Desktop Icons and other discussions

[Immolate]

It might be interesting to allow popular classic players some way of having a direct way of connecting to their server through a desktop icon or something like that, if you continue to market Graal as a dev. platform. At the moment, it just looks like a game that's being passed off as a development platform, so make some improvements that supports one or the other.

It'd also be interesting to discuss ideas which would improve Graal on either end of the spectrum, so that the administration has some ideas of what we want depending on which direction that's going to be taken. The way I see it is Graal is sitting on the fence between developer platform and commercial game and in my opinion, having such stance is probably bad for business.

[Chompy]

Shortcuts to servers can easily be done by making bat files. Make a bunch of bat files in your graal folder, make shortcuts on your dekstop and change the icon of the shortcut, voilÃ*.

The bat code is simple as well:

NPC Code:

---

start graal://SERVERNAME

exit

---

To make rid of the flashing black box when running the shortcut, simply tell the shortcut to run the file minimized.

[xXziroXx]

Or just type "graal://servernamehere" in your browsers HTTP bar.

[Immolate]

What I really meant was having an in-built feature, like a menu on right-click of a server on the serverlist, and selecting "Create Desktop Shortcut", to be honest. Rather than coming up with player-based solutions, I was really suggesting some sort of official and built-in feature to do this, taking the work out of the player's hands.

[TSAdmin]

To be honest, I don't see many more steps between your suggestion, and just doing "Right-Click desktop > New > Shortcut" and making the target "graal://servername" which comes out like this (Name it whatever you want, I just have mine named V6 and connect to login2 so I dont have to keep typing it):

[Immolate]

Originally Posted by TSAdmin

To be honest, I don't see many more steps between your suggestion, and just doing "Right-Click desktop > New > Shortcut" and making the target "graal://servername" which comes out like this (Name it whatever you want, I just have mine named V6 and connect to login2 so I dont have to keep typing it):

In my opinion, doing what I suggested would treat each server as it's own game. Yeah, I knew full well that you can make the desktop icons yourself but I'm sure some of the less knowledgable and younger players wouldn't do that, but would take advantage of an in-built feature.

My main point really though is to come up with features that treat Graal as a development platform or features that treat Graal as a game. I don't think it's much use sitting on the fence. As much as you say it's one or the other, the current features really don't say that.

[Umat]

Originally Posted by TSAdmin

To be honest, I don't see many more steps between your suggestion, and just doing "Right-Click desktop > New > Shortcut" and making the target "graal://servername" which comes out like this (Name it whatever you want, I just have mine named V6 and connect to login2 so I dont have to keep typing it):

Clever, you could also specify the path of the exe and add a space and the servername. Could be handy if you use both v5 and v6. Since running v5 will replace the graal:// protocol to run v5 instead. :P

[coreys]

Originally Posted by Immolate

My main point really though is to come up with features that treat Graal as a development platform or features that treat Graal as a game. I don't think it's much use sitting on the fence. As much as you say it's one or the other, the current features really don't say that.

Because an extensive scripting language, content creation tools (GraalEditor and GraalShop), RC, and a wiki that is mostly comprised of development information doesn't treat Graal as a development platform.

Other games that are made to be a "development platform" in the sense you're thinking don't have so many features. Sure, they're far from perfect (very far), but it is in all honestly completely beyond me how you could think that Graal is not treated as a development platform.

[Immolate]

Originally Posted by coreys

Because an extensive scripting language, content creation tools (GraalEditor and GraalShop), RC, and a wiki that is mostly comprised of development information doesn't treat Graal as a development platform.

Other games that are made to be a "development platform" in the sense you're thinking don't have so many features. Sure, they're far from perfect (very far), but it is in all honestly completely beyond me how you could think that Graal is not treated as a development platform.

There are many people on the forums who would argue with you that Graal is a GAME and the fact that a good deal of people subscribe to PLAY Graal as a game and not develop. If it was a true development plaftorm, each server would be treated and displayed as an individual game, which obviously isn't the case.

[DustyPorViva]

graal://servername doesn't work for me anymore. It just hangs up on a black screen(Graal).

[Deas_Voice]

isnt doing graal:// Windows only?

so like, mac's and linux's can't do this, right?

nice idea btw, im gonna do login2 for v6beta too

[Skyld]

Originally Posted by Deas_Voice

isnt doing graal:// Windows only?

so like, mac's and linux's can't do this, right?

nice idea btw, im gonna do login2 for v6beta too

Works fine on Mac and Linux also.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by Immolate

There are many people on the forums who would argue with you that Graal is a GAME and the fact that a good deal of people subscribe to PLAY Graal as a game and not develop.

Been on this road many times, only people who don't actually even play Graal would think that Graal is a dev platform.

[Immolate]

Originally Posted by Crono

Been on this road many times, only people who don't actually even play Graal would think that Graal is a dev platform.

I know and I'm not supporting either argument at the moment. I'm just suggesting that if the administration consider Graal as a game, develop it as a game and vice versa if they consider it a development platform. At the moment, I think Graal's really generic because I've seen the administration claim it's a development platform. If it's development platform, they're doing a bad job of making it one. If it's a game, they're not officially developing at such anymore, and that'll just kill Graal.

We all know Graal did better when it was just a game and the administration treated it as such in all possible ways, as proven by iPhone Classic.

[Deas_Voice]

Originally Posted by Skyld

Works fine on Mac and Linux also.

you sure about that? *reboots to linux*

[cbk1994]

Originally Posted by Deas_Voice

you sure about that? *reboots to linux*

Not sure what he's talking about, I'm fairly certain Mac has never supported it either.

[Admins]

On Linux and Mac it's not automatically registering as protocol, wondering if there is some easy way to do it on Mac.
You can however call the application with the "graal://servername" as first parameter.

[Immolate]

It'd be cool to just right click on a server which brings up a menu to make a desktop/program files (in the Graal folder) shortcut.