all players know how to scroll down, and not all players know how to show up your dialog window. In addition, when the dialog shows up, players can't access the other game components.

Sometimes although, you need to display a dialog window. Here is how you do this:

// Create the new dialog. You should store the handler in a member variable to access it later
this.myDlg = new dijit.Dialog({ title: _("my dialog title to translate") });

// Create the HTML of my dialog.
// The best practice here is to use [[Game_layout:_view_and_template:_yourgamename.view.php_and_yourgamename_yourgamename.tpl#Javascript_templates|Javascript templates]]
var html = this.format_block( 'jstpl_myDialogTemplate', {
arg1: myArg1,
arg2: myArg2,
...
} );

// Show the dialog
this.myDlg.attr("content", html );
this.myDlg.show();

// Now that the dialog has been displayed, you can connect your method to some dialog elements
// Example, a "close" button:
dojo.connect( $('closeDlg'), 'onclick', this, function(evt){
evt.preventDefault();
this.myDlg.hide();
} );

Tip: be careful with "hide()" method to close your dialog: the dialog and its content is not completely removed from the DOM. It can cause you problems if you try to display the same dialog several times. A good practice is to wrap all the content of your dialog in a <nowiki><div id='myDlgContent'></nowiki> div element, and to call "dojo.destroy('myDlgContent')" before displaying your dialog.

=== Scoring dialogs ===

Sometimes at the end of a round you want to display a big table that details the points wins in each section of the game.

Example: in Hearts game, we display at the end of each round the number of "heart" cards collected by each player, the player who collected the Queen of Spades, and the total number of points loose by each player.

Scoring dialogs are managed entirely on '''PHP side''', but they are described here as their effects are visible only on client side.

Displaying a scoring dialog is quite simple and is using a special notification type: "tableWindow":
<pre>
// on PHP side:
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "tableWindow", '', array(
"id" => 'finalScoring',
"title" => clienttranslate("Title of the scoring dialog"),
"table" => $table
) );
</pre>

The "table" argument is a 2 dimensional PHP array that describe the table you want to display, line by line and column by column.

Example: display an 3x3 array of strings
<pre>
$table = array(
array( "one", "two", "three" ), // This is my first line
array( "four", "five", "six" ), // This is my second line
array( "seven", "height", "nine" ) // This is my third line
);
</pre>

As you can see above, in each "cell" of your array you can display a simple string value. But you can also display a complex value with a template and associated arguments like this:
<pre>
$table = array(
array( "one", "two", array( "str" => "a string with an ${argument}", "args" => array( 'argument' => 'argument_value' ) ) ),
array( "four", "five", "six" ),
array( "seven", "height", "nine" )
);
</pre>

This is especially useful when you want to display player names with colors. Example from "Hearts":
<pre>
$firstRow = array( '' );
foreach( $players as $player_id => $player )
{
$firstRow[] = array( 'str' => '${player_name}',
'args' => array( 'player_name' => $player['player_name'] ),
'type' => 'header'
);
}
$table[] = $firstRow;
</pre>

You can also use three extra attributes in the parameter array for the notification:

<pre>
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "tableWindow", '', array(
"id" => 'finalScoring',
"title" => clienttranslate("Title of the scoring dialog"),
"table" => $table,
"header" => array('str' => clienttranslate('Table header with parameter ${number}'),
'args' => array( 'number' => 3 ),
),
"footer" => '<div>Some footer</div>',
"closing" => clienttranslate( "Closing button label" )
) );
</pre>

*'''header''': the content for this parameter will display before the table (also, the html will be parsed and player names will be colored according to the current game colors).
*'''footer''': the content for this parameter will display after the table (no parsing for coloring the player names)
*'''closing''': if this parameter is used, a button will be displayed with this label at the bottom of the popup and will allow players to close it (more easily than by clicking the top right 'cross' icon).

=== Scoring animated display ===

Sometimes (Terra Mystica final scoring for example), you may want to display a score value over an element to make the scoring easier to follow for the players.
You can do it with:

<pre>
this.displayScoring( anchor_id, color, score );
</pre>

=== Speech bubble ===

For better interactivity in some games (Love Letter for example), you may use comic book style speech bubbles to express the players voices.
This is done with:

<pre>
this.showBubble( anchor_id, text, delay, duration, custom_class )
</pre>

delay in milliseconds is optional (default 0)

duration in milliseconds is optional (default 3000)

custom_class is optional, if you need to override the default bubble style

== Update players score ==

Increase a player score (with a positive or negative number):

<pre>
this.scoreCtrl[ player_id ].incValue( score_delta );
</pre>

Set a player score to a specific value:

<pre>
this.scoreCtrl[ player_id ].setValue( new_score );
</pre>

== Players panels ==

=== Adding stuff to player's panel ===

At first, create a new "JS template" string in your template (tpl) file:

(from Gomoku example)
<pre>
var jstpl_player_board = '\<div class="cp_board">\
<div id="stoneicon_p${id}" class="gmk_stoneicon gmk_stoneicon_${color}"></div><span id="stonecount_p${id}">0</span>\
</div>';
</pre>

Then, you add this piece of code in your JS file to add this template to each player panel:

<pre>
// Setting up player boards
for( var player_id in gamedatas.players )
{
var player = gamedatas.players[player_id];

// Setting up players boards if needed
var player_board_div = $('player_board_'+player_id);
dojo.place( this.format_block('jstpl_player_board', player ), player_board_div );
}
</pre>

(Note: the code above is of course from your "setup" function in your Javascript).

Very often, you have to distinguish current player and others players. In this case, you just have to create another JS template (ex: jstpl_otherplayer_board) and use it when "player_id" is different than "this.player_id".

=== Player's panel disabling/enabling ===

'''this.disablePlayerPanel( player_id )'''

Disable given player panel (the panel background become gray).

Usually, this is used to signal that this played passes, or will be inactive during a while.

Note that the only effect of this is visual. There are no consequences on the behaviour of the panel itself.

'''this.enablePlayerPanel( player_id )'''

Enable a player panel that has been disabled before.

'''this.enableAllPlayerPanels()'''

Enable all player panels that has been disabled before.

== Image loading ==

See also [[Game_art:_img_directory]].

'''Be careful''': by default, ALL images of your img directory are loaded on a player's browser when he loads the game. For this reason, don't let in your img directory images that are not useful, otherwise it's going to slowdown the game load.

'''dontPreloadImage( image_file_name )'''

Using dontPreloadImage, you tell the interface to not preload a specific image in your img directory.

Example of use:
<pre>
this.dontPreloadImage( 'cards.png' );
</pre>

This is particularly useful if for example you have 2 different themes for a game. To accelerate the loading of the game, you can specify to not preload images corresponding to the other theme.

Another example of use: in "Gosu" game with Kamakor extension, you play with 5 sets of cards among 10 available. Cards images are organized by sets, and we only preload the images corresponding to the 5 current sets with '''ensureSpecificGameImageLoading( image_file_names_array )'''.
<pre>
// By default, do not preload anything
this.dontPreloadImage( 'cards.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan1.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan2.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan3.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan4.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan5.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan6.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan7.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan8.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan9.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan10.png' );
var to_preload = [];
for( i in this.gamedatas.clans )
{
var clan_id = this.gamedatas.clans[i];
to_preload.push( 'clan'+clan_id+'.png' );
}
if( to_preload.length == 5 )
{
this.ensureSpecificGameImageLoading( to_preload );
}
</pre>

'''Note:''' You don't need to specify to not preload game box images (game_box.png, game_box75.png...) since they are not preloaded by default.

== Other useful stuff ==

'''dojo.hitch'''

With dojo.hitch, you can create a callback function that will run with your game object context whatever happen.

Typical example: display a BGA confirmation dialog with a callback function created with dojo.hitch:

<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure you want to make this?'), dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/makeThis.html', { lock:true }, this, function( result ) {} );
} ) );
</pre>

In the example above, using dojo.hitch, we are sure that the "this" object will be set when the callback is called.

; updateCounters(counters)
: Useful for updating game counters in the player panel (such as resources).
: 'counters' arg is an associative array [counter_name_value => [ 'counter_name' => counter_name_value, 'counter_value' => counter_value_value], ... ]
: All counters must be referenced in this.gamedatas.counters and will be updated.
: DOM objects referenced by 'counter_name' will have their innerHTML updated with 'counter_value'.

== BGA GUI components ==

BGA framework provides some useful ready-to-use components for the game interface:

[[Studio#BGA_Studio_game_components_reference]]

Note that each time you are using an additional component, you must declare it at the top of your Javascript file in the list of modules used.

Example if you are using "ebg.stock":
<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <=== we are using ebg.stock module
],
</pre>

Game interface logic: yourgamename.js

2018-09-16T21:14:38Z

Amadannabriona: /* Dojo framework */

This is the main file for your game interface. Here you will define:

* Which actions on the page will generate calls to the server.
* What happens when you get a notification for a change from the server and how it will show in the browser.

== File structure ==

The details of how the file is structured are described below with comments on the code skeleton provided to you.

Here is the basic structure:

* '''constructor''': here you can define global variables for your whole interface.
* '''setup''': this method is called when the page is refreshed, and sets up the game interface.
* '''onEnteringState''': this method is called when entering a new game state. You can use it to customize the view for each game state.
* '''onLeavingState''': this method is called when leaving a game state.
* '''onUpdateActionButtons''': called when entering a new state, in order to add action buttons to the status bar.
* ''(utility methods)'': this is where you can define your utility methods.
* ''(player's actions)'': this is where you can write your handlers for player actions on the interface (example: click on an item).
* '''setupNotifications''': this method associates notifications with notification handlers. For each game notification, you can trigger a javascript method to handle it and update the game interface.
* ''(notification handlers)'': this is where you define the notifications handlers associated with notifications in '''setupNotifications''', above.

== General tips ==

; this.player_id
: ID of the player on whose browser the code is running.

; this.isSpectator
: Flag set to true if the user at the table is a spectator (not a player).
: Note: This is a variable, not a function.
: Note: If you want to hide an element from spectators, you should use [[Game_interface_stylesheet:_yourgamename.css#spectatorMode|CSS 'spectatorMode' class]].

; this.gamedatas
: Contains the initial set of data to init the game, created at game start or by game refresh (F5).
: You can update it as needed to keep an up-to-date reference of the game on the client side if you need it. (Most of the time this is unnecessary).

; this.isCurrentPlayerActive()
: Returns true if the player on whose browser the code is running is currently active (it's his turn to play).

; this.getActivePlayerId()
: Return the ID of the active player, or null if we are not in an "activeplayer" type state.

; this.getActivePlayers()
: Return an array with the IDs of players who are currently active (or an empty array if there are none).

== Dojo framework ==

BGA uses the [http://dojotoolkit.org/ Dojo Javascript framework].

The Dojo framework allows us to do complex things more easily. The BGA framework uses Dojo extensively.

To implement a game, you only need to use a few parts of the Dojo framework. All the Dojo methods you need are described on this page.

== Shrinksafe minification ==

For performance reasons, when deploying a game the js code is minified using Shrinksafe (based on ECMASCRIPT version 3). Some advanced syntax may not be compatible with this process. In particular:
* you should not use reserved keywords from the javascript language as variables
* you should not declare default argument values in function declaration, the following syntax is invalid for Shriksafe: function myFunc(requiredArg, optionalArg = 'defaultValue') {}

== Access and manipulate the DOM ==

'''$('some_html_element_id')'''

The $() function is used to get some HTML element using its "id" attribute.

Example 1: modify the content of a "span" element:
<pre>
In your HTML code:
<span id="a_value_in_the_game_interface">1234</span>

In your Javascript code:
$('a_value_in_the_game_interface').innerHTML = "9999";
</pre>

Note: $() is the standard method to access some HTML element with BGA Framework. You must not use "getElementById" function.

'''dojo.style'''

With dojo.style you can modify a CSS property of any HTML element of your interface.

Examples:
<pre>
// Make an element disappear
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'display', 'none' );

// Give an element a 2px border
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'borderWidth', '2px' );

// Change the background position of an element
// (very practical when you are using CSS sprite to transform an element to another)
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'backgroundPosition', '-20px -50px' );
</pre>

Note: you must always use dojo.style to modify CSS properties of HTML elements.

Note²: if you have to modify several CSS properties of an element, or if you have some complex CSS transformation to do, you should consider using dojo.addClass/dojo.removeClass (see below).

'''dojo CSS classes manipulation'''

In many situation, a bunch of many small CSS property update can be replaced by a CSS class change (ie: you add a CSS class to your element instead of applying all modification manually).

Advantages are:
* All your CSS stuff remains in your CSS file.
* You can add/remove a list of CSS modifications with a simple function and whithout error.
* You can test if you applied the stuff to an element with "dojo.hasClass" method.

Example from "Reversi":
<pre>
// We add "possibleMove" to an element
dojo.addClass( 'square_'+x+'_'+y, 'possibleMove' );

// In our CSS file, the class is defined as:
.possibleMove {
background-color: white;
opacity: 0.2;
filter:alpha(opacity=20); /* For IE8 and earlier */
cursor: pointer;
}

// So we've applied 4 CSS property change in one line of code.

// ... and when we need to check if a square is a possible move on client side:
if( dojo.hasClass( 'square_'+x+'_'+y, 'possibleMove' ) )
{ ... }

// ... and if we want to remove all possible moves in one line of code (see "dojo.query" method):
dojo.query( '.possibleMove' ).removeClass( 'possibleMove' );
</pre>

Conclusion: we encourage you to use dojo.addClass, dojo.removeClass and dojo.hasClass to make your life easier :)

'''dojo.query'''

With dojo.query, you can query a bunch of HTML elements with a single function, with a "CSS selector" style.

Example:
<pre>
// All elements with class "possibleMove":
var elements = dojo.query( '.possibleMove' );

// Count number of tokens (ie: elements with class "token") on the board (ie: element with id "board"):
dojo.query( '#board .token' ).length;
</pre>

But what is really cool with dojo.query is that you can combine it with almost all methods above.

Examples:
<pre>
// Trigger a method when the mouse enter in any element with class "meeple":
dojo.query( '.meeple' ).connect( 'onmouseenter', this, 'myMethodToTrigger' );

// Hide all meeples who are on the board
dojo.query( '#board .meeple' ).style( 'display', 'none' );
</pre>

'''dojo.place'''

dojo.place is the best function to insert some HTML code somewhere in your game interface without breaking something. It is much better to use that "innerHTML=''" method as soon as you must insert HTML tags and not only values.

<pre>
// Insert your HTML code as a child of a container element
dojo.place( "<your html code>", "your_container_element_id" );

// Replace the container element with your new html
dojo.place( "<your html code>", "your_container_element_id", "replace" );

</pre>

The third parameter of dojo.place can take various interesting value.

values possibles :

"replace" : (see description above).

"first" : Places the node as a child of the reference node. The node is placed as the first child.

"last" : Places the node as a child of the reference node. The node is placed as the last child.

"before" : places the node right before the reference node.

"last (value by default) " : places the node right after the reference node.

"only" : replaces all children of the reference node with the node.

positif integer : This parameter can be a positif integer. In this case, the node will be placed as a child of the reference node with this number (counting from 0). If the number is more than number of children, the node will be appended to the reference node making it the last child.

See also full doc on dojo.place : [http://dojotoolkit.org/reference-guide/1.7/dojo/place.]

Usually, when you want to insert some piece of HTML in your game interface, you should use "[[Game_layout:_view_and_template:_yourgamename.view.php_and_yourgamename_yourgamename.tpl#Javascript_templates|Javascript templates]]".

'''addStyleToClass: function( cssClassName, cssProperty, propertyValue )'''

Same as dojo.style(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName

=== Animations ===

'''Dojo Animations'''

BGA animations is based on Dojo Animation ([http://dojotoolkit.org/documentation/tutorials/1.8/animation/ see tutorial here]).

However, most of the time, you can just use methods below, which are built on top of Dojo Animation.

Note: one interesting method from Dojo that could be useful from time to time is "Dojo.Animation". It allows you to make any CSS property "slide" from one value to another.

'''this.slideToObject( mobile_obj, target_obj, duration, delay )'''

You can use slideToObject to "slide" an element to a target position.

Sliding element on the game area is the recommended and the most used way to animate your game interface. Using slides allow players to figure out what is happening on the game, as if they were playing with the real boardgame.

The parameters are:
* mobile_obj: the ID of the object to move. This object must be "relative" or "absolute" positioned.
* target_obj: the ID of the target object. This object must be "relative" or "absolute" positioned. Note that it is not mandatory that mobile_obj and target_obj have the same size. If their size are different, the system slides the center of mobile_obj to the center of target_obj.
* duration: (optional) defines the duration in millisecond of the slide. The default is 500 milliseconds.
* delay: (optional). If you defines a delay, the slide will start only after this delay. This is particularly useful when you want to slide several object from the same position to the same position: you can give a 0ms delay to the first object, a 100ms delay to the second one, a 200ms delay to the third one, ... this way they won't be superposed during the slide.

BE CAREFUL: The method returns an dojo.fx animation, so you can combine it with other animation if you want to. It means that you have to call the "play()" method, otherwise the animation WON'T START.

Example:
<pre>
this.slideToObject( "some_token", "some_place_on_board" ).play();
</pre>

'''this.slideToObjectPos( mobile_obj, target_obj, target_x, target_y, duration, delay )'''

This method does exactly the same as "slideToObject", except than you can specify some (x,y) coordinates. This way, "mobile_obj" will slide to the specified x,y position relatively to "target_obj".

Example: slide a token to some place on the board, 10 pixels to the bottom:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectPos( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 0, 10 ).play();
</pre>

'''this.slideTemporaryObject( mobile_obj_html, mobile_obj_parent, from, to, duration, delay )'''

This method is useful when you want to slide a temporary HTML object from one place to another. As this object does not exists before the animation and won't remain after, it could be complex to create this object (with dojo.place), to place it at its origin (with placeOnObject) to slide it (with slideToObject) and to make it disappear at the end.

slideTemporaryObject does all of this for you:
* mobile_obj_html is a piece of HTML code that represent the object to slide.
* mobile_obj_parent is the ID of an HTML element of your interface that will be the parent of this temporary HTML object.
* from is the ID of the origin of the slide.
* to is the ID of the target of the slide.
* duration/delay works exactly like in "slideToObject"

Example:
<pre>
this.slideTemporaryObject( '<div class="token_icon"></div>', 'tokens', 'my_origin_div', 'my_target_div' );
</pre>

'''this.slideToObjectAndDestroy: function( node, to, time, delay )'''

This method is a handy shortcut to slide an existing HTML object to some place then destroy it upon arrival. It can be used for example to move a victory token or a card from the board to the player panel to show that the player earns it, then destroy it when we don't need to keep it visible on the player panel.

It works the same as this.slideToObject and takes the same arguments.

Example:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectAndDestroy( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 1000, 0 );
</pre>

'''this.fadeOutAndDestroy( node, duration, delay )'''

This function fade out the target HTML node, then destroy it.

Example:
<pre>
this.fadeOutAndDestroy( "a_card_that_must_disappear" );
</pre>

CAREFUL: the HTML node still exists until during few milliseconds, until the fadeOut has been completed.

'''Rotating elements'''

You can check here [http://jimfulton.info/demos/dojo-animated-rotate.html an example of use] of Dojo to make an element rotate.

This example combines "Dojo.Animation" method and a CSS3 property that allow you to rotate the element.

IMPORTANT: to asses browser compatibility, you must select the CSS property to use just like in the example (see sourcecode below):

<pre>
var transform;
dojo.forEach(
['transform', 'WebkitTransform', 'msTransform',
'MozTransform', 'OTransform'],
function (name) {
if (typeof dojo.body().style[name] != 'undefined') {
transform = name;
}
});
// ... and then use "transform" as the name of your CSS property for rotation
</pre>

=== Moving elements ===

'''this.placeOnObject( mobile_obj, target_obj )'''

placeOnObject works exactly like "slideToObject", except that the effect is immediate.

This is not really an animation, but placeOnObject is frequently used before starting an animation.

Example:
<pre>
// (We just created an object "my_new_token")

// Place the new token on current player board
this.placeOnObject( "my_new_token", "overall_player_board_"+this.player_id );

// Then slide it to its position on the board
this.slideToObject( "my_new_token", "a_place_on_board" ).play();
</pre>

'''this.placeOnObjectPos( mobile_obj, target_obj, target_x, target_y )'''

This method works exactly like placeOnObject, except than you can specify some (x,y) coordinates. This way, "mobile_obj" will be placed to the specified x,y position relatively to "target_obj".

'''this.attachToNewParent( mobile_obj, target_obj )'''

With this method, you change the HTML parent of "mobile_obj" element. "target_obj" is the new parent of this element. The beauty of
attachToNewParent is that the mobile_obj element DOES NOT MOVE during this process.

Note: what happens is that the method calculate a relative position of mobile_obj to make sure it does not move after the HTML parent changes.

Why using this method?

Changing the HTML parent of an element can be useful for the following reasons:
* When the HTML parent moves, all its child are moving with them. If some game elements is no more linked with a parent HTML object, you may want to attach it to another place.
* The z_order (vertical order of display) depends on the position in the DOM, so you may need to change the parent of some game elements when they are moving in your game area.

CAREFUL: this function destroys original object and places a clone onto a new parent, this will break all references to this HTML element (ex: dojo.connect).

== Players input ==

'''dojo.connect'''

Used to associate a player event with one of your notification method.

Example: associate a click on an element ("my_element") with one of our method ("onClickOnMyElement"):
<pre>
dojo.connect( $('my_element'), 'onclick', this, 'onClickOnMyElement' );
</pre>

Note: this is the only possible correct way to associate a player input event to your code, and you must not use anything else.

'''this.checkAction( "my_action_name" )'''

Usage: checkAction: function( action, nomessage )

Check if player can do the specified action by taking into account:
* current game state
* interface locking (a player can't do any action if an action is already in progress)

return true if action is authorized (ie: the action is listed as a "possibleaction" in current game state).

return false and display an error message if not (display no message if nomessage parameter is true). The displayed error message could be either "This move is not allowed at this moment" or "An action is already in progress".

Example:
<pre>
function onClickOnGameElement( evt )
{
if( this.checkAction( "my_action" ) )
{
// Do the action
}
}
</pre>

'''this.ajaxcall( url, parameters, obj_callback, callback, callback_error )'''

This method must be used to send a player input to the game server.

* url: the url of the action to perform. For a game, it must be: "/<mygame>/<mygame>/myAction.html"
* parameters: an array of parameter to send to the game server. Note that "lock:true" must always be specified in this list of parameter in order the interface can be locked during the server call.
* obj_callback: must be set to "this".
* callback: a function to trigger when the server returns and everything went fine.
* callback_error: (optional and rarely used) a function to trigger when the server returns an error.

Usage:
<pre>
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/myaction.html', { lock: true,
arg1: myarg1,
arg2: myarg2,
...
}, this, function( result ) {
// Do some stuff after a successful call
} );
</pre>

Restricted arguments names (please don't use them):
* "action"
* "module"
* "class"

'''this.confirmationDialog()'''

Display a confirmation dialog with a yes/no choice.

We advice you to NOT use this function unless the player action is really critical and could ruins the game, because it slows down the game and upset players.

Usage: this.confirmationDialog( "Question to displayed", callback_function_if_click_on_yes );

Example:
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure to use this bonus (points penalty at the end of the game) ?'),
dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.ajaxcall( '/seasons/seasons/useBonus.html',
{ id:bonus_id, lock:true }, this, function( result ) {} );
} ) );
</pre>

; addEventToClass: function( cssClassName, eventName, functionName )
: Same as dojo.connect(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName

'''this.addActionButton( id, label, method, (opt)destination, (opt)blinking, (opt)color )'''

You can use this method to add an action button in the main action status bar.

Arguments:
* id: an element ID that should be unique in your HTML DOM document.
* label: the text of the button. Should be translatable (use _() function).
* method: the name of your method that must be triggered when the player clicks on this button.
* destination (optional): deprecated, do not use this. Use '''null''' as value if you need to specify other arguments.
* blinking (optional): if set to '''true''', the button is going blink to catch player's attention. Please don't abuse of blinking button.
* color: could be '''blue''' (default), '''red''' or '''gray'''.

You should only use this method in your "onUpdateActionButtons" method. Usually, you use it like this (from Hears example):

<pre>
onUpdateActionButtons: function( stateName, args ) {

if (this.isCurrentPlayerActive()) {
switch( stateName ) {
case 'giveCards':
this.addActionButton( 'giveCards_button', _('Give selected cards'), 'onGiveCards' );
break;
}
}
},
</pre>

In the example above, we are adding a "Give selected cards" button in the case we are on game state "giveCards". When player clicks on this button, it triggers our "onGiveCards" method.

Example using blinking red button:
<pre>
this.addActionButton( 'commit_button', _('Confirm'), 'onConfirm', null, true, 'red');
</pre>

Note: at least in studio example above will make button huge, because it sets it display of blinking things to '''block''',
if you don't like it you have to change css display value
of the button to inline-block (the id of the button is the first argument, i.e 'commit_button' in example above)

== Translations ==

See [[Translations]]

== Notifications ==

When something happens on the server side, your game interface Javascript logic received a notification.

Here's how you can handle these notifications on the client side.

=== Subscribe to notifications ===

Your Javascript "setupNotifications" method is the place where you can subscribe to notifications from your PHP code.

Here's how you associate one of your Javascript method to a notification "playDisc" (from Reversi example):

<pre>
// In setupNotifications method:
dojo.subscribe( 'playDisc', this, "notif_playDisc" );
</pre>

Note: the "playDisc" corresponds to the name of the notification you define it in your PHP code, in your "notifyAllPlayers" or "notifyPlayer" method.

Then, you have to define your "notif_playDisc" method:

<pre>
notif_playDisc: function( notif )
{
// Remove current possible moves (makes the board more clear)
dojo.query( '.possibleMove' ).removeClass( 'possibleMove' );

this.addDiscOnBoard( notif.args.x, notif.args.y, notif.args.player_id );
},
</pre>

In a notification handler like our "notif_playDisc" method, you can access to all notifications arguments with "notif.args".

