examples for using ifvms.js (client side + maybe server side too?)

[jedi4ever]

Hi @curiousdannii , over the last weekend I've taken a great interest in Interactive Fiction.

I'm building a work situation simulator and would love to use ifvms.js or other javascript framework to 'play' these kind of situation.

1. From the code, it's hard to understand how to embed/use ifvms.js in your own code. It would be great if you have some examples to load it

2. I could not tell if the code only works inside a browser environment or you could also use it in a nodejs backend process that emit events that could be visualised through socket.io on the browser.

I've seen you have some tests, but from what I can judge the are running inside the browser?
My idea is to :

• keep the state somehow on the server side and use the browser just a visualising aspect. So if people reconnect to the app, they would still be in their current state.
• it would allow multi-user access of the same game session , which could be great at collaboratively solving sessions

3. I also like to integrate 'real' events , inside the game. Could the backend play/capture events and execute some stuff and give back some results? Like a bot command on irc or so.

Any hints you can provide here are greatly appreciated!

[curiousdannii]

Only got time for a quick answer right now, sorry! Take a look at https://github.com/curiousdannii/ifvms.js/blob/master/dist/bootstrap.js to see ZVM being used in node.js.
https://github.com/curiousdannii/parchment/blob/master/src/structio/runner.js is used in Parchment on the web.

It's designed to be used with Web Workers (though it isn't yet...), so everything happens with two functions: ZVM.inputEvent() and ZVM.outputEvent().

[jedi4ever]

awesome! thanks for the pointers. this looks really promising!

[jedi4ever]

vm = ifvms.bootstrap.zvm('a.z5',['one', 'two']);  
// This seems to work for a few of the examples provided but not for my inform7-> down compile z5 code
console.log(vm.output); 

// Now how do I continue on this thread?
vm.inputEvent({ code: 'read' , response: 'three' });

[curiousdannii]

You'll want to write your own event handler... the bootstrap one is very simple because I know what events it will produce. runner.js (in Parchment) handles quite a few more, as does api.js in the same folder.

The read event needs a number of other properties, which is why I add the response text on to the original event object and then give it back to the engine. Which now that I think about it is a really poor design... you should be able to just send back the response text by itself. I'll get around to changing that, eventually.

[jedi4ever]

We can close it here - I've started to work something out -

See https://github.com/jedi4ever/ifplayer.js , still could use your guidance obviously!

[curiousdannii]

Sure thing, ask anytime. The parchment Google group is probably the best place.
Oh, and keep a lookout for changes to the API, it's quite unstable at the moment. If you have any suggestions for improvements to it I'd be happy to hear them.