Board Game Arena - User contributions [en]

Game interface logic: Game.js

2024-04-16T05:59:21Z

Benjaminarjun: /* Basic Button */

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__TOC__

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.
* Setup user interface

== File structure ==

The details of how the file is structured are described below with comments in 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 on state changes, in order to add action buttons to the status bar. Note: in a multipleactiveplayer state, it will be called when another player has become inactive.
* ''(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.

More details:

'''setup(gamedatas: object) '''
This method must set up the game user interface according to current game situation specified in parameters.
The method is called each time the game interface is displayed to a player, ie:

* when the game starts
* when a player opens a game in the browser later
* when a player refreshes the game page (F5)
* when player does a server side Undo

"gamedatas" argument contains all data retrieved by your "getAllDatas" PHP method and some more.

'''onEnteringState(stateName: string, args: { args: any } | null): void'''

This method is called each time we enter a new game state.
You can use this method to perform some user interface changes at this moment.
To access state arguments passed via calling php arg* method use args?.args.
Typically you would do something only for active player, using this.isCurrentPlayerActive() check.
It is also called (for the current game state only) when doing a browser refresh (after the setup method is called).

'''Warning''': for multipleactiveplayer states:
the active players are NOT active yet so you must use onUpdateActionButtons to perform the client side operation which depends on a player active/inactive status.
If you are doing initialization of some structures which do not depend on the active player, you can just replace (this.isCurrentPlayerActive()) with (!this.isSpectator)
for the main switch in that method.

See more details in [[Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php#Difference_between_Single_active_and_Multi_active_states]]

'''onLeavingState(stateName: string): void'''

This method is called each time we leave a game state.
You can use this method to perform some user interface changes at this point (i.e. cleanup).

'''onUpdateActionButtons(stateName: string, args: object | null): void'''

In this method you can manage "action buttons" that are displayed in the action status bar and highlight active UI elements.
To access state arguments passed via calling php arg* method use '''args''' parameter. Note: args can be null! For '''game''' states and when you don't supply state args function - it is null.
This method is called when the active or multiactive player changes. In a classic "activePlayer" state this method is called before the onEnteringState state.
In multipleactiveplayer state it is a mess. The sequencing of calls depends on whether you get into that state from transitions OR from reloading the whole game (i.e. F5).

See more details in [[Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php#Difference_between_Single_active_and_Multi_active_states]]

== 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.

== Javascript minimization (after July 2020) ==

For performance reasons, when deploying a game the javascript code is minimized using '''terser''' (https://github.com/terser/terser). This minifier works with modern javascript syntax. From your project "Manage game" page, you can now test a minified version of your javascript on the studio (and revert to the original).

NB: it has been reported that there is an issue with this minifier and percentage values for opacity.

== Accessing Players Information ==

'''this.player_id: number'''
id of the player who is looking at the game. The player may not be part of the game (i.e. spectator)
if (notif.args.player_id == this.player_id) {
...
}

'''this.isSpectator: boolean'''
Flag set to true if the user at the table is a spectator (not a player).

Example:
<pre>
if (this.isSpectator) {
this.player_color = 'ffffff';
} else {
this.player_color = gamedatas.players[this.player_id].color;
}
</pre>

Note: If you want to hide an element from spectators, you should use [[Game_interface_stylesheet:_yourgamename.css#spectatorMode|CSS 'spectatorMode' class]].

You may consider making a function like this, to detect if the game is in a read-only state (i.e. non-interactive):
// Returns true for spectators, instant replay (during game), archive mode (after game end)
isReadOnly: function () {
return this.isSpectator || typeof g_replayFrom != 'undefined' || g_archive_mode;
}

'''this.gamedatas: object'''
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, however most of the time this is unnecessary.

Note: In hotseat mode, the framework does not keep this.gamedatas of hotseat players and shares the same set as the main player to store data.

Note: be careful when you update this data structurally, many framework functions expect data to be certain way and they will break if they see something else.

Typical example of accessing player's info
<pre>
for (var player_id in this.gamedatas.players) {
var playerInfo = this.gamedatas.players [player_id];
var c = playerInfo.color;
var name = playerInfo.name;
// do something
}
</pre>

'''this.isCurrentPlayerActive(): boolean'''
Returns true if the player on whose browser the code is running is currently active (it's his turn to play). Note: see remarks above about usage of this function inside onEnteringState method.
if (this.isCurrentPlayerActive()) {

'''this.getActivePlayerId(): number'''
Return the ID of the active player, or null if we are not in an "activeplayer" type state.
if (this.player_id == this.getActivePlayerId()) ...

'''this.getActivePlayers(): number[]'''
Return an array with the IDs of players who are currently active (or an empty array if there are none).

== Accessing and manipulating the DOM ==

=== Element by Id ===

'''$(elementId: ElementOrId)'''

The $ function is used to get an HTML element using its "id" attribute.

Example: 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: It is safe to use if you don't know if variable is string (id of element) or element itself, i.e.
<pre>
foo: function(card) {
card = $(card); // now its node, no need to write if (typeof card === 'string') ...
// but its good idea to check for null here
...
}
</pre>

'''getElementById(elementId: string)'''

Note: $() is the standard method to access some HTML element with the BGA Framework. You can use '''getElementById''' but a longer to type and less handy as it does not do some checks.

=== Style ===

'''dojo.style(node: ElementOrId, styleName: string, styleValue: any): void'''

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: 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).

You can also use object to set multiple values
<pre>
dojo.setStyle("thinger", {
"opacity": 0.5,
"border": "3px solid black",
"height": "300px"
});
</pre>

'''this.addStyleToClass(cssClassName: string, styleName: string, styleValue: any):''' '''void'''

Same as dojo.style(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName
Equivalent of

dojo.query(`.${aclass}`).style(styleName, styleValue)

<pre>
dojo.query("#baz > div").style({
opacity:0.75,
fontSize:"13pt"
});
</pre>

'''Vanila JS style'''
$('my_element').style.display='none'; // set
var display = $('my_element').style.display; // get
$('my_element').style.removeProperty('display'); // remove

=== Classes ===

'''dojo.addClass(node: ElementOrId, classes: string): void'''

'''dojo.removeClass(node: ElementOrId, classes: string): void'''

'''dojo.hasClass(node: ElementOrId, aclass: string): void'''

'''dojo.toggleClass(node: ElementOrId, aclass: string): void'''

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>

'''Vanila JS classList'''

This is the only exception where dojo versions are better
// add class
$(token_id).classList.addClass('possibleMove');
// remove class
$(token_id).classList.removeClass('possibleMove');
// add 2 classes
const myclasses = ['a','b'];
$(token_id).classList.addClass(...myclasses);
// add classes to query result
document.querySelectorAll(".hand .card").forEach((node)=>node.classList.addClass('possibleMove'));

=== Attributes ===

;dojo.attr

With dojo.attr you can access or change the value of an attribute or property of any HTML element in your interface.

Exemple:
<pre>
// Get the title of a node
var title = dojo.attr( id, 'title' );
// Change the height of a node
dojo.attr( 'img_growing_tree', 'height', 100 );
</pre>

'''Vanila JS attr'''

$(token).id=new_id; // set attr for "id"
var id = $(token).id; // get

=== Queries ===

'''dojo.query(cssSelector: string): Element[]'''

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>

'''Vanila JS query'''

var cards=document.querySelectorAll(".hand .card");// all cards in all hands
var cards=$('hand').querySelectorAll(".card");// all cards in specific hand
var card=document.querySelector(".hand .card");// first card or null if none (super handy)

=== Creating and Destroying elements ===

'''dojo.empty(node: ElementOrId)'''

Remove all children of the node element
dojo.empty('my_hand');

'''dojo.destroy(node: ElementOrId)'''

Remove the element
dojo.destroy('my_token');

dojo.query(".green", mynode).forEach(dojo.destroy); // this remove all subnode of class green from mynode

'''dojo.create(tag: string, attributes?: obj, parent?: ElementOrId): Element'''

Create element

dojo.create("div", { class: "yellow_arrow" }, parent); // this creates div with class yellow_array and places it in "parent"

'''this.format_block(name: string, args: object): string'''
This bga function that takes global var from template file and substitute variables, typical use would be

var player = gamedatas.players[player_id];
var div = this.format_block('jstpl_player_board', player ); // var jstpl_player_board = ... is defined in .tpl file
Note: result is trimmed

'''this.format_string(name: string, args: object): string'''
This bga function just substitute variables in a string, i.e.
<pre>
var div = this.format_string('<div color="${player_color}"></div>', {player_color: '#ff0000'} );
</pre>
Note: result is trimmed

Note: this can be replaced by using backquoted string now:
const player_color = '#ff0000';
const div = `<div color="${player_color}"></div>`;

'''this.format_string_recursive'''
This bga function is similar to this.format_string but is capable of processing recursive argument structures and translations. It is used to format server notifications.

TODO: find better place for these function docs

=== Moving elements ===

'''dojo.place(node: string | Element, refNode: ElementOrId, pos?: string | number): Element'''

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.

node:

Can be a String or a DOM node. If it is a string starting with “<”, it is assumed to be an HTML fragment, which will be created. Otherwise it is assumed to be an id of a DOM node.

<pre>
// Insert your HTML code as a child of a container element
dojo.place( "<div class='foo'></div>", "your_container_element_id" );
</pre>

pos:

Optional argument. Can be a number or one of the following strings: “before”, “after”, “replace”, “only”, “first”, or “last”. If omitted, “last” is assumed.

"replace": Replace the container element with my_node element

"first": Places the node as a child of the reference node. The node is placed as the first child.

"last" (default): 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.

"after": places the node right after the reference node.

"only": replaces all children of the reference node with the node.

positive integer: This parameter can be a positive 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.

<pre>
// Replace all children of container with my_node
dojo.place( $('my_node'), "your_container_element_id", "only" );
</pre>

See also full doc on dojo.place: [https://dojotoolkit.org/reference-guide/1.7/dojo/place.html]

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]]".

But you can also relocate elements like that. Note: it won't animate if you do that.

'''this.placeOnObject(mobile_obj: ElementOrId, target_obj: ElementOrId): void'''

places mobile_obj on target_obj, set the absolute positions and centers the mobile_obj on target_obj,
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: ElementOrId, target_obj: ElementOrId, target_x: number, target_y: number): void'''

This method works exactly like placeOnObject, except than you can specify some (x,y) coordinates (in px). This way, the center of "mobile_obj" will be placed to the specified x,y position relatively to the center of "target_obj".

''Note: the placement works differently from this.slideToObjectPos'', since coordinates are calculated based on the center of objects.

'''this.attachToNewParent(mobile_obj: ElementOrId, target_obj: ElementOrId): void'''

With this method, you change the HTML parent of "mobile_obj" element without moving it.
"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.

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).
If you need version that does not destroy the object but the same otherwise see [[BGA_Studio_Cookbook#Attach_to_new_parent_without_destroying_the_object]]

== 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.

Note 2: the slideTo methods are not compatible with CSS transform (scale, zoom, rotate...). If possible, avoid using CSS transform on nodes that are being slided. Eventually, the only possible solution to make these 2 compatible is to disable all CSS transform properties, use slideToObjectPos/placeOnObjectPos, and then apply them again.

===Sliding===

'''this.slideToObject(mobile_obj: ElementOrId, target_obj: ElementOrId, duration?: number, delay?: number): Animation'''

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: ElementOrId, target_obj: ElementOrId, target_x: number, target_y: number, duration?: number, delay?: number): Animation'''

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 from the top:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectPos( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 0, 10 ).play();
</pre>

'''this.slideTemporaryObject(mobile_obj_html: string, parent: ElementOrId, from: ElementOrId, to: ElementOrId, duration?: number, delay?: number): Animation'''

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.
* 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' ).play();
</pre>

===Destroy===
'''this.slideToObjectAndDestroy(mobile_obj: ElementOrId, target_obj: ElementOrId, duration?: number, delay?: number): void'''

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, but it starts the animation.

CAREFUL: Make sure nothing is creating the same object at the same time the animation is running, because this will cause some random disappearing effects

Example:
<pre>
this.slideToObjectAndDestroy( "some_token", "some_place_on_board", 1000, 0 );
</pre>

'''this.fadeOutAndDestroy( node: string | Element, duration?: number, delay?: number):''' '''void'''

This function fade out the target node, then destroy it. Its starts the animation.
* duration/delay works exactly like in "slideToObject"

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.
Make sure nothing is creating same object at the same time as animation is running, because you will be some random dissapearing effects

===Rotating elements===

This example combines "Dojo.Animation" method and a CSS property transform that allow you to rotate the element.
<pre>
// node is Element we rotating
var animation = new dojo.Animation({
curve: [fromDegree, toDegree],
onAnimate: (v) => {
node.style.transform = 'rotate(' + v + 'deg)';
}
});

animation.play();
</pre>

BGA has its own interface to rotate

'''this.rotateTo(node: string | Element, degree: number): void'''

It starts the animation, and stored the rotation degree in the class, so next time you rotate object - it is additive.
There is no animation hooks in this one, if you need to change any parameters use dojo animation above.

There is also '''rotateInstantTo''' with same signature which does not animate

===Animation Callbacks===

If you wish to run some code only after an animation has completed you can do this by linking a callback method to 'onEnd'.

<pre>
var animation_id = this.slideToObject( mobile_obj, target_obj, 500 );
dojo.connect(animation_id, 'onEnd', () => {
// do something here
});
animation_id.play();
</pre>

If you wish to call a second animation after the first (rather than general code) then you can use a dojo animation chain (see tutorial referenced above).

== Players input ==

=== Connecting ===
'''dojo.connect(element: Element, event: string, context: object, method: eventHandler): any'''

'''dojo.connect(element: Element, event: string, hander: eventHandler): any'''

Used to associate a player event with one of your notification methods.

Example: associate a click on an element ("my_element") with one of our methods ("onClickOnMyElement"):
<pre>
dojo.connect( $('my_element'), 'onclick', this, 'onClickOnMyElement' );
</pre>

Same idea but base on query (i.e. all element of 'pet' class)
dojo.query(".pet").connect('onclick', this, 'onPet');

Note: if you need to disconnect the handler you have to store handler returned from this method, i.e.

<pre>
var handler = dojo.connect(...);
...
dojo.disconnect(handler);
</pre>

If you don't store the handler - you have to destroy the object to disconnect it

Typical function that implements the input handler will look like this

<pre>
onPet: function(event) {
var id = event.currentTarget.id;
console.log('onPet ' + id);
dojo.stopEvent(event);
if (this.gamedatas.gamestate.name == 'playerTurnPet') {
this.ajaxcallwrapper('playPet', {card: id});
} else {
this.showMoveUnauthorized();
}
}
</pre>

'''this.connect(element: ElementOrId, event: string, method: eventHandler): void'''

Used to associate a player event with one of your notification methods.

this.connect( $('my_element'), 'onclick', 'onClickOnMyElement' );

Or you can use an in-place handler

this.connect( $('my_element'), 'onclick', (e) => { console.log('boo'); } );

Note that this function stores the connection handler. That is the only real difference between '''this.connect''' and '''dojo.connect'''. If you plan to destroy the element you connected, you '''must''' call this.disconnect() to prevent memory leaks.
This function is mainly for permanent objects - if you just want to connect the temp object you should probably not use this method but use dojo.connect which won't require any clean-up.

'''this.connectClass(cssClassName: string, event: string, method: eventHandler): void'''

Same as connect(), but for all the nodes set with the specified cssClassName.

this.connectClass('pet', 'onclick', 'onPet');

'''this.disconnect(element: ElementOrId, event: string): void'''

Disconnect event handler (previously registered with this.connect or this.connectClass).

this.disconnect( $('my_element'), 'onclick');

Note: dynamic connect/disconnect is for advanced cases ONLY, you should always connect elements statically if possible, i.e. in setup() method.

'''this.disconnectAll(): void'''

Disconnect all previously registed event handlers (registered via this.connect or this.connectClass)

this.disconnectAll();

=== Actions ===

'''this.ajaxcall(url, parameters, obj_callback, callback, callback_anycase?, ajax_method?: string)'''

This method must be used to send a player input to the game server. '''It should not be triggered programmatically''', especially not in loops, in callbacks, in notifications, or in onEnteringState/onUpdateActionButtons/onLeavingState, in order not to create race conditions or break replay game and tutorial features. It should be used only in reaction to a user action in the interface.

* 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 parameters in order the interface can be locked during the server call. Cannot use lock: false - to not lock it has to be undefined.
** Note: Restricted parameter names (please don't use them):
*** "action"
*** "module"
*** "class"
* obj_callback: must be set to "this".
* callback (non-optional but rarely used): a function to trigger when the server returns result and everything went fine (not used, as all data handling is done via notifications).
* callback_anycase: (optional) a function to trigger when the server returns ok OR error. If no error this function is called with parameter value false. If an error occurred, the first parameter will be set to true, the second will contain the error message sent by the PHP back-end, and the third will contain an error code.
* ajax_method: (optional and rarely used) if you need to send large amounts of data (over 2048 bytes), you can set this parameter to 'post' (all lower-case) to send a POST request as opposed to the default GET. This works, but was not officially documented, so only use if you really need to.