Example:
<pre>
// If you did this on PHP side:
self::notifyAllPlayers( "myNotification", '', array( "myArgument" => 3 ) );

// On Javascript side, you can access the "myArgument" like this:
notif_myNotification: function( notif )
{
alert( "myArgument = " + notif.args.myArgument );
}
</pre>

=== Synchronous notifications ===

When several notifications are received by your game interface, these notifications are processed immediately, one after the other, in the same exact order they have been generated in your PHP game logic.

However, sometimes, you need to give some time to the players to figure out what happened on the game before jumping to the next notification. Indeed, in many games, they are a lot of automatic actions, and the computer is going to resolve all these actions very fast if you don't tell it not to do so.

As an example, for Reversi, when someone is playing a disc, we want to wait 500 milliseconds before doing anything else in order the opponent player can figure out what move has been played.

Here's how we do this, right after our subscription:
<pre>
dojo.subscribe( 'playDisc', this, "notif_playDisc" );
this.notifqueue.setSynchronous( 'playDisc', 500 ); // Wait 500 milliseconds after executing the playDisc handler
</pre>

=== Pre-defined notification types ===

'''tableWindow''' - This defines notification to display [[Game_interface_logic:_yourgamename.js#Scoring_dialogs|Scoring Dialogs]], see below.

'''message''' - This defines notification that shows on players log and have no other effect

// You can call this on php side without doing anything on client side
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'message', 'hello', array( ) );

== Tooltips ==

'''this.addTooltip( nodeId, _( helpString ), _( actionString ), delay )'''

Add a simple text tooltip to the DOM node.

Specify 'helpString' to display some information about "what is this game element?".
Specify 'actionString' to display some information about "what happens when I click on this element?".

You must specify both helpString and actionString. Most of the time, you use only one and specify a void string ("") for the other one.

Usually, _() must be used for the text to be marked for translation.

"Delay" is an optional parameter. Usually, it is primarily used to specify a zero delay for some game element when the tooltip gives really important information for the game - but remember: no essential information must be placed in tooltips as they won't be displayed in some browser (see Guidelines).

Example:
<pre>
this.addTooltip( 'cardcount', _('Number of cards in hand'), '' );
</pre>

'''this.addTooltipHtml( nodeId, html, delay )'''

Add an HTML tooltip to the DOM node (for more elaborate content such as presenting a bigger version of a card).

'''this.addTooltipToClass( cssClass, _( helpString ), _( actionString ), delay )'''

Add a simple text tooltip to all the DOM nodes set with this cssClass.

IMPORTANT: all concerned nodes must have IDs to get tooltips.

'''this.addTooltipHtmlToClass( cssClass, html, delay )'''

Add an HTML tooltip to to all the DOM nodes set with this cssClass (for more elaborate content such as presenting a bigger version of a card).

IMPORTANT: all concerned nodes must have IDs to get tooltips

'''this.removeTooltip( nodeId )'''

Remove a tooltip from the DOM node.

== Dialogs, warning messages, confirmation dialogs, ... ==

=== Warning messages ===

Sometimes, there is something important that is happening on the game and you have to make sure all players get the message. Most of the time, the evolution of the game situation or the game log is enough, but sometimes you need something more visible.

Ex: someone fulfill one of the end of the game condition, so this is the last turn.

'''this.showMessage( msg, type )'''

showMessage shows a message in a big rectangular area on the top of the screen of current player.

* "msg" is the string to display. It should be translated.
* "type" can be set to "info" or "error". If set to "info", the message will be an informative message on a white background. If set to "error", the message will be an error message on a red background.

Important: the normal way to inform players about the progression of the game is the game log. "showMessage" is intrusive and should not be used often.

=== Confirmation dialog ===

'''confirmationDialog( message, yesHandler, noHandler )'''

When an important action with a lot of consequences is triggered by the player, you may want to propose a confirmation dialog.

CAREFUL: the general guidelines of BGA is to AVOID the use of confirmation dialog. Confirmation dialogs slow down the game and bother players. The players knows that they have to pay attention about each move when they are playing online.

The situation where you should use a confirmation dialog are the following:
* It must not happen very often during a game.
* It must be linked to an action that can really "kill a game" if the player do not pay attention.
* It must be something that can be done by mistake (ex: a link on the action status bar).

How to display a confirmation dialog:
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure you want to bake the pie?'), dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.bakeThePie();
} ) );
return; // nothing should be called or done after calling this, all action must be done in the handler
</pre>

=== Multiple choice dialog ===
You can use this dialog to give user a choice with small amount of options:
<pre>
var keys = [1,5,10];
this.multipleChoiceDialog(
_('How many bugs to fix?"), keys,
dojo.hitch(this, function(choice) {
var bugchoice = keys[choice];
console.log('dialog callback with '+bugchoice);
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/fixBugs.html', { bugs: bugchoice}, this, function( result ) {} ); }));
</pre>

=== Dialogs ===

At first, you shouldn't use dialogs windows.

BGA guidelines specify that all game elements should be displayed on the main screen. Players can eventually scroll down to see game elements they don't need to see anytime, and you may eventually create anchors to move between game area section. Of course dialogs windows are very practical, but the thing is: all players know how to scroll down, and not all players know how to show up your dialog window. In addition, when the dialog shows up, players can't access the other game components.

Sometimes although, you need to display a dialog window. Here is how you do this:

// Create the new dialog. You should store the handler in a member variable to access it later
this.myDlg = new dijit.Dialog({ title: _("my dialog title to translate") });

// Create the HTML of my dialog.
// The best practice here is to use [[Game_layout:_view_and_template:_yourgamename.view.php_and_yourgamename_yourgamename.tpl#Javascript_templates|Javascript templates]]
var html = this.format_block( 'jstpl_myDialogTemplate', {
arg1: myArg1,
arg2: myArg2,
...
} );

// Show the dialog
this.myDlg.attr("content", html );
this.myDlg.show();

// Now that the dialog has been displayed, you can connect your method to some dialog elements
// Example, a "close" button:
dojo.connect( $('closeDlg'), 'onclick', this, function(evt){
evt.preventDefault();
this.myDlg.hide();
} );

Tip: be careful with "hide()" method to close your dialog: the dialog and its content is not completely removed from the DOM. It can cause you problems if you try to display the same dialog several times. A good practice is to wrap all the content of your dialog in a <nowiki><div id='myDlgContent'></nowiki> div element, and to call "dojo.destroy('myDlgContent')" before displaying your dialog.

=== Scoring dialogs ===

Sometimes at the end of a round you want to display a big table that details the points wins in each section of the game.

Example: in Hearts game, we display at the end of each round the number of "heart" cards collected by each player, the player who collected the Queen of Spades, and the total number of points loose by each player.

Scoring dialogs are managed entirely on '''PHP side''', but they are described here as their effects are visible only on client side.

Displaying a scoring dialog is quite simple and is using a special notification type: "tableWindow":
<pre>
// on PHP side:
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "tableWindow", '', array(
"id" => 'finalScoring',
"title" => clienttranslate("Title of the scoring dialog"),
"table" => $table
) );
</pre>

The "table" argument is a 2 dimensional PHP array that describe the table you want to display, line by line and column by column.

Example: display an 3x3 array of strings
<pre>
$table = array(
array( "one", "two", "three" ), // This is my first line
array( "four", "five", "six" ), // This is my second line
array( "seven", "height", "nine" ) // This is my third line
);
</pre>

As you can see above, in each "cell" of your array you can display a simple string value. But you can also display a complex value with a template and associated arguments like this:
<pre>
$table = array(
array( "one", "two", array( "str" => "a string with an ${argument}", "args" => array( 'argument' => 'argument_value' ) ) ),
array( "four", "five", "six" ),
array( "seven", "height", "nine" )
);
</pre>

This is especially useful when you want to display player names with colors. Example from "Hearts":
<pre>
$firstRow = array( '' );
foreach( $players as $player_id => $player )
{
$firstRow[] = array( 'str' => '${player_name}',
'args' => array( 'player_name' => $player['player_name'] ),
'type' => 'header'
);
}
$table[] = $firstRow;
</pre>

You can also use three extra attributes in the parameter array for the notification:

<pre>
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "tableWindow", '', array(
"id" => 'finalScoring',
"title" => clienttranslate("Title of the scoring dialog"),
"table" => $table,
"header" => array('str' => clienttranslate('Table header with parameter ${number}'),
'args' => array( 'number' => 3 ),
),
"footer" => '<div>Some footer</div>',
"closing" => clienttranslate( "Closing button label" )
) );
</pre>

*'''header''': the content for this parameter will display before the table (also, the html will be parsed and player names will be colored according to the current game colors).
*'''footer''': the content for this parameter will display after the table (no parsing for coloring the player names)
*'''closing''': if this parameter is used, a button will be displayed with this label at the bottom of the popup and will allow players to close it (more easily than by clicking the top right 'cross' icon).

=== Scoring animated display ===

Sometimes (Terra Mystica final scoring for example), you may want to display a score value over an element to make the scoring easier to follow for the players.
You can do it with:

<pre>
this.displayScoring( anchor_id, color, score );
</pre>

=== Speech bubble ===

For better interactivity in some games (Love Letter for example), you may use comic book style speech bubbles to express the players voices.
This is done with:

<pre>
this.showBubble( anchor_id, text, delay, duration, custom_class )
</pre>

delay in milliseconds is optional (default 0)

duration in milliseconds is optional (default 3000)

custom_class is optional, if you need to override the default bubble style

== Update players score ==

Increase a player score (with a positive or negative number):

<pre>
this.scoreCtrl[ player_id ].incValue( score_delta );
</pre>

Set a player score to a specific value:

<pre>
this.scoreCtrl[ player_id ].setValue( new_score );
</pre>

== Players panels ==

=== Adding stuff to player's panel ===

At first, create a new "JS template" string in your template (tpl) file:

(from Gomoku example)
<pre>
var jstpl_player_board = '\<div class="cp_board">\
<div id="stoneicon_p${id}" class="gmk_stoneicon gmk_stoneicon_${color}"></div><span id="stonecount_p${id}">0</span>\
</div>';
</pre>

Then, you add this piece of code in your JS file to add this template to each player panel:

<pre>
// Setting up player boards
for( var player_id in gamedatas.players )
{
var player = gamedatas.players[player_id];

// Setting up players boards if needed
var player_board_div = $('player_board_'+player_id);
dojo.place( this.format_block('jstpl_player_board', player ), player_board_div );
}
</pre>

(Note: the code above is of course from your "setup" function in your Javascript).

Very often, you have to distinguish current player and others players. In this case, you just have to create another JS template (ex: jstpl_otherplayer_board) and use it when "player_id" is different than "this.player_id".

=== Player's panel disabling/enabling ===

'''this.disablePlayerPanel( player_id )'''

Disable given player panel (the panel background become gray).

Usually, this is used to signal that this played passes, or will be inactive during a while.

Note that the only effect of this is visual. There are no consequences on the behaviour of the panel itself.

'''this.enablePlayerPanel( player_id )'''

Enable a player panel that has been disabled before.

'''this.enableAllPlayerPanels()'''

Enable all player panels that has been disabled before.

== Image loading ==

See also [[Game_art:_img_directory]].

'''Be careful''': by default, ALL images of your img directory are loaded on a player's browser when he loads the game. For this reason, don't let in your img directory images that are not useful, otherwise it's going to slowdown the game load.

'''dontPreloadImage( image_file_name )'''

Using dontPreloadImage, you tell the interface to not preload a specific image in your img directory.

Example of use:
<pre>
this.dontPreloadImage( 'cards.png' );
</pre>

This is particularly useful if for example you have 2 different themes for a game. To accelerate the loading of the game, you can specify to not preload images corresponding to the other theme.

Another example of use: in "Gosu" game with Kamakor extension, you play with 5 sets of cards among 10 available. Cards images are organized by sets, and we only preload the images corresponding to the 5 current sets with '''ensureSpecificGameImageLoading( image_file_names_array )'''.
<pre>
// By default, do not preload anything
this.dontPreloadImage( 'cards.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan1.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan2.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan3.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan4.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan5.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan6.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan7.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan8.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan9.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan10.png' );
var to_preload = [];
for( i in this.gamedatas.clans )
{
var clan_id = this.gamedatas.clans[i];
to_preload.push( 'clan'+clan_id+'.png' );
}
if( to_preload.length == 5 )
{
this.ensureSpecificGameImageLoading( to_preload );
}
</pre>

'''Note:''' You don't need to specify to not preload game box images (game_box.png, game_box75.png...) since they are not preloaded by default.

== Other useful stuff ==

'''dojo.hitch'''

With dojo.hitch, you can create a callback function that will run with your game object context whatever happen.

Typical example: display a BGA confirmation dialog with a callback function created with dojo.hitch:

<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure you want to make this?'), dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/makeThis.html', { lock:true }, this, function( result ) {} );
} ) );
</pre>

In the example above, using dojo.hitch, we are sure that the "this" object will be set when the callback is called.

; updateCounters(counters)
: Useful for updating game counters in the player panel (such as resources).
: 'counters' arg is an associative array [counter_name_value => [ 'counter_name' => counter_name_value, 'counter_value' => counter_value_value], ... ]
: All counters must be referenced in this.gamedatas.counters and will be updated.
: DOM objects referenced by 'counter_name' will have their innerHTML updated with 'counter_value'.

== BGA GUI components ==

BGA framework provides some useful ready-to-use components for the game interface:

[[Studio#BGA_Studio_game_components_reference]]

Note that each time you are using an additional component, you must declare it at the top of your Javascript file in the list of modules used.

Example if you are using "ebg.stock":
<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <=== we are using ebg.stock module
],
</pre>

Game interface logic: yourgamename.js

2018-09-16T18:13:22Z

Amadannabriona: /* Dojo framework */

This is the main file for your game interface. Here you will define:

* Which actions on the page will generate calls to the server.
* What happens when you get a notification for a change from the server and how it will show in the browser.

== File structure ==

The details of how the file is structured are described below with comments on the code skeleton provided to you.

Here is the basic structure:

* '''constructor''': here you can define global variables for your whole interface.
* '''setup''': this method is called when the page is refreshed, and sets up the game interface.
* '''onEnteringState''': this method is called when entering a new game state. You can use it to customize the view for each game state.
* '''onLeavingState''': this method is called when leaving a game state.
* '''onUpdateActionButtons''': called when entering a new state, in order to add action buttons to the status bar.
* ''(utility methods)'': this is where you can define your utility methods.
* ''(player's actions)'': this is where you can write your handlers for player actions on the interface (example: click on an item).
* '''setupNotifications''': this method associates notifications with notification handlers. For each game notification, you can trigger a javascript method to handle it and update the game interface.
* ''(notification handlers)'': this is where you define the notifications handlers associated with notifications in '''setupNotifications''', above.

== General tips ==

; this.player_id
: ID of the player on whose browser the code is running.

; this.isSpectator
: Flag set to true if the user at the table is a spectator (not a player).
: Note: This is a variable, not a function.
: Note: If you want to hide an element from spectators, you should use [[Game_interface_stylesheet:_yourgamename.css#spectatorMode|CSS 'spectatorMode' class]].

; this.gamedatas
: Contains the initial set of data to init the game, created at game start or by game refresh (F5).
: You can update it as needed to keep an up-to-date reference of the game on the client side if you need it. (Most of the time this is unnecessary).

; this.isCurrentPlayerActive()
: Returns true if the player on whose browser the code is running is currently active (it's his turn to play).

; this.getActivePlayerId()
: Return the ID of the active player, or null if we are not in an "activeplayer" type state.

; this.getActivePlayers()
: Return an array with the IDs of players who are currently active (or an empty array if there are none).

== Dojo framework ==

BGA is using the [http://dojotoolkit.org/ Dojo Javascript framework].

The Dojo framework allows us to do complex things more easily. The BGA framework uses Dojo extensively.

To implement a game, however, you only need to use a few parts of the Dojo framework. All the Dojo methods you need are described on this page.

== Shrinksafe minification ==

For performance reasons, when deploying a game the js code is minified using Shrinksafe (based on ECMASCRIPT version 3). Some advanced syntax may not be compatible with this process. In particular:
* you should not use reserved keywords from the javascript language as variables
* you should not declare default argument values in function declaration, the following syntax is invalid for Shriksafe: function myFunc(requiredArg, optionalArg = 'defaultValue') {}

== Access and manipulate the DOM ==

'''$('some_html_element_id')'''

The $() function is used to get some HTML element using its "id" attribute.

Example 1: modify the content of a "span" element:
<pre>
In your HTML code:
<span id="a_value_in_the_game_interface">1234</span>

In your Javascript code:
$('a_value_in_the_game_interface').innerHTML = "9999";
</pre>

Note: $() is the standard method to access some HTML element with BGA Framework. You must not use "getElementById" function.

'''dojo.style'''

With dojo.style you can modify a CSS property of any HTML element of your interface.

Examples:
<pre>
// Make an element disappear
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'display', 'none' );

// Give an element a 2px border
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'borderWidth', '2px' );

// Change the background position of an element
// (very practical when you are using CSS sprite to transform an element to another)
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'backgroundPosition', '-20px -50px' );
</pre>

Note: you must always use dojo.style to modify CSS properties of HTML elements.

Note²: if you have to modify several CSS properties of an element, or if you have some complex CSS transformation to do, you should consider using dojo.addClass/dojo.removeClass (see below).

'''dojo CSS classes manipulation'''

In many situation, a bunch of many small CSS property update can be replaced by a CSS class change (ie: you add a CSS class to your element instead of applying all modification manually).

Advantages are:
* All your CSS stuff remains in your CSS file.
* You can add/remove a list of CSS modifications with a simple function and whithout error.
* You can test if you applied the stuff to an element with "dojo.hasClass" method.

Example from "Reversi":
<pre>
// We add "possibleMove" to an element
dojo.addClass( 'square_'+x+'_'+y, 'possibleMove' );

// In our CSS file, the class is defined as:
.possibleMove {
background-color: white;
opacity: 0.2;
filter:alpha(opacity=20); /* For IE8 and earlier */
cursor: pointer;
}

// So we've applied 4 CSS property change in one line of code.

// ... and when we need to check if a square is a possible move on client side:
if( dojo.hasClass( 'square_'+x+'_'+y, 'possibleMove' ) )
{ ... }

// ... and if we want to remove all possible moves in one line of code (see "dojo.query" method):
dojo.query( '.possibleMove' ).removeClass( 'possibleMove' );
</pre>

Conclusion: we encourage you to use dojo.addClass, dojo.removeClass and dojo.hasClass to make your life easier :)

'''dojo.query'''

With dojo.query, you can query a bunch of HTML elements with a single function, with a "CSS selector" style.

Example:
<pre>
// All elements with class "possibleMove":
var elements = dojo.query( '.possibleMove' );

// Count number of tokens (ie: elements with class "token") on the board (ie: element with id "board"):
dojo.query( '#board .token' ).length;
</pre>

But what is really cool with dojo.query is that you can combine it with almost all methods above.

Examples:
<pre>
// Trigger a method when the mouse enter in any element with class "meeple":
dojo.query( '.meeple' ).connect( 'onmouseenter', this, 'myMethodToTrigger' );

// Hide all meeples who are on the board
dojo.query( '#board .meeple' ).style( 'display', 'none' );
</pre>

'''dojo.place'''

dojo.place is the best function to insert some HTML code somewhere in your game interface without breaking something. It is much better to use that "innerHTML=''" method as soon as you must insert HTML tags and not only values.

<pre>
// Insert your HTML code as a child of a container element
dojo.place( "<your html code>", "your_container_element_id" );

// Replace the container element with your new html
dojo.place( "<your html code>", "your_container_element_id", "replace" );

</pre>

The third parameter of dojo.place can take various interesting value.

values possibles :

"replace" : (see description above).

"first" : Places the node as a child of the reference node. The node is placed as the first child.

"last" : Places the node as a child of the reference node. The node is placed as the last child.

"before" : places the node right before the reference node.

"last (value by default) " : places the node right after the reference node.

"only" : replaces all children of the reference node with the node.

positif integer : This parameter can be a positif integer. In this case, the node will be placed as a child of the reference node with this number (counting from 0). If the number is more than number of children, the node will be appended to the reference node making it the last child.

See also full doc on dojo.place : [http://dojotoolkit.org/reference-guide/1.7/dojo/place.]

Usually, when you want to insert some piece of HTML in your game interface, you should use "[[Game_layout:_view_and_template:_yourgamename.view.php_and_yourgamename_yourgamename.tpl#Javascript_templates|Javascript templates]]".

'''addStyleToClass: function( cssClassName, cssProperty, propertyValue )'''

Same as dojo.style(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName

=== Animations ===

'''Dojo Animations'''

BGA animations is based on Dojo Animation ([http://dojotoolkit.org/documentation/tutorials/1.8/animation/ see tutorial here]).

However, most of the time, you can just use methods below, which are built on top of Dojo Animation.

Note: one interesting method from Dojo that could be useful from time to time is "Dojo.Animation". It allows you to make any CSS property "slide" from one value to another.

'''this.slideToObject( mobile_obj, target_obj, duration, delay )'''

You can use slideToObject to "slide" an element to a target position.

Sliding element on the game area is the recommended and the most used way to animate your game interface. Using slides allow players to figure out what is happening on the game, as if they were playing with the real boardgame.

The parameters are:
* mobile_obj: the ID of the object to move. This object must be "relative" or "absolute" positioned.
* target_obj: the ID of the target object. This object must be "relative" or "absolute" positioned. Note that it is not mandatory that mobile_obj and target_obj have the same size. If their size are different, the system slides the center of mobile_obj to the center of target_obj.
* duration: (optional) defines the duration in millisecond of the slide. The default is 500 milliseconds.
* delay: (optional). If you defines a delay, the slide will start only after this delay. This is particularly useful when you want to slide several object from the same position to the same position: you can give a 0ms delay to the first object, a 100ms delay to the second one, a 200ms delay to the third one, ... this way they won't be superposed during the slide.

BE CAREFUL: The method returns an dojo.fx animation, so you can combine it with other animation if you want to. It means that you have to call the "play()" method, otherwise the animation WON'T START.

Example:
<pre>
this.slideToObject( "some_token", "some_place_on_board" ).play();
</pre>

'''this.slideToObjectPos( mobile_obj, target_obj, target_x, target_y, duration, delay )'''

This method does exactly the same as "slideToObject", except than you can specify some (x,y) coordinates. This way, "mobile_obj" will slide to the specified x,y position relatively to "target_obj".

Example: slide a token to some place on the board, 10 pixels to the bottom:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectPos( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 0, 10 ).play();
</pre>

'''this.slideTemporaryObject( mobile_obj_html, mobile_obj_parent, from, to, duration, delay )'''

This method is useful when you want to slide a temporary HTML object from one place to another. As this object does not exists before the animation and won't remain after, it could be complex to create this object (with dojo.place), to place it at its origin (with placeOnObject) to slide it (with slideToObject) and to make it disappear at the end.

slideTemporaryObject does all of this for you:
* mobile_obj_html is a piece of HTML code that represent the object to slide.
* mobile_obj_parent is the ID of an HTML element of your interface that will be the parent of this temporary HTML object.
* from is the ID of the origin of the slide.
* to is the ID of the target of the slide.
* duration/delay works exactly like in "slideToObject"

Example:
<pre>
this.slideTemporaryObject( '<div class="token_icon"></div>', 'tokens', 'my_origin_div', 'my_target_div' );
</pre>

'''this.slideToObjectAndDestroy: function( node, to, time, delay )'''

This method is a handy shortcut to slide an existing HTML object to some place then destroy it upon arrival. It can be used for example to move a victory token or a card from the board to the player panel to show that the player earns it, then destroy it when we don't need to keep it visible on the player panel.

It works the same as this.slideToObject and takes the same arguments.

Example:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectAndDestroy( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 1000, 0 );
</pre>

'''this.fadeOutAndDestroy( node, duration, delay )'''

This function fade out the target HTML node, then destroy it.

Example:
<pre>
this.fadeOutAndDestroy( "a_card_that_must_disappear" );
</pre>

CAREFUL: the HTML node still exists until during few milliseconds, until the fadeOut has been completed.

'''Rotating elements'''

You can check here [http://jimfulton.info/demos/dojo-animated-rotate.html an example of use] of Dojo to make an element rotate.

This example combines "Dojo.Animation" method and a CSS3 property that allow you to rotate the element.

IMPORTANT: to asses browser compatibility, you must select the CSS property to use just like in the example (see sourcecode below):

<pre>
var transform;
dojo.forEach(
['transform', 'WebkitTransform', 'msTransform',
'MozTransform', 'OTransform'],
function (name) {
if (typeof dojo.body().style[name] != 'undefined') {
transform = name;
}
});
// ... and then use "transform" as the name of your CSS property for rotation
</pre>

=== Moving elements ===

'''this.placeOnObject( mobile_obj, target_obj )'''

placeOnObject works exactly like "slideToObject", except that the effect is immediate.

This is not really an animation, but placeOnObject is frequently used before starting an animation.

Example:
<pre>
// (We just created an object "my_new_token")

// Place the new token on current player board
this.placeOnObject( "my_new_token", "overall_player_board_"+this.player_id );

// Then slide it to its position on the board
this.slideToObject( "my_new_token", "a_place_on_board" ).play();
</pre>

'''this.placeOnObjectPos( mobile_obj, target_obj, target_x, target_y )'''

This method works exactly like placeOnObject, except than you can specify some (x,y) coordinates. This way, "mobile_obj" will be placed to the specified x,y position relatively to "target_obj".

'''this.attachToNewParent( mobile_obj, target_obj )'''

With this method, you change the HTML parent of "mobile_obj" element. "target_obj" is the new parent of this element. The beauty of
attachToNewParent is that the mobile_obj element DOES NOT MOVE during this process.

Note: what happens is that the method calculate a relative position of mobile_obj to make sure it does not move after the HTML parent changes.

Why using this method?

Changing the HTML parent of an element can be useful for the following reasons:
* When the HTML parent moves, all its child are moving with them. If some game elements is no more linked with a parent HTML object, you may want to attach it to another place.
* The z_order (vertical order of display) depends on the position in the DOM, so you may need to change the parent of some game elements when they are moving in your game area.

