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Jono Xia
posted message: Hey everybody, a quick poll. I am thinking of setting up a dedicated server that you can use for hosting your game projects for this class. If you are in the class and you don't already have a server of your own to use, I would give you an account on the class server; you could use an FTP program to transfer files there. Show of hands: How many people would make use of this server if I set it up?
Jono Xia
posted message: Hey everybody: I apologize if you've sent me a question or posted an assignment and I haven't responded to you yet. I'm a bit backlogged with work at the moment. I do intend to write back to everyone but it may take me a couple of days more.
Jono Xia
posted message: Hey everybody, I posted four code examples for drawing with Canvas, on the Lesson 2 page. Check them out!
Jono Xia
posted message: Code examples for canvas drawing will be coming up tonight.
Jono Xia
posted message: Hi everybody, I've added the next set of assignments. There are two canvas-drawing exercises, as well as an assignment to begin planning the architecture of your game by breaking your design down into objects and methods.
Jono Xia
posted message: Added two new videos on the Lesson 2 page: how to use image files in a canvas, and how to start thinking about your game engine.
Jono Xia
posted message: I just posted the first video explanation about drawing with canvas: http://vimeo.com/23344664
Jono Xia
posted message: Hey everybody! Sorry I haven't posted any new content the past couple of days; there was a pretty serious bug I had to fix that was holding back the Firefox 5 beta release (!!) and I couldn't really think about anything else until that was done. I will be posting the Lesson 2 contents tonight and tomorrow. I'll also be sending you more comments on your submitted work. Thanks for your patience everybody!
Jono Xia
posted message: Just added video 1.2. Sorry It took so long for me to upload it; I wasn't quite sure myself about some of the points in it so I wanted to do some research and try out some code to make sure before I showed it to you. The contents for lesson 1 are now complete. I'll be answering questions and reviewing your completed assignments over the rest of the day.
Jono Xia
posted message: About signing up for the course: If you're on the sign-up page but I haven't added you as a participant yet, it's because you haven't sent me the sign-up task yet. I'm still accepting sign-up tasks! It seems a little silly to be super-strict about deadlines, when all the course materials are going to stay up on this page for people to work through at their own pace. So I'm leaving signup open; if you want in, just click on "The First Task" on the left sidebar over there and send me your work!
Jono Xia
posted message: About cross-browser compatibility: I like to test my example code on at least the latest Chrome, Safari, Firefox 4, and IE 9. (I should really start testing in Opera as well...) IE 9 is the version where Microsoft has committed to supporting HTML 5. So IE 9 should be capable of handling everything we do in this course, and we should all be testing our stuff to make sure it works on IE 9. Older versions of IE... well, Microsoft never made any promises about them supporting HTML 5, so I don't expect most of the techniques in this course to work there. In particular, IE 8 and older don't support (although there are some hacks to add canvas support). So I'm not too sad if my code doesn't work in older versions of IE.
Jono Xia
posted message: On debugging your code: In Firefox you can go to the Tools menu and pick Error Console to see what's going wrong with your Javascript. You don't even need Firebug installed (although Firebug is great for more advanced debugging!) Click "clear" and then reload your page, to be sure that all the errors you're seeing are actually coming from your page and not some other tab. Other browsers have their own ways of getting to a javascript error console, but I'm less familiar with those.
Jono Xia
posted message: Just added the last chunk of example source code for the week -- it shows how to get the x and y position of mouse down and mouse up events, in a cross-browser way. It's at http://people.mozilla.com/~jdicarlo/p2pu_gamedev/week1-example2.html (also linked from the "Lesson 1" task page). Just need to add a video explanation for this one.
Jono Xia
posted message: Hello everybody, and welcome to "Beginning game development with HTML5" ! I have just added as participants all of you who submitted the first task. You should now be receiving these study group updates and you should now be able to post messages to the study group page as well. I added two more videos to the "Lesson 1" task page, so please check them out. I've also posted up the next set of tasks for week 2. Please ask lots of questions!
Jono Xia
posted message: Hello everybody! Lesson 1 - Player Input and DOM manipulation - is (halfway) up. It's at that link under "Tasks" that says "Lesson 1". There's three videos and two code examples so far; these are to be followed by three more videos and one more code example that I will add later this week. But you can start checking out the videos and examples now. Also I've added the next round of tasks. There are some coding tasks for next week under the link that says "Task 2". Possibly more important, I would also like everybody to start planning the game they're going to make for their final project, so the other task is to write a paragraph about that. Please, ask lots of questions!
Jono Xia
posted message: Thanks to everyone who submitted their first task for this course. I'll be reading over them all and will try to get back to each one of you with comments on your code by Friday at the latest. Today I'll kick off the course by posting the first set of videos and sample code files, and I'll also give out the next assignment. Stay tuned.
Jono Xia
posted message:

Hey everybody, If I haven't answered your message yet, it's because I was on vacation this week. I just got back and I am catching up on communication now.

The course is no longer "under development", and signup is still open today and tomorrow. I'll be posting the first set of video tutorials tomorrow morning.

Jono Xia
posted message:

Since some people asked: When you finish the first task, please send me a direct message on this website. If you were able to find a place to host your files on the Web, just send me the link! If you have working files but nowhere to host them, then let me know and I'll give you instructions for emailing them directly.

Once the study group begins on April 25, I will post the links publicly so that we can all review and learn from each other's solutions.

More details are on the First Task page (see left sidebar).

Jono Xia
posted message:

Signup is now open! Remember to do the sign-up task ( http://new.p2pu.org/en-US/groups/beginning-game-development-with-html-5/content/the-first-task-responding-to-keystrokes/ ) by April 25 if you want to join.

Jono Xia
posted message:

If you're looking for an intro to Javascript before diving into game development, you could check out the P2PU Javascript 101 course: http://p2pu.org/webcraft/javascript-101 The course has ended but you can still review and learn from their materials.