Usage:
<pre>
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/myaction.html', { lock: true,
arg1: myarg1,
arg2: myarg2
}, this, (result)=>{} );
</pre>

Note: to reduce the boilerplate code you can define your own wrapper, which will do checking, locking and allow to skip parameters, for example
<pre>
ajaxcallwrapper: function(action, args, handler) {
if (!args) {
args = {};
}
args.lock = true;

if (this.checkAction(action)) {
this.ajaxcall("/" + this.game_name + "/" + this.game_name + "/" + action + ".html", args, this, (result) => { }, handler);
}
},
</pre>
This can be called like this which is a lot more compact
<pre>
this.ajaxcallwrapper('playDraw');
this.ajaxcallwrapper('playMove', {card: id})
</pre>

'''this.checkAction(action: string, nomessage?: boolean): boolean '''

Check if player can do the specified action by taking into account:
* if interface is locked it will return false and show message "An action is already in progress", unless nomessage set to true
* if player is not active it will return false and show message "This is not your turn", unless nomessage set to true
* if action is not in list in possible actions (defined by "possibleaction" in current game state) it will return false and show "This move is not authorized now" error (unconditionally).
* otherwise returns true
Example:
<pre>
function onClickOnGameElement( evt ) {
if( this.checkAction( "my_action" ) ) {
// Do the action
}
}
</pre>

'''this.checkPossibleActions(action: string): boolean'''

* this is independent of the player being active, so can be used instead of this.checkAction(). This is particularly useful for multiplayer states when the player is not active in a 'player may like to change their mind' scenario. Unlike this.checkAction, this function does NOT take interface locking into account

* if action is not in list in possible actions (defined by "possibleaction" in current game state) it will return false and show "This move is not authorized now" error (unconditionally).
* otherwise returns true

function onChangeMyMind( evt ) {
if( this.checkPossibleActions( "my_action" ) ) {
// Do the action
}
}

'''this.checkLock(nomessage?: boolean): boolean'''

When using "lock: true" in ajax call you can use this function to check if interface is in lock state (it will be locked during server call and notification processing).
This check can be used to block some other interactions which do not result in ajaxcall or if you want to suppress errors. Note: normally you only need to use this.checkAction(...), this is for advanced cases.

It will also show error unless nomessage is set to true

function onChangeMyMind( evt ) {
if( this.checkLock() ) {
// Do the action
}
}

== 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 ===

'''dojo.subscribe(notif_type: string, callback_obj: Object, handler: string|handler)'''
* notif_type - notification type/name send by php server
* callback_obj - usually this
* handler - if string method of callback_obj with name name is called, when notification is called, with notification object as parameter (see below)

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>
setupNotifications: function() {
...
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 all notifications arguments with "notif.args".

Example:

PHP

<pre>
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "apples", clienttranslate('player takes ${count} apples'), [ "count" => 3 ] );
</pre>

JavaScript

<pre>
setupNotifications: function() {
dojo.subscribe( 'apples', this, 'notif_apples' );
},

notif_apples: function(notif) {
//You can access the "count" like this:
alert("count = " + notif.args.count);
}
</pre>

=== The notification Object received by client ===

When sending a notification on your PHP, the client side will receive an Object with the following attributes:

* type - type of the notification (as passed by php function)
* log - the log string passed from php notification
* args - This is the arguments that you passed on your notification method on php
* bIsTableMsg - is true when you use [[Main_game_logic:_yourgamename.game.php#NotifyAllPlayers|NotifyAllPlayers]] method (false otherwise)
* channelorig - information about table ID (formatted as : "/table/t[TABLE_NUMBER]")
* gamenameorig - name of the game
* move_id - ID of the move associated with the notification
* table_id - ID of the table (comes as string)
* time - UNIX GMT timestamp
* uid - unique identifier of the notification
* h - unknown

'' Note that those information were inferred from observation on console log. If an Admin can confirm/correct (and remove this line), you're welcome :)''

=== Ignoring notifications ===

Sometimes you need to ignore some notification on client side. You don't want them to be shown in game log and you don't want them to be handled.

The most common use case is when a player gets private information. They will receive a specific notification (such as "You received Ace of Heart"), while other players would receive more generic notification ("Player received a card").

In X.game.php
<pre>
$this->notifyAllPlayers("dealCard", clienttranslate('${player_name} received a card'), [
'player_id' => $playerId,
'player_name' => $this->getActivePlayerName()
]);

$this->notifyPlayer($playerId, "dealCardPrivate", clienttranslate('You received ${cardName}'), [
"type" => $card["type"],
"cardName" => $this->getCardName($card["type"])
]);
</pre>

The problem with this approach is that the active player will receive two notifications:
* Player1 received a card
* You received Ace of Hearts

Hence, notification ignoring.

NOTE: You can think that it would be possible to send such notification to all players except active just by using notifyPlayer and it seems to work. The problem however is that table spectators would miss such notification and their user interface (and game log) wouldn't be updated. Since there is no way to send notification just to spectators, ignoring the notification (or "filtering") is the only reasonable solution.

'''setIgnoreNotificationCheck(notif_type: string, predicate: ((notif: Notif)=>boolean))'''
This method will set a check whether any of notifications of specific type should be ignored.

The parameters are:
* notif_type: type of the notification
* predicate (notif => boolean): a function that will receive notif object and will return true if this specific notification should be ignored

Before dispatching any notification of this type, the framework will call predicate to check whether notification should be ignored, if it return true - the notification will be dispatched, i.e. logged or handled.

<pre>
this.notifqueue.setIgnoreNotificationCheck( 'dealCard', (notif) => (notif.args.player_id == this.player_id) );
</pre>

IMPORTANT: Remember that this notification is ignored on the client side, but was still received by the client. Therefore it shouldn't contain any private information as cheaters can get it. In other words this is not a way to hide information.

IMPORTANT: When a game is reloaded with F5 or when opening a turn based game, old notifications are replayed as history notification. They are used just to update the game log and are stripped of all arguments except player_id, i18n and any argument present in message. If you use and other argument in your predicate you should '''preserve''' it as explained [[Main_game_logic:_yourgamename.game.php#Notify_players|here]].

=== 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, there 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>

-----

It is also possible to control the delay timing dynamically (e.g., using notification args). As an example, maybe your notification 'cardPlayed' should pause for a different amount of time depending on the number or type of cards played.

For this case, use '''setSynchronous''' without specifying the duration and use '''setSynchronousDuration''' within the notification callback.

* NOTE: If you forget to invoke '''setSynchronousDuration''', the game will remain paused forever!

<pre>
setupNotifications: function () {
dojo.subscribe( 'cardPlayed', this, 'notif_cardPlayed' );
this.notifqueue.setSynchronous( 'cardPlayed' ); // wait time is dynamic
...
},

notif_cardPlayed: function (notif) {
// MUST call setSynchronousDuration

// Example 1: From notification args (PHP)
this.notifqueue.setSynchronousDuration(notif.args.duration);
...

// Or, example 2: Match the duration to a Dojo animation
var anim = dojo.fx.combine([
...
]);
anim.play();
this.notifqueue.setSynchronousDuration(anim.duration);
},
</pre>

You can also manually call this.notifqueue.setSynchronousDuration(0) once client operations are finished, but be careful that even fast replay still has a path to call it.

'''WARNING: combining synchronous and ignored notifications'''
You must be careful when combining dynamic synchronous durations (as described above) with ignored notifications. If you have a conditionally ignored notification like this (see below section):

<pre>this.notifqueue.setIgnoreNotificationCheck( 'myNotif', (notif) => (notif.args.player_id == this.player_id) /* or any other condition */ )</pre>

then you CANNOT do

<pre>this.notifqueue.setSynchronous('myNotif');</pre>

as, when the ignored check passes, the notification handler, in which `this.notifqueue.setSychronousDuration` is called, is never called and so the duration is never set and interface locking results.

The workaround is to set a "dummy" time:

<pre>this.notifqueue.setSynchronous('myNotif', 5000);</pre>

whose value is irrelevant but must be large enough to cover the time before the notification handler is called. The large value never actually comes into play because the notification is either ignored, or the synchronous duration is reset to a sensible value inside the handler.

=== 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 (technically any unhandled notification will do the same but its recommended to use this keyword for consistency)

// You can call this on php side without doing anything on client side
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'message', clienttranslate('hello'), [] );

'''simplePause''' - This notification will just delay other notifications, maybe useful if you know you need some extra time for animation or something. Requires a time parameter.

<pre>
self::notifyAllPlayers( 'simplePause', '', [ 'time' => 500] ); // time is in milliseconds
</pre>

Note: the following types are RESERVED by framework, do not use:

gameStateChange gameStateChangePrivateArg gameStateMultipleActiveUpdate newActivePlayer playerstatus yourturnack clockalert tableInfosChanged playerEliminated tableDecision archivewaitingdelay end_archivewaitingdelay replaywaitingdelay end_replaywaitingdelay replayinitialwaitingdelay end_replayinitialwaitingdelay aiPlayerWaitingDelay replay_has_ended updateSpectatorList wouldlikethink updateReflexionTime undoRestorePoint resetInterfaceWithAllDatas zombieModeFail zombieModeFailWarning aiError skipTurnOfPlayer zombieBack allPlayersAreZombie gameResultNeutralized playerConcedeGame showTutorial showCursor showCursorClick skipTurnOfPlayerWarning banFromTable resultsAvailable switchToTurnbased newPrivateState infomsg

== Tooltips ==

=== Adding static tooltips ===

'''this.addTooltip(nodeId: string, helpStringTranslated: string, actionStringTranslated: string, delay?: number): void'''

Add a simple text tooltip to the DOM node.

Specify 'helpStringTranslated' to display some information about "what is this game element?".
Specify 'actionStringTranslated' to display some information about "what happens when I click on this element?".

You must specify both of the strings. You can only use one and specify an empty string ('') for the other one.

When you pass text directly function _() must be used for the text to be marked for translation! Except for empty string.

Parameter "delay" is optional. 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>

Note: this generates static tooltip and attaches to existing dom element, if you need to generate tooltip more dynamically you have to call that method every time information about object is updated or use completely different tehnique, see dynamic tooltips below.

'''this.addTooltipHtml(nodeId: string, html: string, delay?: number): void'''

Add an HTML tooltip to the DOM node (for more elaborate content such as presenting a bigger version of a card).

'''this.addTooltipToClass(cssClass: string, helpStringTranslated: string, actionStringTranslated: string, delay?: number ): void'''

Add a simple text tooltip to all the DOM nodes set with this cssClass. See more details above for this.addTooltip.
this.addTooltipToClass( 'meeple', _('This is A Meeple'), _('Click to tickle') );

IMPORTANT: all concerned nodes must exist and have IDs to get tooltips.

'''this.addTooltipHtmlToClass(cssClass: string, html: string, delay?: number): void'''

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 exist and have IDs to get tooltips.

=== Removing static tooltips ===

'''this.removeTooltip(nodeId: string): void'''

Remove a tooltip from the DOM node with given id.

=== Advanced tooltips ===

'''force tooltip to open'''

If you want to force tooltip to open in reaction to some other action, i.e. click you can do this

this.tooltips[id].open(id)

where id is the id of the tooltip node where tooltip was installed.

'''dynamic tooltips'''

See [[BGA_Studio_Cookbook#Dynamic_tooltips]]

'''tooltips on mobile'''

Tooltips is very unreliable on mobile, it is recommended to implement some other method to obtaining same information,
such as simple click handler in dedicated "Help" mode or provide dedicated clickable areas such as corner of card.

== Warning messages ==

Sometimes, there is something important that is happening in 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 fulfills one of the end of the game conditions, so this is the last turn.

'''this.showMessage(msg: string, type: string): void'''

showMessage shows a message in a big rectangular area on the top of the screen of the current player, and it dissapears after few seconds (also it will be in the log in some cases).

* "msg" is the string to display. It should be translated.
* "type" can be set to "info", "error", "only_to_log" or custom string. 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 and it will be added to log. If set to "only_to_log", the message will be added to the game log but will not popup at the top of the screen.
If set to custom string, it will be transparent, to use custom type define "head_xxx" in css, where xxx is the type. For example if you want yellow warning, use "warning" as type and add this to css:
.head_warning {
background-color: #e6c66e;
}

Important: the normal way to inform players about the progression of the game is the game log. The "showMessage" is intrusive and should not be used often.

<pre>
notif_messageinfo: function(notif) {
if (!g_archive_mode) {
var message = this.format_string_recursive(notif.log, notif.args);
this.showMessage(_('Announcement:') + " " + message, 'info');
}
},
</pre>

Show message could be used on the client side to prevent user wrong moves before it is send to server.
Example from 'battleship':
<pre>
onGrid: function(event) {
if (checkIfPlayerTriesToFireOnThemselves(event)) {
this.showMessage(_('This is your own board silly!'), 'error');
return;
}
...
},
</pre>

'''this.showMoveUnauthorized(): void'''

Shows predefined user error that move is unauthorized now

<pre>
onPet: function(event) {
if (checkPet(event)==false) {
this.showMoveUnauthorized();
return;
}
...
},
</pre>

== Dialogs ==

=== Confirmation dialog ===

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 guideline of BGA is to AVOID the use of confirmation dialogs. Confirmation dialogs slow down the game and bother players. The players know that they have to pay attention to each move when they are playing online.

The situations 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 does not pay attention.
* It must be something that can be done by mistake (ex: a link on the action status bar).

'''this.confirmationDialog(message: string, yesHandler: (param: any) => void, noHandler?: (param: any) => void, param?: any): void'''

* message - message will be shown to user, use _() to translate
* yesHandler - non-optional handler to be called on yes
* noHandler - optional handler to called on no
* param - if specified, it will be passed to both handlers
NOTE: this is async function, it does not return anything and you should not do anything after, you must do everything in handlers

How to display a confirmation dialog:
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog(_("Are you sure you want to bake the pie?"), () => {
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

'''this.multipleChoiceDialog(message: string, choices: string[], callback: (choice: number) => void): void'''
* message - message will be shown to user, use _() to translate
* choices - array of choices
* callback - non-optional handler to be called on choice made, the choice parameter is the INDEX of the choice from the array of choices

NOTE: this is async function, it does not return anything and you should not do anything after, you must do everything in handlers
NOTE: there is no cancel handler, so make sure you gave user a choice to get out of it

Example:
<pre>
const keys = ["0", "1", "5", "10"];
this.multipleChoiceDialog(_("How many bugs to fix?"), keys, (choice) => {
if (choice==0) return; // cancel operation, do not call server action
var bugchoice = keys[choice]; // choice will be 0,1,2,3 here
this.ajaxcallwrapper("fixBugs", { number: bugchoice });
});
return; // must return here
</pre>

=== Generic Dialogs ===

As a general rule, 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 over the play zone. You should store the handler in a member variable to access it later
this.myDlg = new ebg.popindialog();
this.myDlg.create( 'myDialogUniqueId' );
this.myDlg.setTitle( _("my dialog title to translate") );
this.myDlg.setMaxWidth( 500 ); // Optional

// 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.setContent( html ); // Must be set before calling show() so that the size of the content is defined before positioning the dialog
this.myDlg.show();

// Now that the dialog has been displayed, you can connect your method to some dialog elements
// Example, if you have an "OK" button in the HTML of your dialog:
dojo.connect($('my_ok_button'), 'onclick', this, (event) => {
event.preventDefault();
this.myDlg.destroy();
});

If necessary, you can remove the default top right corner 'close' icon, or replace the function called when it is clicked:
// Removes the default close icon
this.myDlg.hideCloseIcon();

// Replace the function call when it's clicked
this.myDlg.replaceCloseCallback((event) => { ... });

=== 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 describes the table you want to display, line by line and column by column.

Example: display an 3x3 array of strings
<pre>
$table = [
[ "one", "two", "three" ], // This is my first line
[ "four", "five", "six" ], // This is my second line
[ "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 = [
[ "one", "two", [ "str" => clienttranslate("a string with an ${argument}"), "args" => [ 'argument' => 'argument_value' ] ] ],
[ "four", "five", "six" ],
[ "seven", "height", "nine" ]
];
</pre>

This is especially useful when you want to display player names with colors. Example from "Hearts":
<pre>
$firstRow = [ '' ];
foreach( $players as $player_id => $player ) {
$cell = [ 'str' => '${player_name}',
'args' => [ 'player_name' => $player['player_name'] ],
'type' => 'header'
];
$firstRow[] = $cell;
}
$table[] = $firstRow;
...
</pre>

You can also use three extra attributes in the parameter array for the notification:
* '''header''': the content for this parameter displays 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 displays 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).

<pre>
$this->notifyAllPlayers( "tableWindow", '', [
"id" => 'finalScoring',
"title" => clienttranslate("Title of the scoring dialog"),
"table" => $table,
"header" => ['str' => clienttranslate('Table header with parameter ${number}'),
'args' => [ 'number' => 3 ],
],
"footer" => '<div class="myfoot"></div>',
"closing" => clienttranslate( "Closing button label" )
] );
</pre>

Note: currently id is not used - so you cannot access resulting div by id on js side
Note: any traslatable stirng have to be wrapped by clienttranslate() on top level OR it has to be recursive template.

DO NOT DO THIS:
<pre>
"footer" => '<div>'.clienttranslate( "The end" ).'</div>', // this will not work for translations!!!
</pre>

=== Scoring animated display ===

Sometimes, you may want to display a score value over an element to make the scoring easier to follow for the players (Terra Mystica final scoring for example).
You can do it with:

'''this.displayScoring(anchor_id: string, color: string, score: number | string, duration?: number, offset_x?: number, offset_y?: number): void'''

'''anchor_id''': ID of the html element to place the animated score onto (without the '#')

'''color''': hexadecimal RGB representation of the color (should be the color of the scoring player), but without a leading '#'. For instance, 'ff0000' for red.