CAREFUL: this function destroys original object and places a clone onto a new parent, this will break all references to this HTML element (ex: dojo.connect).

== Players input ==

'''dojo.connect'''

Used to associate a player event with one of your notification method.

Example: associate a click on an element ("my_element") with one of our method ("onClickOnMyElement"):
<pre>
dojo.connect( $('my_element'), 'onclick', this, 'onClickOnMyElement' );
</pre>

Note: this is the only possible correct way to associate a player input event to your code, and you must not use anything else.

'''this.checkAction( "my_action_name" )'''

Usage: checkAction: function( action, nomessage )

Check if player can do the specified action by taking into account:
* current game state
* interface locking (a player can't do any action if an action is already in progress)

return true if action is authorized (ie: the action is listed as a "possibleaction" in current game state).

return false and display an error message if not (display no message if nomessage parameter is true). The displayed error message could be either "This move is not allowed at this moment" or "An action is already in progress".

Example:
<pre>
function onClickOnGameElement( evt )
{
if( this.checkAction( "my_action" ) )
{
// Do the action
}
}
</pre>

'''this.ajaxcall( url, parameters, obj_callback, callback, callback_error )'''

This method must be used to send a player input to the game server.

* url: the url of the action to perform. For a game, it must be: "/<mygame>/<mygame>/myAction.html"
* parameters: an array of parameter to send to the game server. Note that "lock:true" must always be specified in this list of parameter in order the interface can be locked during the server call.
* obj_callback: must be set to "this".
* callback: a function to trigger when the server returns and everything went fine.
* callback_error: (optional and rarely used) a function to trigger when the server returns an error.

Usage:
<pre>
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/myaction.html', { lock: true,
arg1: myarg1,
arg2: myarg2,
...
}, this, function( result ) {
// Do some stuff after a successful call
} );
</pre>

Restricted arguments names (please don't use them):
* "action"
* "module"
* "class"

'''this.confirmationDialog()'''

Display a confirmation dialog with a yes/no choice.

We advice you to NOT use this function unless the player action is really critical and could ruins the game, because it slows down the game and upset players.

Usage: this.confirmationDialog( "Question to displayed", callback_function_if_click_on_yes );

Example:
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure to use this bonus (points penalty at the end of the game) ?'),
dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.ajaxcall( '/seasons/seasons/useBonus.html',
{ id:bonus_id, lock:true }, this, function( result ) {} );
} ) );
</pre>

; addEventToClass: function( cssClassName, eventName, functionName )
: Same as dojo.connect(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName

'''this.addActionButton( id, label, method, (opt)destination, (opt)blinking, (opt)color )'''

You can use this method to add an action button in the main action status bar.

Arguments:
* id: an element ID that should be unique in your HTML DOM document.
* label: the text of the button. Should be translatable (use _() function).
* method: the name of your method that must be triggered when the player clicks on this button.
* destination (optional): deprecated, do not use this. Use '''null''' as value if you need to specify other arguments.
* blinking (optional): if set to '''true''', the button is going blink to catch player's attention. Please don't abuse of blinking button.
* color: could be '''blue''' (default), '''red''' or '''gray'''.

You should only use this method in your "onUpdateActionButtons" method. Usually, you use it like this (from Hears example):

<pre>
onUpdateActionButtons: function( stateName, args ) {

if (this.isCurrentPlayerActive()) {
switch( stateName ) {
case 'giveCards':
this.addActionButton( 'giveCards_button', _('Give selected cards'), 'onGiveCards' );
break;
}
}
},
</pre>

In the example above, we are adding a "Give selected cards" button in the case we are on game state "giveCards". When player clicks on this button, it triggers our "onGiveCards" method.

Example using blinking red button:
<pre>
this.addActionButton( 'commit_button', _('Confirm'), 'onConfirm', null, true, 'red');
</pre>

Note: at least in studio example above will make button huge, because it sets it display of blinking things to '''block''',
if you don't like it you have to change css display value
of the button to inline-block (the id of the button is the first argument, i.e 'commit_button' in example above)

== Translations ==

See [[Translations]]

== Notifications ==

When something happens on the server side, your game interface Javascript logic received a notification.

Here's how you can handle these notifications on the client side.

=== Subscribe to notifications ===

Your Javascript "setupNotifications" method is the place where you can subscribe to notifications from your PHP code.

Here's how you associate one of your Javascript method to a notification "playDisc" (from Reversi example):

<pre>
// In setupNotifications method:
dojo.subscribe( 'playDisc', this, "notif_playDisc" );
</pre>

Note: the "playDisc" corresponds to the name of the notification you define it in your PHP code, in your "notifyAllPlayers" or "notifyPlayer" method.

Then, you have to define your "notif_playDisc" method:

<pre>
notif_playDisc: function( notif )
{
// Remove current possible moves (makes the board more clear)
dojo.query( '.possibleMove' ).removeClass( 'possibleMove' );

this.addDiscOnBoard( notif.args.x, notif.args.y, notif.args.player_id );
},
</pre>

In a notification handler like our "notif_playDisc" method, you can access to all notifications arguments with "notif.args".

Example:
<pre>
// If you did this on PHP side:
self::notifyAllPlayers( "myNotification", '', array( "myArgument" => 3 ) );

// On Javascript side, you can access the "myArgument" like this:
notif_myNotification: function( notif )
{
alert( "myArgument = " + notif.args.myArgument );
}
</pre>

=== Synchronous notifications ===

When several notifications are received by your game interface, these notifications are processed immediately, one after the other, in the same exact order they have been generated in your PHP game logic.

However, sometimes, you need to give some time to the players to figure out what happened on the game before jumping to the next notification. Indeed, in many games, they are a lot of automatic actions, and the computer is going to resolve all these actions very fast if you don't tell it not to do so.

As an example, for Reversi, when someone is playing a disc, we want to wait 500 milliseconds before doing anything else in order the opponent player can figure out what move has been played.

Here's how we do this, right after our subscription:
<pre>
dojo.subscribe( 'playDisc', this, "notif_playDisc" );
this.notifqueue.setSynchronous( 'playDisc', 500 ); // Wait 500 milliseconds after executing the playDisc handler
</pre>

=== Pre-defined notification types ===

'''tableWindow''' - This defines notification to display [[Game_interface_logic:_yourgamename.js#Scoring_dialogs|Scoring Dialogs]], see below.

'''message''' - This defines notification that shows on players log and have no other effect

// You can call this on php side without doing anything on client side
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'message', 'hello', array( ) );

== Tooltips ==

'''this.addTooltip( nodeId, _( helpString ), _( actionString ), delay )'''

Add a simple text tooltip to the DOM node.

Specify 'helpString' to display some information about "what is this game element?".
Specify 'actionString' to display some information about "what happens when I click on this element?".

You must specify both helpString and actionString. Most of the time, you use only one and specify a void string ("") for the other one.

Usually, _() must be used for the text to be marked for translation.

"Delay" is an optional parameter. Usually, it is primarily used to specify a zero delay for some game element when the tooltip gives really important information for the game - but remember: no essential information must be placed in tooltips as they won't be displayed in some browser (see Guidelines).

Example:
<pre>
this.addTooltip( 'cardcount', _('Number of cards in hand'), '' );
</pre>

'''this.addTooltipHtml( nodeId, html, delay )'''

Add an HTML tooltip to the DOM node (for more elaborate content such as presenting a bigger version of a card).

'''this.addTooltipToClass( cssClass, _( helpString ), _( actionString ), delay )'''

Add a simple text tooltip to all the DOM nodes set with this cssClass.

IMPORTANT: all concerned nodes must have IDs to get tooltips.

'''this.addTooltipHtmlToClass( cssClass, html, delay )'''

Add an HTML tooltip to to all the DOM nodes set with this cssClass (for more elaborate content such as presenting a bigger version of a card).

IMPORTANT: all concerned nodes must have IDs to get tooltips

'''this.removeTooltip( nodeId )'''

Remove a tooltip from the DOM node.

== Dialogs, warning messages, confirmation dialogs, ... ==

=== Warning messages ===

Sometimes, there is something important that is happening on the game and you have to make sure all players get the message. Most of the time, the evolution of the game situation or the game log is enough, but sometimes you need something more visible.

Ex: someone fulfill one of the end of the game condition, so this is the last turn.

'''this.showMessage( msg, type )'''

showMessage shows a message in a big rectangular area on the top of the screen of current player.

* "msg" is the string to display. It should be translated.
* "type" can be set to "info" or "error". If set to "info", the message will be an informative message on a white background. If set to "error", the message will be an error message on a red background.

Important: the normal way to inform players about the progression of the game is the game log. "showMessage" is intrusive and should not be used often.

=== Confirmation dialog ===

'''confirmationDialog( message, yesHandler, noHandler )'''

When an important action with a lot of consequences is triggered by the player, you may want to propose a confirmation dialog.

CAREFUL: the general guidelines of BGA is to AVOID the use of confirmation dialog. Confirmation dialogs slow down the game and bother players. The players knows that they have to pay attention about each move when they are playing online.

The situation where you should use a confirmation dialog are the following:
* It must not happen very often during a game.
* It must be linked to an action that can really "kill a game" if the player do not pay attention.
* It must be something that can be done by mistake (ex: a link on the action status bar).

How to display a confirmation dialog:
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure you want to bake the pie?'), dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.bakeThePie();
} ) );
return; // nothing should be called or done after calling this, all action must be done in the handler
</pre>

=== Multiple choice dialog ===
You can use this dialog to give user a choice with small amount of options:
<pre>
var keys = [1,5,10];
this.multipleChoiceDialog(
_('How many bugs to fix?"), keys,
dojo.hitch(this, function(choice) {
var bugchoice = keys[choice];
console.log('dialog callback with '+bugchoice);
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/fixBugs.html', { bugs: bugchoice}, this, function( result ) {} ); }));
</pre>

=== Dialogs ===

At first, you shouldn't use dialogs windows.

BGA guidelines specify that all game elements should be displayed on the main screen. Players can eventually scroll down to see game elements they don't need to see anytime, and you may eventually create anchors to move between game area section. Of course dialogs windows are very practical, but the thing is: all players know how to scroll down, and not all players know how to show up your dialog window. In addition, when the dialog shows up, players can't access the other game components.

Sometimes although, you need to display a dialog window. Here is how you do this:

// Create the new dialog. You should store the handler in a member variable to access it later
this.myDlg = new dijit.Dialog({ title: _("my dialog title to translate") });

// Create the HTML of my dialog.
// The best practice here is to use [[Game_layout:_view_and_template:_yourgamename.view.php_and_yourgamename_yourgamename.tpl#Javascript_templates|Javascript templates]]
var html = this.format_block( 'jstpl_myDialogTemplate', {
arg1: myArg1,
arg2: myArg2,
...
} );

// Show the dialog
this.myDlg.attr("content", html );
this.myDlg.show();

// Now that the dialog has been displayed, you can connect your method to some dialog elements
// Example, a "close" button:
dojo.connect( $('closeDlg'), 'onclick', this, function(evt){
evt.preventDefault();
this.myDlg.hide();
} );

Tip: be careful with "hide()" method to close your dialog: the dialog and its content is not completely removed from the DOM. It can cause you problems if you try to display the same dialog several times. A good practice is to wrap all the content of your dialog in a <nowiki><div id='myDlgContent'></nowiki> div element, and to call "dojo.destroy('myDlgContent')" before displaying your dialog.

=== Scoring dialogs ===

Sometimes at the end of a round you want to display a big table that details the points wins in each section of the game.

Example: in Hearts game, we display at the end of each round the number of "heart" cards collected by each player, the player who collected the Queen of Spades, and the total number of points loose by each player.

Scoring dialogs are managed entirely on '''PHP side''', but they are described here as their effects are visible only on client side.

Displaying a scoring dialog is quite simple and is using a special notification type: "tableWindow":
<pre>
// on PHP side:
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "tableWindow", '', array(
"id" => 'finalScoring',
"title" => clienttranslate("Title of the scoring dialog"),
"table" => $table
) );
</pre>

The "table" argument is a 2 dimensional PHP array that describe the table you want to display, line by line and column by column.

Example: display an 3x3 array of strings
<pre>
$table = array(
array( "one", "two", "three" ), // This is my first line
array( "four", "five", "six" ), // This is my second line
array( "seven", "height", "nine" ) // This is my third line
);
</pre>

As you can see above, in each "cell" of your array you can display a simple string value. But you can also display a complex value with a template and associated arguments like this:
<pre>
$table = array(
array( "one", "two", array( "str" => "a string with an ${argument}", "args" => array( 'argument' => 'argument_value' ) ) ),
array( "four", "five", "six" ),
array( "seven", "height", "nine" )
);
</pre>

This is especially useful when you want to display player names with colors. Example from "Hearts":
<pre>
$firstRow = array( '' );
foreach( $players as $player_id => $player )
{
$firstRow[] = array( 'str' => '${player_name}',
'args' => array( 'player_name' => $player['player_name'] ),
'type' => 'header'
);
}
$table[] = $firstRow;
</pre>

You can also use three extra attributes in the parameter array for the notification:

<pre>
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "tableWindow", '', array(
"id" => 'finalScoring',
"title" => clienttranslate("Title of the scoring dialog"),
"table" => $table,
"header" => array('str' => clienttranslate('Table header with parameter ${number}'),
'args' => array( 'number' => 3 ),
),
"footer" => '<div>Some footer</div>',
"closing" => clienttranslate( "Closing button label" )
) );
</pre>

*'''header''': the content for this parameter will display before the table (also, the html will be parsed and player names will be colored according to the current game colors).
*'''footer''': the content for this parameter will display after the table (no parsing for coloring the player names)
*'''closing''': if this parameter is used, a button will be displayed with this label at the bottom of the popup and will allow players to close it (more easily than by clicking the top right 'cross' icon).

=== Scoring animated display ===

Sometimes (Terra Mystica final scoring for example), you may want to display a score value over an element to make the scoring easier to follow for the players.
You can do it with:

<pre>
this.displayScoring( anchor_id, color, score );
</pre>

=== Speech bubble ===

For better interactivity in some games (Love Letter for example), you may use comic book style speech bubbles to express the players voices.
This is done with:

<pre>
this.showBubble( anchor_id, text, delay, duration, custom_class )
</pre>

delay in milliseconds is optional (default 0)

duration in milliseconds is optional (default 3000)

custom_class is optional, if you need to override the default bubble style

== Update players score ==

Increase a player score (with a positive or negative number):

<pre>
this.scoreCtrl[ player_id ].incValue( score_delta );
</pre>

Set a player score to a specific value:

<pre>
this.scoreCtrl[ player_id ].setValue( new_score );
</pre>

== Players panels ==

=== Adding stuff to player's panel ===

At first, create a new "JS template" string in your template (tpl) file:

(from Gomoku example)
<pre>
var jstpl_player_board = '\<div class="cp_board">\
<div id="stoneicon_p${id}" class="gmk_stoneicon gmk_stoneicon_${color}"></div><span id="stonecount_p${id}">0</span>\
</div>';
</pre>

Then, you add this piece of code in your JS file to add this template to each player panel:

<pre>
// Setting up player boards
for( var player_id in gamedatas.players )
{
var player = gamedatas.players[player_id];

// Setting up players boards if needed
var player_board_div = $('player_board_'+player_id);
dojo.place( this.format_block('jstpl_player_board', player ), player_board_div );
}
</pre>

(Note: the code above is of course from your "setup" function in your Javascript).

Very often, you have to distinguish current player and others players. In this case, you just have to create another JS template (ex: jstpl_otherplayer_board) and use it when "player_id" is different than "this.player_id".

=== Player's panel disabling/enabling ===

'''this.disablePlayerPanel( player_id )'''

Disable given player panel (the panel background become gray).

Usually, this is used to signal that this played passes, or will be inactive during a while.

Note that the only effect of this is visual. There are no consequences on the behaviour of the panel itself.

'''this.enablePlayerPanel( player_id )'''

Enable a player panel that has been disabled before.

'''this.enableAllPlayerPanels()'''

Enable all player panels that has been disabled before.

== Image loading ==

See also [[Game_art:_img_directory]].

'''Be careful''': by default, ALL images of your img directory are loaded on a player's browser when he loads the game. For this reason, don't let in your img directory images that are not useful, otherwise it's going to slowdown the game load.

'''dontPreloadImage( image_file_name )'''

Using dontPreloadImage, you tell the interface to not preload a specific image in your img directory.

Example of use:
<pre>
this.dontPreloadImage( 'cards.png' );
</pre>

This is particularly useful if for example you have 2 different themes for a game. To accelerate the loading of the game, you can specify to not preload images corresponding to the other theme.

Another example of use: in "Gosu" game with Kamakor extension, you play with 5 sets of cards among 10 available. Cards images are organized by sets, and we only preload the images corresponding to the 5 current sets with '''ensureSpecificGameImageLoading( image_file_names_array )'''.
<pre>
// By default, do not preload anything
this.dontPreloadImage( 'cards.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan1.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan2.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan3.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan4.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan5.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan6.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan7.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan8.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan9.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan10.png' );
var to_preload = [];
for( i in this.gamedatas.clans )
{
var clan_id = this.gamedatas.clans[i];
to_preload.push( 'clan'+clan_id+'.png' );
}
if( to_preload.length == 5 )
{
this.ensureSpecificGameImageLoading( to_preload );
}
</pre>

'''Note:''' You don't need to specify to not preload game box images (game_box.png, game_box75.png...) since they are not preloaded by default.

== Other useful stuff ==

'''dojo.hitch'''

With dojo.hitch, you can create a callback function that will run with your game object context whatever happen.

Typical example: display a BGA confirmation dialog with a callback function created with dojo.hitch:

<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure you want to make this?'), dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/makeThis.html', { lock:true }, this, function( result ) {} );
} ) );
</pre>

In the example above, using dojo.hitch, we are sure that the "this" object will be set when the callback is called.

; updateCounters(counters)
: Useful for updating game counters in the player panel (such as resources).
: 'counters' arg is an associative array [counter_name_value => [ 'counter_name' => counter_name_value, 'counter_value' => counter_value_value], ... ]
: All counters must be referenced in this.gamedatas.counters and will be updated.
: DOM objects referenced by 'counter_name' will have their innerHTML updated with 'counter_value'.

== BGA GUI components ==

BGA framework provides some useful ready-to-use components for the game interface:

[[Studio#BGA_Studio_game_components_reference]]

Note that each time you are using an additional component, you must declare it at the top of your Javascript file in the list of modules used.

Example if you are using "ebg.stock":
<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <=== we are using ebg.stock module
],
</pre>

Game interface logic: yourgamename.js

2018-09-16T18:12:28Z

Amadannabriona: /* General tips */

This is the main file for your game interface. Here you will define:

* Which actions on the page will generate calls to the server.
* What happens when you get a notification for a change from the server and how it will show in the browser.

== File structure ==

The details of how the file is structured are described below with comments on the code skeleton provided to you.

Here is the basic structure:

* '''constructor''': here you can define global variables for your whole interface.
* '''setup''': this method is called when the page is refreshed, and sets up the game interface.
* '''onEnteringState''': this method is called when entering a new game state. You can use it to customize the view for each game state.
* '''onLeavingState''': this method is called when leaving a game state.
* '''onUpdateActionButtons''': called when entering a new state, in order to add action buttons to the status bar.
* ''(utility methods)'': this is where you can define your utility methods.
* ''(player's actions)'': this is where you can write your handlers for player actions on the interface (example: click on an item).
* '''setupNotifications''': this method associates notifications with notification handlers. For each game notification, you can trigger a javascript method to handle it and update the game interface.
* ''(notification handlers)'': this is where you define the notifications handlers associated with notifications in '''setupNotifications''', above.

== General tips ==

; this.player_id
: ID of the player on whose browser the code is running.

; this.isSpectator
: Flag set to true if the user at the table is a spectator (not a player).
: Note: This is a variable, not a function.
: Note: If you want to hide an element from spectators, you should use [[Game_interface_stylesheet:_yourgamename.css#spectatorMode|CSS 'spectatorMode' class]].

; this.gamedatas
: Contains the initial set of data to init the game, created at game start or by game refresh (F5).
: You can update it as needed to keep an up-to-date reference of the game on the client side if you need it. (Most of the time this is unnecessary).

; this.isCurrentPlayerActive()
: Returns true if the player on whose browser the code is running is currently active (it's his turn to play).

; this.getActivePlayerId()
: Return the ID of the active player, or null if we are not in an "activeplayer" type state.

; this.getActivePlayers()
: Return an array with the IDs of players who are currently active (or an empty array if there are none).

== Dojo framework ==

BGA is using the [http://dojotoolkit.org/ Dojo Javascript framework].

The Dojo framework allows us to do complex things easier, and the BGA framework is using Dojo framework a lot.

To realize game although, you only need to use a few part of the Dojo framework. All the Dojo methods you need to use are describe on this page.

== Shrinksafe minification ==

For performance reasons, when deploying a game the js code is minified using Shrinksafe (based on ECMASCRIPT version 3). Some advanced syntax may not be compatible with this process. In particular:
* you should not use reserved keywords from the javascript language as variables
* you should not declare default argument values in function declaration, the following syntax is invalid for Shriksafe: function myFunc(requiredArg, optionalArg = 'defaultValue') {}

== Access and manipulate the DOM ==

'''$('some_html_element_id')'''

The $() function is used to get some HTML element using its "id" attribute.

Example 1: modify the content of a "span" element:
<pre>
In your HTML code:
<span id="a_value_in_the_game_interface">1234</span>

In your Javascript code:
$('a_value_in_the_game_interface').innerHTML = "9999";
</pre>

Note: $() is the standard method to access some HTML element with BGA Framework. You must not use "getElementById" function.

'''dojo.style'''

With dojo.style you can modify a CSS property of any HTML element of your interface.

Examples:
<pre>
// Make an element disappear
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'display', 'none' );

// Give an element a 2px border
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'borderWidth', '2px' );

// Change the background position of an element
// (very practical when you are using CSS sprite to transform an element to another)
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'backgroundPosition', '-20px -50px' );
</pre>

Note: you must always use dojo.style to modify CSS properties of HTML elements.

Note²: if you have to modify several CSS properties of an element, or if you have some complex CSS transformation to do, you should consider using dojo.addClass/dojo.removeClass (see below).

'''dojo CSS classes manipulation'''

In many situation, a bunch of many small CSS property update can be replaced by a CSS class change (ie: you add a CSS class to your element instead of applying all modification manually).

Advantages are:
* All your CSS stuff remains in your CSS file.
* You can add/remove a list of CSS modifications with a simple function and whithout error.
* You can test if you applied the stuff to an element with "dojo.hasClass" method.

Example from "Reversi":
<pre>
// We add "possibleMove" to an element
dojo.addClass( 'square_'+x+'_'+y, 'possibleMove' );

// In our CSS file, the class is defined as:
.possibleMove {
background-color: white;
opacity: 0.2;
filter:alpha(opacity=20); /* For IE8 and earlier */
cursor: pointer;
}

// So we've applied 4 CSS property change in one line of code.

// ... and when we need to check if a square is a possible move on client side:
if( dojo.hasClass( 'square_'+x+'_'+y, 'possibleMove' ) )
{ ... }

// ... and if we want to remove all possible moves in one line of code (see "dojo.query" method):
dojo.query( '.possibleMove' ).removeClass( 'possibleMove' );
</pre>

Conclusion: we encourage you to use dojo.addClass, dojo.removeClass and dojo.hasClass to make your life easier :)

'''dojo.query'''

With dojo.query, you can query a bunch of HTML elements with a single function, with a "CSS selector" style.

Example:
<pre>
// All elements with class "possibleMove":
var elements = dojo.query( '.possibleMove' );

// Count number of tokens (ie: elements with class "token") on the board (ie: element with id "board"):
dojo.query( '#board .token' ).length;
</pre>

But what is really cool with dojo.query is that you can combine it with almost all methods above.

Examples:
<pre>
// Trigger a method when the mouse enter in any element with class "meeple":
dojo.query( '.meeple' ).connect( 'onmouseenter', this, 'myMethodToTrigger' );

// Hide all meeples who are on the board
dojo.query( '#board .meeple' ).style( 'display', 'none' );
</pre>

'''dojo.place'''

dojo.place is the best function to insert some HTML code somewhere in your game interface without breaking something. It is much better to use that "innerHTML=''" method as soon as you must insert HTML tags and not only values.

<pre>
// Insert your HTML code as a child of a container element
dojo.place( "<your html code>", "your_container_element_id" );

// Replace the container element with your new html
dojo.place( "<your html code>", "your_container_element_id", "replace" );

</pre>

The third parameter of dojo.place can take various interesting value.

values possibles :

"replace" : (see description above).

"first" : Places the node as a child of the reference node. The node is placed as the first child.

"last" : Places the node as a child of the reference node. The node is placed as the last child.

"before" : places the node right before the reference node.

"last (value by default) " : places the node right after the reference node.

"only" : replaces all children of the reference node with the node.

positif integer : This parameter can be a positif integer. In this case, the node will be placed as a child of the reference node with this number (counting from 0). If the number is more than number of children, the node will be appended to the reference node making it the last child.

See also full doc on dojo.place : [http://dojotoolkit.org/reference-guide/1.7/dojo/place.]

Usually, when you want to insert some piece of HTML in your game interface, you should use "[[Game_layout:_view_and_template:_yourgamename.view.php_and_yourgamename_yourgamename.tpl#Javascript_templates|Javascript templates]]".

'''addStyleToClass: function( cssClassName, cssProperty, propertyValue )'''

Same as dojo.style(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName

=== Animations ===

'''Dojo Animations'''

BGA animations is based on Dojo Animation ([http://dojotoolkit.org/documentation/tutorials/1.8/animation/ see tutorial here]).

However, most of the time, you can just use methods below, which are built on top of Dojo Animation.

Note: one interesting method from Dojo that could be useful from time to time is "Dojo.Animation". It allows you to make any CSS property "slide" from one value to another.

'''this.slideToObject( mobile_obj, target_obj, duration, delay )'''

You can use slideToObject to "slide" an element to a target position.

