This is a documentation for Board Game Arena: play board games online !
Scrollmap
In some games, players are building the main game area with tiles or cards and it has no boundaries. This causes an additional difficulty for the adaptation, because we have to display an infinite game area into a finite space on the screen. This is where Scrollmap component can help you.
Scrollmap is a BGA client side component to display an infinite game area. It supports Scrolling and Panning. Scrolling - allows user to scroll area inside the view port using the buttons drawn on the top/bottom/left/right. Panning - allows user to drag the surface area (using mouse).
Scrollmap in action
Examples of game that use Scrollmap (try on BGA or watch):
- Carcassonne
- Saboteur
- Takenoko
- Taluva
In these games, you can see that there are arrow controls around the main game area, so that players can use them to scroll the view. You can also use Panning (i.e drag'n'drop the game area to scroll).
How to use Scrollmap
At first, in the Javascript file, don't forget to add "ebg/scrollmap" as a dependency:
define([
"dojo","dojo/_base/declare",
"ebg/core/gamegui",
"ebg/counter",
"ebg/scrollmap" /// <==== HERE
],
Then, declare a new variable in your class for the Scrollmap object:
constructor: function(){
console.log('yourgame constructor');
// Scrollable area
this.scrollmap = new ebg.scrollmap();
Now, open your template (TPL) file and add this HTML code:
<div id="map_container">
<div id="map_scrollable"></div>
<div id="map_surface"></div>
<div id="map_scrollable_oversurface"></div>
<div class="movetop"></div>
<div class="movedown"></div>
<div class="moveleft"></div>
<div class="moveright"></div>
</div>
There are also some lines to add to your CSS stylesheet. Please note that you can adapt it to your needs, especially the default width of the scrollable area:
/** Scrollable area **/
#map_container {
position: relative;
width: 100%;
height: 400px;
overflow: hidden;
}
#map_scrollable, #map_scrollable_oversurface {
position: absolute;
top: 205px;
left: 315px;
}
#map_surface {
position: absolute;
top: 0px;
left: 0px;
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
cursor: move;
}
#map_footer {
text-align: center;
}
Finally, to link your HTML code with your Javascript, place this in your Javascript "Setup" method:
// Make map scrollable
this.scrollmap.create( $('map_container'),$('map_scrollable'),$('map_surface'),$('map_scrollable_oversurface') );
this.scrollmap.setupOnScreenArrows( 150 ); // this will hook buttons to onclick functions with 150px scroll step
This is it! Now, you should see on your game interface a scrollable game area. This is not really impressive though, because you didn't add anything on the game area yet. This is the next step.
Scrollable area layers
There are two and only two places where you should place your elements in your scrollable area:
- inside "map_scrollable" div
- inside "map_scrollable_oversurface" div
The difference is very important: "map_scrollable" is beneath the surface that is used to pan scroll ("map_surface"), and "map_scrollable_oversurface" is above this surface. In practice:
- If some element on the game area need to be clicked (or any kind of user interaction), you should place it in map_scrollable_oversurface, otherwise no click can reach it.
- If some element on the game area don't need to be clicked, you'd better place it in "map_scrollable", so it is possible pan scroll from a point on this element.
Of course, all layers are scrolled synchronously.
Tips: in some situation, it's also useful to place a game element on map_scrollable and a corresponding invisible element over the surface to manage the interactions. Example: when an interactive element must be placed beneath a non interactive element for display reason.
The other layer is 'map_surface' - it is what user would use to pan scroll. If this div is not visible because 'map_scrollable_oversurface' covering it completely - panning will be impossible.
Positioning elements on game area
All elements on the game are must be absolute positioned (with "top" and "left" attributes).
By default, the game area is centered on 0,0 coordinates.
Enable move arrows
To show move arrows icons around the scrollmap in order to enable click based navigation in addition to drag and drop, add these lines to your CSS:
/** Move arrows **/
.movetop,.moveleft,.moveright,.movedown {
display: block;
position: absolute;
background-image: url('../../../img/common/arrows.png');
width: 32px;
height: 32px;
}
.movetop {
top: 0px;
left: 50%;
background-position: 0px 32px;
}
.moveleft {
top: 50%;
left: 0px;
background-position: 32px 0px;
}
.moveright {
top: 50%;
right: 0px;
background-position: 0px 0px;
}
.movedown {
bottom: 0px;
left: 50%;
background-position: 32px 32px;
}
The buttons handler already defined in the scrollmap control just make sure you call function setupOnScreenArrows (and in .tpl file buttons have to be defined with exact these classes verbatim)
Enable scrollmap zone extension
This is optional, when there can be unused screen space under the scrollmap that a player might want to use. Add this in your .tpl after the scrollmap div (the matching css rules has already been defined):
<div id="map_footer" class="whiteblock">
<a href="#" id="enlargedisplay">↓ {LABEL_ENLARGE_DISPLAY} ↓</a>
</div>
In your javascript, define the following function:
onIncreaseDisplayHeight: function( evt )
{
console.log( '$$$$ Event : onIncreaseDisplayHeight' );
evt.preventDefault();
var cur_h = toint( dojo.style( $('map_container'), 'height' ) );
dojo.style( $('map_container'), 'height', ( cur_h+300 ) + 'px' );
},
and connect them to the 'enlargedisplay' link in your setup:
dojo.connect( $('enlargedisplay'), 'onclick', this, 'onIncreaseDisplayHeight' );
In your view.php file, define the template variable LABEL_ENLARGE_DISPLAY so that it gets substituted with appropriate translatable text:
$this->tpl['LABEL_ENLARGE_DISPLAY'] = self::_("Enlarge display");
API Reference
Constructor
- ebg.scrollmap()
- return newly created scrollmap object
Properties
no public properties
Methods
- create( container_div, undersurface_div, surface_div, onsurface_div )
- Object initializer, must be called before usage
- Parameters:
- [HTMLElement] container_div - dom node of the container
- [HTMLElement] undersurface_div - dom node of the layer under the scrollable surface, called map_scrollable in the template example
- [HTMLElement] surface_div - dom node of the area inside the container that is used for panning
- [HTMLElement] onsurface_div - dom node of the layer above the scrollable surface, called map_scrollable_oversurface in the template example
- scroll( dx, dy [, duration [, delay ]])
- Scroll content using relative offset (animated)
- Parameters:
- [Number] dx - x offset
- [Number] dy - y offset
- [Number] duration - animation duration, default is 350
- [Number] delay - animation duration, default is 0
- scrollto
- function( x, y, duration, delay )
- Scroll the board to make it centered on given position (0,0 will scroll to center)
- Parameters:
- [Number] x - position relative to center
- [Number] y - position relative to center
- [Number] duration - animation duration, default is 350
- [Number] delay - animation duration, default is 0