'''score''': numeric score to display, prefixed by a '+' or '-'

'''duration''': animation duration in milliseconds (optional, default is 1000)

'''offset_x''' and '''offset_y''': if both offset_x and offset_y are defined and not null, apply the following offset (in pixels) to the scoring animation.
Note that the score is centered in the anchor, so the offsets might have to be negative if you calculate the position.

Note: if you want to display successively each score, you can use ''this.notifqueue.setSynchronous()'' function.
<pre>
setupNotifications: function() {
dojo.subscribe( 'displayScoring', this, "notif_displayScoring" );
...
}
...

notif_displayScoring: function(notif) {
const duration = notif.args.duration?notif.args.duration:1000;
this.notifqueue.setSynchronous('displayScoring', duration );
this.displayScoring( notif.args.target, notif.args.color, notif.args.score, duration);
},
</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 showBubble:

'''this.showBubble(anchor_id: string, text: string, delay?: number, duration?: number, custom_class?: string): void'''

* anchor_id - where to attach the bubble
* text - what to put in bubble, can be html
* delay - delay in milliseconds (optional, default 0)
* duration - duration of animation in milliseconds (optional, default 3000)
* custom_class - extra class to add to bubble (optional), if you need to override the default bubble style

<pre>
this.showBubble('meeple_2', _('Hello'), 0, 1000, 'pink_bubble');
</pre>

<pre>
notif_speechBubble(notif) {
var html = this.format_string_recursive(notif.args.text, notif.args.args);
this.showBubble(notif.args.target, html, notif.args.delay ?? 0, notif.args.duration ?? 1000);
},
</pre>

'''Warning''': if your bubble could overlap other active elements of the interface (buttons in particular), as it stays in place even after disappearing, you should use a custom class to give it the style "pointer-events: none;" in order to intercept click events.

Note: If you want this visually, but want to take complete control over this bubble and its animation (for example to make it permanent) you can just use div with 'discussion_bubble' class on it, and content of div is what will be shown.

== Translations ==

See [[Translations]]

== Players panels ==

=== Update players score ===

The column player_score from the player table is automatically loaded into this.scoreCtrl and therefore into the stars location on the player board. This occurs sometime after the game setup() function. However this score must be updated as the game progresses using notifications.

Note: this.scoreCtrl[player_id] is object of class [[Counter]], you can use other counter API.

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>

Set a player score to a specific value with animation:

<pre>
this.scoreCtrl[ player_id ].toValue( new_score );
</pre>

Typical usage would be (that will process 'score' notification):
<pre>
setupNotifications : function() {
...
dojo.subscribe('score', this, "notif_score");
},
notif_score: function(notif) {
this.scoreCtrl[notif.args.player_id].setValue(notif.args.player_score);
},
</pre>

=== 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: number): void'''

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:number): void'''

Enable a player panel that has been disabled before.

'''this.enableAllPlayerPanels(): void'''

Enable all player panels that has been disabled before.

=== Player order ===

'''this.updatePlayerOrdering(): void'''

This function makes sure that player order in player's panel matches this.gamedatas.playerorder and its normally called by framework.
You can call it yoursel if you change this.gamedatas.playerorder from notification.
Also you can override this function to change defaults OR insert a non-player panel [[BGA_Studio_Cookbook#Inserting_non-player_panel]].

=== Counters ===
Note: there is bga component called "ebg/counter" this API is not using it, these methods
below declared right in core game. If you need animation for counters use ebg/counter

To use this API just create a counter dom element like this (class does not really matter)
<pre>
<div class="counter" id="bread"></div>
<div class="counter" id="coin"></div>
</pre>
The "bread" will the counter name.

The php code should send all "counters" data from getAllDatas() method like this

game.php
<pre>
protected function getAllDatas() {
// (the key must match counter_name)
$result['counters']=[
'bread' => [
'counter_name' => 'bread',
'counter_value' => 3
],
'coin' => [
'counter_name' => 'coin',
'counter_value' => 5
]
];
return $result;
}
</pre>

'''setCounter(counter_name: stirng, new_value: string | number): void'''

updates the global this.gamedatas.counters and value of node $(counter_name)
<pre>
notif_counter: function(notif) {
this.setCounter(notif.args.counter_name, notif.args.counter_value);
},
</pre>

'''incCounter(counter_name: string, delta: number): void'''
<pre>
notif_counter : function(notif) {
this.incCounter(notif.args.counter_name, notif.args.inc);
},
</pre>

'''updateCounters(counters: object): void'''

Useful for updating game counters in the player panel (such as resources).
'counters' arg is map of counters (the key must match counter_name)
{
'bread': {
'counter_name' : 'bread',
'counter_value' => 3
},
'coin': {
'counter_name' : 'coin',
'counter_value' => 5
}
}
All counters MUST be referenced in this.gamedatas.counters (means they should be send from php) and will be updated.
DOM objects referenced by 'counter_name' will have their innerHTML updated with 'counter_value'.

Usually you call this from notification

<pre>
notif_counter : function(notif) {
this.updateCounters(notif.args.counters);
},
</pre>

== 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 Buttons ==

=== Basic Button ===

'''this.addActionButton(id: string, label: string, method: string | eventhandler, destination?: string, blinking?: boolean, color?: string): void'''

You can use this method to add an action button in the main action status bar (or other places).

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). Note: this can also be any html, such as "<div class='brick'></div>", see example below on how to make image action buttons.
* method: the name of your method that must be triggered when the player clicks on this button (can be name of the method on game class or handler).
* destination (optional): id of parent on where to add button, ONLY use in rare cases if location is not action bar. 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 DO NOT abuse blinking button. If you need button to blink after some time passed add class 'blinking' to the button later.
* color: could be '''blue''' (default), '''red''','''gray''' or '''none'''.

You should only use this method in your "onUpdateActionButtons" method. Usually, you use it like this:

<pre>
onUpdateActionButtons: function( stateName, args ) {
if (this.isCurrentPlayerActive()) {
switch( stateName ) {
case 'giveCards':
this.addActionButton( 'giveCards_button', _('Give selected cards'), 'onGiveCards' );
this.addActionButton( 'pass_button', _('Pass'), ()=>this.ajaxcallwrapper('pass') );
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( 'button_confirm', _('Confirm?'), 'onConfirm', null, true, 'red');
</pre>

If you want to call the handler with arguments, you can use arrow functions, like this:
<pre>
this.addActionButton( 'commit_button', _('Confirm'), () => this.onConfirm(this.selectedCardId), null, false, 'red');
</pre>

=== Image Button ===

You can use the same method, but add extra class to a button to disable the padding and style it, i.e.
<pre>
this.addActionButton( 'button_brick', '<div class="brick"></div>', ()=>{... on brick ...}, null, null, 'gray');
dojo.addClass('button_brick','bgaimagebutton');
</pre>

where

<pre>
.bgaimagebutton {
padding: 0px 12px;
min-height: 28px;
border: none;
}
</pre>

If you use this a lot, you can define a helper function, i.e.
<pre>
/**
* This method can be used instead of addActionButton, to add a button which is an image (i.e. resource). Can be useful when player
* need to make a choice of resources or tokens.
*/
addImageActionButton: function(id, div, handler, bcolor, tooltip) {
if (typeof bcolor == "undefined") {
bcolor = "gray";
}
// this will actually make a transparent button id color = gray
this.addActionButton(id, div, handler, null, false, bcolor);
// remove border, for images it better without
dojo.style(id, "border", "none");
// but add shadow style (box-shadow, see css)
dojo.addClass(id, "shadow bgaimagebutton");
// you can also add additional styles, such as background
if (tooltip) {
dojo.attr(id, "title", tooltip);
}
return $(id);
},
</pre>

=== Disabling Button ===

You can disable the '''bgabutton''' by adding the css class '''disabled''' in you js. The disabled button is still visible but is grey and not clickable.
For example in the '''onUpdateActionButtons''' :
<pre>
this.addActionButton('play_button_id', _('Play 1 to 3 cards'), 'playFunctionButton');
if (condition) {
dojo.addClass('play_button_id', 'disabled');
}
</pre>

=== Custom Buttons ===

You can create a custom button, but the BGA framework provides a standard button that requires only .css classes: '''bgabutton''' and '''bgabutton_${color}'''.

'''Examples:'''

<pre>
<a href="#" id="my_button_id" class="bgabutton bgabutton_blue"><span>My blue button</span></a>

<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 out ''Coloretto''.

=== Button outside of action bar ===

Use addActionButton() method with destination argument set
<pre>
this.addActionButton( 'commit_button', _('Confirm'), 'onConfirm', 'player_board', true, 'red');
</pre>

in example above the button will be place on object with id 'player_board'

== 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.

'''this.dontPreloadImage(image_file_name: string)'''

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' );
}

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.

'''this.ensureSpecificGameImageLoading(list: string[])'''

This is oppostive of dontPreloadImage - its ensure specific images is loaded. Note: only makes sense if preload list is empty, otherwise everything is loaded anyway

'''load specific images'''
All images that will be preloaded stored in g_img_preload. If you want to override it directly - there is no API, but you can do this in GAME constructor

g_img_preload = ['tokens.png', 'trains.png', 'loc_plan.png', 'eng.png', 'eng-back.png'];

You can also set it to empty array and call ensureSpecificGameImageLoading() on specific images

== Sounds ==

Add a custom sound and make it load with your interface:

Add this in your template (.tpl) file:
<pre>
<audio id="audiosrc_<gamename>_<yoursoundname>" src="{GAMETHEMEURL}img/<gamename>_<yoursoundname>.mp3" preload="none" autobuffer></audio>
<audio id="audiosrc_o_<gamename>_<yoursoundname>" src="{GAMETHEMEURL}img/<gamename>_<yoursoundname>.ogg" preload="none" autobuffer></audio>
</pre>

Note: this is a requirement to provide both a mp3 and a ogg file with the names <code><gamename>_<yoursoundname>[.ogg][.mp3]</code>.

Play the sound (from your .js file):

<pre>
playSound('<gamename>_<yoursoundname>'); // do not add 'this.' - its a global function
</pre>

Disable the standard "move" sound for this move (to replace it with your custom sound):

Add this to your notification handler:

<pre>
this.disableNextMoveSound();
</pre>

Note: it only disable the sound for the next move.

== Title bar and states ==

=== Client states ===

Client states is a way to simulate the state transition but without actually going
to server. It is usefull when you need to ask user multiple questions before you
send things to server

'''this.setClientState(newState: string, args: object)'''

Example:
this.setClientState("client_playerPicksLocation", {
descriptionmyturn : _("${you} must select location"),
});

For more information see [[BGA_Studio_Cookbook#Multi_Step_Interactions:_Select_Worker.2FPlace_Worker_-_Using_Client_States]]

'''this.restoreServerGameState()'''
If you are in client state it will restore the current server state (cheap undo)

'''this.on_client_state'''
Boolean indicating that we are in client state

=== Title bar ===
If you simply want to show something in title bar you can do it directly
$('pagemaintitletext').innerHTML = text;

This however will not work with parameters and will not draw You in color,
if you want to do proper args rendering use method below

;'''this.removeActionButtons()'''
Removes all buttons from title bar

;'''this.updatePageTitle()'''
:This function allows to update the current page title and turn description according to the game state arguments. If the current game state description this.gamedatas.gamestate.descriptionmyturn is modified before calling this function it allows to update the turn description without changing state. This will handle arguments substitutions properly.

Note: this functional also will calls this.onUpdateActionButtons, if you want different buttons then state defaults, use method in example to replace them, if it becomes too clumsy use client states (see above)

Example from Terra Mystica:
<pre>
onClickFavorTile: function( evt ) {
...
if ( ... ) {
this.gamedatas.gamestate.descriptionmyturn = _('Special action: ') + _('Advance 1 space on a Cult track');
this.updatePageTitle();
this.removeActionButtons();
this.addActionButton( ... );
...
return;
}
...

}
</pre>

== 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.

NOTE: In modern JS there are lambdas that eliminate need for that, the example above will look like this
<pre>
this.confirmationDialog( _('Are you sure you want to make this?'), () => {
this.ajaxcall( '/mygame/mygame/makeThis.html', { lock:true }, this, (result) => {} );
} );
</pre>

;'''onScreenWidthChange()'''
:This function can be overridden in your game to manage some resizing on the client side when the browser window is resized. This function is also triggered at load time, so it can be used to adapt to the :viewport size at the start of the game too.

; this.bRealtime
: Return true if the game is in realtime. Note that having a distinct behavior in realtime and turn-based should be exceptional.

; g_replayFrom
: Global contains reply number in live game, it is set to undefined (i.e. not set) when it is not a reply mode, so consequentially the good check is '''typeof g_replayFrom != 'undefined'''' which returns true if the game is in replay mode <i>during the game</i> (the game is ongoing but the user clicked "reply from this move" in the log)

; g_archive_mode
: Returns true if the game is in archive mode <i>after the game</i> (the game has ended)

; this.instantaneousMode
: Returns true during replay/archive mode if animations should be skipped. Only needed if you are doing custom animations. (The BGA-provided animation functions like <i>this.slideToObject()</i> automatically handle instantaneous mode.)
: Technically, when you click "replay from move #20", the system replays the game from the very beginning with moves 0 - 19 happening in instantaneous mode and moves 20+ happening in normal mode.

; g_tutorialwritten
: Returns an object like the below if the game is in tutorial mode, or undefined otherwise. Tutorial mode is a special case of archive mode where comments have been added to a previous game to teach new players the rules.
{
author: "91577332",
id: "576",
mode: "view"
status: "alpha"
version_override: null
viewer_id: "84554161"
}

'''getBgaEnvironment(): string'''
: Returns "studio" for studio and "prod" for production environment (i.e. where games current runs). Only useful for debbugging hooks.
Note: alpha server is also "prod"

[[Category:Studio]]

Main game logic: Game.php

2024-04-04T05:19:51Z

Benjaminarjun: /* Accessing the database */ fix typo

{{Studio_Framework_Navigation}}

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.

This is the main class that implements the "server" callbacks. As it is a server it cannot initiate any data communicate with the game client (running in browser) and only can respond to client using notifications.

Your php class instance won't be in memory between two callbacks, every time client send a request a new class will be created, constructor will be called and eventually your callback function.

== 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:

* '''__construct''': the game constructor, where you define global variables and initiaze class members.
* '''setupNewGame''': initial setup of the game. Takes an array of players, indexed by player_id. Structure of each player includes player_name, player_canal, player_avatar, and flags indicating admin/ai/premium/order/language/beginner.
* '''getAllDatas''': where you retrieve all game data during a complete reload of the game. Return value must be associative array. Value of 'players' is reserved for returning players data from players table, if you set it it must follow certain rules
$result ['players'] = self::getCollectionFromDb("SELECT player_id id, player_score score, player_no no, player_color color FROM player");
// Returned value must include ['players'][$player_id]]['score'] for scores to populate when F5 is pressed.
* '''getGameProgression''': where you compute the game progression indicator. Returns a number indicating percent of progression (0-100). Used to calculate ELO changes of remaining players when a player quits, or as a conceding requirement (in non-tournament 2 player games, a player may concede if the progression is at least 50%).
* Utility functions: your utility functions.
* Player actions: the entry points for players actions ([https://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/Players_actions:_yourgamename.action.php more info here]).
* 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]).
* '''initTable''': (not part of template) - this function is called for every php callback by the framework and it can be implement by the game (empty by default). You can use it in rare cases where you need to read database and manipulate some data before any ANY php entry functions are called (such as getAllDatas,action*,st*, etc). Note: it is not called before arg* methods
* '''zombieTurn''': what to do it's the turn of a zombie player.
* '''upgradeTableDb''': function to migrate database if you change it after release on production.
* '''getGameName''': returns the game name. This will be setup when you create the project. If you are copying files in from another project, make sure you keep this function intact. It must return the right game name, or lots of things will be broken.

== 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 the beggining of setupNewGame (use count($players) instead). It will work after initialization of player table.

; 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.

; getPlayerNameById($player_id)
: Get the name by id

; getPlayerColorById($player_id)
: Get the color by id

; getPlayerNoById($player_id)
: Get 'player_no' (number) by id

; 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 (as string)
: * player_no - the position of the player at the start of the game in natural table order, i.e. 1,2,3

<pre>
$players = $this->loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach ($players as $player_id => $info) {
$player_color = $info['player_color'];
...
}
</pre>
Note: if you want array of player ids only you can do this:
$player_ids = array_keys($this->loadPlayersBasicInfos());

; getCurrentPlayerId(bool $bReturnNullIfNotLogged = false) int
: 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.
: '''Very important''': in your setupNewGame and zombieTurn function, you must never use getCurrentPlayerId() or getCurrentPlayerName(),
: otherwise it will fail with a "Not logged" error message (these actions are triggered from the main site and propagated to the gameserver from a server, not from a browser. As a consequence, there is no current player associated to these actions).

; getCurrentPlayerName(bool $bReturnEmptyIfNotLogged = false) string
: Get the "current_player" name.
: Note: this will throw an exception if current player is not at the table, i.e. spectator
: Be careful using this method (see above).

; getCurrentPlayerColor()
: Get the "current_player" color.
: Note: this will throw an exception if current player is not at the table, i.e. spectator
: 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.
: Note: this will throw an exception if current player is not at the table, i.e. spectator

; isSpectator()
: Check the "current_player" spectator status. If true, the user accessing the game is a spectator (not part of the game). For this user, the interface should display all public information, and no private information (like a friend sitting at the same table as players and just spectating the game).