Sliding element on the game area is the recommended and the most used way to animate your game interface. Using slides allow players to figure out what is happening on the game, as if they were playing with the real boardgame.

The parameters are:
* mobile_obj: the ID of the object to move. This object must be "relative" or "absolute" positioned.
* target_obj: the ID of the target object. This object must be "relative" or "absolute" positioned. Note that it is not mandatory that mobile_obj and target_obj have the same size. If their size are different, the system slides the center of mobile_obj to the center of target_obj.
* duration: (optional) defines the duration in millisecond of the slide. The default is 500 milliseconds.
* delay: (optional). If you defines a delay, the slide will start only after this delay. This is particularly useful when you want to slide several object from the same position to the same position: you can give a 0ms delay to the first object, a 100ms delay to the second one, a 200ms delay to the third one, ... this way they won't be superposed during the slide.

BE CAREFUL: The method returns an dojo.fx animation, so you can combine it with other animation if you want to. It means that you have to call the "play()" method, otherwise the animation WON'T START.

Example:
<pre>
this.slideToObject( "some_token", "some_place_on_board" ).play();
</pre>

'''this.slideToObjectPos( mobile_obj, target_obj, target_x, target_y, duration, delay )'''

This method does exactly the same as "slideToObject", except than you can specify some (x,y) coordinates. This way, "mobile_obj" will slide to the specified x,y position relatively to "target_obj".

Example: slide a token to some place on the board, 10 pixels to the bottom:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectPos( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 0, 10 ).play();
</pre>

'''this.slideTemporaryObject( mobile_obj_html, mobile_obj_parent, from, to, duration, delay )'''

This method is useful when you want to slide a temporary HTML object from one place to another. As this object does not exists before the animation and won't remain after, it could be complex to create this object (with dojo.place), to place it at its origin (with placeOnObject) to slide it (with slideToObject) and to make it disappear at the end.

slideTemporaryObject does all of this for you:
* mobile_obj_html is a piece of HTML code that represent the object to slide.
* mobile_obj_parent is the ID of an HTML element of your interface that will be the parent of this temporary HTML object.
* from is the ID of the origin of the slide.
* to is the ID of the target of the slide.
* duration/delay works exactly like in "slideToObject"

Example:
<pre>
this.slideTemporaryObject( '<div class="token_icon"></div>', 'tokens', 'my_origin_div', 'my_target_div' );
</pre>

'''this.slideToObjectAndDestroy: function( node, to, time, delay )'''

This method is a handy shortcut to slide an existing HTML object to some place then destroy it upon arrival. It can be used for example to move a victory token or a card from the board to the player panel to show that the player earns it, then destroy it when we don't need to keep it visible on the player panel.

It works the same as this.slideToObject and takes the same arguments.

Example:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectAndDestroy( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 1000, 0 );
</pre>

'''this.fadeOutAndDestroy( node, duration, delay )'''

This function fade out the target HTML node, then destroy it.

Example:
<pre>
this.fadeOutAndDestroy( "a_card_that_must_disappear" );
</pre>

CAREFUL: the HTML node still exists until during few milliseconds, until the fadeOut has been completed.

'''Rotating elements'''

You can check here [http://jimfulton.info/demos/dojo-animated-rotate.html an example of use] of Dojo to make an element rotate.

This example combines "Dojo.Animation" method and a CSS3 property that allow you to rotate the element.

IMPORTANT: to asses browser compatibility, you must select the CSS property to use just like in the example (see sourcecode below):

<pre>
var transform;
dojo.forEach(
['transform', 'WebkitTransform', 'msTransform',
'MozTransform', 'OTransform'],
function (name) {
if (typeof dojo.body().style[name] != 'undefined') {
transform = name;
}
});
// ... and then use "transform" as the name of your CSS property for rotation
</pre>

=== Moving elements ===

'''this.placeOnObject( mobile_obj, target_obj )'''

placeOnObject works exactly like "slideToObject", except that the effect is immediate.

This is not really an animation, but placeOnObject is frequently used before starting an animation.

Example:
<pre>
// (We just created an object "my_new_token")

// Place the new token on current player board
this.placeOnObject( "my_new_token", "overall_player_board_"+this.player_id );

// Then slide it to its position on the board
this.slideToObject( "my_new_token", "a_place_on_board" ).play();
</pre>

'''this.placeOnObjectPos( mobile_obj, target_obj, target_x, target_y )'''

This method works exactly like placeOnObject, except than you can specify some (x,y) coordinates. This way, "mobile_obj" will be placed to the specified x,y position relatively to "target_obj".

'''this.attachToNewParent( mobile_obj, target_obj )'''

With this method, you change the HTML parent of "mobile_obj" element. "target_obj" is the new parent of this element. The beauty of
attachToNewParent is that the mobile_obj element DOES NOT MOVE during this process.

Note: what happens is that the method calculate a relative position of mobile_obj to make sure it does not move after the HTML parent changes.

Why using this method?

Changing the HTML parent of an element can be useful for the following reasons:
* When the HTML parent moves, all its child are moving with them. If some game elements is no more linked with a parent HTML object, you may want to attach it to another place.
* The z_order (vertical order of display) depends on the position in the DOM, so you may need to change the parent of some game elements when they are moving in your game area.

CAREFUL: this function destroys original object and places a clone onto a new parent, this will break all references to this HTML element (ex: dojo.connect).

== Players input ==

'''dojo.connect'''

Used to associate a player event with one of your notification method.

Example: associate a click on an element ("my_element") with one of our method ("onClickOnMyElement"):
<pre>
dojo.connect( $('my_element'), 'onclick', this, 'onClickOnMyElement' );
</pre>

Note: this is the only possible correct way to associate a player input event to your code, and you must not use anything else.

'''this.checkAction( "my_action_name" )'''

Usage: checkAction: function( action, nomessage )

Check if player can do the specified action by taking into account:
* current game state
* interface locking (a player can't do any action if an action is already in progress)

return true if action is authorized (ie: the action is listed as a "possibleaction" in current game state).

return false and display an error message if not (display no message if nomessage parameter is true). The displayed error message could be either "This move is not allowed at this moment" or "An action is already in progress".

Example:
<pre>
function onClickOnGameElement( evt )
{
if( this.checkAction( "my_action" ) )
{
// Do the action
}
}
</pre>

'''this.ajaxcall( url, parameters, obj_callback, callback, callback_error )'''

This method must be used to send a player input to the game server.

* url: the url of the action to perform. For a game, it must be: "/<mygame>/<mygame>/myAction.html"
* parameters: an array of parameter to send to the game server. Note that "lock:true" must always be specified in this list of parameter in order the interface can be locked during the server call.
* obj_callback: must be set to "this".
* callback: a function to trigger when the server returns and everything went fine.
* callback_error: (optional and rarely used) a function to trigger when the server returns an error.

Usage:
<pre>
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/myaction.html', { lock: true,
arg1: myarg1,
arg2: myarg2,
...
}, this, function( result ) {
// Do some stuff after a successful call
} );
</pre>

Restricted arguments names (please don't use them):
* "action"
* "module"
* "class"

'''this.confirmationDialog()'''

Display a confirmation dialog with a yes/no choice.

We advice you to NOT use this function unless the player action is really critical and could ruins the game, because it slows down the game and upset players.

Usage: this.confirmationDialog( "Question to displayed", callback_function_if_click_on_yes );

Example:
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure to use this bonus (points penalty at the end of the game) ?'),
dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.ajaxcall( '/seasons/seasons/useBonus.html',
{ id:bonus_id, lock:true }, this, function( result ) {} );
} ) );
</pre>

; addEventToClass: function( cssClassName, eventName, functionName )
: Same as dojo.connect(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName

'''this.addActionButton( id, label, method, (opt)destination, (opt)blinking, (opt)color )'''

You can use this method to add an action button in the main action status bar.

Arguments:
* id: an element ID that should be unique in your HTML DOM document.
* label: the text of the button. Should be translatable (use _() function).
* method: the name of your method that must be triggered when the player clicks on this button.
* destination (optional): deprecated, do not use this. Use '''null''' as value if you need to specify other arguments.
* blinking (optional): if set to '''true''', the button is going blink to catch player's attention. Please don't abuse of blinking button.
* color: could be '''blue''' (default), '''red''' or '''gray'''.

You should only use this method in your "onUpdateActionButtons" method. Usually, you use it like this (from Hears example):

<pre>
onUpdateActionButtons: function( stateName, args ) {

if (this.isCurrentPlayerActive()) {
switch( stateName ) {
case 'giveCards':
this.addActionButton( 'giveCards_button', _('Give selected cards'), 'onGiveCards' );
break;
}
}
},
</pre>

In the example above, we are adding a "Give selected cards" button in the case we are on game state "giveCards". When player clicks on this button, it triggers our "onGiveCards" method.

Example using blinking red button:
<pre>
this.addActionButton( 'commit_button', _('Confirm'), 'onConfirm', null, true, 'red');
</pre>

Note: at least in studio example above will make button huge, because it sets it display of blinking things to '''block''',
if you don't like it you have to change css display value
of the button to inline-block (the id of the button is the first argument, i.e 'commit_button' in example above)

== Translations ==

See [[Translations]]

== Notifications ==

When something happens on the server side, your game interface Javascript logic received a notification.

Here's how you can handle these notifications on the client side.

=== Subscribe to notifications ===

Your Javascript "setupNotifications" method is the place where you can subscribe to notifications from your PHP code.

Here's how you associate one of your Javascript method to a notification "playDisc" (from Reversi example):

<pre>
// In setupNotifications method:
dojo.subscribe( 'playDisc', this, "notif_playDisc" );
</pre>

Note: the "playDisc" corresponds to the name of the notification you define it in your PHP code, in your "notifyAllPlayers" or "notifyPlayer" method.

Then, you have to define your "notif_playDisc" method:

<pre>
notif_playDisc: function( notif )
{
// Remove current possible moves (makes the board more clear)
dojo.query( '.possibleMove' ).removeClass( 'possibleMove' );

this.addDiscOnBoard( notif.args.x, notif.args.y, notif.args.player_id );
},
</pre>

In a notification handler like our "notif_playDisc" method, you can access to all notifications arguments with "notif.args".

Example:
<pre>
// If you did this on PHP side:
self::notifyAllPlayers( "myNotification", '', array( "myArgument" => 3 ) );

// On Javascript side, you can access the "myArgument" like this:
notif_myNotification: function( notif )
{
alert( "myArgument = " + notif.args.myArgument );
}
</pre>

=== Synchronous notifications ===

When several notifications are received by your game interface, these notifications are processed immediately, one after the other, in the same exact order they have been generated in your PHP game logic.

However, sometimes, you need to give some time to the players to figure out what happened on the game before jumping to the next notification. Indeed, in many games, they are a lot of automatic actions, and the computer is going to resolve all these actions very fast if you don't tell it not to do so.

As an example, for Reversi, when someone is playing a disc, we want to wait 500 milliseconds before doing anything else in order the opponent player can figure out what move has been played.

Here's how we do this, right after our subscription:
<pre>
dojo.subscribe( 'playDisc', this, "notif_playDisc" );
this.notifqueue.setSynchronous( 'playDisc', 500 ); // Wait 500 milliseconds after executing the playDisc handler
</pre>

=== Pre-defined notification types ===

'''tableWindow''' - This defines notification to display [[Game_interface_logic:_yourgamename.js#Scoring_dialogs|Scoring Dialogs]], see below.

'''message''' - This defines notification that shows on players log and have no other effect

// You can call this on php side without doing anything on client side
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'message', 'hello', array( ) );

== Tooltips ==

'''this.addTooltip( nodeId, _( helpString ), _( actionString ), delay )'''

Add a simple text tooltip to the DOM node.

Specify 'helpString' to display some information about "what is this game element?".
Specify 'actionString' to display some information about "what happens when I click on this element?".

You must specify both helpString and actionString. Most of the time, you use only one and specify a void string ("") for the other one.

Usually, _() must be used for the text to be marked for translation.

"Delay" is an optional parameter. Usually, it is primarily used to specify a zero delay for some game element when the tooltip gives really important information for the game - but remember: no essential information must be placed in tooltips as they won't be displayed in some browser (see Guidelines).

Example:
<pre>
this.addTooltip( 'cardcount', _('Number of cards in hand'), '' );
</pre>

'''this.addTooltipHtml( nodeId, html, delay )'''

Add an HTML tooltip to the DOM node (for more elaborate content such as presenting a bigger version of a card).

'''this.addTooltipToClass( cssClass, _( helpString ), _( actionString ), delay )'''

Add a simple text tooltip to all the DOM nodes set with this cssClass.

IMPORTANT: all concerned nodes must have IDs to get tooltips.

'''this.addTooltipHtmlToClass( cssClass, html, delay )'''

Add an HTML tooltip to to all the DOM nodes set with this cssClass (for more elaborate content such as presenting a bigger version of a card).

IMPORTANT: all concerned nodes must have IDs to get tooltips

'''this.removeTooltip( nodeId )'''

Remove a tooltip from the DOM node.

== Dialogs, warning messages, confirmation dialogs, ... ==

=== Warning messages ===

Sometimes, there is something important that is happening on the game and you have to make sure all players get the message. Most of the time, the evolution of the game situation or the game log is enough, but sometimes you need something more visible.

Ex: someone fulfill one of the end of the game condition, so this is the last turn.

'''this.showMessage( msg, type )'''

showMessage shows a message in a big rectangular area on the top of the screen of current player.

* "msg" is the string to display. It should be translated.
* "type" can be set to "info" or "error". If set to "info", the message will be an informative message on a white background. If set to "error", the message will be an error message on a red background.

Important: the normal way to inform players about the progression of the game is the game log. "showMessage" is intrusive and should not be used often.

=== Confirmation dialog ===

'''confirmationDialog( message, yesHandler, noHandler )'''

When an important action with a lot of consequences is triggered by the player, you may want to propose a confirmation dialog.

CAREFUL: the general guidelines of BGA is to AVOID the use of confirmation dialog. Confirmation dialogs slow down the game and bother players. The players knows that they have to pay attention about each move when they are playing online.

The situation where you should use a confirmation dialog are the following:
* It must not happen very often during a game.
* It must be linked to an action that can really "kill a game" if the player do not pay attention.
* It must be something that can be done by mistake (ex: a link on the action status bar).

How to display a confirmation dialog:
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure you want to bake the pie?'), dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.bakeThePie();
} ) );
return; // nothing should be called or done after calling this, all action must be done in the handler
</pre>

=== Multiple choice dialog ===
You can use this dialog to give user a choice with small amount of options:
<pre>
var keys = [1,5,10];
this.multipleChoiceDialog(
_('How many bugs to fix?"), keys,
dojo.hitch(this, function(choice) {
var bugchoice = keys[choice];
console.log('dialog callback with '+bugchoice);
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/fixBugs.html', { bugs: bugchoice}, this, function( result ) {} ); }));
</pre>

=== Dialogs ===

At first, you shouldn't use dialogs windows.

BGA guidelines specify that all game elements should be displayed on the main screen. Players can eventually scroll down to see game elements they don't need to see anytime, and you may eventually create anchors to move between game area section. Of course dialogs windows are very practical, but the thing is: all players know how to scroll down, and not all players know how to show up your dialog window. In addition, when the dialog shows up, players can't access the other game components.

Sometimes although, you need to display a dialog window. Here is how you do this:

// Create the new dialog. You should store the handler in a member variable to access it later
this.myDlg = new dijit.Dialog({ title: _("my dialog title to translate") });

// Create the HTML of my dialog.
// The best practice here is to use [[Game_layout:_view_and_template:_yourgamename.view.php_and_yourgamename_yourgamename.tpl#Javascript_templates|Javascript templates]]
var html = this.format_block( 'jstpl_myDialogTemplate', {
arg1: myArg1,
arg2: myArg2,
...
} );

// Show the dialog
this.myDlg.attr("content", html );
this.myDlg.show();

// Now that the dialog has been displayed, you can connect your method to some dialog elements
// Example, a "close" button:
dojo.connect( $('closeDlg'), 'onclick', this, function(evt){
evt.preventDefault();
this.myDlg.hide();
} );

Tip: be careful with "hide()" method to close your dialog: the dialog and its content is not completely removed from the DOM. It can cause you problems if you try to display the same dialog several times. A good practice is to wrap all the content of your dialog in a <nowiki><div id='myDlgContent'></nowiki> div element, and to call "dojo.destroy('myDlgContent')" before displaying your dialog.

=== Scoring dialogs ===

Sometimes at the end of a round you want to display a big table that details the points wins in each section of the game.

Example: in Hearts game, we display at the end of each round the number of "heart" cards collected by each player, the player who collected the Queen of Spades, and the total number of points loose by each player.

Scoring dialogs are managed entirely on '''PHP side''', but they are described here as their effects are visible only on client side.

Displaying a scoring dialog is quite simple and is using a special notification type: "tableWindow":
<pre>
// on PHP side:
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "tableWindow", '', array(
"id" => 'finalScoring',
"title" => clienttranslate("Title of the scoring dialog"),
"table" => $table
) );
</pre>

The "table" argument is a 2 dimensional PHP array that describe the table you want to display, line by line and column by column.

Example: display an 3x3 array of strings
<pre>
$table = array(
array( "one", "two", "three" ), // This is my first line
array( "four", "five", "six" ), // This is my second line
array( "seven", "height", "nine" ) // This is my third line
);
</pre>

As you can see above, in each "cell" of your array you can display a simple string value. But you can also display a complex value with a template and associated arguments like this:
<pre>
$table = array(
array( "one", "two", array( "str" => "a string with an ${argument}", "args" => array( 'argument' => 'argument_value' ) ) ),
array( "four", "five", "six" ),
array( "seven", "height", "nine" )
);
</pre>

This is especially useful when you want to display player names with colors. Example from "Hearts":
<pre>
$firstRow = array( '' );
foreach( $players as $player_id => $player )
{
$firstRow[] = array( 'str' => '${player_name}',
'args' => array( 'player_name' => $player['player_name'] ),
'type' => 'header'
);
}
$table[] = $firstRow;
</pre>

You can also use three extra attributes in the parameter array for the notification:

<pre>
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "tableWindow", '', array(
"id" => 'finalScoring',
"title" => clienttranslate("Title of the scoring dialog"),
"table" => $table,
"header" => array('str' => clienttranslate('Table header with parameter ${number}'),
'args' => array( 'number' => 3 ),
),
"footer" => '<div>Some footer</div>',
"closing" => clienttranslate( "Closing button label" )
) );
</pre>

*'''header''': the content for this parameter will display before the table (also, the html will be parsed and player names will be colored according to the current game colors).
*'''footer''': the content for this parameter will display after the table (no parsing for coloring the player names)
*'''closing''': if this parameter is used, a button will be displayed with this label at the bottom of the popup and will allow players to close it (more easily than by clicking the top right 'cross' icon).

=== Scoring animated display ===

Sometimes (Terra Mystica final scoring for example), you may want to display a score value over an element to make the scoring easier to follow for the players.
You can do it with:

<pre>
this.displayScoring( anchor_id, color, score );
</pre>

=== Speech bubble ===

For better interactivity in some games (Love Letter for example), you may use comic book style speech bubbles to express the players voices.
This is done with:

<pre>
this.showBubble( anchor_id, text, delay, duration, custom_class )
</pre>

delay in milliseconds is optional (default 0)

duration in milliseconds is optional (default 3000)

custom_class is optional, if you need to override the default bubble style

== Update players score ==

Increase a player score (with a positive or negative number):

<pre>
this.scoreCtrl[ player_id ].incValue( score_delta );
</pre>

Set a player score to a specific value:

<pre>
this.scoreCtrl[ player_id ].setValue( new_score );
</pre>

== Players panels ==

=== Adding stuff to player's panel ===

At first, create a new "JS template" string in your template (tpl) file:

(from Gomoku example)
<pre>
var jstpl_player_board = '\<div class="cp_board">\
<div id="stoneicon_p${id}" class="gmk_stoneicon gmk_stoneicon_${color}"></div><span id="stonecount_p${id}">0</span>\
</div>';
</pre>

Then, you add this piece of code in your JS file to add this template to each player panel:

<pre>
// Setting up player boards
for( var player_id in gamedatas.players )
{
var player = gamedatas.players[player_id];

// Setting up players boards if needed
var player_board_div = $('player_board_'+player_id);
dojo.place( this.format_block('jstpl_player_board', player ), player_board_div );
}
</pre>

(Note: the code above is of course from your "setup" function in your Javascript).

Very often, you have to distinguish current player and others players. In this case, you just have to create another JS template (ex: jstpl_otherplayer_board) and use it when "player_id" is different than "this.player_id".

=== Player's panel disabling/enabling ===

'''this.disablePlayerPanel( player_id )'''

Disable given player panel (the panel background become gray).

Usually, this is used to signal that this played passes, or will be inactive during a while.

Note that the only effect of this is visual. There are no consequences on the behaviour of the panel itself.

'''this.enablePlayerPanel( player_id )'''

Enable a player panel that has been disabled before.

'''this.enableAllPlayerPanels()'''

Enable all player panels that has been disabled before.

== Image loading ==

See also [[Game_art:_img_directory]].

'''Be careful''': by default, ALL images of your img directory are loaded on a player's browser when he loads the game. For this reason, don't let in your img directory images that are not useful, otherwise it's going to slowdown the game load.

'''dontPreloadImage( image_file_name )'''

Using dontPreloadImage, you tell the interface to not preload a specific image in your img directory.

Example of use:
<pre>
this.dontPreloadImage( 'cards.png' );
</pre>

This is particularly useful if for example you have 2 different themes for a game. To accelerate the loading of the game, you can specify to not preload images corresponding to the other theme.

Another example of use: in "Gosu" game with Kamakor extension, you play with 5 sets of cards among 10 available. Cards images are organized by sets, and we only preload the images corresponding to the 5 current sets with '''ensureSpecificGameImageLoading( image_file_names_array )'''.
<pre>
// By default, do not preload anything
this.dontPreloadImage( 'cards.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan1.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan2.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan3.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan4.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan5.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan6.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan7.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan8.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan9.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan10.png' );
var to_preload = [];
for( i in this.gamedatas.clans )
{
var clan_id = this.gamedatas.clans[i];
to_preload.push( 'clan'+clan_id+'.png' );
}
if( to_preload.length == 5 )
{
this.ensureSpecificGameImageLoading( to_preload );
}
</pre>

'''Note:''' You don't need to specify to not preload game box images (game_box.png, game_box75.png...) since they are not preloaded by default.

== Other useful stuff ==

'''dojo.hitch'''

With dojo.hitch, you can create a callback function that will run with your game object context whatever happen.

Typical example: display a BGA confirmation dialog with a callback function created with dojo.hitch:

<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure you want to make this?'), dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/makeThis.html', { lock:true }, this, function( result ) {} );
} ) );
</pre>

In the example above, using dojo.hitch, we are sure that the "this" object will be set when the callback is called.

; updateCounters(counters)
: Useful for updating game counters in the player panel (such as resources).
: 'counters' arg is an associative array [counter_name_value => [ 'counter_name' => counter_name_value, 'counter_value' => counter_value_value], ... ]
: All counters must be referenced in this.gamedatas.counters and will be updated.
: DOM objects referenced by 'counter_name' will have their innerHTML updated with 'counter_value'.

== BGA GUI components ==

BGA framework provides some useful ready-to-use components for the game interface:

[[Studio#BGA_Studio_game_components_reference]]

Note that each time you are using an additional component, you must declare it at the top of your Javascript file in the list of modules used.

Example if you are using "ebg.stock":
<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <=== we are using ebg.stock module
],
</pre>

Game interface logic: yourgamename.js

2018-09-16T18:09:33Z

Amadannabriona:

This is the main file for your game interface. Here you will define:

* Which actions on the page will generate calls to the server.
* What happens when you get a notification for a change from the server and how it will show in the browser.

== File structure ==

The details of how the file is structured are described below with comments on the code skeleton provided to you.

Here is the basic structure:

* '''constructor''': here you can define global variables for your whole interface.
* '''setup''': this method is called when the page is refreshed, and sets up the game interface.
* '''onEnteringState''': this method is called when entering a new game state. You can use it to customize the view for each game state.
* '''onLeavingState''': this method is called when leaving a game state.
* '''onUpdateActionButtons''': called when entering a new state, in order to add action buttons to the status bar.
* ''(utility methods)'': this is where you can define your utility methods.
* ''(player's actions)'': this is where you can write your handlers for player actions on the interface (example: click on an item).
* '''setupNotifications''': this method associates notifications with notification handlers. For each game notification, you can trigger a javascript method to handle it and update the game interface.
* ''(notification handlers)'': this is where you define the notifications handlers associated with notifications in '''setupNotifications''', above.

== General tips ==

; this.player_id
: Id of the player on whose browser the code is running.

; this.isSpectator
: Flag set to true if the user at the table is a spectator (not a player).
: Note: this is not a function, its a variable.
: Note: if you want to hide some element for spectators, you'd better use [[Game_interface_stylesheet:_yourgamename.css#spectatorMode|CSS 'spectatorMode' class]].

; this.gamedatas
: Contains your initial set of datas to init the game, created at game start or game refresh (F5)
: You can update it as needed to keep an up to date reference of the game on the client side if you need it (most of the time you don't).

; this.isCurrentPlayerActive()
: Returns true if the player on whose browser the code is running is currently active (it's his turn to play)

; this.getActivePlayerId()
: Return the ID of active player, or null if we are not in a "activeplayer" type state.

; this.getActivePlayers()
: Return an array with the IDs of players that are currently active (or an empty array if there is not).

== Dojo framework ==

BGA is using the [http://dojotoolkit.org/ Dojo Javascript framework].

The Dojo framework allows us to do complex things easier, and the BGA framework is using Dojo framework a lot.

To realize game although, you only need to use a few part of the Dojo framework. All the Dojo methods you need to use are describe on this page.

== Shrinksafe minification ==

For performance reasons, when deploying a game the js code is minified using Shrinksafe (based on ECMASCRIPT version 3). Some advanced syntax may not be compatible with this process. In particular:
* you should not use reserved keywords from the javascript language as variables
* you should not declare default argument values in function declaration, the following syntax is invalid for Shriksafe: function myFunc(requiredArg, optionalArg = 'defaultValue') {}

== Access and manipulate the DOM ==

'''$('some_html_element_id')'''

The $() function is used to get some HTML element using its "id" attribute.

