Views v7

• status: complete
• version: 7.x
• follows from: PushManager

Overview

nodeGame serves all the static files for the browser from the public/ folder of a game directory.

However, it is possible to dynamically create HTML pages by adding files inside the views/ folder.

The views/ folder is further divided in two sub-folders: templates/ and /contexts/.

The templates/ folder contains Jade files to create and format HTML pages. Templates support dynamic code, and allow to reuse and extends components across pages.

The /contexts/ folder contains JavaScript files exporting a local context function for a template file. The context must include all the variables that will be used to fill-in the content of a template.

Template files

For instructions how to format Jade templates refer to the Jade language reference.

Context Functions

Context files are contained inside the views/contexts/ folder. They must be named after one of the template files inside views/templates/. For example, if a template is named 'instructions.jade', the context must be named 'instructions.js'.

Each context file must export a function that returns the context, that is an object containing all the variables that the template will need to fill-in its content.

Each context-function receives two input parameters: the current game-settings, and the headers of the connections of the requester.

The input parameters can be used inside the context-function to perform operations such as: randomization, shuffling, customization, as in the example below.

var J = require('JSUS').JSUS;

module.exports = function(settings, headers) {

    var coins = settings.standard.COINS;
    var values = [
        Math.floor(coins/2, 10),
        coins,
        0
    ];

    return {
        "x": 0,
        "title": "Quiz",
        "beforeStarting": "Before starting the game answer the following questions:",
        "Q": "Q",
        "howManyCoins": "How many coins will you divide with your partner?",
        "vals": J.shuffle(values),     
        "correctAnswers": "Correct Answers:"
    };
};

Templating rules

When a client requests the url:

http://myserver/mygame/mypage.html

the following operations are performed:

1. First, the page is looked up inside the public/ folder, and if found it is served immediately.

2. Then, the page is looked up inside the views/templates/ folder.

3. Together with the template, the related context files will be located in views/contexts/. If found, the context will be used to build the template.

4. The template is rendered and sent to the client.

5. If no static file in public/ and no template in views/templates/ was found, thena 404 Page Not Found code is sent to the client.

Internationalization

Using templates and contexts permits to achieve the internationalization of a game easily.

To do so, create a new sub-directory for each language you want to support inside the views/contexts/ folder. For example views/contexts/en/, and views/contexts/de/. In each of those sub-directory you can store the context translated in the language of choice.

When the address http://myserver/mygame/LANG/mypage.html is requested, the template views/templates/mypage.jade will be rendered using the context views/templates/LANG/mypage.js.

Language Selector

Optionally, you can add file named languageInfo.json inside each of the language-directories containing information about the language. At the very least, the languageInfo file must contain the following data:

{
    "name": "English",
    "nativeName": "English",
    "flag": ""
}

Such information will be collected and can be queried by connected clients. For example, the Language Selector widget automatically displays all the languages available for a game and allows to select one from a list.

Next Topics

Next: Logging

See Also

• ultimatum game views/ folder
• nodegame-server HTTP configuration file
• nodegame-server ResourceManager file