; getActivePlayerColor()
: This function does not seems to exist in API, if you need it here is implementation
function getActivePlayerColor() {
$player_id = self::getActivePlayerId();
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
if (isset($players[$player_id]))
return $players[$player_id]['player_color'];
else
return null;
}
; isPlayerZombie($player_id)
: This method does not exists, but if you need it it looks like this
protected function isPlayerZombie($player_id) {
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
if (! isset($players[$player_id]))
throw new BgaSystemException("Player $player_id is not playing here");

return ($players[$player_id]['player_zombie'] == 1);
}

== 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 (web request, not database request). 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. This also means that you need not (and in fact cannot) use your own transactions for multiple related database operations.

However there are sets of database operation that will do implicit commit (most common mistake is to use "TRUNCATE"), you cannot use these operations during the game, it breaks the unrolling of transactions and will lead to nasty issues
(https://mariadb.com/kb/en/sql-statements-that-cause-an-implicit-commit).

All methods below are part of game class (and view class) and can be accessed using $this-> or self::

; DbQuery( string $sql )
: This is the generic method to access the database.
: It can execute any type of SELECT/UPDATE/DELETE/REPLACE/INSERT query on the database. Returns result of the query.
: For SELECT queries, the specialized methods below are much better.
: Do not use method for TRUNCATE, DROP and other table altering operations. See disclamer above about implicit commits. If you really need TRUNCATE use DELETE FROM xxx instead.

; getUniqueValueFromDB( string $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( string $sql, bool $bSingleValue=false ) array
: 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 is an associative array with all the field specified in the SELECT query and associated values.
: First column must be a primary or alternate key (semantically, it does not actually have to declared in sql as such).
: The resulting collection can be empty (it won't be null).
: If you specified $bSingleValue=true and if your SQL query requests 2 fields A and B, the method returns an associative array "A=>B", otherwise its A=>[A,B]
: Note: The name a bit misleading, it really return associative array, i.e. map and NOT a collection. You cannot use it to get list of values which may have duplicates (hence primary key requirement on first column). If you need simple array use getObjectListFromDB() method.

Example 1:
<pre>
$result = self::getCollectionFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name, player_score score FROM player" );

Result:
[
1234 => [ 'id'=>1234, 'name'=>'myuser0', 'score'=>1 ],
1235 => [ 'id'=>1235, 'name'=>'myuser1', 'score'=>0 ]
]
</pre>

Example 2:
<pre>
$result = self::getCollectionFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name FROM player", true );

Result:
[
1234 => 'myuser0',
1235 => 'myuser1'
]

</pre>

; getNonEmptyCollectionFromDB(string $sql) array
: Same as getCollectionFromDB($sdl), but raise an exception if the collection is empty. Note: this function does NOT have 2nd argument as previous one does.

; getObjectFromDB(string $sql) array
: Returns one row for the sql SELECT query as an associative array or null if there is no result (where fields are keys mapped to values)
: Raise an exception if the query return more than one row (you can use LIMIT 1 in the query to avoid the exception)

Example:
<pre>
$result = self::getObjectFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name, player_score score FROM player WHERE player_id='$player_id'" );

Result:
[
'id'=>1234, 'name'=>'myuser0', 'score'=>1
]
</pre>

; getNonEmptyObjectFromDB(string $sql) array
: Similar to previous one, but raise an exception if no row is found

; getObjectListFromDB(string $sql, bool $bUniqueValue=false) array
: Return an array of rows for a sql SELECT query.
: The result is the same as "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>
$result = self::getObjectListFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name, player_score score FROM player" );

Result:
[
[ 'id'=>1234, 'name'=>'myuser0', 'score'=>1 ],
[ 'id'=>1235, 'name'=>'myuser1', 'score'=>0 ]
]
</pre>

Example 2:
<pre>
$result = self::getObjectListFromDB( "SELECT player_name name FROM player", true );

Result:
[
'myuser0',
'myuser1'
]

</pre>

; getDoubleKeyCollectionFromDB(string $sql, bool $bSingleValue=false) array
: 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() int
: Return the number of row affected by the last operation

; escapeStringForDB(string $string) 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.

All methods below are members of the game class and should be accessed via $this-> or self::

'''initGameStateLabels(array $labelsMap): void'''

This method should be located at the beginning of constructor of ''yourgamename.game.php''. This is where you define the globals used in your game logic, by assigning them IDs.

You can define up to 80 globals, with IDs from 10 to 89 (inclusive, there can be gaps).
Also you must use this method to access value of game options [[Game_options_and_preferences:_gameoptions.inc.php]], in that case, IDs need to be between 100 and 199.
You must '''not''' use globals outside the range defined above, as those values are used by other components of the framework.

<pre>
function __construct() {
parent::__construct();
$this->initGameStateLabels([
"my_first_global_variable" => 10,
"my_second_global_variable" => 11,
"my_game_variant" => 100
]);
// other code ...
}
</pre>

NOTE: The methods below WILL throw an exception if label is not defined using the call above.

'''setGameStateInitialValue( string $label, int $value ): void'''

Initialize global value. This is not required if you ok with default value if 0. This should be called from setupNewGame function.

'''getGameStateValue( string $label, int $default = 0): int'''

Retrieve the value of a global. Returns $default if global is not been initialized (by setGameStateInitialValue).

NOTE: this method use globals "cache" if you directly manipulated globals table OR call this function after undoRestorePoint() - it won't work as expected.

<pre>
$value = $this->getGameStateValue('my_first_global_variable');
</pre>

For debugging purposes, you can have labels and value pairs send to client side by inserting that code in your "getAllDatas":

<pre>
$labels = array_keys($this->mygamestatelabels);
$result['myglobals'] = array_combine($labels, array_map([$this,'getGameStateValue'],$labels));
</pre>

That assumes you stored your label mapping in $this->mygamestatelabels in constructor
<pre>
$this->mygamestatelabels=["my_first_global_variable" => 10, ...];
$this->initGameStateLabels($this->mygamestatelabels);
</pre>

'''setGameStateValue( string $label, int $value ): void'''

Set the current value of a global.
<pre>
$this->setGameStateValue('my_first_global_variable', 42);
</pre>

'''incGameStateValue( string $label, int $increment ): int'''

Increment the current value of a global. If increment is negative, decrement the value of the global.

Return the final value of the global. If global was not initialized it will initialize it as 0.

NOTE: this method use globals "cache" if you directly manipulated globals table OR call this function after undoRestorePoint() - it won't work as expected.

<pre>
$value = $this->incGameStateValue('my_first_global_variable', 1);
</pre>

=== BGA predefined globals ===

BGA already defines some globals in the ''global'' database table. You should not change them directly but it can be useful to know what they mean when debugging:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! global_id !! label !! Meaning
|-
| 1 || || Current state
|-
| 2 || || Active player id
|-
| 3 || next_move_id || Next move number
|-
| 4 || || Game id
|-
| 5 || || Table creator id
|-
| 6 || playerturn_nbr || Player turn number
|-
| 7 || gameprogression || Game progression
|-
| 8 || initial_reflexion_time || Initial reflection time
|-
| 9 || additional_reflexion_time || Additional reflection time
|-
| 200 || reflexion_time_profile || Reflexion time profile
|-
| 201 || bgaranking_mode || BGA ranking mode
|-
| 207 || game_language ||GAMESTATE_GAME_LANG
|-
| 300 || game_db_version ||GAMESTATE_GAMEVERSION: Current version of the game (when in production)
|-
| 301 || game_result_neutralized ||GAMESTATE_GAME_RESULT_NEUTRALIZED
|-
| 302 || neutralized_player_id ||GAMESTATE_NEUTRALIZED_PLAYER_ID
|-
| 304 || undo_moves_stored ||GAMESTATE_UNDO_MOVES_STORED
|-
| 305 || undo_moves_player ||GAMESTATE_UNDO_MOVES_PLAYER
|-
| 306 || lock_screen_timestamp ||GAMESTATE_LOCK_TIMESTAMP
|}

== Game states and active players ==

=== Activate player handling ===

; $this->activeNextPlayer()
: Make the next player active in the natural player order.
: Note: you CANNOT 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 CANNOT 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 CANNOT 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 "multipleactiveplayer"
: Note: avoid using this method in a "multipleactiveplayer" state because it does not mean anything.

=== Multiple activate player handling ===

; $this->gamestate->setAllPlayersMultiactive()
: All playing players are made active. Update notification is sent to all players (this will trigger '''onUpdateActionButtons''').
: Usually, you use this method at the beginning of a game state (e.g., "stGameState") which transitions to a ''multipleactiveplayer'' state in which multiple players have to perform some action. Do not use this method if you going to make some more changes in the active player list. (I.e., if you want to take away multipleactiveplayer status immediately afterwards, use setPlayersMultiactive instead.)

Example of usage:
<pre>
function st_MultiPlayerInit() {
$this->gamestate->setAllPlayersMultiactive();
}
</pre>

; $this->stMakeEveryoneActive()
:this method can be used in state machine to make everybody active as "st" method of multiplayeractive state, it just calls $this->gamestate->setAllPlayersMultiactive()

This is to be used in state declaration:
<pre>
2 => array(
"name" => "playerTurnPlace",
"description" => clienttranslate('Other player must place ships'),
"descriptionmyturn" => clienttranslate('${you} must place ships (click on YOUR SHIPS board to place)'),
"type" => "multipleactiveplayer",
'action' => 'stMakeEveryoneActive',
'args' => 'arg_playerTurnPlace',
"possibleactions" => array( "actionBla" ),
"transitions" => array( "next" => 4, "last" => 99)
),
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->setAllPlayersNonMultiactive( $next_state )
: All playing players are made inactive. Transition to next state

; $this->gamestate->setPlayersMultiactive( $players, $next_state, $bExclusive = false )
: Make a specific list of players active during a multiactive gamestate. Update notification is sent to all players whose state changed.
: "players" is the array of player id that should be made active. If "players" is not empty the value of "next_state" will be ignored (you can put whatever you want)
: If "bExclusive" parameter is not set or false it doesn't deactivate other previously active players. If its set to true, the players who will be multiactive at the end are only these in "$players" 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, $next_state )
: During a multiactive game state, make the specified player inactive.
: Usually, you call this method during a multiactive game state after a player did his action. It is also possible to call it directly from multiplayer action handler.
: If this player was the last active player, the method trigger the "next_state" transition to go to the next game state.
: returns true if state transition happened, false otherwise
Example of usage (see state declaration of playerTurnPlace above):
<pre>
function actionBla($args) {
self::checkAction('actionBla');
// handle the action using $this->getCurrentPlayerId()
$this->gamestate->setPlayerNonMultiactive( $this->getCurrentPlayerId(), 'next');
}
</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.

; $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>

; updating database manually
: Use this helper function to change multiactive state without sending notification
<pre>
/**
* Changes values of multiactivity in db, does not sent notifications.
* To send notifications after use updateMultiactiveOrNextState
* @param number $player_id, player id <=0 or null - means ALL
* @param number $value - 1 multiactive, 0 non multiactive
*/
function dbSetPlayerMultiactive($player_id = -1, $value = 1) {
if (! $value)
$value = 0;
else
$value = 1;
$sql = "UPDATE player SET player_is_multiactive = '$value' WHERE player_zombie = 0 and player_eliminated = 0";
if ($player_id > 0) {
$sql .= " AND player_id = $player_id";
}
self::DbQuery($sql);
}
</pre>

;$this->gamestate->isPlayerActive($player_id)
:Return true if specified player is active right now.
:This method take into account game state type, ie nobody is active if game state is "game" and several players can be active if game state is "multiplayer"

;$this->bIndependantMultiactiveTable
:This flag can be set to true in constructor of game.php to force creation of second table to handle multiplayer states (normally these are in player table), this is very advanced feature.
:ONLY use it after you deploy you game to production if you receive unusual amount of bug report with dead lock symptoms DURING multiactiveplayer states
function __construct() {
...
$this->bIndependantMultiactiveTable=true;
}

=== 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.

'''$this->gamestate->jumpToState($stateNum)'''
: Change current state to a new state. Important: the $stateNum parameter is the key of the state. See [[Your game state machine: states.inc.php]] for more information about states.
: Note: this is very advanced method, it should not be used in normal cases. Specific advanced cases include - jumping to specific state from "do_anytime" actions, jumping to dispatcher state or jumping to recovery state from zombie player function

; $this->checkAction( $actionName, $bThrowException=true )
: Check if the current player can perform a specific action in the current game state, and optionally throw an exception if they can'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. It should not be called from methods where the current player is not necessarily the active player, otherwise it may fail with an "It is not your turn" exception.
: 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.
: '''Note: This does NOT check either spectator or eliminated status, so those checks must be done manually.'''
: 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 is how PHP action looks that returns player to active state (only for multiplayeractive states). To be able to execute this on client do not call checkAction on js side for this specific action.

function actionUnpass() {
$this->gamestate->checkPossibleAction('actionUnpass'); // player changed mind about passing while others were thinking
$this->gamestate->setPlayersMultiactive(array ($this->getCurrentPlayerId() ), 'error', false);
}

; $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' ) {...}

I suggest to define and use this function in your php class to access state name:

public function getStateName() {
$state = $this->gamestate->state();
return $state['name'];
}

; $this->gamestate->state_id()
: Get the id of the current game state (rarely useful, its best to use name, unless you use constants for state ids)

; $this->gamestate->isMutiactiveState()
: Return true if we are in multipleactiveplayer state, false otherwise

=== Private parallel states ===

See the overview of private parallel states [[Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php#Private_parallel_states|here]].

; $this->gamestate->initializePrivateStateForAllActivePlayers()
: All active players in a multiactive state are entering a first private state defined in the master state's initialprivate parameter.
: Every time you need to start a private parallel states you need to call this or similar methods below.
: Note: at least one player needs to be active (see [[#Multiple_activate_player_handling|above]]) and current game state must be a multiactive state with initialprivate parameter defined
: Note: initialprivate parameter of master state should be set to the id of the first private state. This private state needs to be defined in states.php with the type set to 'private'.
: Note: this method is usually preceded with activating some or all players
: Note: initializing private state can run action or args methods of the initial private state

Example of usage:
<pre>
function stStartPlayerTurn() {
// This is usually done in master state action method

$this->gamestate->setAllPlayersMultiactive();
$this->gamestate->initializePrivateStateForAllActivePlayers();

// in some cases you can move immediately some or all players to different private states
if ($someCondition) {
//move all players to different state
$this->gamestate->nextPrivateStateForAllActivePlayers("some_transition");
}

if ($other condition) {
//move single player to different state
$this->gamestate->nextPrivateState($specificPlayerId, "some_transition");
}
}
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->initializePrivateStateForPlayers($playerIds)
: Players with specified ids are entering a first private state defined in the master state initialprivate parameter.
: Same considerations apply as for the method above.

; $this->gamestate->initializePrivateState($playerId)
: Player with the specified id is entering a first private state defined in the master state initialprivate parameter.
: Everytime you need to start a private parallel states you need to call this or similar methods above
: Note: player needs to be active (see [[#Multiple_activate_player_handling|above]]) and current game state must be a multiactive state with initialprivate parameter defined
: Note: initialprivate parameter of master state should be set to the id of the first private state. This private state needs to be defined in states.php with the type set to 'private'.
: Note: this method is usually preceded with activating that player
: Note: initializing private state can run action or args methods of the initial private state

Example of usage:
<pre>
function st_ChangeMind() {
// This player finished his move before, but now decides change something while other players are still active
// We activate the player and initialize his private state
$this->gamestate->setPlayersMultiactive([$this->getCurrentPlayerId()], "");
$this->gamestate->initializePrivateState(this->getCurrentPlayerId());

// It is also possible to move the player to some other specific state immediately
$this->gamestate->nextPrivateState($this->getCurrentPlayerId(), "some_transition");
}
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->nextPrivateStateForAllActivePlayers($transition)
: All active players will transition to next private state by specified transition
: Note: game needs to be in a master state which allows private parallel states
: Note: transition should lead to another private state (i.e. a state with type defined as 'private'
: Note: transition should be defined in private state in which the players currently are.
: Note: this method can run action or args methods of the target state
: Note: this is usually used after initializing the private state to move players to specific private state according to the game logic

Example of usage:
<pre>
function stStartPlayerTurn() {
// This is usually done in master state action method
$this->gamestate->setAllPlayersMultiactive();
$this->gamestate->initializePrivateStateForAllActivePlayers();

if ($specificOption) {
//move all players to different state
$this->gamestate->nextPrivateStateForAllActivePlayers("some_transition");
}
}
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->nextPrivateStateForPlayers($playerIds, $transition)
: Players with specified ids will transition to next private state specified by provided transition.
: Same considerations apply as for the method above.

; $this->gamestate->nextPrivateState($playerId, $transition)
: Player with specified id will transition to next private state specified by provided transition
: Note: game needs to be in a master state which allows private parallel states
: Note: transition should lead to another private state (i.e. a state with type defined as 'private'
: Note: transition should be defined in private state in which the players currently are.
: Note: this method can run action or args methods of the target state for specified player
: Note: this is usually used after some player actions to move to next private state

Example of usage:
<pre>
function someAction() {
$this->checkAction("someAction"); //needs to be defined in the current state
$this->gamestate->nextPrivateState($this->getCurrentPlayerId(), "some_transition");
}
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->unsetPrivateStateForAllPlayers()
: All players private state will be reset to null, which means they will get out of private parallel states and be in a master state like the private states are not used
: Note: game needs to be in a master state which allows private parallel states
: Note: this is usually used to clean up after leaving a master state in which private states were used, but can be used in other cases when we want to exit private parallel states and use a regular multiactive state for all players
: Note: After unseting private state only actions on master state are possible
: Note: Usually it is not necessary to unset private states as they will be initialized to first private state when private states are needed again. Nevertheless it is generally better to clean private state after exiting private parallel states to avoid bugs.