Example 1: modify the content of a "span" element:
<pre>
In your HTML code:
<span id="a_value_in_the_game_interface">1234</span>

In your Javascript code:
$('a_value_in_the_game_interface').innerHTML = "9999";
</pre>

Note: $() is the standard method to access some HTML element with BGA Framework. You must not use "getElementById" function.

'''dojo.style'''

With dojo.style you can modify a CSS property of any HTML element of your interface.

Examples:
<pre>
// Make an element disappear
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'display', 'none' );

// Give an element a 2px border
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'borderWidth', '2px' );

// Change the background position of an element
// (very practical when you are using CSS sprite to transform an element to another)
dojo.style( 'my_element', 'backgroundPosition', '-20px -50px' );
</pre>

Note: you must always use dojo.style to modify CSS properties of HTML elements.

Note²: if you have to modify several CSS properties of an element, or if you have some complex CSS transformation to do, you should consider using dojo.addClass/dojo.removeClass (see below).

'''dojo CSS classes manipulation'''

In many situation, a bunch of many small CSS property update can be replaced by a CSS class change (ie: you add a CSS class to your element instead of applying all modification manually).

Advantages are:
* All your CSS stuff remains in your CSS file.
* You can add/remove a list of CSS modifications with a simple function and whithout error.
* You can test if you applied the stuff to an element with "dojo.hasClass" method.

Example from "Reversi":
<pre>
// We add "possibleMove" to an element
dojo.addClass( 'square_'+x+'_'+y, 'possibleMove' );

// In our CSS file, the class is defined as:
.possibleMove {
background-color: white;
opacity: 0.2;
filter:alpha(opacity=20); /* For IE8 and earlier */
cursor: pointer;
}

// So we've applied 4 CSS property change in one line of code.

// ... and when we need to check if a square is a possible move on client side:
if( dojo.hasClass( 'square_'+x+'_'+y, 'possibleMove' ) )
{ ... }

// ... and if we want to remove all possible moves in one line of code (see "dojo.query" method):
dojo.query( '.possibleMove' ).removeClass( 'possibleMove' );
</pre>

Conclusion: we encourage you to use dojo.addClass, dojo.removeClass and dojo.hasClass to make your life easier :)

'''dojo.query'''

With dojo.query, you can query a bunch of HTML elements with a single function, with a "CSS selector" style.

Example:
<pre>
// All elements with class "possibleMove":
var elements = dojo.query( '.possibleMove' );

// Count number of tokens (ie: elements with class "token") on the board (ie: element with id "board"):
dojo.query( '#board .token' ).length;
</pre>

But what is really cool with dojo.query is that you can combine it with almost all methods above.

Examples:
<pre>
// Trigger a method when the mouse enter in any element with class "meeple":
dojo.query( '.meeple' ).connect( 'onmouseenter', this, 'myMethodToTrigger' );

// Hide all meeples who are on the board
dojo.query( '#board .meeple' ).style( 'display', 'none' );
</pre>

'''dojo.place'''

dojo.place is the best function to insert some HTML code somewhere in your game interface without breaking something. It is much better to use that "innerHTML=''" method as soon as you must insert HTML tags and not only values.

<pre>
// Insert your HTML code as a child of a container element
dojo.place( "<your html code>", "your_container_element_id" );

// Replace the container element with your new html
dojo.place( "<your html code>", "your_container_element_id", "replace" );

</pre>

The third parameter of dojo.place can take various interesting value.

values possibles :

"replace" : (see description above).

"first" : Places the node as a child of the reference node. The node is placed as the first child.

"last" : Places the node as a child of the reference node. The node is placed as the last child.

"before" : places the node right before the reference node.

"last (value by default) " : places the node right after the reference node.

"only" : replaces all children of the reference node with the node.

positif integer : This parameter can be a positif integer. In this case, the node will be placed as a child of the reference node with this number (counting from 0). If the number is more than number of children, the node will be appended to the reference node making it the last child.

See also full doc on dojo.place : [http://dojotoolkit.org/reference-guide/1.7/dojo/place.]

Usually, when you want to insert some piece of HTML in your game interface, you should use "[[Game_layout:_view_and_template:_yourgamename.view.php_and_yourgamename_yourgamename.tpl#Javascript_templates|Javascript templates]]".

'''addStyleToClass: function( cssClassName, cssProperty, propertyValue )'''

Same as dojo.style(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName

=== Animations ===

'''Dojo Animations'''

BGA animations is based on Dojo Animation ([http://dojotoolkit.org/documentation/tutorials/1.8/animation/ see tutorial here]).

However, most of the time, you can just use methods below, which are built on top of Dojo Animation.

Note: one interesting method from Dojo that could be useful from time to time is "Dojo.Animation". It allows you to make any CSS property "slide" from one value to another.

'''this.slideToObject( mobile_obj, target_obj, duration, delay )'''

You can use slideToObject to "slide" an element to a target position.

Sliding element on the game area is the recommended and the most used way to animate your game interface. Using slides allow players to figure out what is happening on the game, as if they were playing with the real boardgame.

The parameters are:
* mobile_obj: the ID of the object to move. This object must be "relative" or "absolute" positioned.
* target_obj: the ID of the target object. This object must be "relative" or "absolute" positioned. Note that it is not mandatory that mobile_obj and target_obj have the same size. If their size are different, the system slides the center of mobile_obj to the center of target_obj.
* duration: (optional) defines the duration in millisecond of the slide. The default is 500 milliseconds.
* delay: (optional). If you defines a delay, the slide will start only after this delay. This is particularly useful when you want to slide several object from the same position to the same position: you can give a 0ms delay to the first object, a 100ms delay to the second one, a 200ms delay to the third one, ... this way they won't be superposed during the slide.

BE CAREFUL: The method returns an dojo.fx animation, so you can combine it with other animation if you want to. It means that you have to call the "play()" method, otherwise the animation WON'T START.

Example:
<pre>
this.slideToObject( "some_token", "some_place_on_board" ).play();
</pre>

'''this.slideToObjectPos( mobile_obj, target_obj, target_x, target_y, duration, delay )'''

This method does exactly the same as "slideToObject", except than you can specify some (x,y) coordinates. This way, "mobile_obj" will slide to the specified x,y position relatively to "target_obj".

Example: slide a token to some place on the board, 10 pixels to the bottom:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectPos( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 0, 10 ).play();
</pre>

'''this.slideTemporaryObject( mobile_obj_html, mobile_obj_parent, from, to, duration, delay )'''

This method is useful when you want to slide a temporary HTML object from one place to another. As this object does not exists before the animation and won't remain after, it could be complex to create this object (with dojo.place), to place it at its origin (with placeOnObject) to slide it (with slideToObject) and to make it disappear at the end.

slideTemporaryObject does all of this for you:
* mobile_obj_html is a piece of HTML code that represent the object to slide.
* mobile_obj_parent is the ID of an HTML element of your interface that will be the parent of this temporary HTML object.
* from is the ID of the origin of the slide.
* to is the ID of the target of the slide.
* duration/delay works exactly like in "slideToObject"

Example:
<pre>
this.slideTemporaryObject( '<div class="token_icon"></div>', 'tokens', 'my_origin_div', 'my_target_div' );
</pre>

'''this.slideToObjectAndDestroy: function( node, to, time, delay )'''

This method is a handy shortcut to slide an existing HTML object to some place then destroy it upon arrival. It can be used for example to move a victory token or a card from the board to the player panel to show that the player earns it, then destroy it when we don't need to keep it visible on the player panel.

It works the same as this.slideToObject and takes the same arguments.

Example:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectAndDestroy( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 1000, 0 );
</pre>

'''this.fadeOutAndDestroy( node, duration, delay )'''

This function fade out the target HTML node, then destroy it.

Example:
<pre>
this.fadeOutAndDestroy( "a_card_that_must_disappear" );
</pre>

CAREFUL: the HTML node still exists until during few milliseconds, until the fadeOut has been completed.

'''Rotating elements'''

You can check here [http://jimfulton.info/demos/dojo-animated-rotate.html an example of use] of Dojo to make an element rotate.

This example combines "Dojo.Animation" method and a CSS3 property that allow you to rotate the element.

IMPORTANT: to asses browser compatibility, you must select the CSS property to use just like in the example (see sourcecode below):

<pre>
var transform;
dojo.forEach(
['transform', 'WebkitTransform', 'msTransform',
'MozTransform', 'OTransform'],
function (name) {
if (typeof dojo.body().style[name] != 'undefined') {
transform = name;
}
});
// ... and then use "transform" as the name of your CSS property for rotation
</pre>

=== Moving elements ===

'''this.placeOnObject( mobile_obj, target_obj )'''

placeOnObject works exactly like "slideToObject", except that the effect is immediate.

This is not really an animation, but placeOnObject is frequently used before starting an animation.

Example:
<pre>
// (We just created an object "my_new_token")

// Place the new token on current player board
this.placeOnObject( "my_new_token", "overall_player_board_"+this.player_id );

// Then slide it to its position on the board
this.slideToObject( "my_new_token", "a_place_on_board" ).play();
</pre>

'''this.placeOnObjectPos( mobile_obj, target_obj, target_x, target_y )'''

This method works exactly like placeOnObject, except than you can specify some (x,y) coordinates. This way, "mobile_obj" will be placed to the specified x,y position relatively to "target_obj".

'''this.attachToNewParent( mobile_obj, target_obj )'''

With this method, you change the HTML parent of "mobile_obj" element. "target_obj" is the new parent of this element. The beauty of
attachToNewParent is that the mobile_obj element DOES NOT MOVE during this process.

Note: what happens is that the method calculate a relative position of mobile_obj to make sure it does not move after the HTML parent changes.

Why using this method?

Changing the HTML parent of an element can be useful for the following reasons:
* When the HTML parent moves, all its child are moving with them. If some game elements is no more linked with a parent HTML object, you may want to attach it to another place.
* The z_order (vertical order of display) depends on the position in the DOM, so you may need to change the parent of some game elements when they are moving in your game area.

CAREFUL: this function destroys original object and places a clone onto a new parent, this will break all references to this HTML element (ex: dojo.connect).

== Players input ==

'''dojo.connect'''

Used to associate a player event with one of your notification method.

Example: associate a click on an element ("my_element") with one of our method ("onClickOnMyElement"):
<pre>
dojo.connect( $('my_element'), 'onclick', this, 'onClickOnMyElement' );
</pre>

Note: this is the only possible correct way to associate a player input event to your code, and you must not use anything else.

'''this.checkAction( "my_action_name" )'''

Usage: checkAction: function( action, nomessage )

Check if player can do the specified action by taking into account:
* current game state
* interface locking (a player can't do any action if an action is already in progress)

return true if action is authorized (ie: the action is listed as a "possibleaction" in current game state).

return false and display an error message if not (display no message if nomessage parameter is true). The displayed error message could be either "This move is not allowed at this moment" or "An action is already in progress".

Example:
<pre>
function onClickOnGameElement( evt )
{
if( this.checkAction( "my_action" ) )
{
// Do the action
}
}
</pre>

'''this.ajaxcall( url, parameters, obj_callback, callback, callback_error )'''

This method must be used to send a player input to the game server.

* url: the url of the action to perform. For a game, it must be: "/<mygame>/<mygame>/myAction.html"
* parameters: an array of parameter to send to the game server. Note that "lock:true" must always be specified in this list of parameter in order the interface can be locked during the server call.
* obj_callback: must be set to "this".
* callback: a function to trigger when the server returns and everything went fine.
* callback_error: (optional and rarely used) a function to trigger when the server returns an error.

Usage:
<pre>
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/myaction.html', { lock: true,
arg1: myarg1,
arg2: myarg2,
...
}, this, function( result ) {
// Do some stuff after a successful call
} );
</pre>

Restricted arguments names (please don't use them):
* "action"
* "module"
* "class"

'''this.confirmationDialog()'''

Display a confirmation dialog with a yes/no choice.

We advice you to NOT use this function unless the player action is really critical and could ruins the game, because it slows down the game and upset players.

Usage: this.confirmationDialog( "Question to displayed", callback_function_if_click_on_yes );

Example:
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure to use this bonus (points penalty at the end of the game) ?'),
dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.ajaxcall( '/seasons/seasons/useBonus.html',
{ id:bonus_id, lock:true }, this, function( result ) {} );
} ) );
</pre>

; addEventToClass: function( cssClassName, eventName, functionName )
: Same as dojo.connect(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName

'''this.addActionButton( id, label, method, (opt)destination, (opt)blinking, (opt)color )'''

You can use this method to add an action button in the main action status bar.

Arguments:
* id: an element ID that should be unique in your HTML DOM document.
* label: the text of the button. Should be translatable (use _() function).
* method: the name of your method that must be triggered when the player clicks on this button.
* destination (optional): deprecated, do not use this. Use '''null''' as value if you need to specify other arguments.
* blinking (optional): if set to '''true''', the button is going blink to catch player's attention. Please don't abuse of blinking button.
* color: could be '''blue''' (default), '''red''' or '''gray'''.

You should only use this method in your "onUpdateActionButtons" method. Usually, you use it like this (from Hears example):

<pre>
onUpdateActionButtons: function( stateName, args ) {

if (this.isCurrentPlayerActive()) {
switch( stateName ) {
case 'giveCards':
this.addActionButton( 'giveCards_button', _('Give selected cards'), 'onGiveCards' );
break;
}
}
},
</pre>

In the example above, we are adding a "Give selected cards" button in the case we are on game state "giveCards". When player clicks on this button, it triggers our "onGiveCards" method.

Example using blinking red button:
<pre>
this.addActionButton( 'commit_button', _('Confirm'), 'onConfirm', null, true, 'red');
</pre>

Note: at least in studio example above will make button huge, because it sets it display of blinking things to '''block''',
if you don't like it you have to change css display value
of the button to inline-block (the id of the button is the first argument, i.e 'commit_button' in example above)

== Translations ==

See [[Translations]]

== Notifications ==

When something happens on the server side, your game interface Javascript logic received a notification.

Here's how you can handle these notifications on the client side.

=== Subscribe to notifications ===

Your Javascript "setupNotifications" method is the place where you can subscribe to notifications from your PHP code.

Here's how you associate one of your Javascript method to a notification "playDisc" (from Reversi example):

<pre>
// In setupNotifications method:
dojo.subscribe( 'playDisc', this, "notif_playDisc" );
</pre>

Note: the "playDisc" corresponds to the name of the notification you define it in your PHP code, in your "notifyAllPlayers" or "notifyPlayer" method.

Then, you have to define your "notif_playDisc" method:

<pre>
notif_playDisc: function( notif )
{
// Remove current possible moves (makes the board more clear)
dojo.query( '.possibleMove' ).removeClass( 'possibleMove' );

this.addDiscOnBoard( notif.args.x, notif.args.y, notif.args.player_id );
},
</pre>

In a notification handler like our "notif_playDisc" method, you can access to all notifications arguments with "notif.args".

Example:
<pre>
// If you did this on PHP side:
self::notifyAllPlayers( "myNotification", '', array( "myArgument" => 3 ) );

// On Javascript side, you can access the "myArgument" like this:
notif_myNotification: function( notif )
{
alert( "myArgument = " + notif.args.myArgument );
}
</pre>

=== Synchronous notifications ===

When several notifications are received by your game interface, these notifications are processed immediately, one after the other, in the same exact order they have been generated in your PHP game logic.

However, sometimes, you need to give some time to the players to figure out what happened on the game before jumping to the next notification. Indeed, in many games, they are a lot of automatic actions, and the computer is going to resolve all these actions very fast if you don't tell it not to do so.

As an example, for Reversi, when someone is playing a disc, we want to wait 500 milliseconds before doing anything else in order the opponent player can figure out what move has been played.

Here's how we do this, right after our subscription:
<pre>
dojo.subscribe( 'playDisc', this, "notif_playDisc" );
this.notifqueue.setSynchronous( 'playDisc', 500 ); // Wait 500 milliseconds after executing the playDisc handler
</pre>

=== Pre-defined notification types ===

'''tableWindow''' - This defines notification to display [[Game_interface_logic:_yourgamename.js#Scoring_dialogs|Scoring Dialogs]], see below.

'''message''' - This defines notification that shows on players log and have no other effect

// You can call this on php side without doing anything on client side
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'message', 'hello', array( ) );

== Tooltips ==

'''this.addTooltip( nodeId, _( helpString ), _( actionString ), delay )'''

Add a simple text tooltip to the DOM node.

Specify 'helpString' to display some information about "what is this game element?".
Specify 'actionString' to display some information about "what happens when I click on this element?".

You must specify both helpString and actionString. Most of the time, you use only one and specify a void string ("") for the other one.

Usually, _() must be used for the text to be marked for translation.

"Delay" is an optional parameter. Usually, it is primarily used to specify a zero delay for some game element when the tooltip gives really important information for the game - but remember: no essential information must be placed in tooltips as they won't be displayed in some browser (see Guidelines).

Example:
<pre>
this.addTooltip( 'cardcount', _('Number of cards in hand'), '' );
</pre>

'''this.addTooltipHtml( nodeId, html, delay )'''

Add an HTML tooltip to the DOM node (for more elaborate content such as presenting a bigger version of a card).

'''this.addTooltipToClass( cssClass, _( helpString ), _( actionString ), delay )'''

Add a simple text tooltip to all the DOM nodes set with this cssClass.

IMPORTANT: all concerned nodes must have IDs to get tooltips.

'''this.addTooltipHtmlToClass( cssClass, html, delay )'''

Add an HTML tooltip to to all the DOM nodes set with this cssClass (for more elaborate content such as presenting a bigger version of a card).

IMPORTANT: all concerned nodes must have IDs to get tooltips

'''this.removeTooltip( nodeId )'''

Remove a tooltip from the DOM node.

== Dialogs, warning messages, confirmation dialogs, ... ==

=== Warning messages ===

Sometimes, there is something important that is happening on the game and you have to make sure all players get the message. Most of the time, the evolution of the game situation or the game log is enough, but sometimes you need something more visible.

Ex: someone fulfill one of the end of the game condition, so this is the last turn.

'''this.showMessage( msg, type )'''

showMessage shows a message in a big rectangular area on the top of the screen of current player.

* "msg" is the string to display. It should be translated.
* "type" can be set to "info" or "error". If set to "info", the message will be an informative message on a white background. If set to "error", the message will be an error message on a red background.

Important: the normal way to inform players about the progression of the game is the game log. "showMessage" is intrusive and should not be used often.

=== Confirmation dialog ===

'''confirmationDialog( message, yesHandler, noHandler )'''

When an important action with a lot of consequences is triggered by the player, you may want to propose a confirmation dialog.

CAREFUL: the general guidelines of BGA is to AVOID the use of confirmation dialog. Confirmation dialogs slow down the game and bother players. The players knows that they have to pay attention about each move when they are playing online.

The situation where you should use a confirmation dialog are the following:
* It must not happen very often during a game.
* It must be linked to an action that can really "kill a game" if the player do not pay attention.
* It must be something that can be done by mistake (ex: a link on the action status bar).

How to display a confirmation dialog:
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure you want to bake the pie?'), dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.bakeThePie();
} ) );
return; // nothing should be called or done after calling this, all action must be done in the handler
</pre>

=== Multiple choice dialog ===
You can use this dialog to give user a choice with small amount of options:
<pre>
var keys = [1,5,10];
this.multipleChoiceDialog(
_('How many bugs to fix?"), keys,
dojo.hitch(this, function(choice) {
var bugchoice = keys[choice];
console.log('dialog callback with '+bugchoice);
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/fixBugs.html', { bugs: bugchoice}, this, function( result ) {} ); }));
</pre>

=== Dialogs ===

At first, you shouldn't use dialogs windows.

BGA guidelines specify that all game elements should be displayed on the main screen. Players can eventually scroll down to see game elements they don't need to see anytime, and you may eventually create anchors to move between game area section. Of course dialogs windows are very practical, but the thing is: all players know how to scroll down, and not all players know how to show up your dialog window. In addition, when the dialog shows up, players can't access the other game components.

Sometimes although, you need to display a dialog window. Here is how you do this:

// Create the new dialog. You should store the handler in a member variable to access it later
this.myDlg = new dijit.Dialog({ title: _("my dialog title to translate") });

// Create the HTML of my dialog.
// The best practice here is to use [[Game_layout:_view_and_template:_yourgamename.view.php_and_yourgamename_yourgamename.tpl#Javascript_templates|Javascript templates]]
var html = this.format_block( 'jstpl_myDialogTemplate', {
arg1: myArg1,
arg2: myArg2,
...
} );

// Show the dialog
this.myDlg.attr("content", html );
this.myDlg.show();

// Now that the dialog has been displayed, you can connect your method to some dialog elements
// Example, a "close" button:
dojo.connect( $('closeDlg'), 'onclick', this, function(evt){
evt.preventDefault();
this.myDlg.hide();
} );

Tip: be careful with "hide()" method to close your dialog: the dialog and its content is not completely removed from the DOM. It can cause you problems if you try to display the same dialog several times. A good practice is to wrap all the content of your dialog in a <nowiki><div id='myDlgContent'></nowiki> div element, and to call "dojo.destroy('myDlgContent')" before displaying your dialog.

=== Scoring dialogs ===

Sometimes at the end of a round you want to display a big table that details the points wins in each section of the game.

Example: in Hearts game, we display at the end of each round the number of "heart" cards collected by each player, the player who collected the Queen of Spades, and the total number of points loose by each player.

Scoring dialogs are managed entirely on '''PHP side''', but they are described here as their effects are visible only on client side.

Displaying a scoring dialog is quite simple and is using a special notification type: "tableWindow":
<pre>
// on PHP side:
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "tableWindow", '', array(
"id" => 'finalScoring',
"title" => clienttranslate("Title of the scoring dialog"),
"table" => $table
) );
</pre>

The "table" argument is a 2 dimensional PHP array that describe the table you want to display, line by line and column by column.

Example: display an 3x3 array of strings
<pre>
$table = array(
array( "one", "two", "three" ), // This is my first line
array( "four", "five", "six" ), // This is my second line
array( "seven", "height", "nine" ) // This is my third line
);
</pre>

As you can see above, in each "cell" of your array you can display a simple string value. But you can also display a complex value with a template and associated arguments like this:
<pre>
$table = array(
array( "one", "two", array( "str" => "a string with an ${argument}", "args" => array( 'argument' => 'argument_value' ) ) ),
array( "four", "five", "six" ),
array( "seven", "height", "nine" )
);
</pre>

This is especially useful when you want to display player names with colors. Example from "Hearts":
<pre>
$firstRow = array( '' );
foreach( $players as $player_id => $player )
{
$firstRow[] = array( 'str' => '${player_name}',
'args' => array( 'player_name' => $player['player_name'] ),
'type' => 'header'
);
}
$table[] = $firstRow;
</pre>

You can also use three extra attributes in the parameter array for the notification:

<pre>
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "tableWindow", '', array(
"id" => 'finalScoring',
"title" => clienttranslate("Title of the scoring dialog"),
"table" => $table,
"header" => array('str' => clienttranslate('Table header with parameter ${number}'),
'args' => array( 'number' => 3 ),
),
"footer" => '<div>Some footer</div>',
"closing" => clienttranslate( "Closing button label" )
) );
</pre>

*'''header''': the content for this parameter will display before the table (also, the html will be parsed and player names will be colored according to the current game colors).
*'''footer''': the content for this parameter will display after the table (no parsing for coloring the player names)
*'''closing''': if this parameter is used, a button will be displayed with this label at the bottom of the popup and will allow players to close it (more easily than by clicking the top right 'cross' icon).

=== Scoring animated display ===

Sometimes (Terra Mystica final scoring for example), you may want to display a score value over an element to make the scoring easier to follow for the players.
You can do it with:

<pre>
this.displayScoring( anchor_id, color, score );
</pre>

=== Speech bubble ===

For better interactivity in some games (Love Letter for example), you may use comic book style speech bubbles to express the players voices.
This is done with:

<pre>
this.showBubble( anchor_id, text, delay, duration, custom_class )
</pre>

delay in milliseconds is optional (default 0)

duration in milliseconds is optional (default 3000)

custom_class is optional, if you need to override the default bubble style

== Update players score ==

Increase a player score (with a positive or negative number):

<pre>
this.scoreCtrl[ player_id ].incValue( score_delta );
</pre>

Set a player score to a specific value:

<pre>
this.scoreCtrl[ player_id ].setValue( new_score );
</pre>

== Players panels ==

=== Adding stuff to player's panel ===

At first, create a new "JS template" string in your template (tpl) file:

(from Gomoku example)
<pre>
var jstpl_player_board = '\<div class="cp_board">\
<div id="stoneicon_p${id}" class="gmk_stoneicon gmk_stoneicon_${color}"></div><span id="stonecount_p${id}">0</span>\
</div>';
</pre>

Then, you add this piece of code in your JS file to add this template to each player panel:

<pre>
// Setting up player boards
for( var player_id in gamedatas.players )
{
var player = gamedatas.players[player_id];

// Setting up players boards if needed
var player_board_div = $('player_board_'+player_id);
dojo.place( this.format_block('jstpl_player_board', player ), player_board_div );
}
</pre>

(Note: the code above is of course from your "setup" function in your Javascript).

Very often, you have to distinguish current player and others players. In this case, you just have to create another JS template (ex: jstpl_otherplayer_board) and use it when "player_id" is different than "this.player_id".

=== Player's panel disabling/enabling ===

'''this.disablePlayerPanel( player_id )'''

Disable given player panel (the panel background become gray).

Usually, this is used to signal that this played passes, or will be inactive during a while.

Note that the only effect of this is visual. There are no consequences on the behaviour of the panel itself.

'''this.enablePlayerPanel( player_id )'''

Enable a player panel that has been disabled before.

'''this.enableAllPlayerPanels()'''

Enable all player panels that has been disabled before.

== Image loading ==

See also [[Game_art:_img_directory]].

