Topic: Cleaner, Leaner, and Meaner
New screen, old screen:
It's much cleaner, significantly smaller, and requires a lot less code (both client and server). I had a minor epiphany the other day, and realized how much time I was spending trying to make the game look "non-web-browser". But you know what? It's a web browser. Links are OK. A text link can be much more easily understood than a culture-dependent graphic (which turns out to require a fancy, detailed tooltip anyway). And they certainly load faster!
Along the lines of "simpler, faster, better", a lot of things that were integrated completely into the main page have been ripped out. The character sheet and quests open in a popup window when you click them. More importantly, they pop up in a simple text display, suitable for printing or framing! (Ok, not completely...the character sheet will be a little stylish just to look better.)
The controls to equip, sell, etc. items show up right under a selected item. There is no "drop" command, since you'll now have unlimited inventory. There's no loot bag or container for the same reason. Equipped items get no buttons: hover for info, click to remove!
Character migration seems to be working for moving people to the skills system, but retaining quests, items, level, etc. I want to test that a little more though.
I'm finally getting up a good head of steam and making solid progress, after some slow times from work, baby, house repairs, and so on. I have an extended weekend coming up soon where I plan to lock myself in the programming dungeon to bang on this significantly!