Example of usage:
<pre>
function stNextRound() {
$this->gamestate->unsetPrivateStateForAllPlayers();
}
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->unsetPrivateStateForPlayers($playerIds, $transition)
: For players with specified ids private state will be reset to null, which means they will get out of private parallel states and be in a master state like the private states are not used.
: Same considerations apply as for the method above.

; $this->gamestate->unsetPrivateState($playerId)
: For player with specified id private state will be reset to null, which means they will get out of private parallel states and be in a master state like the private states are not used
: Note: game needs to be in a master state which allows private parallel states
: Note: this is usually used when deactivating player to clean up their parallel state
: Note: After unseting private state only actions on master state are possible
: Note: Usually it is not necessary to unset private state as it will be initialized to first private state when private states are needed again. Nevertheless it is generally better to clean private state when not needed to avoid bugs.

Example of usage:
<pre>
function done() {
$this->gamestate->setPlayerNonMultiactive( $this->getCurrentPlayerId(), "newTurn" );
$this->gamestate->unsetPrivateState($this->getCurrentPlayerId());
}
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->setPrivateState($playerId, $newStateId)
: For player with specified id a new private state would be set
: Note: game needs to be in a master state which allows private parallel states
: Note: this should be rarely used as it doesn't check if the transition is allowed (it doesn't even specifies transition). This can be useful in very complex cases when standard state machine is not adequate (i.e. specific cards can lead to some micro action in various states where defining transitions back and forth can become very tedious.)
: Note: this method can run action or args methods of the target state for specified player

Example of usage:
<pre>
function someAction() {
$this->checkAction("someAction"); //needs to be defined in the current state

if ($playerHaveSpecificCard)
return $this->gamestate->setPrivateState($this->getCurrentPlayerId(), 35);

$this->gamestate->nextPrivateState($this->getCurrentPlayerId(), "some_transition");
}
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->getPrivateState($playerId)
: This return the private state or null if not initialized or not in private state

==== State Arguments in Private parallel states ====

The args method called for private states will have the player_id passed to it, allowing you to customise the arguments returned for that player.

Example of usage:
<pre>
function argMyPrivateState($player_id) {
return array(
'my_data' => $this->getPlayerSpecificData($player_id)
);
}
</pre>

==== Inactive Players ====

During Private Parallel State, active players will be managed by the private state that is current assigned to them.

Inactive players will be managed by the master multipleactiveplayer state, so your client should respond to that state in order to display any status message advising players that they are waiting for others to have their turn, or to add any buttons that allow players to potentially "break in" and become active.

== Players turn order ==

When table is created the "natural" player order is assigned to player at random, and stored in "read-only" field "player_no".
If you need to create a custom order you should never change natural order but have a separate data structure.
For example you can alter the players table to add another "custom_order" field, you can use state globals or you can use your natural board database,
to store meeple_color/position_location pair.
BGA currently does not provide any API to create/store custom player 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 1000, 2000 and 3000 are around the table, in this order, the method returns:
<pre>
array(
1000 => 2000,
2000 => 3000,
3000 => 1000,
0 => 1000
);
</pre>

'''getPrevPlayerTable()'''

Same as above, but the associative array associate the previous player around the table. However there no 0 index here.

'''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.

'''createNextPlayerTable( $players, $bLoop=true )'''

Using $players array creates a map of current => next as in example from getNextPlayerTable(), however you can use custom order here.
If parmeter $bLoop is set to true then last player will points to first (creaing a loop), false otherwise.
In any case index 0 points to first player (first element of $players array). $players is array of player ids in desired order.

Note: This function '''DOES NOT''' change the order in database, it only creates a map using key/values as descibed.

Example of usage:
<pre>
function getNextPlayerTableCustom() {
$starting = $this->getStartingPlayer(); // custom function to get starting player
$player_ids = $this->getPlayerIdsInOrder($starting); // custom function to create players array starting from starting player
return $this->createNextPlayerTable($player_ids, false); // create next player table in custom order
}
</pre>

<pre>
$table = $this->createNextPlayerTable([3000,2000,1000], false);

will return:
[
3000 => 2000,
2000 => 1000,
1000 => null,
0 => 3000
]
</pre>

== 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 ===

'''notifyAllPlayers(string $notification_type,string $notification_log,array $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.

Unless its empty, use "clienttranslate" method to make sure string is translated.

You can use arguments in your $notification_log string, that refers to values defines in the "$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 if it is not used explicitly by the game interface logic. If you want to send private information to a player, please use notifyPlayer below.

'''Important''': this array is serialized to be sent to the browsers, and will be saved with the notification to be able to replay the game later. If it is too big, it can make notifications slower / less reliable, and replay archives very big (to the point of failing). So as a general rule, you should send only the minimum of information necessary to update the client interface with no overhead in order to keep the notifications as light as possible.

'''Important''': When the game page is reloaded (i.e. F5 or when loading turn based game) all previous notifications are replayed as history notifications. These notifications do not trigger notification handlers and are used basically to build the game log. Because of that most of the notification arguments, except i18n, player_id and all arguments used in the message, are removed from these history notifications. If you need additional arguments in history notifications you can add special field <b>preserve</b> to notification arguments, like this:

<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,
'preserve' => [ 'x', 'y' ]
) );
</pre>
In this example, fields x and y will be preserved when replaying history notification at the game load.

NOTE: The ONLY reason 'preserve' is useful if you have custom method to render notifications (or logs) which changes some text arguments into html (i.e. to insert the images instead of plain text). Do not use preserve "just in case" - it will only bloat the logs and make game load VERY slow.

'''Important''': If both public and private notifications are sent to the same player in the same action (AJAX call), they will initially appear in the log in the order in which they were called, but they are placed into the game log in the following order: All private notifications first, then all public notifications. This means that when the page is refreshed, or when a player loads an asynchronous game, if you have called any public notifications ''before'' the last private notification, they will appear out of order in the log.

==== HTML in Notifications ====

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 a future version, old games replay 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 replay, 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]].

==== Recursive Notifications ====

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'] ]
]
]);

Special handling of arguments:
* ${player_name} - this will be wrapped in html and text shown using color of the corresponding player, some colors also have reserved background. This will apply recursively as well.
* ${player_name1}, ${player_name2}, ${player_name3}, etc. - same

==== Excluding some players ====

Sometimes you want to notify all players of a message but not have it appear in the log of specific players (for example, have every player see "Player X draws a card" but have Player X see "You draw the Ace of Spades").

To send a notification to all players but have some clients ignore it, send it as normal from the server, but implement '''setIgnoreNotificationCheck''' on the client to ignore the message under given conditions. See the [[Game_interface_logic:_yourgamename.js#Ignoring_notifications]] documentation for more details.

=== NotifyPlayer ===

'''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. If you want a second player name in the log, name the variable ${player_name2}, etc.

Note that spectators cannot be notified using this method, because their player ID is not available via loadPlayersBasicInfos() or otherwise. You must use notifyAllPlayers() for any notification that spectators should get.

== Randomization ==

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.

=== Dice and bga_rand ===

'''bga_rand( min, max )'''
This is a BGA framework function that provides you a random number between "min" and "max" (inclusive), 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.

As of now, bga_rand is based on the PHP function "random_int", which ensures 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".

=== Arrays ===

Although PHP's "shuffle()" is generally considered good enough (see below, BGA's own Deck component uses this), the following PHP code based on "random_int" provides a cryptographically-secure method to choose a random key, value, or slice of an array. (the slice preserves keys)

<pre>
private function getRandomKey(array &$array)
{
$size = count($array);
if ($size == 0) {
trigger_error("getRandomKey(): Array is empty", E_USER_WARNING);
return null;
}
$rand = random_int(0, $size - 1);
$slice = array_slice($array, $rand, 1, true);
foreach ($slice as $key => $value) {
return $key;
}
}

private function getRandomValue(array &$array)
{
$size = count($array);
if ($size == 0) {
trigger_error("getRandomValue(): Array is empty", E_USER_WARNING);
return null;
}
$rand = random_int(0, $size - 1);
$slice = array_slice($array, $rand, 1, true);
foreach ($slice as $key => $value) {
return $value;
}
}

private function getRandomSlice(array &$array, int $count)
{
$size = count($array);
if ($size == 0) {
trigger_error("getRandomSlice(): Array is empty", E_USER_WARNING);
return null;
}
if ($count < 1 || $count > $size) {
trigger_error("getRandomSlice(): Invalid count $count for array with size $size", E_USER_WARNING);
return null;
}
$slice = [];
$randUnique = [];
while (count($randUnique) < $count) {
$rand = random_int(0, $size - 1);
if (array_key_exists($rand, $randUnique)) {
continue;
}
$randUnique[$rand] = true;
$slice += array_slice($array, $rand, 1, true);
}
return $slice;
}
</pre>

=== 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 ensures that the best available shuffling method is used, and that if in the future we improve it your game will be up to date.

As of now, the Deck component shuffle method is based on PHP "shuffle" method, which has quite good randomness (even if not as good as bga_rand). In consequence, we accept other shuffling methods during reviews, as long as they 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" statistic is a statistic not associated to a player (global statistic for this game).

See [[Game statistics: stats.inc.php]] to see how you define 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 statistic of your game, in your setupNewGame method.
If you neglect to call this for a statistic, and also do not update the value during the course of a certain game using setStat or incStat, the value of the stat will be undefined rather than 0. This will result in it being ignored at the end of the game, as if it didn't apply to that particular game, and excluded from cumulative statistics. As a consequence - if do not want statistic to be applied, do not init it, or call set or inc on it.

'$table_or_player' must be set to "table" if this is a table statistic, or "player" if this is a player statistic.

'$name' is the name of your statistic, as it has been defined in your stats.inc.php file.

'$value' is the initial value of the statistic. If this is a player statistic and if the player is not specified by "$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.

See also [https://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/Game_meta-information:_gameinfos.inc.php#Multiple_tie_breaker_management Multiple Tie Breaker Management].

=== Co-operative game ===

To make everyone win/lose together in a full-coop game:

Add the following in gameinfos.inc.php :
'is_coop' => 1, // full cooperative

Assign a score of zero to everyone if it's a loss.
Assign the same score > 0 to everyone if it's a win.

=== Semi-coop ===

If the game is not full-coop, then everyone loses = everyone is tied. 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.inc.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 or zero 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 play and can start another game if he/she wants too (with 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.

'''Important:''' this should not be used on a player who has already left the game ("zombie") as leaving/being kicked of the game (outside of the scope of the rules) is not the same as being eliminated from the game (according to the rules), except if in the course of the game, the zombie player is eliminated according to the rules.

'''Important:''' When all surviving players are eliminated at the same time BGA framework causes the game to be abandoned automatically.
To circumvent this, the game should leave 1 player not eliminated but change final scores accordingly and end the game.

=== Scoring Helper functions ===

These functions should have been API but they are not, just add them to your php game and use for every game.

// 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).

; function isAsync()
: Returns true if game is turn based, false if it is realtime

== 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

Note: if you deploy undo support after game is in production this will take into effect for new games only, old games will give user an error if user choses Undo action, but otherwise it should not affect them.

; function undoSavepoint( )
: Save the whole game situation inside an "Undo save point".
: There is only ONE undo save point available (see [[BGA Undo policy]]). Cannot use in multiactivate state or in game state where next state is multiactive.
: Note: this function does not actually do anything when it is called, it only raises the flag to store the database AFTER transaction is over. So the actual state will be saved when you exit the function calling it (technically before first queued notification is sent, which matters if you transition to game state not to user state after), this may affect what you end up saving.

; 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).

function actionUndo() {
self::checkAction('actionUndo');
$this->undoRestorePoint();
$this->gamestate->nextState('next'); // transition to single player state (i.e. beginning of player actions for this turn)
}

'''Important note''': if you are reading game state variable right after restore (without changing state first) it won't work properly as the global table cache is not automatically refreshed after undoRestorePoint(). So you should either change state immediately to refresh game state values, or use $this->gamestate->reloadState() to refresh the state. If you choose to do the latest, be aware that this will bring the state machine back to the state during which the save point snapshot has been taken using undoSavepoint() (which means your transition you do after has to declared in the state which was saved, not in the state which was active for your actionUndo())

== 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 they are not allowed to do.
: The error message will be shown to the player as a "red message".
: The error message must be translated, make sure you use self::_() or $this->_() here and NOT clientranslate()
: 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.
* Do not try to end the game early, even in a two-player game. The zombie is there to allow the game to continue, not to end it. Trying to end the game is not supported by the framework and will likely cause unexpected errors.

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.

'''Very important''': your zombie code will be called when the player leaves the game. This action is triggered from the main site and propagated to the gameserver from a server, not from a browser. As a consequence, there is no current player associated to this action. In your zombieTurn function, you must '''never''' use getCurrentPlayerId() or getCurrentPlayerName(), otherwise it will fail with a "Not logged" error message.

== Player color preferences ==

BGA premium users may 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 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)
// NB: this parameter is used only to flag games supporting this feature; you must use (or not use) reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences PHP method to actually enable or disable the feature.
'favorite_colors_support' => true,

Then, on your main <your_game>.game.php file check the code of "setupNewGame". New template already have correct code, but if you editing very old game and it may be absent.

$gameinfos = $this->getGameinfos();
...
if ($gameinfos['favorite_colors_support'])
$this->reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences($players, $gameinfos['player_colors']); // this should be above reloadPlayersBasicInfos()
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.

Some important remarks:
* for some games (i.e. Chess), the color has an influence on a mechanism of the game, most of the time by giving a special advantage to a player (i.e. 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.

=== Custom color assignments ===
Some colors don't play nicely with BGA's color difference algorithm. If you receive feedback that colors are not well chosen, you can bypass the BGA algorithm by specifying a map from user preference colors to game colors.

For example, you may wish to assign BGA's blue to your game's baby blue: <code>"0000ff" /* Blue */ => "89CFF0",</code> whereas otherwise, a deep purple might be chosen instead. Just be sure that the assigned colors are also present in the <code>player_colors</code> array passed to <code>reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences</code>, otherwise the assignment will be ignored.

To do this, implement this method in your <code>X.game.php</code> class.

Note: the user preference colors (the keys in the returned array) should not be modified, or the code may not work as expected. These are the colors players can choose between in their profile.
/**
* Returns an array of user preference colors to game colors.
* Game colors must be among those which are passed to reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences()
* Each game color can be an array of suitable colors, or a single color:
* [
* // The first available color chosen:
* 'ff0000' => ['990000', 'aa1122'],
* // This color is chosen, if available
* '0000ff' => '000099',
* ]
* If no color can be matched from this array, then the default implementation is used.
*/
function getSpecificColorPairings(): array {
return array(
"ff0000" /* Red */ => null,
"008000" /* Green */ => null,
"0000ff" /* Blue */ => null,
"ffa500" /* Yellow */ => null,
"000000" /* Black */ => null,
"ffffff" /* White */ => null,
"e94190" /* Pink */ => null,
"982fff" /* Purple */ => null,
"72c3b1" /* Cyan */ => null,
"f07f16" /* Orange */ => null,
"bdd002" /* Khaki green */ => null,
"7b7b7b" /* Gray */ => null,
);
}

== Legacy games API ==

For some very specific games ("legacy", "campaign"), you need to keep some informations from a game to another.

This should be an exceptional situation: the legacy API is costing resources on Board Game Arena databases, and is slowing down the game setup process + game end of game process. Please do not use it for things like:
* keeping a player preference/settings (=> player preferences and game options should be used instead)
* keeping a statistics, a score, or a ranking, while it is not planned in the physical board game, or while there is no added value compared to BGA statistics / rankings.

You should use it for:
* legacy games: when some components of the game has been altered in a previous game and should be kept as it is.
* "campaign style" games: when a player is getting a "reward" at the end of a game, and should be able to use it in further games.

Important: you cannot store more than 64k of data (serialized as JSON) per player per game. If you go over 64k, storeLegacyData function is going to FAIL, and there is a risk to create a major bug (= players blocked) in your game. You MUST make sure that no more than 64k of data is used for each player for your game. For example, if you are implementing a "campaign style" game and if you allow a player to start multiple campaign, you must LIMIT the number of different campaign so that the total data size to not go over the limit. We strongly recommend you to use this:

try
{
$this->storeLegacyTeamData( $my_data );
}
catch( feException $e ) // feException is a base class of BgaSystemException and others...
{
if( $e->getCode() == FEX_legacy_size_exceeded )
{
// Do something here to free some space in Legacy data (ex: by removing some variables)
}
else
throw $e;
}

The keys may only contain letters and numbers, underscore seems not to be allowed.

; function storeLegacyData( $player_id, $key, $data, $ttl = 365 )
: Store some data associated with $key for the given user / current game
: In the opposite of all other game data, this data will PERSIST after the end of this table, and can be re-used
: in a future table with the same game.
: IMPORTANT: The only possible place where you can use this method is when the game is over at your table (last game action). Otherwise, there is a risk of conflicts between ongoing games.
: TTL is a time-to-live: the maximum, and default, is 365 days.
: In any way, the total data (= all keys) you can store for a given user+game is 64k (note: data is store serialized as JSON data)
: NOTICE: You can store some persistant data across all tables from your game using the specific player_id 0 which is unused. In such case, it's even more important to manage correctly the size of your data to avoid any exception or issue while storing updated data (ie. you can use this for some kind of leaderbord for solo game or contest)
: Note: This function cannot be called during game setup (will throw an error).