'''Be careful''': by default, ALL images of your img directory are loaded on a player's browser when he loads the game. For this reason, don't let in your img directory images that are not useful, otherwise it's going to slowdown the game load.

'''dontPreloadImage( image_file_name )'''

Using dontPreloadImage, you tell the interface to not preload a specific image in your img directory.

Example of use:
<pre>
this.dontPreloadImage( 'cards.png' );
</pre>

This is particularly useful if for example you have 2 different themes for a game. To accelerate the loading of the game, you can specify to not preload images corresponding to the other theme.

Another example of use: in "Gosu" game with Kamakor extension, you play with 5 sets of cards among 10 available. Cards images are organized by sets, and we only preload the images corresponding to the 5 current sets with '''ensureSpecificGameImageLoading( image_file_names_array )'''.
<pre>
// By default, do not preload anything
this.dontPreloadImage( 'cards.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan1.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan2.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan3.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan4.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan5.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan6.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan7.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan8.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan9.png' );
this.dontPreloadImage( 'clan10.png' );
var to_preload = [];
for( i in this.gamedatas.clans )
{
var clan_id = this.gamedatas.clans[i];
to_preload.push( 'clan'+clan_id+'.png' );
}
if( to_preload.length == 5 )
{
this.ensureSpecificGameImageLoading( to_preload );
}
</pre>

'''Note:''' You don't need to specify to not preload game box images (game_box.png, game_box75.png...) since they are not preloaded by default.

== Other useful stuff ==

'''dojo.hitch'''

With dojo.hitch, you can create a callback function that will run with your game object context whatever happen.

Typical example: display a BGA confirmation dialog with a callback function created with dojo.hitch:

<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure you want to make this?'), dojo.hitch( this, function() {
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/makeThis.html', { lock:true }, this, function( result ) {} );
} ) );
</pre>

In the example above, using dojo.hitch, we are sure that the "this" object will be set when the callback is called.

; updateCounters(counters)
: Useful for updating game counters in the player panel (such as resources).
: 'counters' arg is an associative array [counter_name_value => [ 'counter_name' => counter_name_value, 'counter_value' => counter_value_value], ... ]
: All counters must be referenced in this.gamedatas.counters and will be updated.
: DOM objects referenced by 'counter_name' will have their innerHTML updated with 'counter_value'.

== BGA GUI components ==

BGA framework provides some useful ready-to-use components for the game interface:

[[Studio#BGA_Studio_game_components_reference]]

Note that each time you are using an additional component, you must declare it at the top of your Javascript file in the list of modules used.

Example if you are using "ebg.stock":
<pre>
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/stock" /// <=== we are using ebg.stock module
],
</pre>

Players actions: yourgamename.action.php

2018-09-16T16:46:35Z

Amadannabriona: /* Useful tip: retrieve a list of numbers */

== Purpose of this file ==

With this file, you define all the player entry points (i.e., possible game actions) for your game.

This file is a sort of "bridge" between the AJAX calls you perform from the Javascript client side, and your main PHP code in "yourgame.game.php".

The role of the methods defined in this file is to filter the arguments, format them a bit, and then call a corresponding PHP method from your main game logic ("yourgame.game.php" file).

Methods in this file should be short: no game logic must be introduced here.

== Example of typical action method ==

(from Reversi example)

<pre>
public function playDisc()
{
self::setAjaxMode();
$x = self::getArg( "x", AT_posint, true );
$y = self::getArg( "y", AT_posint, true );
$result = $this->game->playDisc( $x, $y );
self::ajaxResponse( );
}
</pre>

== Methods to use in action methods ==

'''function setAjaxMode()'''

Must be used at the beginning of each action method.

'''function ajaxResponse()'''

Must be used at the end of each action method.

'''function getArg( $argName, $argType, $mandatory=false, $default=NULL, $argTypeDetails=array(), $bCanFail=false )'''

This method must be used to retrieve the arguments sent with your AJAX query.

You must ''not'' use "_GET", "_POST" or equivalent PHP variables to do this, as it is unsafe.

This method uses the following arguments:

* argName: the name of the argument to retrieve.
* argType: the type of the argument. You should use one of the following:
'AT_int' for an integer
'AT_posint' for a positive integer
'AT_float' for a float
'AT_bool' for 1/0/true/false
'AT_enum' for an enumeration (argTypeDetails lists the possible values as an array)
'AT_alphanum' for a string with 0-9a-zA-Z_ and space
'AT_numberlist' for a list of numbers separated with "," or ";" (example: 1,4;2,3;-1,2).
* mandatory: specify "true" if the argument is mandatory.
* default: if mandatory=false, you can specify here a default value in case the argument is not present.
* argTypeDetails: see AT_enum above.
* bCanFail: if true, specify that it may be possible that the argument won't be of the type specified by argType (and then do not log this as a fatal error in the system, and return a standard exception to the player).

'''function isArg( $argName )'''

This is a useful method when you only want to check if an argument is present or not present in your AJAX request (and don't care about the value).

It returns "true" or "false" according to whether "argName" has been specified as an argument of the AJAX request or not.

== Useful tip: retrieve a list of numbers ==

If your Javascript sends a list of integers separated by ";" (example: "1;2;3;4") as an argument, you can transform them into a PHP array with the following:

<pre>
public function playCards()
{
self::setAjaxMode();

$card_ids_raw = self::getArg( "card_ids", AT_numberlist, true );

// Removing last ';' if exists
if( substr( $card_ids_raw, -1 ) == ';' )
$card_ids_raw = substr( $card_ids_raw, 0, -1 );
if( $card_ids_raw == '' )
$card_ids = array();
else
$card_ids = explode( ';', $card_ids_raw );

$this->game->playCards( $card_ids );
self::ajaxResponse( );
}
</pre>

Players actions: yourgamename.action.php

2018-09-16T16:45:42Z

Amadannabriona: /* Methods to use in action methods */

== Purpose of this file ==

With this file, you define all the player entry points (i.e., possible game actions) for your game.

This file is a sort of "bridge" between the AJAX calls you perform from the Javascript client side, and your main PHP code in "yourgame.game.php".

The role of the methods defined in this file is to filter the arguments, format them a bit, and then call a corresponding PHP method from your main game logic ("yourgame.game.php" file).

Methods in this file should be short: no game logic must be introduced here.

== Example of typical action method ==

(from Reversi example)

<pre>
public function playDisc()
{
self::setAjaxMode();
$x = self::getArg( "x", AT_posint, true );
$y = self::getArg( "y", AT_posint, true );
$result = $this->game->playDisc( $x, $y );
self::ajaxResponse( );
}
</pre>

== Methods to use in action methods ==

'''function setAjaxMode()'''

Must be used at the beginning of each action method.

'''function ajaxResponse()'''

Must be used at the end of each action method.

'''function getArg( $argName, $argType, $mandatory=false, $default=NULL, $argTypeDetails=array(), $bCanFail=false )'''

This method must be used to retrieve the arguments sent with your AJAX query.

You must ''not'' use "_GET", "_POST" or equivalent PHP variables to do this, as it is unsafe.

This method uses the following arguments:

* argName: the name of the argument to retrieve.
* argType: the type of the argument. You should use one of the following:
'AT_int' for an integer
'AT_posint' for a positive integer
'AT_float' for a float
'AT_bool' for 1/0/true/false
'AT_enum' for an enumeration (argTypeDetails lists the possible values as an array)
'AT_alphanum' for a string with 0-9a-zA-Z_ and space
'AT_numberlist' for a list of numbers separated with "," or ";" (example: 1,4;2,3;-1,2).
* mandatory: specify "true" if the argument is mandatory.
* default: if mandatory=false, you can specify here a default value in case the argument is not present.
* argTypeDetails: see AT_enum above.
* bCanFail: if true, specify that it may be possible that the argument won't be of the type specified by argType (and then do not log this as a fatal error in the system, and return a standard exception to the player).

'''function isArg( $argName )'''

This is a useful method when you only want to check if an argument is present or not present in your AJAX request (and don't care about the value).

It returns "true" or "false" according to whether "argName" has been specified as an argument of the AJAX request or not.

== Useful tip: retrieve a list of numbers ==

If your Javascript sends a list of integers separated by ";" (ex: "1;2;3;4") as an argument, you can transform them in a PHP array with the following:

<pre>
public function playCards()
{
self::setAjaxMode();

$card_ids_raw = self::getArg( "card_ids", AT_numberlist, true );

// Removing last ';' if exists
if( substr( $card_ids_raw, -1 ) == ';' )
$card_ids_raw = substr( $card_ids_raw, 0, -1 );
if( $card_ids_raw == '' )
$card_ids = array();
else
$card_ids = explode( ';', $card_ids_raw );

$this->game->playCards( $card_ids );
self::ajaxResponse( );
}
</pre>

Players actions: yourgamename.action.php

2018-09-16T16:41:36Z

Amadannabriona: /* Purpose of this file */

== Purpose of this file ==

With this file, you define all the player entry points (i.e., possible game actions) for your game.

This file is a sort of "bridge" between the AJAX calls you perform from the Javascript client side, and your main PHP code in "yourgame.game.php".

The role of the methods defined in this file is to filter the arguments, format them a bit, and then call a corresponding PHP method from your main game logic ("yourgame.game.php" file).

Methods in this file should be short: no game logic must be introduced here.

== Example of typical action method ==

(from Reversi example)

<pre>
public function playDisc()
{
self::setAjaxMode();
$x = self::getArg( "x", AT_posint, true );
$y = self::getArg( "y", AT_posint, true );
$result = $this->game->playDisc( $x, $y );
self::ajaxResponse( );
}
</pre>

== Methods to use in action methods ==

'''function setAjaxMode'''

Must be use at the beginning of each action method.

'''function ajaxResponse'''

Must be use at the end of each action method.

'''function getArg( $argName, $argType, $mandatory=false, $default=NULL, $argTypeDetails=array(), $bCanFail=false )'''

This method must be used to retrieve the arguments sent with your AJAX query.
You must NOT use "_GET", "_POST" or equivalent PHP variables to do this, as it is unsafe.
This method use the following arguments:
* argName: the name of the argument to retrieve.
* argType: the type of the argument. You should use one of the following:
'AT_int' for an integer
'AT_posint' for a positive integer
'AT_float' for a float
'AT_bool' for 1/0/true/false
'AT_enum' for an enumeration (argTypeDetails list the possible values as an array)
'AT_alphanum' for a string with 0-9a-zA-Z_ and space
'AT_numberlist' for a list of several numbers separated with "," or ";" (ex: exemple: 1,4;2,3;-1,2).
* mandatory: specify "true" if the argument is mandatory.
* default: if mandatory=false, you can specify here a default value in case the argument is not present.
* argTypeDetails: see AT_enum above.
* bCanFail: if true, specify that it may be possible that the argument won't be of the type specified by argType (and then do not log this as a fatal error in the system, and return a standard exception to the player).

'''function isArg( $argName )'''

This is a useful method when you only want to check if an argument is present or not present in your AJAX request (and don't care of the value.

It returns "true" or "false" whether "argName" has been specified as an argument of the AJAX request or not.

== Useful tip: retrieve a list of numbers ==

If your Javascript sends a list of integers separated by ";" (ex: "1;2;3;4") as an argument, you can transform them in a PHP array with the following:

<pre>
public function playCards()
{
self::setAjaxMode();

$card_ids_raw = self::getArg( "card_ids", AT_numberlist, true );

// Removing last ';' if exists
if( substr( $card_ids_raw, -1 ) == ';' )
$card_ids_raw = substr( $card_ids_raw, 0, -1 );
if( $card_ids_raw == '' )
$card_ids = array();
else
$card_ids = explode( ';', $card_ids_raw );

$this->game->playCards( $card_ids );
self::ajaxResponse( );
}
</pre>

Deck

2018-09-16T04:24:19Z

Amadannabriona: /* Create a new Deck component */

Deck

2018-09-16T04:20:37Z

Amadannabriona:

"Deck" is one of the most useful component on the PHP side. With "Deck", you can manage the cards in your game on the server side.

Using "deck", you will be able to use the following features without writing a single SQL database request:
* Place cards in a pile, shuffle cards, draw cards one by one or many at a time.
* "Auto-reshuffle" the discard pile into the deck when the deck is empty.
* Move cards between different locations: hands of players, the table, etc.

== Using Deck: Hearts example ==

The Deck component is extensively used in the sample ''Hearts'' card game. You will find in "hearts.game.php" that the object "$this->cards" is used many times.

== Deck overview ==

With Deck component, you manage all cards of your game.

=== The 5 properties of each card ===

Using the Deck component, each card will have 5 properties:
* '''id''': This is the unique ID of each card.
* '''type''' and '''type_arg''': These two values define the type of your card (i.e., what sort of card is this?).
* '''location''' and '''location_arg''': These two values define where the card is at now.

The id, type, and type_arg properties are constants throughout the game. location and location_arg change when your cards move from one place to another in the game area.

'''id''' is the unique ID of each card. Two cards cannot have the same ID. IDs are generated automatically by the Deck component when you create cards during the Setup phase of your game.

'''type''' and '''type_arg''' defines the type of your card.

'''type''' is a short string, and '''type_arg''' is an integer.

You can use these two values as you like to make sure you will be able to identify the different cards in the game. See usage of "type" and "type_arg" below.

Examples of usage of "type" and "type_arg":
* In ''Hearts'', "type" represents the color (suite) of the card (1 to 4) and "type_arg" is the value of the card (1, 2, ... 10, J, Q, K).
* In ''Seasons'', "type" represents the type of the card (e.g., 1 is Amulet of Air, 2 is Amulet of Fire, etc...). type_arg is not used.
* In ''Takenoko'', a Deck component is used for objective cards. "type" is the kind of objective (irrigation/panda/plot) and "type_arg" is the ID of the specific objective to realize (e.g., "green bamboo x4"). Note that a second Deck component is used in ''Takenoko'' to manage the "garden plot" pile.

'''location''' and '''location_arg''' define where a card is at now. '''location''' is a short string, and '''location_arg''' is an integer.

You can use 'location' and 'location_arg' as you like, to move your card within the game area.

There are 3 special 'location' values that Deck manages automatically. You can choose to use these locations or not, depending on your needs:
* 'deck': the 'deck' location is a standard draw deck. Cards are placed face down in a stack and are drawn in sequential order during the game. 'location_arg' is used to specify where the card is located within the stack (the card with the highest location_arg value is the next to be drawn).
* 'hand': the 'hand' location represents cards in a player's hand. 'location_arg' is set to the ID of each player.
* 'discard': the 'discard' location is used for discard piles. Card in 'discard' may be reshuffled into the deck if needed (see "autoreshuffle").

Tips: using the Deck component, you will use generic properties ("location", "type_arg",...) for specific purposes in your game. Thus, during the design step before realizing your game, take a few minutes to write down the exact meaning of each of these generic properties in the context of your game.

=== Create a new Deck component ===

For each Deck component in your game, you need to create a dedicated table in database. This table has a standard format. In practical, if you want to have a Deck component named "card", you just have to copy/paste the following in your "dbmodel.sql":

<pre>
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `card` (
`card_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`card_type` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_type_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
`card_location` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_location_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`card_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;
</pre>

Note: database schema of this table does not have to be exactly that, you can increase size of fields or add more fields. For additional fields
you just have to do manual queries.

Once you did this (and restart your game), you can declare your Deck component in your PHP code in your class constructor. For Hearts for example, I added to "Hearts()" method:

<pre>
$this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
$this->cards->init( "card" );
</pre>

Note that we specify "card" here, the name of our previously created table. It means you can create several "Deck" with several tables. Most of the time this is unuseful: a Deck component should manage all objects of the same kind (ex: all cards of the game).

Afterwards, we can initialize your "Deck" by creating all the cards of the game. Generally, this is done only once during the game, during the "setupNewGame" method.

"Deck" component provides you a fast way to initialize all your cards at once: createCards. Here is how it is used for "Hearts":
<pre>
// Create cards
$cards = array();
foreach( $this->colors as $color_id => $color ) // spade, heart, diamond, club
{
for( $value=2; $value<=14; $value++ ) // 2, 3, 4, ... K, A
{
$cards[] = array( 'type' => $color_id, 'type_arg' => $value, 'nbr' => 1);
}
}

$this->cards->createCards( $cards, 'deck' );
</pre>

As you can see, "createCards" takes a description of all cards of the game. For each type of card, you have to specify its "type", "type_arg" and the number of card to create. "createCards" create all cards and place them into the "deck" location (as specified in the second argument).

Now, you are ready to use "Deck"!

=== Simple examples using Deck ===

(Most examples are from "Hearts" game)

<pre>
// In "getAllDatas', we need to send to the current player all the cards he has in hand:
$result['hand'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'hand', $player_id );
</pre>

<pre>
// At some time we want to check if all the cards (52) are in player's hands:
if( $this->cards->countCardInLocation( 'hand' ) == 52 )
// do something
</pre>

<pre>
// When a player plays a card in front of him on the table:
$this->cards->moveCard( $card_id, 'cardsontable', $player_id );

// Note the use of the custom location 'cardsontable' here to keep track of cards on the table.
</pre>

<pre>
// This is a new hand: let's gather all cards from everywhere in the deck:
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation( null, "deck" );

// And then shuffle the deck
$this->cards->shuffle( 'deck' );

// And then deal 13 cards to each player
// Deal 13 cards to each players
// Create deck, shuffle it and give 13 initial cards
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach( $players as $player_id => $player )
{
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards( 13, 'deck', $player_id );

// Notify player about his cards
self::notifyPlayer( $player_id, 'newHand', '', array(
'cards' => $cards
) );
}

// Note the use of "notifyPlayer" instead of "notifyAllPlayers": new cards is a private information ;)
</pre>

== Deck component reference ==

=== Initializing Deck component ===

'''init( $table_name )'''

Initialize the Deck component.

Argument:
* table_name: name of the DB table used by this Deck component.

Must be called before any other Deck method.

Usually, init is called in your game constructor.

Example with Hearts:

<pre>
function Hearts( )
{
(...)

$this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
$this->cards->init( "card" );
}
</pre>

'''createCards( $cards, $location='deck', $location_arg=null )'''

Create card items in your deck component. Usually, all card items are created once, during the setup phase of the game.

"cards" describe all cards that need to be created. "cards" is an array with the following format:

<pre>
// Create 1 card of type "1" with type_arg=99,
// and 4 cards of type "2" with type_arg=12,
// and 2 cards of type "3" with type_arg=33

$cards = array(
array( 'type' => 1, 'type_arg' => 99, 'nbr' => 1 ),
array( 'type' => 2, 'type_arg' => 12, 'nbr' => 4 ),
array( 'type' => 3, 'type_arg' => 33, 'nbr' => 2 )
...
);
</pre>

Note: During the "createCards" process, Deck generates unique IDs for all card items.

Note: createCards is optimized to create a lot of cards at once. Do not use it to create cards one by one.

If "location" and "location_arg" arguments are not set, newly created cards are placed in the "deck" location. If "location" (and optionally location_arg) is specified, cards are created for this specific location.

=== Card standard format ===

When Deck component methods are returning one or several cards, the following format is used:

<pre>
array(
'id' => .., // the card ID
'type' => .., // the card type
'type_arg' => .., // the card type argument
'location' => .., // the card location
'location_arg' => .. // the card location argument
);
</pre>

=== Picking cards ===

'''pickCard( $location, $player_id )'''

Pick a card from a "pile" location (ex: "deck") and place it in the "hand" of specified player.

Return the card picked or "null" if there are no more card in given location.

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below).

'''pickCards( $nbr, $location, $player_id )'''

Pick "$nbr" cards from a "pile" location (ex: "deck") and place them in the "hand" of specified player.

Return an array with the cards picked, or "null" if there are no more card in given location.

Note that the number of cards picked can be less than "$nbr" in case there are not enough cards in the pile location.

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below). In case there are not enough cards in the pile, all remaining cards are picked first, then the auto-reshuffle is triggered, then the other cards are picked.

'''pickCardForLocation( $from_location, $to_location, $location_arg=0 )'''

This method is similar to 'pickCard', except that you can pick a card for any sort of location and not only the "hand" location.

* from_location is the "pile" style location from where you are picking a card.
* to_location is the location where you will place the card picked.
* if "location_arg" is specified, the card picked will be set with this "location_arg".

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below).

'''pickCardsForLocation( $nbr, $from_location, $to_location, $location_arg=0, $no_deck_reform=false )'''

This method is similar to 'pickCards', except that you can pick cards for any sort of location and not only the "hand" location.

* from_location is the "pile" style location from where you are picking some cards.
* to_location is the location where you will place the cards picked.
* if "location_arg" is specified, the cards picked will be set with this "location_arg".
* if "no_deck_reform" is set to "true", the auto-reshuffle feature is disabled during this method call.

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below).

=== Moving cards ===

'''moveCard( $card_id, $location, $location_arg=0 )'''

Move the specific card to given location.

* card_id: ID of the card to move.
* location: location where to move the card.
* location_arg: if specified, location_arg where to move the card. If not specified "location_arg" will be set to 0.

'''moveCards( $cards, $location, $location_arg )'''

Move the specific cards to given location.

* cards: an array of IDs of cards to move.
* location: location where to move the cards.
* location_arg: if specified, location_arg where to move the cards. If not specified "location_arg" will be set to 0.

'''insertCard( $card_id, $location, $location_arg )'''

Move a card to a specific "pile" location where card are ordered.

If location_arg place is already taken, increment all cards after location_arg in order to insert new card at this precise location.

(note: insertCardOnExtremePosition method below is more useful in most of the case)

'''insertCardOnExtremePosition( $card_id, $location, $bOnTop )'''

Move a card on top or at bottom of given "pile" type location.

'''moveAllCardsInLocation( $from_location, $to_location, $from_location_arg=null, $to_location_arg=0 )'''

Move all cards in specified "from" location to given location.

* from_location: where to take the cards
* to_location: where to put the cards
* from_location (optional): if specified, only cards with given "location_arg" are moved.
* to_location (optional): if specified, cards moved "location_arg" is set to given value. Otherwise location_arg is set to zero.

Note: if you want to keep "location_arg" untouched, you should use "moveAllCardsInLocationKeepOrder" below.

'''moveAllCardsInLocationKeepOrder( $from_location, $to_location )'''

Move all cards in specified "from" location to given "to" location. This method does not modify the "location_arg" of cards.

'''playCard( $card_id )'''

Move specified card at the top of the "discard" location.

Note: this is an alias for: insertCardOnExtremePosition( $card_id, "discard", true )

=== Get cards informations ===

'''getCard( $card_id )'''

Get specific card information.

Return null if this card is not found.

'''getCards( $cards_array )'''

Get specific cards information.

cards_array is an array of cards ID.

If some cards are not found or if some cards IDs are specified multiple times, the method throws an (unexpected) Exception.

'''getCardsInLocation( $location, $location_arg = null, $order_by = null )'''

Get all cards in specific location, as an array. Return an empty array if the location is empty.

* location (string): the location where to get the cards.
* location_arg (optional): if specified, return only cards with the specified "location_arg".
* order_by (optional): if specified, returned cards are ordered by the given database field. Example: "card_id" or "card_type".

'''countCardInLocation( $location, $location_arg=null )'''

Return the number of cards in specified location.

* location (string): the location where to count the cards.
* location_arg (optional): if specified, count only cards with the specified "location_arg".

'''countCardsInLocations()'''

Return the number of cards in each location of the game.

The method returns an associative array with the format "location" => "number of cards".

Example:
<pre>
array(
'deck' => 12,
'hand' => 21,
'discard' => 54,
'ontable' => 3
);
</pre>

'''countCardsByLocationArgs( $location )'''

Return the number of cards in each "location_arg" for the given location.

The method returns an associative array with the format "location_arg" => "number of cards".

Example: count the number of cards in each player's hand:
<pre>
countCardsByLocationArgs( 'hand' );

// Result:
array(
122345 => 5, // player 122345 has 5 cards in hand
123456 => 4 // and player 123456 has 4 cards in hand
);
</pre>

'''getPlayerHand( $player_id )'''

Get all cards in given player hand.

Note: This is an alias for:
getCardsInLocation( "hand", $player_id )

'''getCardOnTop( $location )'''

Get the card on top of the given ("pile" style) location, or null if the location is empty.

Note that the card pile won't be "auto-reshuffled" if there is no more card available.

'''getCardsOnTop( $nbr, $location )'''

Get the "$nbr" cards on top of the given ("pile" style) location.

The method return an array with at most "$nbr" elements (or a void array if there is no card in this location).

Note that the card pile won't be "auto-reshuffled" if there is not enough cards available.

'''getExtremePosition( $bGetMax ,$location )'''

(rarely used)

Get the position of cards at the top of the given location / at the bottom of the given location.

Of course this method works only on location in "pile" where you are using "location_arg" to specify the position of each card (example: "deck" location).

If bGetMax=true, return the location of the top card of the pile.

If bGetMax=false, return the location of the bottom card of the pile.

'''getCardsOfType( $type, $type_arg=null )'''

Get all cards of a specific type (rarely used).

Return an array of cards, or an empty array if there is no cards of the specified type.

* type: the type of cards
* type_arg: if specified, return only cards with the specified "type_arg".

=== Shuffling ===

'''shuffle( $location )'''

Shuffle all cards in specific location.

Shuffle only works on locations where cards are on a "pile" (ex: "deck").

Please note that all "location_arg" will be reset to reflect the new order of the cards in the pile.

Deck

2018-09-16T04:19:22Z

Amadannabriona: /* Using Deck: Hearts example */

"Deck" is one of the most useful component on PHP side. With "Deck", you can manage cards of your game on server side.

Using "deck", you will be able to use the following features without writing a single SQL database request:
* Place cards in pile, shuffle cards, draw cards one by one or many by many.
* "Auto-reshuffle" discard pile into deck when deck is empty.
* Move cards between different locations: hands of players, the table, ...

== Using Deck: Hearts example ==

The Deck component is extensively used in the sample ''Hearts'' card game. You will find in "hearts.game.php" that the object "$this->cards" is used many times.

== Deck overview ==

With Deck component, you manage all cards of your game.

