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News Ticker
Posted in: Coding
Posted 2009-08-01 at 12:12 by [R-DEV]AncientMan

Haven't written a blog entry for a while, so I might write one for a little something that I've been working on for the last day or so. Nothing too exciting, probably more boring , but it's just a little insight into the backend of things in the PR Dev world.

I'm sure everyone knows of the new news ticker in the PR main menu that was introduced in 0.86. Due to the flash engine in BF2, certain things don't work, so workarounds have to be done in order to get things working. This basically means for the news ticker, instead of loading dynamic text for the news ticker, it works by loading images from a website. The images are of text, so it basically looks the same . For the linked websites for each news item, since we can't update the menu every time we want to update the news ticker, the links go to a static redirect website, which we dynamically change to send you to the appropriate link.

Now, the problem with using this method, is updating the news ticker would be a fairly heavy task. You would have to write up a message in Photoshop or whatever, save it, upload it, then edit the redirect page, save it, upload it. Then do that multiple times for the 5 different news ticker items. Not really that great, more of a chore updating the news ticker, leaving it go unused and ending up with no one reading it .

The solution is some sort of web form that allows any Dev easily update the ticker in a matter of seconds. So, through the wonders of PHP and JavaScript, you end up with something like this:



Anyway, I really like how it has turned out. It's turned a 5-10 minute task into a 20 second task, so hopefully we'll end up with a constant stream of dynamic info going straight into the main menu, which means more advertising of news, events, competitions, whatever .
Views: 14337 | Comments: 12

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Comments
Total Comments: 12
  1. Old Comment
    Tomato-Rifle's Avatar
    Sweet, i like how they have colors now to catch my eye a little better
    Posted 2009-08-01 at 13:28 by Tomato-Rifle Tomato-Rifle is offline
  2. Old Comment
    Rudd's Avatar
    makes it look very professional ingame, well done
    Posted 2009-08-01 at 14:12 by Rudd Rudd is offline
  3. Old Comment
    sweet! (: I like to say that this is a very good work, how much none sleeping nights?
    Posted 2009-08-01 at 14:38 by rexik rexik is offline
  4. Old Comment
    this looks really intuitive to use. well done indeed.
    Posted 2009-08-01 at 14:39 by hiberNative hiberNative is offline
  5. Old Comment
    Seems like very nice tool

    BTW. I think you should move the news ticker from the bottom of the menu to the top.
    Posted 2009-08-01 at 15:00 by jozi02 jozi02 is offline
  6. Old Comment
    hats off Anchientman! and btw its not the back end, its the front end. Its the first thing you use before the game starts. and therefor worth the time and effort, which you have been doing splendidly, keep up the good work mate.
    Posted 2009-08-01 at 16:59 by Psyko Psyko is offline
  7. Old Comment
    VoXiNaTiOn's Avatar
    Psyk - It's the back-end as that is the part that is done behind the scenes, only the DEVs use/have access to it.


    Nice work though, looks intuitive.
    Posted 2009-08-01 at 18:02 by VoXiNaTiOn VoXiNaTiOn is offline
  8. Old Comment
    Heh, nice looking work
    Posted 2009-08-01 at 20:33 by Spartan0189 Spartan0189 is offline
  9. Old Comment
    zephyr89s's Avatar
    Did you have to make the script yourself, or was someone already offering it as freeware, and if so, I want to use it!
    Posted 2009-08-01 at 22:29 by zephyr89s zephyr89s is offline
  10. Old Comment
    I like it.
    Posted 2009-08-02 at 11:53 by jbgeezer jbgeezer is offline
 

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