; function retrieveLegacyData( $player_id, $key )
: Get data associated with $key for the current game
: This data is common to ALL tables from the same game for this player, and persist from one table to another.
: Note: calling this function has an important cost => please call it few times (possibly: only ONCE) for each player for 1 game if possible
: Note: you can use '%' in $key to retrieve all keys matching the given patterns

; function removeLegacyData( $player_id, $key )
: Remove some legacy data with the given key
: (useful to free some data to avoid going over 64k)

; function storeLegacyTeamData( $data, $ttl = 365 )
: Same as storeLegacyData, except that it stores some data for the whole team within the current table and does not use a key
: Ie: if players A, B and C are at a table, the legacy data will be saved for future table with (exactly) A, B and C on the table.
: This is useful for games which are intended to be played several time by the same team.
: Note: the data total size is still limited, so you must implement catch the FEX_legacy_size_exceeded exception if it happens

; function retrieveLegacyTeamData()
: Same as retrieveLegacyData, except that it retrieves some data for the whole team within the current table (set by storeLegacyTeamData)

; function removeLegacyTeamData()
: Same as removeLegacyData, except that it retrieves some data for the whole team within the current table (set by storeLegacyTeamData)

== Players text input and moderation ==
This section concerns only games where the players have to write some words to play: games based on words, like "Just one" or "Codenames".

Some players will use your game to write insults or profanities. As this is part of the game and not in the game chat, these words cannot be reported by players and moderated.

If you met the following situation:

* You are asking a player to type a text (word(s) or sentence)
* The player can enter any text (this is not a pre-selection or anything you can control)
* This text is visible by at least one other player

Then, you must use the following method:

'''function logTextForModeration( $player_id, $text )'''

player_id = player who write the text

text = text that has been written

This function will have no visible consequence for your game, but will allow players to report the text to moderators if something happens.

== Language dependent games API ==

This API is used for games that are heavily language dependent. Two most common use cases are:
* Games that have a language dependent component that are not necessarily translatable, typically a list of words. (Think of games like Codenames, Decrypto, Just One...)
* Games with massive communication where players would like to ensure that all participants speak the same language. (Think of games like Werewolf, The Resistance, maybe even dixit...)

If this option is used, the table created will be limited only to users that have specific language in their profile. Player starting the game would be able to chose one of the languages they speak.

There is a new property language_dependency in gameinfos.inc.php which can be set like this:
'language_dependency' => false, //or if the property is missing, the game is not language dependent
'language_dependency' => true, //all players at the table must speak the same language
'language_dependency' => array( 1 => 'en', 2 => 'fr', 3 => 'it' ), //1-based list of supported languages

In the gamename.game.php file, you can get the id of selected language with the method '''getGameLanguage'''.
; function getGameLanguage()
: Returns an index of the selected language as defined in gameinfos.inc.php.

Languages currently available on BGA are:
'ar' => array( 'name' => "العربية", 'code' => 'ar_AE' ), // Arabic
'be' => array( 'name' => "беларуская мова", 'code' => 'be_BY' ), // Belarusian
'bn' => array( 'name' => "বাংলা", 'code' => 'bn_BD' ), // Bengali
'bg' => array( 'name' => "български език", 'code' => 'bg_BG' ), // Bulgarian
'ca' => array( 'name' => "català", 'code' => 'ca_ES' ), // Catalan
'cs' => array( 'name' => "čeština", 'code' => 'cs_CZ' ), // Czech
'da' => array( 'name' => "dansk", 'code' => 'da_DK' ), // Danish
'de' => array( 'name' => "deutsch", 'code' => 'de_DE' ), // German
'el' => array( 'name' => "Ελληνικά", 'code' => 'el_GR' ), // Greek
'en' => array( 'name' => "English", 'code' => 'en_US' ), // English
'es' => array( 'name' => "español", 'code' => 'es_ES' ), // Spanish
'et' => array( 'name' => "eesti keel", 'code' => 'et_EE' ), // Estonian
'fi' => array( 'name' => "suomi", 'code' => 'fi_FI' ), // Finnish
'fr' => array( 'name' => "français", 'code' => 'fr_FR' ), // French
'he' => array( 'name' => "עברית", 'code' => 'he_IL' ), // Hebrew
'hi' => array( 'name' => "हिन्दी", 'code' => 'hi_IN' ), // Hindi
'hr' => array( 'name' => "Hrvatski", 'code' => 'hr_HR' ), // Croatian
'hu' => array( 'name' => "magyar", 'code' => 'hu_HU' ), // Hungarian
'id' => array( 'name' => "Bahasa Indonesia", 'code' => 'id_ID' ), // Indonesian
'ms' => array( 'name' => "Bahasa Malaysia", 'code' => 'ms_MY' ), // Malaysian
'it' => array( 'name' => "italiano", 'code' => 'it_IT' ), // Italian
'ja' => array( 'name' => "日本語", 'code' => 'ja_JP' ), // Japanese
'jv' => array( 'name' => "Basa Jawa", 'code' => 'jv_JV' ), // Javanese
'ko' => array( 'name' => "한국어", 'code' => 'ko_KR' ), // Korean
'lt' => array( 'name' => "lietuvių", 'code' => 'lt_LT' ), // Lithuanian
'lv' => array( 'name' => "latviešu", 'code' => 'lv_LV' ), // Latvian
'nl' => array( 'name' => "nederlands", 'code' => 'nl_NL' ), // Dutch
'no' => array( 'name' => "norsk", 'code' => 'nb_NO' ), // Norwegian
'oc' => array( 'name' => "occitan", 'code' => 'oc_FR' ), // Occitan
'pl' => array( 'name' => "polski", 'code' => 'pl_PL' ), // Polish
'pt' => array( 'name' => "português", 'code' => 'pt_PT' ), // Portuguese
'ro' => array( 'name' => "română", 'code' => 'ro_RO' ), // Romanian
'ru' => array( 'name' => "Русский язык", 'code' => 'ru_RU' ), // Russian
'sk' => array( 'name' => "slovenčina", 'code' => 'sk_SK' ), // Slovak
'sl' => array( 'name' => "slovenščina", 'code' => 'sl_SI' ), // Slovenian
'sr' => array( 'name' => "Српски", 'code' => 'sr_RS' ), // Serbian
'sv' => array( 'name' => "svenska", 'code' => 'sv_SE' ), // Swedish
'tr' => array( 'name' => "Türkçe", 'code' => 'tr_TR' ), // Turkish
'uk' => array( 'name' => "Українська мова", 'code' => 'uk_UA' ), // Ukrainian
'zh' => array( 'name' => "中文 (漢)", 'code' => 'zh_TW' ), // Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan)
'zh-cn' => array( 'name' => "中文 (汉)", 'code' => 'zh_CN' ), // Simplified Chinese (Mainland China, Singapore)

== 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.

[[Category:Studio]]

Main game logic: Game.php

2024-03-29T01:58:13Z

Benjaminarjun: /* Use globals */ - fix typos

{{Studio_Framework_Navigation}}

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.

This is the main class that implements the "server" callbacks. As it is a server it cannot initiate any data communicate with the game client (running in browser) and only can respond to client using notifications.

Your php class instance won't be in memory between two callbacks, every time client send a request a new class will be created, constructor will be called and eventually your callback function.

== 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:

* '''__construct''': the game constructor, where you define global variables and initiaze class members.
* '''setupNewGame''': initial setup of the game. Takes an array of players, indexed by player_id. Structure of each player includes player_name, player_canal, player_avatar, and flags indicating admin/ai/premium/order/language/beginner.
* '''getAllDatas''': where you retrieve all game data during a complete reload of the game. Return value must be associative array. Value of 'players' is reserved for returning players data from players table, if you set it it must follow certain rules
$result ['players'] = self::getCollectionFromDb("SELECT player_id id, player_score score, player_no no, player_color color FROM player");
// Returned value must include ['players'][$player_id]]['score'] for scores to populate when F5 is pressed.
* '''getGameProgression''': where you compute the game progression indicator. Returns a number indicating percent of progression (0-100). Used to calculate ELO changes of remaining players when a player quits, or as a conceding requirement (in non-tournament 2 player games, a player may concede if the progression is at least 50%).
* Utility functions: your utility functions.
* Player actions: the entry points for players actions ([https://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/Players_actions:_yourgamename.action.php more info here]).
* 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]).
* '''initTable''': (not part of template) - this function is called for every php callback by the framework and it can be implement by the game (empty by default). You can use it in rare cases where you need to read database and manipulate some data before any ANY php entry functions are called (such as getAllDatas,action*,st*, etc). Note: it is not called before arg* methods
* '''zombieTurn''': what to do it's the turn of a zombie player.
* '''upgradeTableDb''': function to migrate database if you change it after release on production.
* '''getGameName''': returns the game name. This will be setup when you create the project. If you are copying files in from another project, make sure you keep this function intact. It must return the right game name, or lots of things will be broken.

== 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 the beggining of setupNewGame (use count($players) instead). It will work after initialization of player table.

; 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.

; getPlayerNameById($player_id)
: Get the name by id

; getPlayerColorById($player_id)
: Get the color by id

; getPlayerNoById($player_id)
: Get 'player_no' (number) by id

; 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 (as string)
: * player_no - the position of the player at the start of the game in natural table order, i.e. 1,2,3

<pre>
$players = $this->loadPlayersBasicInfos();
foreach ($players as $player_id => $info) {
$player_color = $info['player_color'];
...
}
</pre>
Note: if you want array of player ids only you can do this:
$player_ids = array_keys($this->loadPlayersBasicInfos());

; getCurrentPlayerId(bool $bReturnNullIfNotLogged = false) int
: 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.
: '''Very important''': in your setupNewGame and zombieTurn function, you must never use getCurrentPlayerId() or getCurrentPlayerName(),
: otherwise it will fail with a "Not logged" error message (these actions are triggered from the main site and propagated to the gameserver from a server, not from a browser. As a consequence, there is no current player associated to these actions).

; getCurrentPlayerName(bool $bReturnEmptyIfNotLogged = false) string
: Get the "current_player" name.
: Note: this will throw an exception if current player is not at the table, i.e. spectator
: Be careful using this method (see above).

; getCurrentPlayerColor()
: Get the "current_player" color.
: Note: this will throw an exception if current player is not at the table, i.e. spectator
: 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.
: Note: this will throw an exception if current player is not at the table, i.e. spectator

; isSpectator()
: Check the "current_player" spectator status. If true, the user accessing the game is a spectator (not part of the game). For this user, the interface should display all public information, and no private information (like a friend sitting at the same table as players and just spectating the game).

; getActivePlayerColor()
: This function does not seems to exist in API, if you need it here is implementation
function getActivePlayerColor() {
$player_id = self::getActivePlayerId();
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
if (isset($players[$player_id]))
return $players[$player_id]['player_color'];
else
return null;
}
; isPlayerZombie($player_id)
: This method does not exists, but if you need it it looks like this
protected function isPlayerZombie($player_id) {
$players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
if (! isset($players[$player_id]))
throw new BgaSystemException("Player $player_id is not playing here");

return ($players[$player_id]['player_zombie'] == 1);
}

== 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 (web request, not database request). 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. This also means that you need not (and in fact cannot) use your own transactions for multiple related database operations.

However there are sets of database operation that will do implicit commit (most common mistake is to use "TRUNCATE"), you cannot use these operations during the game, it breaks the unrolling of transactions and will lead to nasty issues
(https://mariadb.com/kb/en/sql-statements-that-cause-an-implicit-commit).

All methods below are part of game class (and view class) and can be accessed using $this-> or self::

; DbQuery( string $sql )
: This is the generic method to access the database.
: It can execute any type of SELECT/UPDATE/DELETE/REPLACE/INSERT query on the database. Returns result of the query.
: For SELECT queries, the specialized methods below are much better.
: Do not use method for TUNCATE, DROP and other table altering operations. See disclamer above about implicit commits. If you really need TRUNCATE use DELETE FROM xxx instead.

; getUniqueValueFromDB( string $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( string $sql, bool $bSingleValue=false ) array
: 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 is an associative array with all the field specified in the SELECT query and associated values.
: First column must be a primary or alternate key (semantically, it does not actually have to declared in sql as such).
: The resulting collection can be empty (it won't be null).
: If you specified $bSingleValue=true and if your SQL query requests 2 fields A and B, the method returns an associative array "A=>B", otherwise its A=>[A,B]
: Note: The name a bit misleading, it really return associative array, i.e. map and NOT a collection. You cannot use it to get list of values which may have duplicates (hence primary key requirement on first column). If you need simple array use getObjectListFromDB() method.

Example 1:
<pre>
$result = self::getCollectionFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name, player_score score FROM player" );

Result:
[
1234 => [ 'id'=>1234, 'name'=>'myuser0', 'score'=>1 ],
1235 => [ 'id'=>1235, 'name'=>'myuser1', 'score'=>0 ]
]
</pre>

Example 2:
<pre>
$result = self::getCollectionFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name FROM player", true );

Result:
[
1234 => 'myuser0',
1235 => 'myuser1'
]

</pre>

; getNonEmptyCollectionFromDB(string $sql) array
: Same as getCollectionFromDB($sdl), but raise an exception if the collection is empty. Note: this function does NOT have 2nd argument as previous one does.

; getObjectFromDB(string $sql) array
: Returns one row for the sql SELECT query as an associative array or null if there is no result (where fields are keys mapped to values)
: Raise an exception if the query return more than one row (you can use LIMIT 1 in the query to avoid the exception)

Example:
<pre>
$result = self::getObjectFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name, player_score score FROM player WHERE player_id='$player_id'" );

Result:
[
'id'=>1234, 'name'=>'myuser0', 'score'=>1
]
</pre>

; getNonEmptyObjectFromDB(string $sql) array
: Similar to previous one, but raise an exception if no row is found

; getObjectListFromDB(string $sql, bool $bUniqueValue=false) array
: Return an array of rows for a sql SELECT query.
: The result is the same as "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>
$result = self::getObjectListFromDB( "SELECT player_id id, player_name name, player_score score FROM player" );

Result:
[
[ 'id'=>1234, 'name'=>'myuser0', 'score'=>1 ],
[ 'id'=>1235, 'name'=>'myuser1', 'score'=>0 ]
]
</pre>

Example 2:
<pre>
$result = self::getObjectListFromDB( "SELECT player_name name FROM player", true );

Result:
[
'myuser0',
'myuser1'
]

</pre>

; getDoubleKeyCollectionFromDB(string $sql, bool $bSingleValue=false) array
: 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() int
: Return the number of row affected by the last operation

; escapeStringForDB(string $string) 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.

All methods below are members of the game class and should be accessed via $this-> or self::

'''initGameStateLabels(array $labelsMap): void'''

This method should be located at the beginning of constructor of ''yourgamename.game.php''. This is where you define the globals used in your game logic, by assigning them IDs.

You can define up to 80 globals, with IDs from 10 to 89 (inclusive, there can be gaps).
Also you must use this method to access value of game options [[Game_options_and_preferences:_gameoptions.inc.php]], in that case, IDs need to be between 100 and 199.
You must '''not''' use globals outside the range defined above, as those values are used by other components of the framework.

<pre>
function __construct() {
parent::__construct();
$this->initGameStateLabels([
"my_first_global_variable" => 10,
"my_second_global_variable" => 11,
"my_game_variant" => 100
]);
// other code ...
}
</pre>

NOTE: The methods below WILL throw an exception if label is not defined using the call above.

'''setGameStateInitialValue( string $label, int $value ): void'''

Initialize global value. This is not required if you ok with default value if 0. This should be called from setupNewGame function.

'''getGameStateValue( string $label, int $default = 0): int'''

Retrieve the value of a global. Returns $default if global is not been initialized (by setGameStateInitialValue).

NOTE: this method use globals "cache" if you directly manipulated globals table OR call this function after undoRestorePoint() - it won't work as expected.

<pre>
$value = $this->getGameStateValue('my_first_global_variable');
</pre>

For debugging purposes, you can have labels and value pairs send to client side by inserting that code in your "getAllDatas":

<pre>
$labels = array_keys($this->mygamestatelabels);
$result['myglobals'] = array_combine($labels, array_map([$this,'getGameStateValue'],$labels));
</pre>

That assumes you stored your label mapping in $this->mygamestatelabels in constructor
<pre>
$this->mygamestatelabels=["my_first_global_variable" => 10, ...];
$this->initGameStateLabels($this->mygamestatelabels);
</pre>

'''setGameStateValue( string $label, int $value ): void'''

Set the current value of a global.
<pre>
$this->setGameStateValue('my_first_global_variable', 42);
</pre>

'''incGameStateValue( string $label, int $increment ): int'''

Increment the current value of a global. If increment is negative, decrement the value of the global.

Return the final value of the global. If global was not initialized it will initialize it as 0.

NOTE: this method use globals "cache" if you directly manipulated globals table OR call this function after undoRestorePoint() - it won't work as expected.