=== The 5 properties of each card ===

Using the Deck component, each card will have 5 properties:
* '''id''': This is the unique ID of each card.
* '''type''' and '''type_arg''': These two values define the type of your card (i.e., what sort of card is this?).
* '''location''' and '''location_arg''': These two values define where the card is at now.

The id, type, and type_arg properties are constants throughout the game. location and location_arg change when your cards move from one place to another in the game area.

'''id''' is the unique ID of each card. Two cards cannot have the same ID. IDs are generated automatically by the Deck component when you create cards during the Setup phase of your game.

'''type''' and '''type_arg''' defines the type of your card.

'''type''' is a short string, and '''type_arg''' is an integer.

You can use these two values as you like to make sure you will be able to identify the different cards in the game. See usage of "type" and "type_arg" below.

Examples of usage of "type" and "type_arg":
* In ''Hearts'', "type" represents the color (suite) of the card (1 to 4) and "type_arg" is the value of the card (1, 2, ... 10, J, Q, K).
* In ''Seasons'', "type" represents the type of the card (e.g., 1 is Amulet of Air, 2 is Amulet of Fire, etc...). type_arg is not used.
* In ''Takenoko'', a Deck component is used for objective cards. "type" is the kind of objective (irrigation/panda/plot) and "type_arg" is the ID of the specific objective to realize (e.g., "green bamboo x4"). Note that a second Deck component is used in ''Takenoko'' to manage the "garden plot" pile.

'''location''' and '''location_arg''' define where a card is at now. '''location''' is a short string, and '''location_arg''' is an integer.

You can use 'location' and 'location_arg' as you like, to move your card within the game area.

There are 3 special 'location' values that Deck manages automatically. You can choose to use these locations or not, depending on your needs:
* 'deck': the 'deck' location is a standard draw deck. Cards are placed face down in a stack and are drawn in sequential order during the game. 'location_arg' is used to specify where the card is located within the stack (the card with the highest location_arg value is the next to be drawn).
* 'hand': the 'hand' location represents cards in a player's hand. 'location_arg' is set to the ID of each player.
* 'discard': the 'discard' location is used for discard piles. Card in 'discard' may be reshuffled into the deck if needed (see "autoreshuffle").

Tips: using the Deck component, you will use generic properties ("location", "type_arg",...) for specific purposes in your game. Thus, during the design step before realizing your game, take a few minutes to write down the exact meaning of each of these generic properties in the context of your game.

=== Create a new Deck component ===

For each Deck component in your game, you need to create a dedicated table in database. This table has a standard format. In practical, if you want to have a Deck component named "card", you just have to copy/paste the following in your "dbmodel.sql":

<pre>
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `card` (
`card_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`card_type` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_type_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
`card_location` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_location_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`card_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;
</pre>

Note: database schema of this table does not have to be exactly that, you can increase size of fields or add more fields. For additional fields
you just have to do manual queries.

Once you did this (and restart your game), you can declare your Deck component in your PHP code in your class constructor. For Hearts for example, I added to "Hearts()" method:

<pre>
$this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
$this->cards->init( "card" );
</pre>

Note that we specify "card" here, the name of our previously created table. It means you can create several "Deck" with several tables. Most of the time this is unuseful: a Deck component should manage all objects of the same kind (ex: all cards of the game).

Afterwards, we can initialize your "Deck" by creating all the cards of the game. Generally, this is done only once during the game, during the "setupNewGame" method.

"Deck" component provides you a fast way to initialize all your cards at once: createCards. Here is how it is used for "Hearts":
<pre>
// Create cards
$cards = array();
foreach( $this->colors as $color_id => $color ) // spade, heart, diamond, club
{
for( $value=2; $value<=14; $value++ ) // 2, 3, 4, ... K, A
{
$cards[] = array( 'type' => $color_id, 'type_arg' => $value, 'nbr' => 1);
}
}

$this->cards->createCards( $cards, 'deck' );
</pre>

As you can see, "createCards" takes a description of all cards of the game. For each type of card, you have to specify its "type", "type_arg" and the number of card to create. "createCards" create all cards and place them into the "deck" location (as specified in the second argument).

Now, you are ready to use "Deck"!

=== Simple examples using Deck ===

(Most examples are from "Hearts" game)

<pre>
// In "getAllDatas', we need to send to the current player all the cards he has in hand:
$result['hand'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'hand', $player_id );
</pre>

<pre>
// At some time we want to check if all the cards (52) are in player's hands:
if( $this->cards->countCardInLocation( 'hand' ) == 52 )
// do something
</pre>

<pre>
// When a player plays a card in front of him on the table:
$this->cards->moveCard( $card_id, 'cardsontable', $player_id );

// Note the use of the custom location 'cardsontable' here to keep track of cards on the table.
</pre>

<pre>
// This is a new hand: let's gather all cards from everywhere in the deck:
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation( null, "deck" );

// And then shuffle the deck
$this->cards->shuffle( 'deck' );

// And then deal 13 cards to each player
// Deal 13 cards to each players
// Create deck, shuffle it and give 13 initial cards
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach( $players as $player_id => $player )
{
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards( 13, 'deck', $player_id );

// Notify player about his cards
self::notifyPlayer( $player_id, 'newHand', '', array(
'cards' => $cards
) );
}

// Note the use of "notifyPlayer" instead of "notifyAllPlayers": new cards is a private information ;)
</pre>

== Deck component reference ==

=== Initializing Deck component ===

'''init( $table_name )'''

Initialize the Deck component.

Argument:
* table_name: name of the DB table used by this Deck component.

Must be called before any other Deck method.

Usually, init is called in your game constructor.

Example with Hearts:

<pre>
function Hearts( )
{
(...)

$this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
$this->cards->init( "card" );
}
</pre>

'''createCards( $cards, $location='deck', $location_arg=null )'''

Create card items in your deck component. Usually, all card items are created once, during the setup phase of the game.

"cards" describe all cards that need to be created. "cards" is an array with the following format:

<pre>
// Create 1 card of type "1" with type_arg=99,
// and 4 cards of type "2" with type_arg=12,
// and 2 cards of type "3" with type_arg=33

$cards = array(
array( 'type' => 1, 'type_arg' => 99, 'nbr' => 1 ),
array( 'type' => 2, 'type_arg' => 12, 'nbr' => 4 ),
array( 'type' => 3, 'type_arg' => 33, 'nbr' => 2 )
...
);
</pre>

Note: During the "createCards" process, Deck generates unique IDs for all card items.

Note: createCards is optimized to create a lot of cards at once. Do not use it to create cards one by one.

If "location" and "location_arg" arguments are not set, newly created cards are placed in the "deck" location. If "location" (and optionally location_arg) is specified, cards are created for this specific location.

=== Card standard format ===

When Deck component methods are returning one or several cards, the following format is used:

<pre>
array(
'id' => .., // the card ID
'type' => .., // the card type
'type_arg' => .., // the card type argument
'location' => .., // the card location
'location_arg' => .. // the card location argument
);
</pre>

=== Picking cards ===

'''pickCard( $location, $player_id )'''

Pick a card from a "pile" location (ex: "deck") and place it in the "hand" of specified player.

Return the card picked or "null" if there are no more card in given location.

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below).

'''pickCards( $nbr, $location, $player_id )'''

Pick "$nbr" cards from a "pile" location (ex: "deck") and place them in the "hand" of specified player.

Return an array with the cards picked, or "null" if there are no more card in given location.

Note that the number of cards picked can be less than "$nbr" in case there are not enough cards in the pile location.

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below). In case there are not enough cards in the pile, all remaining cards are picked first, then the auto-reshuffle is triggered, then the other cards are picked.

'''pickCardForLocation( $from_location, $to_location, $location_arg=0 )'''

This method is similar to 'pickCard', except that you can pick a card for any sort of location and not only the "hand" location.

* from_location is the "pile" style location from where you are picking a card.
* to_location is the location where you will place the card picked.
* if "location_arg" is specified, the card picked will be set with this "location_arg".

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below).

'''pickCardsForLocation( $nbr, $from_location, $to_location, $location_arg=0, $no_deck_reform=false )'''

This method is similar to 'pickCards', except that you can pick cards for any sort of location and not only the "hand" location.

* from_location is the "pile" style location from where you are picking some cards.
* to_location is the location where you will place the cards picked.
* if "location_arg" is specified, the cards picked will be set with this "location_arg".
* if "no_deck_reform" is set to "true", the auto-reshuffle feature is disabled during this method call.

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below).

=== Moving cards ===

'''moveCard( $card_id, $location, $location_arg=0 )'''

Move the specific card to given location.

* card_id: ID of the card to move.
* location: location where to move the card.
* location_arg: if specified, location_arg where to move the card. If not specified "location_arg" will be set to 0.

'''moveCards( $cards, $location, $location_arg )'''

Move the specific cards to given location.

* cards: an array of IDs of cards to move.
* location: location where to move the cards.
* location_arg: if specified, location_arg where to move the cards. If not specified "location_arg" will be set to 0.

'''insertCard( $card_id, $location, $location_arg )'''

Move a card to a specific "pile" location where card are ordered.

If location_arg place is already taken, increment all cards after location_arg in order to insert new card at this precise location.

(note: insertCardOnExtremePosition method below is more useful in most of the case)

'''insertCardOnExtremePosition( $card_id, $location, $bOnTop )'''

Move a card on top or at bottom of given "pile" type location.

'''moveAllCardsInLocation( $from_location, $to_location, $from_location_arg=null, $to_location_arg=0 )'''

Move all cards in specified "from" location to given location.

* from_location: where to take the cards
* to_location: where to put the cards
* from_location (optional): if specified, only cards with given "location_arg" are moved.
* to_location (optional): if specified, cards moved "location_arg" is set to given value. Otherwise location_arg is set to zero.

Note: if you want to keep "location_arg" untouched, you should use "moveAllCardsInLocationKeepOrder" below.

'''moveAllCardsInLocationKeepOrder( $from_location, $to_location )'''

Move all cards in specified "from" location to given "to" location. This method does not modify the "location_arg" of cards.

'''playCard( $card_id )'''

Move specified card at the top of the "discard" location.

Note: this is an alias for: insertCardOnExtremePosition( $card_id, "discard", true )

=== Get cards informations ===

'''getCard( $card_id )'''

Get specific card information.

Return null if this card is not found.

'''getCards( $cards_array )'''

Get specific cards information.

cards_array is an array of cards ID.

If some cards are not found or if some cards IDs are specified multiple times, the method throws an (unexpected) Exception.

'''getCardsInLocation( $location, $location_arg = null, $order_by = null )'''

Get all cards in specific location, as an array. Return an empty array if the location is empty.

* location (string): the location where to get the cards.
* location_arg (optional): if specified, return only cards with the specified "location_arg".
* order_by (optional): if specified, returned cards are ordered by the given database field. Example: "card_id" or "card_type".

'''countCardInLocation( $location, $location_arg=null )'''

Return the number of cards in specified location.

* location (string): the location where to count the cards.
* location_arg (optional): if specified, count only cards with the specified "location_arg".

'''countCardsInLocations()'''

Return the number of cards in each location of the game.

The method returns an associative array with the format "location" => "number of cards".

Example:
<pre>
array(
'deck' => 12,
'hand' => 21,
'discard' => 54,
'ontable' => 3
);
</pre>

'''countCardsByLocationArgs( $location )'''

Return the number of cards in each "location_arg" for the given location.

The method returns an associative array with the format "location_arg" => "number of cards".

Example: count the number of cards in each player's hand:
<pre>
countCardsByLocationArgs( 'hand' );

// Result:
array(
122345 => 5, // player 122345 has 5 cards in hand
123456 => 4 // and player 123456 has 4 cards in hand
);
</pre>

'''getPlayerHand( $player_id )'''

Get all cards in given player hand.

Note: This is an alias for:
getCardsInLocation( "hand", $player_id )

'''getCardOnTop( $location )'''

Get the card on top of the given ("pile" style) location, or null if the location is empty.

Note that the card pile won't be "auto-reshuffled" if there is no more card available.

'''getCardsOnTop( $nbr, $location )'''

Get the "$nbr" cards on top of the given ("pile" style) location.

The method return an array with at most "$nbr" elements (or a void array if there is no card in this location).

Note that the card pile won't be "auto-reshuffled" if there is not enough cards available.

'''getExtremePosition( $bGetMax ,$location )'''

(rarely used)

Get the position of cards at the top of the given location / at the bottom of the given location.

Of course this method works only on location in "pile" where you are using "location_arg" to specify the position of each card (example: "deck" location).

If bGetMax=true, return the location of the top card of the pile.

If bGetMax=false, return the location of the bottom card of the pile.

'''getCardsOfType( $type, $type_arg=null )'''

Get all cards of a specific type (rarely used).

Return an array of cards, or an empty array if there is no cards of the specified type.

* type: the type of cards
* type_arg: if specified, return only cards with the specified "type_arg".

=== Shuffling ===

'''shuffle( $location )'''

Shuffle all cards in specific location.

Shuffle only works on locations where cards are on a "pile" (ex: "deck").

Please note that all "location_arg" will be reset to reflect the new order of the cards in the pile.

Deck

2018-09-16T04:18:22Z

Amadannabriona: /* The 5 properties of each card */

"Deck" is one of the most useful component on PHP side. With "Deck", you can manage cards of your game on server side.

Using "deck", you will be able to use the following features without writing a single SQL database request:
* Place cards in pile, shuffle cards, draw cards one by one or many by many.
* "Auto-reshuffle" discard pile into deck when deck is empty.
* Move cards between different locations: hands of players, the table, ...

== Using Deck: Hearts example ==

Deck component is massively used in "Hearts" example game - a card game. You can find in "hearts.game.php" that the object "$this->cards" is used many times.

== Deck overview ==

With Deck component, you manage all cards of your game.

=== The 5 properties of each card ===

Using the Deck component, each card will have 5 properties:
* '''id''': This is the unique ID of each card.
* '''type''' and '''type_arg''': These two values define the type of your card (i.e., what sort of card is this?).
* '''location''' and '''location_arg''': These two values define where the card is at now.

The id, type, and type_arg properties are constants throughout the game. location and location_arg change when your cards move from one place to another in the game area.

'''id''' is the unique ID of each card. Two cards cannot have the same ID. IDs are generated automatically by the Deck component when you create cards during the Setup phase of your game.

'''type''' and '''type_arg''' defines the type of your card.

'''type''' is a short string, and '''type_arg''' is an integer.

You can use these two values as you like to make sure you will be able to identify the different cards in the game. See usage of "type" and "type_arg" below.

Examples of usage of "type" and "type_arg":
* In ''Hearts'', "type" represents the color (suite) of the card (1 to 4) and "type_arg" is the value of the card (1, 2, ... 10, J, Q, K).
* In ''Seasons'', "type" represents the type of the card (e.g., 1 is Amulet of Air, 2 is Amulet of Fire, etc...). type_arg is not used.
* In ''Takenoko'', a Deck component is used for objective cards. "type" is the kind of objective (irrigation/panda/plot) and "type_arg" is the ID of the specific objective to realize (e.g., "green bamboo x4"). Note that a second Deck component is used in ''Takenoko'' to manage the "garden plot" pile.

'''location''' and '''location_arg''' define where a card is at now. '''location''' is a short string, and '''location_arg''' is an integer.

You can use 'location' and 'location_arg' as you like, to move your card within the game area.

There are 3 special 'location' values that Deck manages automatically. You can choose to use these locations or not, depending on your needs:
* 'deck': the 'deck' location is a standard draw deck. Cards are placed face down in a stack and are drawn in sequential order during the game. 'location_arg' is used to specify where the card is located within the stack (the card with the highest location_arg value is the next to be drawn).
* 'hand': the 'hand' location represents cards in a player's hand. 'location_arg' is set to the ID of each player.
* 'discard': the 'discard' location is used for discard piles. Card in 'discard' may be reshuffled into the deck if needed (see "autoreshuffle").

Tips: using the Deck component, you will use generic properties ("location", "type_arg",...) for specific purposes in your game. Thus, during the design step before realizing your game, take a few minutes to write down the exact meaning of each of these generic properties in the context of your game.

=== Create a new Deck component ===

For each Deck component in your game, you need to create a dedicated table in database. This table has a standard format. In practical, if you want to have a Deck component named "card", you just have to copy/paste the following in your "dbmodel.sql":

<pre>
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `card` (
`card_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`card_type` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_type_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
`card_location` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
`card_location_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`card_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;
</pre>

Note: database schema of this table does not have to be exactly that, you can increase size of fields or add more fields. For additional fields
you just have to do manual queries.

Once you did this (and restart your game), you can declare your Deck component in your PHP code in your class constructor. For Hearts for example, I added to "Hearts()" method:

<pre>
$this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
$this->cards->init( "card" );
</pre>

Note that we specify "card" here, the name of our previously created table. It means you can create several "Deck" with several tables. Most of the time this is unuseful: a Deck component should manage all objects of the same kind (ex: all cards of the game).

Afterwards, we can initialize your "Deck" by creating all the cards of the game. Generally, this is done only once during the game, during the "setupNewGame" method.

"Deck" component provides you a fast way to initialize all your cards at once: createCards. Here is how it is used for "Hearts":
<pre>
// Create cards
$cards = array();
foreach( $this->colors as $color_id => $color ) // spade, heart, diamond, club
{
for( $value=2; $value<=14; $value++ ) // 2, 3, 4, ... K, A
{
$cards[] = array( 'type' => $color_id, 'type_arg' => $value, 'nbr' => 1);
}
}

$this->cards->createCards( $cards, 'deck' );
</pre>

As you can see, "createCards" takes a description of all cards of the game. For each type of card, you have to specify its "type", "type_arg" and the number of card to create. "createCards" create all cards and place them into the "deck" location (as specified in the second argument).

Now, you are ready to use "Deck"!

=== Simple examples using Deck ===

(Most examples are from "Hearts" game)

<pre>
// In "getAllDatas', we need to send to the current player all the cards he has in hand:
$result['hand'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'hand', $player_id );
</pre>

<pre>
// At some time we want to check if all the cards (52) are in player's hands:
if( $this->cards->countCardInLocation( 'hand' ) == 52 )
// do something
</pre>

<pre>
// When a player plays a card in front of him on the table:
$this->cards->moveCard( $card_id, 'cardsontable', $player_id );

// Note the use of the custom location 'cardsontable' here to keep track of cards on the table.
</pre>

<pre>
// This is a new hand: let's gather all cards from everywhere in the deck:
$this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation( null, "deck" );

// And then shuffle the deck
$this->cards->shuffle( 'deck' );

// And then deal 13 cards to each player
// Deal 13 cards to each players
// Create deck, shuffle it and give 13 initial cards
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach( $players as $player_id => $player )
{
$cards = $this->cards->pickCards( 13, 'deck', $player_id );

// Notify player about his cards
self::notifyPlayer( $player_id, 'newHand', '', array(
'cards' => $cards
) );
}

// Note the use of "notifyPlayer" instead of "notifyAllPlayers": new cards is a private information ;)
</pre>

== Deck component reference ==

=== Initializing Deck component ===

'''init( $table_name )'''

Initialize the Deck component.

Argument:
* table_name: name of the DB table used by this Deck component.

Must be called before any other Deck method.

Usually, init is called in your game constructor.

Example with Hearts:

<pre>
function Hearts( )
{
(...)

$this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
$this->cards->init( "card" );
}
</pre>

'''createCards( $cards, $location='deck', $location_arg=null )'''

Create card items in your deck component. Usually, all card items are created once, during the setup phase of the game.

"cards" describe all cards that need to be created. "cards" is an array with the following format:

<pre>
// Create 1 card of type "1" with type_arg=99,
// and 4 cards of type "2" with type_arg=12,
// and 2 cards of type "3" with type_arg=33

$cards = array(
array( 'type' => 1, 'type_arg' => 99, 'nbr' => 1 ),
array( 'type' => 2, 'type_arg' => 12, 'nbr' => 4 ),
array( 'type' => 3, 'type_arg' => 33, 'nbr' => 2 )
...
);
</pre>

Note: During the "createCards" process, Deck generates unique IDs for all card items.

Note: createCards is optimized to create a lot of cards at once. Do not use it to create cards one by one.

If "location" and "location_arg" arguments are not set, newly created cards are placed in the "deck" location. If "location" (and optionally location_arg) is specified, cards are created for this specific location.

=== Card standard format ===

When Deck component methods are returning one or several cards, the following format is used:

<pre>
array(
'id' => .., // the card ID
'type' => .., // the card type
'type_arg' => .., // the card type argument
'location' => .., // the card location
'location_arg' => .. // the card location argument
);
</pre>

=== Picking cards ===

'''pickCard( $location, $player_id )'''

Pick a card from a "pile" location (ex: "deck") and place it in the "hand" of specified player.

Return the card picked or "null" if there are no more card in given location.

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below).

'''pickCards( $nbr, $location, $player_id )'''

Pick "$nbr" cards from a "pile" location (ex: "deck") and place them in the "hand" of specified player.

Return an array with the cards picked, or "null" if there are no more card in given location.

Note that the number of cards picked can be less than "$nbr" in case there are not enough cards in the pile location.

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below). In case there are not enough cards in the pile, all remaining cards are picked first, then the auto-reshuffle is triggered, then the other cards are picked.

'''pickCardForLocation( $from_location, $to_location, $location_arg=0 )'''

This method is similar to 'pickCard', except that you can pick a card for any sort of location and not only the "hand" location.

* from_location is the "pile" style location from where you are picking a card.
* to_location is the location where you will place the card picked.
* if "location_arg" is specified, the card picked will be set with this "location_arg".

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below).

'''pickCardsForLocation( $nbr, $from_location, $to_location, $location_arg=0, $no_deck_reform=false )'''

This method is similar to 'pickCards', except that you can pick cards for any sort of location and not only the "hand" location.

* from_location is the "pile" style location from where you are picking some cards.
* to_location is the location where you will place the cards picked.
* if "location_arg" is specified, the cards picked will be set with this "location_arg".
* if "no_deck_reform" is set to "true", the auto-reshuffle feature is disabled during this method call.

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below).

=== Moving cards ===

'''moveCard( $card_id, $location, $location_arg=0 )'''

Move the specific card to given location.

* card_id: ID of the card to move.
* location: location where to move the card.
* location_arg: if specified, location_arg where to move the card. If not specified "location_arg" will be set to 0.

'''moveCards( $cards, $location, $location_arg )'''

Move the specific cards to given location.

* cards: an array of IDs of cards to move.
* location: location where to move the cards.
* location_arg: if specified, location_arg where to move the cards. If not specified "location_arg" will be set to 0.

'''insertCard( $card_id, $location, $location_arg )'''

Move a card to a specific "pile" location where card are ordered.

If location_arg place is already taken, increment all cards after location_arg in order to insert new card at this precise location.

(note: insertCardOnExtremePosition method below is more useful in most of the case)

'''insertCardOnExtremePosition( $card_id, $location, $bOnTop )'''

Move a card on top or at bottom of given "pile" type location.

'''moveAllCardsInLocation( $from_location, $to_location, $from_location_arg=null, $to_location_arg=0 )'''

Move all cards in specified "from" location to given location.

* from_location: where to take the cards
* to_location: where to put the cards
* from_location (optional): if specified, only cards with given "location_arg" are moved.
* to_location (optional): if specified, cards moved "location_arg" is set to given value. Otherwise location_arg is set to zero.

Note: if you want to keep "location_arg" untouched, you should use "moveAllCardsInLocationKeepOrder" below.

'''moveAllCardsInLocationKeepOrder( $from_location, $to_location )'''

Move all cards in specified "from" location to given "to" location. This method does not modify the "location_arg" of cards.

'''playCard( $card_id )'''

Move specified card at the top of the "discard" location.

Note: this is an alias for: insertCardOnExtremePosition( $card_id, "discard", true )

=== Get cards informations ===

'''getCard( $card_id )'''

Get specific card information.

Return null if this card is not found.

'''getCards( $cards_array )'''

Get specific cards information.

cards_array is an array of cards ID.

If some cards are not found or if some cards IDs are specified multiple times, the method throws an (unexpected) Exception.

'''getCardsInLocation( $location, $location_arg = null, $order_by = null )'''

Get all cards in specific location, as an array. Return an empty array if the location is empty.

* location (string): the location where to get the cards.
* location_arg (optional): if specified, return only cards with the specified "location_arg".
* order_by (optional): if specified, returned cards are ordered by the given database field. Example: "card_id" or "card_type".

'''countCardInLocation( $location, $location_arg=null )'''

Return the number of cards in specified location.

* location (string): the location where to count the cards.
* location_arg (optional): if specified, count only cards with the specified "location_arg".

'''countCardsInLocations()'''

Return the number of cards in each location of the game.

The method returns an associative array with the format "location" => "number of cards".

Example:
<pre>
array(
'deck' => 12,
'hand' => 21,
'discard' => 54,
'ontable' => 3
);
</pre>

'''countCardsByLocationArgs( $location )'''

Return the number of cards in each "location_arg" for the given location.

The method returns an associative array with the format "location_arg" => "number of cards".

Example: count the number of cards in each player's hand:
<pre>
countCardsByLocationArgs( 'hand' );

// Result:
array(
122345 => 5, // player 122345 has 5 cards in hand
123456 => 4 // and player 123456 has 4 cards in hand
);
</pre>

'''getPlayerHand( $player_id )'''

Get all cards in given player hand.

Note: This is an alias for:
getCardsInLocation( "hand", $player_id )

'''getCardOnTop( $location )'''

Get the card on top of the given ("pile" style) location, or null if the location is empty.

Note that the card pile won't be "auto-reshuffled" if there is no more card available.

'''getCardsOnTop( $nbr, $location )'''

Get the "$nbr" cards on top of the given ("pile" style) location.

The method return an array with at most "$nbr" elements (or a void array if there is no card in this location).

Note that the card pile won't be "auto-reshuffled" if there is not enough cards available.

'''getExtremePosition( $bGetMax ,$location )'''

(rarely used)

Get the position of cards at the top of the given location / at the bottom of the given location.

Of course this method works only on location in "pile" where you are using "location_arg" to specify the position of each card (example: "deck" location).

If bGetMax=true, return the location of the top card of the pile.