<pre>
$value = $this->incGameStateValue('my_first_global_variable', 1);
</pre>

=== BGA predefined globals ===

BGA already defines some globals in the ''global'' database table. You should not change them directly but it can be useful to know what they mean when debugging:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! global_id !! label !! Meaning
|-
| 1 || || Current state
|-
| 2 || || Active player id
|-
| 3 || next_move_id || Next move number
|-
| 4 || || Game id
|-
| 5 || || Table creator id
|-
| 6 || playerturn_nbr || Player turn number
|-
| 7 || gameprogression || Game progression
|-
| 8 || initial_reflexion_time || Initial reflection time
|-
| 9 || additional_reflexion_time || Additional reflection time
|-
| 200 || reflexion_time_profile || Reflexion time profile
|-
| 201 || bgaranking_mode || BGA ranking mode
|-
| 207 || game_language ||GAMESTATE_GAME_LANG
|-
| 300 || game_db_version ||GAMESTATE_GAMEVERSION: Current version of the game (when in production)
|-
| 301 || game_result_neutralized ||GAMESTATE_GAME_RESULT_NEUTRALIZED
|-
| 302 || neutralized_player_id ||GAMESTATE_NEUTRALIZED_PLAYER_ID
|-
| 304 || undo_moves_stored ||GAMESTATE_UNDO_MOVES_STORED
|-
| 305 || undo_moves_player ||GAMESTATE_UNDO_MOVES_PLAYER
|-
| 306 || lock_screen_timestamp ||GAMESTATE_LOCK_TIMESTAMP
|}

== Game states and active players ==

=== Activate player handling ===

; $this->activeNextPlayer()
: Make the next player active in the natural player order.
: Note: you CANNOT 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 CANNOT 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 CANNOT 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 "multipleactiveplayer"
: Note: avoid using this method in a "multipleactiveplayer" state because it does not mean anything.

=== Multiple activate player handling ===

; $this->gamestate->setAllPlayersMultiactive()
: All playing players are made active. Update notification is sent to all players (this will trigger '''onUpdateActionButtons''').
: Usually, you use this method at the beginning of a game state (e.g., "stGameState") which transitions to a ''multipleactiveplayer'' state in which multiple players have to perform some action. Do not use this method if you going to make some more changes in the active player list. (I.e., if you want to take away multipleactiveplayer status immediately afterwards, use setPlayersMultiactive instead.)

Example of usage:
<pre>
function st_MultiPlayerInit() {
$this->gamestate->setAllPlayersMultiactive();
}
</pre>

; $this->stMakeEveryoneActive()
:this method can be used in state machine to make everybody active as "st" method of multiplayeractive state, it just calls $this->gamestate->setAllPlayersMultiactive()

This is to be used in state declaration:
<pre>
2 => array(
"name" => "playerTurnPlace",
"description" => clienttranslate('Other player must place ships'),
"descriptionmyturn" => clienttranslate('${you} must place ships (click on YOUR SHIPS board to place)'),
"type" => "multipleactiveplayer",
'action' => 'stMakeEveryoneActive',
'args' => 'arg_playerTurnPlace',
"possibleactions" => array( "actionBla" ),
"transitions" => array( "next" => 4, "last" => 99)
),
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->setAllPlayersNonMultiactive( $next_state )
: All playing players are made inactive. Transition to next state

; $this->gamestate->setPlayersMultiactive( $players, $next_state, $bExclusive = false )
: Make a specific list of players active during a multiactive gamestate. Update notification is sent to all players whose state changed.
: "players" is the array of player id that should be made active. If "players" is not empty the value of "next_state" will be ignored (you can put whatever you want)
: If "bExclusive" parameter is not set or false it doesn't deactivate other previously active players. If its set to true, the players who will be multiactive at the end are only these in "$players" 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, $next_state )
: During a multiactive game state, make the specified player inactive.
: Usually, you call this method during a multiactive game state after a player did his action. It is also possible to call it directly from multiplayer action handler.
: If this player was the last active player, the method trigger the "next_state" transition to go to the next game state.
: returns true if state transition happened, false otherwise
Example of usage (see state declaration of playerTurnPlace above):
<pre>
function actionBla($args) {
self::checkAction('actionBla');
// handle the action using $this->getCurrentPlayerId()
$this->gamestate->setPlayerNonMultiactive( $this->getCurrentPlayerId(), 'next');
}
</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.

; $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>

; updating database manually
: Use this helper function to change multiactive state without sending notification
<pre>
/**
* Changes values of multiactivity in db, does not sent notifications.
* To send notifications after use updateMultiactiveOrNextState
* @param number $player_id, player id <=0 or null - means ALL
* @param number $value - 1 multiactive, 0 non multiactive
*/
function dbSetPlayerMultiactive($player_id = -1, $value = 1) {
if (! $value)
$value = 0;
else
$value = 1;
$sql = "UPDATE player SET player_is_multiactive = '$value' WHERE player_zombie = 0 and player_eliminated = 0";
if ($player_id > 0) {
$sql .= " AND player_id = $player_id";
}
self::DbQuery($sql);
}
</pre>

;$this->gamestate->isPlayerActive($player_id)
:Return true if specified player is active right now.
:This method take into account game state type, ie nobody is active if game state is "game" and several players can be active if game state is "multiplayer"

;$this->bIndependantMultiactiveTable
:This flag can be set to true in constructor of game.php to force creation of second table to handle multiplayer states (normally these are in player table), this is very advanced feature.
:ONLY use it after you deploy you game to production if you receive unusual amount of bug report with dead lock symptoms DURING multiactiveplayer states
function __construct() {
...
$this->bIndependantMultiactiveTable=true;
}

=== 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.

'''$this->gamestate->jumpToState($stateNum)'''
: Change current state to a new state. Important: the $stateNum parameter is the key of the state. See [[Your game state machine: states.inc.php]] for more information about states.
: Note: this is very advanced method, it should not be used in normal cases. Specific advanced cases include - jumping to specific state from "do_anytime" actions, jumping to dispatcher state or jumping to recovery state from zombie player function

; $this->checkAction( $actionName, $bThrowException=true )
: Check if the current player can perform a specific action in the current game state, and optionally throw an exception if they can'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. It should not be called from methods where the current player is not necessarily the active player, otherwise it may fail with an "It is not your turn" exception.
: 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.
: '''Note: This does NOT check either spectator or eliminated status, so those checks must be done manually.'''
: 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 is how PHP action looks that returns player to active state (only for multiplayeractive states). To be able to execute this on client do not call checkAction on js side for this specific action.

function actionUnpass() {
$this->gamestate->checkPossibleAction('actionUnpass'); // player changed mind about passing while others were thinking
$this->gamestate->setPlayersMultiactive(array ($this->getCurrentPlayerId() ), 'error', false);
}

; $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' ) {...}

I suggest to define and use this function in your php class to access state name:

public function getStateName() {
$state = $this->gamestate->state();
return $state['name'];
}

; $this->gamestate->state_id()
: Get the id of the current game state (rarely useful, its best to use name, unless you use constants for state ids)

; $this->gamestate->isMutiactiveState()
: Return true if we are in multipleactiveplayer state, false otherwise

=== Private parallel states ===

See the overview of private parallel states [[Your_game_state_machine:_states.inc.php#Private_parallel_states|here]].

; $this->gamestate->initializePrivateStateForAllActivePlayers()
: All active players in a multiactive state are entering a first private state defined in the master state's initialprivate parameter.
: Every time you need to start a private parallel states you need to call this or similar methods below.
: Note: at least one player needs to be active (see [[#Multiple_activate_player_handling|above]]) and current game state must be a multiactive state with initialprivate parameter defined
: Note: initialprivate parameter of master state should be set to the id of the first private state. This private state needs to be defined in states.php with the type set to 'private'.
: Note: this method is usually preceded with activating some or all players
: Note: initializing private state can run action or args methods of the initial private state

Example of usage:
<pre>
function stStartPlayerTurn() {
// This is usually done in master state action method

$this->gamestate->setAllPlayersMultiactive();
$this->gamestate->initializePrivateStateForAllActivePlayers();

// in some cases you can move immediately some or all players to different private states
if ($someCondition) {
//move all players to different state
$this->gamestate->nextPrivateStateForAllActivePlayers("some_transition");
}

if ($other condition) {
//move single player to different state
$this->gamestate->nextPrivateState($specificPlayerId, "some_transition");
}
}
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->initializePrivateStateForPlayers($playerIds)
: Players with specified ids are entering a first private state defined in the master state initialprivate parameter.
: Same considerations apply as for the method above.

; $this->gamestate->initializePrivateState($playerId)
: Player with the specified id is entering a first private state defined in the master state initialprivate parameter.
: Everytime you need to start a private parallel states you need to call this or similar methods above
: Note: player needs to be active (see [[#Multiple_activate_player_handling|above]]) and current game state must be a multiactive state with initialprivate parameter defined
: Note: initialprivate parameter of master state should be set to the id of the first private state. This private state needs to be defined in states.php with the type set to 'private'.
: Note: this method is usually preceded with activating that player
: Note: initializing private state can run action or args methods of the initial private state

Example of usage:
<pre>
function st_ChangeMind() {
// This player finished his move before, but now decides change something while other players are still active
// We activate the player and initialize his private state
$this->gamestate->setPlayersMultiactive([$this->getCurrentPlayerId()], "");
$this->gamestate->initializePrivateState(this->getCurrentPlayerId());

// It is also possible to move the player to some other specific state immediately
$this->gamestate->nextPrivateState($this->getCurrentPlayerId(), "some_transition");
}
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->nextPrivateStateForAllActivePlayers($transition)
: All active players will transition to next private state by specified transition
: Note: game needs to be in a master state which allows private parallel states
: Note: transition should lead to another private state (i.e. a state with type defined as 'private'
: Note: transition should be defined in private state in which the players currently are.
: Note: this method can run action or args methods of the target state
: Note: this is usually used after initializing the private state to move players to specific private state according to the game logic

Example of usage:
<pre>
function stStartPlayerTurn() {
// This is usually done in master state action method
$this->gamestate->setAllPlayersMultiactive();
$this->gamestate->initializePrivateStateForAllActivePlayers();

if ($specificOption) {
//move all players to different state
$this->gamestate->nextPrivateStateForAllActivePlayers("some_transition");
}
}
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->nextPrivateStateForPlayers($playerIds, $transition)
: Players with specified ids will transition to next private state specified by provided transition.
: Same considerations apply as for the method above.

; $this->gamestate->nextPrivateState($playerId, $transition)
: Player with specified id will transition to next private state specified by provided transition
: Note: game needs to be in a master state which allows private parallel states
: Note: transition should lead to another private state (i.e. a state with type defined as 'private'
: Note: transition should be defined in private state in which the players currently are.
: Note: this method can run action or args methods of the target state for specified player
: Note: this is usually used after some player actions to move to next private state

Example of usage:
<pre>
function someAction() {
$this->checkAction("someAction"); //needs to be defined in the current state
$this->gamestate->nextPrivateState($this->getCurrentPlayerId(), "some_transition");
}
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->unsetPrivateStateForAllPlayers()
: All players private state will be reset to null, which means they will get out of private parallel states and be in a master state like the private states are not used
: Note: game needs to be in a master state which allows private parallel states
: Note: this is usually used to clean up after leaving a master state in which private states were used, but can be used in other cases when we want to exit private parallel states and use a regular multiactive state for all players
: Note: After unseting private state only actions on master state are possible
: Note: Usually it is not necessary to unset private states as they will be initialized to first private state when private states are needed again. Nevertheless it is generally better to clean private state after exiting private parallel states to avoid bugs.

Example of usage:
<pre>
function stNextRound() {
$this->gamestate->unsetPrivateStateForAllPlayers();
}
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->unsetPrivateStateForPlayers($playerIds, $transition)
: For players with specified ids private state will be reset to null, which means they will get out of private parallel states and be in a master state like the private states are not used.
: Same considerations apply as for the method above.

; $this->gamestate->unsetPrivateState($playerId)
: For player with specified id private state will be reset to null, which means they will get out of private parallel states and be in a master state like the private states are not used
: Note: game needs to be in a master state which allows private parallel states
: Note: this is usually used when deactivating player to clean up their parallel state
: Note: After unseting private state only actions on master state are possible
: Note: Usually it is not necessary to unset private state as it will be initialized to first private state when private states are needed again. Nevertheless it is generally better to clean private state when not needed to avoid bugs.

Example of usage:
<pre>
function done() {
$this->gamestate->setPlayerNonMultiactive( $this->getCurrentPlayerId(), "newTurn" );
$this->gamestate->unsetPrivateState($this->getCurrentPlayerId());
}
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->setPrivateState($playerId, $newStateId)
: For player with specified id a new private state would be set
: Note: game needs to be in a master state which allows private parallel states
: Note: this should be rarely used as it doesn't check if the transition is allowed (it doesn't even specifies transition). This can be useful in very complex cases when standard state machine is not adequate (i.e. specific cards can lead to some micro action in various states where defining transitions back and forth can become very tedious.)
: Note: this method can run action or args methods of the target state for specified player

Example of usage:
<pre>
function someAction() {
$this->checkAction("someAction"); //needs to be defined in the current state

if ($playerHaveSpecificCard)
return $this->gamestate->setPrivateState($this->getCurrentPlayerId(), 35);

$this->gamestate->nextPrivateState($this->getCurrentPlayerId(), "some_transition");
}
</pre>

; $this->gamestate->getPrivateState($playerId)
: This return the private state or null if not initialized or not in private state

==== State Arguments in Private parallel states ====

The args method called for private states will have the player_id passed to it, allowing you to customise the arguments returned for that player.

Example of usage:
<pre>
function argMyPrivateState($player_id) {
return array(
'my_data' => $this->getPlayerSpecificData($player_id)
);
}
</pre>

==== Inactive Players ====

During Private Parallel State, active players will be managed by the private state that is current assigned to them.

Inactive players will be managed by the master multipleactiveplayer state, so your client should respond to that state in order to display any status message advising players that they are waiting for others to have their turn, or to add any buttons that allow players to potentially "break in" and become active.

== Players turn order ==

When table is created the "natural" player order is assigned to player at random, and stored in "read-only" field "player_no".
If you need to create a custom order you should never change natural order but have a separate data structure.
For example you can alter the players table to add another "custom_order" field, you can use state globals or you can use your natural board database,
to store meeple_color/position_location pair.
BGA currently does not provide any API to create/store custom player 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 1000, 2000 and 3000 are around the table, in this order, the method returns:
<pre>
array(
1000 => 2000,
2000 => 3000,
3000 => 1000,
0 => 1000
);
</pre>

'''getPrevPlayerTable()'''

Same as above, but the associative array associate the previous player around the table. However there no 0 index here.

'''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.

'''createNextPlayerTable( $players, $bLoop=true )'''

Using $players array creates a map of current => next as in example from getNextPlayerTable(), however you can use custom order here.
If parmeter $bLoop is set to true then last player will points to first (creaing a loop), false otherwise.
In any case index 0 points to first player (first element of $players array). $players is array of player ids in desired order.

Note: This function '''DOES NOT''' change the order in database, it only creates a map using key/values as descibed.

Example of usage:
<pre>
function getNextPlayerTableCustom() {
$starting = $this->getStartingPlayer(); // custom function to get starting player
$player_ids = $this->getPlayerIdsInOrder($starting); // custom function to create players array starting from starting player
return $this->createNextPlayerTable($player_ids, false); // create next player table in custom order
}
</pre>

<pre>
$table = $this->createNextPlayerTable([3000,2000,1000], false);

will return:
[
3000 => 2000,
2000 => 1000,
1000 => null,
0 => 3000
]
</pre>

== 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 ===

'''notifyAllPlayers(string $notification_type,string $notification_log,array $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.

Unless its empty, use "clienttranslate" method to make sure string is translated.

You can use arguments in your $notification_log string, that refers to values defines in the "$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 if it is not used explicitly by the game interface logic. If you want to send private information to a player, please use notifyPlayer below.

'''Important''': this array is serialized to be sent to the browsers, and will be saved with the notification to be able to replay the game later. If it is too big, it can make notifications slower / less reliable, and replay archives very big (to the point of failing). So as a general rule, you should send only the minimum of information necessary to update the client interface with no overhead in order to keep the notifications as light as possible.

'''Important''': When the game page is reloaded (i.e. F5 or when loading turn based game) all previous notifications are replayed as history notifications. These notifications do not trigger notification handlers and are used basically to build the game log. Because of that most of the notification arguments, except i18n, player_id and all arguments used in the message, are removed from these history notifications. If you need additional arguments in history notifications you can add special field <b>preserve</b> to notification arguments, like this:

<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,
'preserve' => [ 'x', 'y' ]
) );
</pre>
In this example, fields x and y will be preserved when replaying history notification at the game load.

NOTE: The ONLY reason 'preserve' is useful if you have custom method to render notifications (or logs) which changes some text arguments into html (i.e. to insert the images instead of plain text). Do not use preserve "just in case" - it will only bloat the logs and make game load VERY slow.

'''Important''': If both public and private notifications are sent to the same player in the same action (AJAX call), they will initially appear in the log in the order in which they were called, but they are placed into the game log in the following order: All private notifications first, then all public notifications. This means that when the page is refreshed, or when a player loads an asynchronous game, if you have called any public notifications ''before'' the last private notification, they will appear out of order in the log.

==== HTML in Notifications ====

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 a future version, old games replay 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 replay, 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]].

==== Recursive Notifications ====

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'] ]
]
]);

Special handling of arguments:
* ${player_name} - this will be wrapped in html and text shown using color of the corresponding player, some colors also have reserved background. This will apply recursively as well.
* ${player_name1}, ${player_name2}, ${player_name3}, etc. - same

==== Excluding some players ====

Sometimes you want to notify all players of a message but not have it appear in the log of specific players (for example, have every player see "Player X draws a card" but have Player X see "You draw the Ace of Spades").

To send a notification to all players but have some clients ignore it, send it as normal from the server, but implement '''setIgnoreNotificationCheck''' on the client to ignore the message under given conditions. See the [[Game_interface_logic:_yourgamename.js#Ignoring_notifications]] documentation for more details.

=== NotifyPlayer ===

'''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. If you want a second player name in the log, name the variable ${player_name2}, etc.

Note that spectators cannot be notified using this method, because their player ID is not available via loadPlayersBasicInfos() or otherwise. You must use notifyAllPlayers() for any notification that spectators should get.

== Randomization ==

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.

=== Dice and bga_rand ===

'''bga_rand( min, max )'''
This is a BGA framework function that provides you a random number between "min" and "max" (inclusive), 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.

As of now, bga_rand is based on the PHP function "random_int", which ensures 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".

=== Arrays ===

Although PHP's "shuffle()" is generally considered good enough (see below, BGA's own Deck component uses this), the following PHP code based on "random_int" provides a cryptographically-secure method to choose a random key, value, or slice of an array. (the slice preserves keys)

<pre>
private function getRandomKey(array &$array)
{
$size = count($array);
if ($size == 0) {
trigger_error("getRandomKey(): Array is empty", E_USER_WARNING);
return null;
}
$rand = random_int(0, $size - 1);
$slice = array_slice($array, $rand, 1, true);
foreach ($slice as $key => $value) {
return $key;
}
}

private function getRandomValue(array &$array)
{
$size = count($array);
if ($size == 0) {
trigger_error("getRandomValue(): Array is empty", E_USER_WARNING);
return null;
}
$rand = random_int(0, $size - 1);
$slice = array_slice($array, $rand, 1, true);
foreach ($slice as $key => $value) {
return $value;
}
}

private function getRandomSlice(array &$array, int $count)
{
$size = count($array);
if ($size == 0) {
trigger_error("getRandomSlice(): Array is empty", E_USER_WARNING);
return null;
}
if ($count < 1 || $count > $size) {
trigger_error("getRandomSlice(): Invalid count $count for array with size $size", E_USER_WARNING);
return null;
}
$slice = [];
$randUnique = [];
while (count($randUnique) < $count) {
$rand = random_int(0, $size - 1);
if (array_key_exists($rand, $randUnique)) {
continue;
}
$randUnique[$rand] = true;
$slice += array_slice($array, $rand, 1, true);
}
return $slice;
}
</pre>

=== 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 ensures that the best available shuffling method is used, and that if in the future we improve it your game will be up to date.

As of now, the Deck component shuffle method is based on PHP "shuffle" method, which has quite good randomness (even if not as good as bga_rand). In consequence, we accept other shuffling methods during reviews, as long as they 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" statistic is a statistic not associated to a player (global statistic for this game).

See [[Game statistics: stats.inc.php]] to see how you define 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 statistic of your game, in your setupNewGame method.
If you neglect to call this for a statistic, and also do not update the value during the course of a certain game using setStat or incStat, the value of the stat will be undefined rather than 0. This will result in it being ignored at the end of the game, as if it didn't apply to that particular game, and excluded from cumulative statistics. As a consequence - if do not want statistic to be applied, do not init it, or call set or inc on it.

'$table_or_player' must be set to "table" if this is a table statistic, or "player" if this is a player statistic.

'$name' is the name of your statistic, as it has been defined in your stats.inc.php file.

'$value' is the initial value of the statistic. If this is a player statistic and if the player is not specified by "$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.

See also [https://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/Game_meta-information:_gameinfos.inc.php#Multiple_tie_breaker_management Multiple Tie Breaker Management].

=== Co-operative game ===

To make everyone win/lose together in a full-coop game:

Add the following in gameinfos.inc.php :
'is_coop' => 1, // full cooperative

Assign a score of zero to everyone if it's a loss.
Assign the same score > 0 to everyone if it's a win.

=== Semi-coop ===

If the game is not full-coop, then everyone loses = everyone is tied. 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.inc.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 or zero 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 play and can start another game if he/she wants too (with 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.

'''Important:''' this should not be used on a player who has already left the game ("zombie") as leaving/being kicked of the game (outside of the scope of the rules) is not the same as being eliminated from the game (according to the rules), except if in the course of the game, the zombie player is eliminated according to the rules.

'''Important:''' When all surviving players are eliminated at the same time BGA framework causes the game to be abandoned automatically.
To circumvent this, the game should leave 1 player not eliminated but change final scores accordingly and end the game.

=== Scoring Helper functions ===

These functions should have been API but they are not, just add them to your php game and use for every game.

// 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).

; function isAsync()
: Returns true if game is turn based, false if it is realtime

== 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

Note: if you deploy undo support after game is in production this will take into effect for new games only, old games will give user an error if user choses Undo action, but otherwise it should not affect them.

; function undoSavepoint( )
: Save the whole game situation inside an "Undo save point".
: There is only ONE undo save point available (see [[BGA Undo policy]]). Cannot use in multiactivate state or in game state where next state is multiactive.
: Note: this function does not actually do anything when it is called, it only raises the flag to store the database AFTER transaction is over. So the actual state will be saved when you exit the function calling it (technically before first queued notification is sent, which matters if you transition to game state not to user state after), this may affect what you end up saving.

; 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).

function actionUndo() {
self::checkAction('actionUndo');
$this->undoRestorePoint();
$this->gamestate->nextState('next'); // transition to single player state (i.e. beginning of player actions for this turn)
}

'''Important note''': if you are reading game state variable right after restore (without changing state first) it won't work properly as the global table cache is not automatically refreshed after undoRestorePoint(). So you should either change state immediately to refresh game state values, or use $this->gamestate->reloadState() to refresh the state. If you choose to do the latest, be aware that this will bring the state machine back to the state during which the save point snapshot has been taken using undoSavepoint() (which means your transition you do after has to declared in the state which was saved, not in the state which was active for your actionUndo())

== 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 they are not allowed to do.
: The error message will be shown to the player as a "red message".
: The error message must be translated, make sure you use self::_() or $this->_() here and NOT clientranslate()
: 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.
* Do not try to end the game early, even in a two-player game. The zombie is there to allow the game to continue, not to end it. Trying to end the game is not supported by the framework and will likely cause unexpected errors.

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.

'''Very important''': your zombie code will be called when the player leaves the game. This action is triggered from the main site and propagated to the gameserver from a server, not from a browser. As a consequence, there is no current player associated to this action. In your zombieTurn function, you must '''never''' use getCurrentPlayerId() or getCurrentPlayerName(), otherwise it will fail with a "Not logged" error message.

== Player color preferences ==

BGA premium users may 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 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)
// NB: this parameter is used only to flag games supporting this feature; you must use (or not use) reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences PHP method to actually enable or disable the feature.
'favorite_colors_support' => true,

Then, on your main <your_game>.game.php file check the code of "setupNewGame". New template already have correct code, but if you editing very old game and it may be absent.

$gameinfos = $this->getGameinfos();
...
if ($gameinfos['favorite_colors_support'])
$this->reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences($players, $gameinfos['player_colors']); // this should be above reloadPlayersBasicInfos()
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.

Some important remarks:
* for some games (i.e. Chess), the color has an influence on a mechanism of the game, most of the time by giving a special advantage to a player (i.e. 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.

=== Custom color assignments ===
Some colors don't play nicely with BGA's color difference algorithm. If you receive feedback that colors are not well chosen, you can bypass the BGA algorithm by specifying a map from user preference colors to game colors.

For example, you may wish to assign BGA's blue to your game's baby blue: <code>"0000ff" /* Blue */ => "89CFF0",</code> whereas otherwise, a deep purple might be chosen instead. Just be sure that the assigned colors are also present in the <code>player_colors</code> array passed to <code>reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences</code>, otherwise the assignment will be ignored.

To do this, implement this method in your <code>X.game.php</code> class.

Note: the user preference colors (the keys in the returned array) should not be modified, or the code may not work as expected. These are the colors players can choose between in their profile.
/**
* Returns an array of user preference colors to game colors.
* Game colors must be among those which are passed to reattributeColorsBasedOnPreferences()
* Each game color can be an array of suitable colors, or a single color:
* [
* // The first available color chosen:
* 'ff0000' => ['990000', 'aa1122'],
* // This color is chosen, if available
* '0000ff' => '000099',
* ]
* If no color can be matched from this array, then the default implementation is used.
*/
function getSpecificColorPairings(): array {
return array(
"ff0000" /* Red */ => null,
"008000" /* Green */ => null,
"0000ff" /* Blue */ => null,
"ffa500" /* Yellow */ => null,
"000000" /* Black */ => null,
"ffffff" /* White */ => null,
"e94190" /* Pink */ => null,
"982fff" /* Purple */ => null,
"72c3b1" /* Cyan */ => null,
"f07f16" /* Orange */ => null,
"bdd002" /* Khaki green */ => null,
"7b7b7b" /* Gray */ => null,
);
}

== Legacy games API ==

For some very specific games ("legacy", "campaign"), you need to keep some informations from a game to another.

This should be an exceptional situation: the legacy API is costing resources on Board Game Arena databases, and is slowing down the game setup process + game end of game process. Please do not use it for things like:
* keeping a player preference/settings (=> player preferences and game options should be used instead)
* keeping a statistics, a score, or a ranking, while it is not planned in the physical board game, or while there is no added value compared to BGA statistics / rankings.

You should use it for:
* legacy games: when some components of the game has been altered in a previous game and should be kept as it is.
* "campaign style" games: when a player is getting a "reward" at the end of a game, and should be able to use it in further games.

Important: you cannot store more than 64k of data (serialized as JSON) per player per game. If you go over 64k, storeLegacyData function is going to FAIL, and there is a risk to create a major bug (= players blocked) in your game. You MUST make sure that no more than 64k of data is used for each player for your game. For example, if you are implementing a "campaign style" game and if you allow a player to start multiple campaign, you must LIMIT the number of different campaign so that the total data size to not go over the limit. We strongly recommend you to use this:

try
{
$this->storeLegacyTeamData( $my_data );
}
catch( feException $e ) // feException is a base class of BgaSystemException and others...
{
if( $e->getCode() == FEX_legacy_size_exceeded )
{
// Do something here to free some space in Legacy data (ex: by removing some variables)
}
else
throw $e;
}

The keys may only contain letters and numbers, underscore seems not to be allowed.

; function storeLegacyData( $player_id, $key, $data, $ttl = 365 )
: Store some data associated with $key for the given user / current game
: In the opposite of all other game data, this data will PERSIST after the end of this table, and can be re-used
: in a future table with the same game.
: IMPORTANT: The only possible place where you can use this method is when the game is over at your table (last game action). Otherwise, there is a risk of conflicts between ongoing games.
: TTL is a time-to-live: the maximum, and default, is 365 days.
: In any way, the total data (= all keys) you can store for a given user+game is 64k (note: data is store serialized as JSON data)
: NOTICE: You can store some persistant data across all tables from your game using the specific player_id 0 which is unused. In such case, it's even more important to manage correctly the size of your data to avoid any exception or issue while storing updated data (ie. you can use this for some kind of leaderbord for solo game or contest)
: Note: This function cannot be called during game setup (will throw an error).

; function retrieveLegacyData( $player_id, $key )
: Get data associated with $key for the current game
: This data is common to ALL tables from the same game for this player, and persist from one table to another.
: Note: calling this function has an important cost => please call it few times (possibly: only ONCE) for each player for 1 game if possible
: Note: you can use '%' in $key to retrieve all keys matching the given patterns

; function removeLegacyData( $player_id, $key )
: Remove some legacy data with the given key
: (useful to free some data to avoid going over 64k)

; function storeLegacyTeamData( $data, $ttl = 365 )
: Same as storeLegacyData, except that it stores some data for the whole team within the current table and does not use a key
: Ie: if players A, B and C are at a table, the legacy data will be saved for future table with (exactly) A, B and C on the table.
: This is useful for games which are intended to be played several time by the same team.
: Note: the data total size is still limited, so you must implement catch the FEX_legacy_size_exceeded exception if it happens

; function retrieveLegacyTeamData()
: Same as retrieveLegacyData, except that it retrieves some data for the whole team within the current table (set by storeLegacyTeamData)

; function removeLegacyTeamData()
: Same as removeLegacyData, except that it retrieves some data for the whole team within the current table (set by storeLegacyTeamData)

== Players text input and moderation ==
This section concerns only games where the players have to write some words to play: games based on words, like "Just one" or "Codenames".

Some players will use your game to write insults or profanities. As this is part of the game and not in the game chat, these words cannot be reported by players and moderated.

If you met the following situation:

* You are asking a player to type a text (word(s) or sentence)
* The player can enter any text (this is not a pre-selection or anything you can control)
* This text is visible by at least one other player

Then, you must use the following method:

'''function logTextForModeration( $player_id, $text )'''

player_id = player who write the text

text = text that has been written

This function will have no visible consequence for your game, but will allow players to report the text to moderators if something happens.

== Language dependent games API ==

This API is used for games that are heavily language dependent. Two most common use cases are:
* Games that have a language dependent component that are not necessarily translatable, typically a list of words. (Think of games like Codenames, Decrypto, Just One...)
* Games with massive communication where players would like to ensure that all participants speak the same language. (Think of games like Werewolf, The Resistance, maybe even dixit...)

If this option is used, the table created will be limited only to users that have specific language in their profile. Player starting the game would be able to chose one of the languages they speak.

There is a new property language_dependency in gameinfos.inc.php which can be set like this:
'language_dependency' => false, //or if the property is missing, the game is not language dependent
'language_dependency' => true, //all players at the table must speak the same language
'language_dependency' => array( 1 => 'en', 2 => 'fr', 3 => 'it' ), //1-based list of supported languages

In the gamename.game.php file, you can get the id of selected language with the method '''getGameLanguage'''.
; function getGameLanguage()
: Returns an index of the selected language as defined in gameinfos.inc.php.

Languages currently available on BGA are:
'ar' => array( 'name' => "العربية", 'code' => 'ar_AE' ), // Arabic
'be' => array( 'name' => "беларуская мова", 'code' => 'be_BY' ), // Belarusian
'bn' => array( 'name' => "বাংলা", 'code' => 'bn_BD' ), // Bengali
'bg' => array( 'name' => "български език", 'code' => 'bg_BG' ), // Bulgarian
'ca' => array( 'name' => "català", 'code' => 'ca_ES' ), // Catalan
'cs' => array( 'name' => "čeština", 'code' => 'cs_CZ' ), // Czech
'da' => array( 'name' => "dansk", 'code' => 'da_DK' ), // Danish
'de' => array( 'name' => "deutsch", 'code' => 'de_DE' ), // German
'el' => array( 'name' => "Ελληνικά", 'code' => 'el_GR' ), // Greek
'en' => array( 'name' => "English", 'code' => 'en_US' ), // English
'es' => array( 'name' => "español", 'code' => 'es_ES' ), // Spanish
'et' => array( 'name' => "eesti keel", 'code' => 'et_EE' ), // Estonian
'fi' => array( 'name' => "suomi", 'code' => 'fi_FI' ), // Finnish
'fr' => array( 'name' => "français", 'code' => 'fr_FR' ), // French
'he' => array( 'name' => "עברית", 'code' => 'he_IL' ), // Hebrew
'hi' => array( 'name' => "हिन्दी", 'code' => 'hi_IN' ), // Hindi
'hr' => array( 'name' => "Hrvatski", 'code' => 'hr_HR' ), // Croatian
'hu' => array( 'name' => "magyar", 'code' => 'hu_HU' ), // Hungarian
'id' => array( 'name' => "Bahasa Indonesia", 'code' => 'id_ID' ), // Indonesian
'ms' => array( 'name' => "Bahasa Malaysia", 'code' => 'ms_MY' ), // Malaysian
'it' => array( 'name' => "italiano", 'code' => 'it_IT' ), // Italian
'ja' => array( 'name' => "日本語", 'code' => 'ja_JP' ), // Japanese
'jv' => array( 'name' => "Basa Jawa", 'code' => 'jv_JV' ), // Javanese
'ko' => array( 'name' => "한국어", 'code' => 'ko_KR' ), // Korean
'lt' => array( 'name' => "lietuvių", 'code' => 'lt_LT' ), // Lithuanian
'lv' => array( 'name' => "latviešu", 'code' => 'lv_LV' ), // Latvian
'nl' => array( 'name' => "nederlands", 'code' => 'nl_NL' ), // Dutch
'no' => array( 'name' => "norsk", 'code' => 'nb_NO' ), // Norwegian
'oc' => array( 'name' => "occitan", 'code' => 'oc_FR' ), // Occitan
'pl' => array( 'name' => "polski", 'code' => 'pl_PL' ), // Polish
'pt' => array( 'name' => "português", 'code' => 'pt_PT' ), // Portuguese
'ro' => array( 'name' => "română", 'code' => 'ro_RO' ), // Romanian
'ru' => array( 'name' => "Русский язык", 'code' => 'ru_RU' ), // Russian
'sk' => array( 'name' => "slovenčina", 'code' => 'sk_SK' ), // Slovak
'sl' => array( 'name' => "slovenščina", 'code' => 'sl_SI' ), // Slovenian
'sr' => array( 'name' => "Српски", 'code' => 'sr_RS' ), // Serbian
'sv' => array( 'name' => "svenska", 'code' => 'sv_SE' ), // Swedish
'tr' => array( 'name' => "Türkçe", 'code' => 'tr_TR' ), // Turkish
'uk' => array( 'name' => "Українська мова", 'code' => 'uk_UA' ), // Ukrainian
'zh' => array( 'name' => "中文 (漢)", 'code' => 'zh_TW' ), // Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan)
'zh-cn' => array( 'name' => "中文 (汉)", 'code' => 'zh_CN' ), // Simplified Chinese (Mainland China, Singapore)

== 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.

[[Category:Studio]]