If bGetMax=false, return the location of the bottom card of the pile.

'''getCardsOfType( $type, $type_arg=null )'''

Get all cards of a specific type (rarely used).

Return an array of cards, or an empty array if there is no cards of the specified type.

* type: the type of cards
* type_arg: if specified, return only cards with the specified "type_arg".

=== Shuffling ===

'''shuffle( $location )'''

Shuffle all cards in specific location.

Shuffle only works on locations where cards are on a "pile" (ex: "deck").

Please note that all "location_arg" will be reset to reflect the new order of the cards in the pile.

Main game logic: yourgamename.game.php

2018-09-16T03:17:56Z

Amadannabriona: /* Managing errors and exceptions */

This is the main file for your game logic. Here you initialize the game, persist data, implement the rules and notify the client interface of changes.

== File Structure ==

The details of how the file is structured are described directly with comments in the code skeleton provided to you.

Here is the basic structure:

* EmptyGame (constructor): where you define global variables.
* setupNewGame: initial setup of the game.
* getAllDatas: where you retrieve all game data during a complete reload of the game.
* getGameProgression: where you compute the game progression indicator.
* Utility functions: your utility functions.
* Player actions: the entry points for players actions.
* Game state arguments: methods to return additional data on specific game states ([http://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php#args more info here]).
* Game state actions: the logic to run when entering a new game state ([http://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php#action more info here]).
* zombieTurn: what to do it's the turn of a zombie player.

== Accessing player information ==

; getPlayersNumber()
: Returns the number of players playing at the table
: Note: doesn't work in setupNewGame so use count($players) instead

; getActivePlayerId()
: Get the "active_player", whatever what is the current state type.
: Note: it does NOT mean that this player is active right now, because state type could be "game" or "multiplayer"
: Note: avoid using this method in a "multiplayer" state because it does not mean anything.

; getActivePlayerName()
: Get the "active_player" name
: Note: avoid using this method in a "multiplayer" state because it does not mean anything.

; loadPlayersBasicInfos()
: Get an associative array with generic data about players (ie: not game specific data).
: The key of the associative array is the player id. The returned table is cached, so ok to call multiple times without performance concerns.
: The content of each value is:
: * player_name - the name of the player
: * player_color (ex: ff0000) - the color code of the player
: * player_no - the position of the player at the start of the game in natural table order, i.e. 1,2,3

; getCurrentPlayerId()
: Get the "current_player". The current player is the one from which the action originated (the one who send the request).
: '''Be careful''': It is not always the active player.
: In general, you shouldn't use this method, unless you are in "multiplayer" state.

; getCurrentPlayerName()
: Get the "current_player" name
: Be careful using this method (see above).

; getCurrentPlayerColor()
: Get the "current_player" color
: Be careful using this method (see above).

; isCurrentPlayerZombie()
: Check the "current_player" zombie status. If true, player is zombie, i.e. left or was kicked out of the game.

== Accessing the database ==

The main game logic should be the only point from which you should access the game database. You access your database using SQL queries with the methods below.

'''IMPORTANT'''

BGA uses [http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/sql-syntax-transactions.html database transactions]. This means that your database changes WON'T BE APPLIED to the database until your request ends normally. Using transactions is in fact very useful for you; at any time, if your game logic detects that something is wrong (example: a disallowed move), you just have to throw an exception and all changes to the game situation will be removed.

; DbQuery( $sql )
: This is the generic method to access the database.
: It can execute any type of SELECT/UPDATE/DELETE/REPLACE query on the database.
: You should use it for UPDATE/DELETE/REPLACE queries. For SELECT queries, the specialized methods below are much better.

; getUniqueValueFromDB( $sql )
: Returns a unique value from DB or null if no value is found.
: $sql must be a SELECT query.
: Raise an exception if more than 1 row is returned.

; getCollectionFromDB( $sql, $bSingleValue=false )
: Returns an associative array of rows for a sql SELECT query.
: The key of the resulting associative array is the first field specified in the SELECT query.
: The value of the resulting associative array if an associative array with all the field specified in the SELECT query and associated values.
: First column must be a primary or alternate key.
: The resulting collection can be empty.
: If you specified $bSingleValue=true and if your SQL query request 2 fields A and B, the method returns an associative array "A=>B"

Example 1:
<pre>
self::getCollectionFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name, player_score score FROM player" );

Result:
array(
1234 => array( 'id'=>1234, 'name'=>'myuser0', 'score'=>1 ),
1235 => array( 'id'=>1235, 'name'=>'myuser1', 'score'=>0 )
)
</pre>
Example 2:
<pre>
self::getCollectionFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name FROM player", true );

Result:
array(
1234 => 'myuser0',
1235 => 'myuser1'
)

</pre>

; getNonEmptyCollectionFromDB( $sql )
: Idem than previous one, but raise an exception if the collection is empty

; getObjectFromDB( $sql )
: Returns one row for the sql SELECT query as an associative array or null if there is no result
: Raise an exception if the query return more than one row

Example:
<pre>
self::getObjectFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name, player_score score FROM player WHERE player_id='$player_id'" );

Result:
array(
'id'=>1234, 'name'=>'myuser0', 'score'=>1
)
</pre>

; getNonEmptyObjectFromDB( $sql )
: Idem than previous one, but raise an exception if no row is found

; getObjectListFromDB( $sql, $bUniqueValue=false )
: Return an array of rows for a sql SELECT query.
: the result if the same than "getCollectionFromDB" except that the result is a simple array (and not an associative array).
: The result can be empty.
: If you specified $bUniqueValue=true and if your SQL query request 1 field, the method returns directly an array of values.

Example 1:
<pre>
self::getObjectListFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name, player_score score FROM player" );

Result:
array(
array( 'id'=>1234, 'name'=>'myuser0', 'score'=>1 ),
array( 'id'=>1235, 'name'=>'myuser1', 'score'=>0 )
)
</pre>
Example 2:
<pre>
self::getObjectListFromDB( "SELECT player_name name FROM player", true );

Result:
array(
'myuser0',
'myuser1'
)

</pre>

; getDoubleKeyCollectionFromDB( $sql, $bSingleValue=false )
: Return an associative array of associative array, from a SQL SELECT query.
: First array level correspond to first column specified in SQL query.
: Second array level correspond to second column specified in SQL query.
: If bSingleValue = true, keep only third column on result

; DbGetLastId()
: Return the PRIMARY key of the last inserted row (see PHP mysql_insert_id function).

; DbAffectedRow()
: Return the number of row affected by the last operation

; escapeStringForDB( $string )
: You must use this function on every string type data in your database that contains unsafe data.
: (unsafe = can be modified by a player).
: This method makes sure that no SQL injection will be done through the string used.
: Note: if you using standard types in ajax actions, like AT_alphanum it is sanitized before arrival,
: this is only needed if you manage to get unchecked string, like in the games where user has to enter text as a response.

<pre>

</pre>

Note: see Editing [[Game database model: dbmodel.sql]] to know how to define your database model.

== Use globals ==

Sometimes, you have to keep a single integer value that is global to your game, and you don't want to create a DB table specifically for it.

Using a BGA framework "global", you can do such a thing. Your value will be stored in the "global" table in database, and you can access it with simple methods.

'''initGameStateLabels'''

This method is located at the beginning of your game logic. This is the place you defines the globals used in your game logic, by assigning them IDs.

You can define up to 79 globals, with IDs from 10 to 89. You must NOT use globals outside this range as globals are used by other components of the framework.

<pre>
self::initGameStateLabels( array(
"my_first_global_variable" => 10,
"my_second_global_variable" => 11
) );
</pre>

'''setGameStateInitialValue( $value_label, $value_value )'''

Init your global value. Must be called before any use of your global, so you should call this method from your "setupNewGame" method.

'''getGameStateValue( $value_label )'''

Retrieve the current value of a global.

'''setGameStateValue( $value_label, $value_value )'''

Set the current value of a global.

'''incGameStateValue( $value_label, $increment )'''

Increment the current value of a global. If increment is negative, decrement the value of the global.

Return the final value of the global.

== Game states and active players ==

=== Activate player handling ===

; $this->activeNextPlayer()
: Make the next player active in the natural player order.
: Note: you CANT use this method in a "activeplayer" or "multipleactiveplayer" state. You must use a "game" type game state for this.

; $this->activePrevPlayer()
: Make the previous player active (in the natural player order).
: Note: you CANT use this method in a "activeplayer" or "multipleactiveplayer" state. You must use a "game" type game state for this.

; $this->gamestate->changeActivePlayer( $player_id )
: You can call this method to make any player active.
: Note: you CANT use this method in a "activeplayer" or "multipleactiveplayer" state. You must use a "game" type game state for this.

; $this->getActivePlayerId()
: Return the "active_player" id
: Note: it does NOT mean that this player is active right now, because state type could be "game" or "multiplayer"

=== Multiactivate player handling ===

; $this->gamestate->setAllPlayersMultiactive()
: All playing players are made active. Update notification is sent to all players (triggers onUpdateActionButtons).
: Usually, you use this method at the beginning (ex: "st" action method) of a multiplayer game state when all players have to do some action.

; $this->gamestate->setAllPlayersNonMultiactive( $next_state )
: All playing players are made inactive. Transition to next state

; $this->gamestate->setPlayersMultiactive( $players, $next_state, $bExclusive = false )
: Make a specific list of players active during a multiactive gamestate. Update notification is sent to all players who's state changed.
: "players" is the array of player id that should be made active.
: If "exclusive" parameter is not set or false it doesn't deactivate other previously active players. If its set to true, the players who will be multiactive at the end are only these in "$layers" array

: In case "players" is empty, the method trigger the "next_state" transition to go to the next game state.
: returns true if state transition happened, false otherwise

; $this->gamestate->setPlayerNonMultiactive( $player_id, $next_state )
: During a multiactive game state, make the specified player inactive.
: Usually, you call this method during a multiactive game state after a player did his action.
: If this player was the last active player, the method trigger the "next_state" transition to go to the next game state.
: returns true if state transition happened, false otherwise

; $this->gamestate->updateMultiactiveOrNextState( $next_state_if_none )
: Sends update notification about multiplayer changes. All multiactive set* functions above do that, however if you want to change state manually using db queries for complex calculations, you have to call this yourself after. Do not call this if you calling one of the other setters above.
Example: you have player teams and you want to activate all players in one team
<pre>
$sql = "UPDATE player SET player_is_multiactive='0'";
self::DbQuery( $sql );
$sql = "UPDATE player SET player_is_multiactive='1' WHERE player_id='$player_id' AND player_team='$team_no'";
self::DbQuery( $sql );

$this->gamestate->updateMultiactiveOrNextState( 'error' );
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->getActivePlayerList()
: With this method you can retrieve the list of the active player at any time.
: During a "game" type gamestate, it will return a void array.
: During a "activeplayer" type gamestate, it will return an array with one value (the active player id).
: During a "multipleactiveplayer" type gamestate, it will return an array of the active players id.
: Note: you should only use this method is the latter case.

=== States functions ===
; $this->gamestate->nextState( $transition )
: Change current state to a new state. Important: parameter $transition is the name of the transition, and NOT the name of the target game state, see [[Your game state machine: states.inc.php]] for more information about states.

; $this->checkAction( $actionName, $bThrowException=true )
: Check if action is valid regarding current game state (exception if fails).
: The action is valid if it is listed as a "possibleactions" in the current game state (see game state description).
: This method MUST be called in the first place in ALL your PHP methods that handle players action, in order to make sure a player can't do an action when the rules disallow it at this moment of the game.
: if "bThrowException" is set to "false", the function return false in case of failure instead of throwing and exception. This is useful when several actions are possible in order to test each of them without throwing exceptions.

; $this->gamestate->checkPossibleAction( $action )
: (rarely used)
: This works exactly like "checkAction", except that it do NOT check if current player is active.
: This is used specifically in certain game states when you want to authorize some additional actions for players that are not active at the moment.
: Example: in Libertalia game, you want to authorize players to change their mind about card played. They are of course not active at the time they change their mind, so you cannot use "checkAction" and use "checkPossibleAction" instead.

; $this->gamestate->state()
: Get an associative array of current game state attributes, see [[Your game state machine: states.inc.php]] for state attributes.
$state=$this->gamestate->state(); if( $state['name'] == 'myGameState' ) {...}

== Players turn order ==

'''getNextPlayerTable()'''

Return an associative array which associate each player with the next player around the table.

In addition, key 0 is associated to the first player to play.

Example: if three player with ID 1, 2 and 3 are around the table, in this order, the method returns:
<pre>
array(
1 => 2,
2 => 3,
3 => 1,
0 => 1
);
</pre>

'''getPrevPlayerTable()'''

Same as above, but the associative array associate the previous player around the table.

'''getPlayerAfter( $player_id )'''

Get player playing after given player in natural playing order.

'''getPlayerBefore( $player_id )'''

Get player playing before given player in natural playing order.

Note: There is no API to modify this order, if you have custom player order you have to maintain it in your database
and have custom function to access it.

== Notify players ==

To understand notifications, please read [http://www.slideshare.net/boardgamearena/the-bga-framework-at-a-glance The BGA Framework at a glance] first.

'''IMPORTANT'''

Notifications are sent at the very end of the request, when it ends normally. It means that if you throw an exception for any reason (ex: move not allowed), no notifications will be sent to players.
Notifications sent between the game start (setupNewGame) and the end of the "action" method of the first active state will never reach their destination.

'''notifyAllPlayers( $notification_type, $notification_log, $notification_args )'''

Send a notification to all players of the game.

* notification_type:
A string that defines the type of your notification.

Your game interface Javascript logic will use this to know what is the type of the received notification (and to trigger the corresponding method).

* notification_log:
A string that defines what is to be displayed in the game log.

You can use an empty string here (""). In this case, nothing is displayed in the game log.

If you define a real string here, you should use "clienttranslate" method to make sure it can be translate.

You can use arguments in your notification_log strings, that refers to values defines in the "notification_args" argument (see below).
Note: Make sure you only use single quotes ('), otherwise PHP will try to interpolate the variable and will ignore the values in the args array.

* notification_args:
The arguments of your notifications, as an associative array.

This array will be transmitted to the game interface logic, in order the game interface can be updated.

Complete notifyAllPlayers example (from "Reversi"):

<pre>
self::notifyAllPlayers( "playDisc", clienttranslate( '${player_name} plays a disc and turns over ${returned_nbr} disc(s)' ),
array(
'player_id' => $player_id,
'player_name' => self::getActivePlayerName(),
'returned_nbr' => count( $turnedOverDiscs ),
'x' => $x,
'y' => $y
) );
</pre>

You can see in the example above the use of the "clienttranslate" method, and the use of 2 arguments "player_name" and "returned_nbr" in the notification log.

Important: NO private data must be sent with this method, as a cheater could see it even it is not used explicitly by the game interface logic. If you want to send private information to a player, please use notifyPlayer below.

Note: you CAN use some HTML inside your notification log, however it not recommended for many reasons:
* Its bad architecture, ui elements leak into server now you have to manage ui in many places
* If you decided to change something in ui in future version, old games reply and tutorials may not work, since they use stored notifications
* When you read log preview for old games its unreadable (this is log before you enter the game reply, useful for troubleshooting or game analysis)
* Its more data to transfer and store in db
* Its nightmare for translators, at least don't put HTML tags inside the "clienttranslate" method. You can use a notification argument instead, and provide your HTML through this argument.

If you still want to have pretty pictures in the log check this [[BGA_Studio_Cookbook#Inject_images_and_styled_html_in_the_log]].

If your notification contains some phrases that build programmatically you may need to use recursive notifications. In this case the argument can be not only the string but
an array itself, which contains 'log' and 'args', i.e.

$this->notifyAllPlayers('playerLog',clienttranslate('Game moves ${token_name_rec}'),
['token_name_rec'=>['log'=>'${token_name} #${token_number}',
'args'=> ['token_name'=>clienttranslate('Boo'), 'token_number'=>$number, 'i18n'=>['token_name'] ]
]
]);

'''notifyPlayer( $player_id, $notification_type, $notification_log, $notification_args )'''

Same as above, except that the notification is sent to one player only.

This method must be used each time some private information must be transmitted to a player.

Important: the variable for player name must be ${player_name} in order to be highlighted with the player color in the game log

== Game statistics ==

There are 2 types of statistics:
* a "player" statistic is a statistic associated to a player
* a "table" statistics is a statistic not associated to a player (global statistic for this game).

See [[Game statistics: stats.inc.php]] to see how you defines statistics for your game.

'''initStat( $table_or_player, $name, $value, $player_id = null )'''

Create a statistic entry with a default value.
This method must be called for each statistics of your game, in your setupNewGame method.

'$table_or_player' must be set to "table" if this is a table statistics, or "player" if this is a player statistics.

'$name' is the name of your statistics, as it has been defined in your stats.inc.php file.

'$value' is the initial value of the statistics. If this is a player statistics and if the player is not specified by "$player_id" argument, the value is set for ALL players.

'''setStat( $value, $name, $player_id = null )'''

Set a statistic $name to $value.

If "$player_id" is not specified, setStat consider it is a TABLE statistic.

If "$player_id" is specified, setStat consider it is a PLAYER statistic.

'''incStat( $delta, $name, $player_id = null )'''

Increment (or decrement) specified statistic value by $delta value. Same behavior as setStat function.

'''getStat( $name, $player_id = null )'''

Return the value of statistic specified by $name. Useful when creating derivative statistics such as average.

== Translations ==

See [[Translations]]

== Manage player scores and Tie breaker ==

=== Normal scoring ===

At the end of the game, players automatically get a rank depending on their score: the player with the biggest score is #1, the player with the second biggest score is #2, and so on...

During the game, you update player's score directly by updating "player_score" field of "player" table in database.

Examples:
<pre>

// +2 points to active player
self::DbQuery( "UPDATE player SET player_score=player_score+2 WHERE player_id='".self::getActivePlayerId()."'" );

// Set score of active player to 5
self::DbQuery( "UPDATE player SET player_score=5 WHERE player_id='".self::getActivePlayerId()."'" );

</pre>

Note: don't forget to notify the client side in order the score control can be updated accordingly.

=== Tie breaker ===

Tie breaker is used when two players get the same score at the end of a game.

Tie breaker is using "player_score_aux" field of "player" table. It is updated exactly like the "player_score" field.

Tie breaker score is displayed only for players who are tied at the end of the game. Most of the time, it is not supposed to be displayed explicitly during the game.

When you are using "player_score_aux" functionality, you must describe the formula to use in your gameinfos.inc.php file like this:

<pre>
'tie_breaker_description' => totranslate("Describe here your tie breaker formula"),
</pre>

This description will be used as a tooltip to explain to players how this auxiliary score has been calculated.

=== Co-operative game ===

To make everyone lose in full-coop game:

Add the following in gameinfos.inc.php :
'is_coop' => 1, // full cooperative

And score zero to everyone.

=== Semi-coop ===

If the game is not full-coop, then everyone lose = everyone is tie. I.e. set score to 0 to everybody.

=== One winner only ===
If you need to one person to win and everybody else to lose, set the scores so that the winner has the best score, and the other players have the same (lower) score. Then add the following lines to gameinfos.php:

<pre>
// If in the game, all losers are equal (no score to rank them or explicit in the rules that losers are not ranked between them), set this to true
// The game end result will display "Winner" for the 1st player and "Loser" for all other players
'losers_not_ranked' => true,
</pre>

Quantum and Coup are implemented like this, as you can see here:
* https://boardgamearena.com/#!gamepanel?game=quantum&section=lastresults
* https://boardgamearena.com/#!gamepanel?game=coupcitystate&section=lastresults

=== Solo ===

If game supports solo variant, a negative score means defeat, a positive score means victory.

=== Player elimination ===

In some games, this is useful to eliminate a player from the game in order he/she can start another game without waiting for the current game end.

This case should be rare. Please don't use player elimination feature if some player just has to wait the last 10% of the game for game end. This feature should be used only in games where players are eliminated all along the game (typical examples: "Perudo" or "The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow").

Usage:

* Player to eliminate should NOT be active anymore (preferably use the feature in a "game" type game state).
* In your PHP code:
self::eliminatePlayer( <player_to_eliminate_id> );
* the player is informed in a dialog box that he no longer have to played and can start another game if he/she wants too (whith buttons "stay at this table" "quit table and back to main site"). In any case, the player is free to tart&join another table from now.
* When your game is over, all players who have been eliminated before receive a "notification" (the small "!" icon on the top right of the BGA interface) that indicate them that "the game has ended" and invite them to review the game results.

=== Scoring Helper functions ===

// get score
function dbGetScore($player_id) {
return $this->getUniqueValueFromDB("SELECT player_score FROM player WHERE player_id='$player_id'");
}

// set score
function dbSetScore($player_id, $count) {
$this->DbQuery("UPDATE player SET player_score='$count' WHERE player_id='$player_id'");
}

// set aux score (tie breaker)
function dbSetAuxScore($player_id, $score) {
$this->DbQuery("UPDATE player SET player_score_aux=$score WHERE player_id='$player_id'");
}

// increment score (can be negative too)
function dbIncScore($player_id, $inc) {
$count = $this->dbGetScore($player_id);
if ($inc != 0) {
$count += $inc;
$this->dbSetScore($player_id, $count);
}
return $count;
}

== Reflexion time ==

; function giveExtraTime( $player_id, $specific_time=null )
: Give standard extra time to this player.
: Standard extra time depends on the speed of the game (small with "slow" game option, bigger with other options).
: You can also specify an exact time to add, in seconds, with the "specified_time" argument (rarely used).

== Managing errors and exceptions ==

Note: when you throw an exception, all database changes and all notifications are cancelled immediately. This way, the game situation that existed before the request is completely restored.

; throw new BgaUserException ( $error_message)
: Base class to notify a user error
: You must throw this exception when a player wants to do something that he is not allowed to do.
: The error message will be shown to the player as a "red message", so it must be translated.
: Throwing such an exception is NOT considered a bug, so it is not traced in BGA error logs.

Example from Gomoku:
<pre>
throw new BgaUserException( self::_("There is already a stone on this intersection, you can't play there") );
</pre>

; throw new BgaVisibleSystemException ( $error_message)
: You must throw this exception when you detect something that is not supposed to happened in your code.
: The error message is shown to the user as an "Unexpected error", in order that he can report it in the forum.
: The error message is logged in BGA error logs. If it happens regularly, we will report it to you.

; throw new BgaSystemException ( $error_message)
: Base class to notify a system exception. The message will be hidden from the user, but show in the logs. Use this if the message contains technical information.
: You shouldn't use this type of exception except if you think the information shown could be critical. Indeed: a generic error message will be shown to the user, so it's going to be difficult for you to see what happened.

== Zombie mode ==

When a player leaves a game for any reason (expelled, quit), he becomes a "zombie player". In this case, the results of the game won't count for statistics, but this is cool if the other players can finish the game anyway. That's why zombie mode exists: allow the other player to finish the game, even if the situation is not ideal.

While developing your zombie mode, keep in mind that:
* Do not refer to the rules, because this situation is not planned by the rules.
* Try to figure that you are playing with your friends and one of them has to leave: how can we finish the game without killing the spirit of the game?
* The idea is NOT to develop an artificial intelligence for the game.

Most of the time, the best thing to do when it is zombie player turn is to jump immediately to a state where he is not active anymore. For example, if he is in a game state where he has a choice between playing A and playing B, the best thing to do is NOT to choose A or B, but to pass. So, even if there's no "pass" action in the rules, add a "zombiepass" transitition in your game state and use it.

Each time a zombie player must play, your "zombieTurn" method is called.

Parameters:
* $state: the name of the current game state.
* $active_player: the id of the active player.

Most of the time, your zombieTurn method looks like this:

<pre>
function zombieTurn( $state, $active_player )
{
$statename = $state['name'];

if( $statename == 'myFirstGameState'
|| $statename == 'my2ndGameState'
|| $statename == 'my3rdGameState'
....
)
{
$this->gamestate->nextState( "zombiePass" );
}
else
throw new BgaVisibleSystemException( "Zombie mode not supported at this game state: ".$statename );
}
</pre>

Note that in the example above, all corresponding game state should implement "zombiePass" as a transition.

== Player color preferences ==

BGA players (Club members) may now choose their preferred color for playing. For example, if they are used to play green for every board game, they can select "green" in their BGA preferences page.

Making your game compatible with colors preferences is very easy and requires only 1 line of PHP and 1 configuration change :

On your gameinfos.inc.php file, add the following lines :

// Favorite colors support : if set to "true", support attribution of favorite colors based on player's preferences (see reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences PHP method)
'favorite_colors_support' => true,

Then, on your main <your_game>.game.php file, find the "reloadPlayersBasicInfos" call in your "setupNewGame" method and replace :

$sql .= implode( $values, ',' );
self::DbQuery( $sql );
self::reloadPlayersBasicInfos();

By :

$sql .= implode( $values, ',' );
self::DbQuery( $sql );
self::reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences( $players, array( /* LIST HERE THE AVAILABLE COLORS OF YOUR GAME INSTEAD OF THESE ONES */"ff0000", "008000", "0000ff", "ffa500", "773300" ) );
self::reloadPlayersBasicInfos();

The "reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences" method reattributes all colors, taking into account players color preferences and available colors.

Note that you must update the colors to indicate the colors available for your game.

2 important remarks :
* for some games (ex : Chess), the color has an influence on a mechanism of the game, most of the time by giving a special advantage to a player (ex : Starting the game). Color preference mechanism must NOT be used in such a case.
* your logic should NEVER consider that the first player has the color X, that the second player has the color Y, and so on. If this is the case, your game will NOT be compatible with reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences as this method attribute colors to players based on their preferences and not based as their order at the table.

Colours currently listed as a choice in preferences:

* #ff0000 Red
* #008000 Green
* #0000ff Blue
* #ffa500 Yellow
* #000000 Black
* #ffffff White

== Debugging and Tracing ==

To debug php code you can use some tracing functions available from the parent class such as debug, trace, error, warn, dump.

self::debug("Ahh!");
self::dump('my_var',$my_var);

See [[Practical_debugging]] section for complete information about debugging interfaces and where to find logs.