Ynet.dev
This is a framework for HTML5 network apps; games and tools in particular.
Ynet internally handles dynamic loading of code modules (aka. JavaScript streaming), which also allows live code updates (aka. runtime code injection), speculative module fetching and seamless resuming after re-connection (without reloading any code, aka. lazy execution). Some syntactic sugar is also included (see below).
Topics
- Capabilities
- Screenshots
- JS sugar
- HTML elements
- CSS sugar
- Conditional CSS
- Ynet modules listing
- Complete chat example
- History
Capabilities
- built-in debug console, supporting colored output
- compact HTML tree notation
- meaningful typeOf( var ) where null is "null" and "Ynet" is "string"
- query and manipulate elements, classes, attributes, etc.
- easy interface events (supporting click/tap/hold/drag & drop)
- built-in authentication (Passkey / FIDO2, device / cookie, password, e-mail, QR code)
- session handler
- resource loader / progress display
- handy geometry functions, curves/slopes/splines, vectors and matrix classes
- n-dimensional typed arrays, unlimited 2D/3D maps, bsp/quad/oct trees, heaps
- keyboard, mouse, touch and gamepad support
- database access, including query helpers
- heartbeat providing a stable "main loop" framerate, also fps measuring
- tile maps, including A* path finding, terrain generation and more
- voxel trees for endless worlds, supporting voxel tile maps for quick generation
- 2D/Canvas rendering and drawing utilities, including image effects
- 3D/WebGL rendering with shaders, covering pixels / sprites / polygons / voxels
- sound and music playback, supporting multiple effects (pitch, reverb, distort, etc.)
- sound sprites (multiple sounds in one file)
- QR data transfer (ie. reader and generator)
Screenshots
Here are some random screenshots from various projects:
JS syntactic sugar
The delay( ms ) structure is a shortcut for setTimeout() calls:
delay(
The benchmark( num ) structure is a shortcut to bench(); for( num ) { ... } mark();
benchmark(
After 1000 iterations, the execution duration in ms will be printed to the Ynet console.
Ynet supports multi-line strings in code:
var list = "/*
Easily check arguments for their data type and range:
function printText( id, name, message, opacity )
{
In this example id can be any positive integer, name must be a string of exactly 16 lowercase letters, message is a UTF8 string up to 2000 characters length and opacity can be any number from 0 to 100. Failing a test throws an error, providing name, data type, value and expected range of the argument.
Quickly print out debug information:
function start()
{
The text Now starting will be printed to the console.
Simplest counting loops:
for( var a
Prints: 0 1 2 3 4
Simple counting loops:
for( var a =
Prints: 2 3 4
Stepped counting loops:
for( var a =
Prints: 0 2 4
Iterating through array values:
var list = [ "The", "answer", "is", "42" ];
for( list
Prints: The answer is 42
Iterating through array indices and values / also works on Map and map-like objects:
var list = [ "Ynet", ".", "dev" ];
for( list as
Prints: 0 = Ynet 1 = . 2 = dev
Alias syntax for often-used functions:
$client.getTile( x,y )
{
The getTile function can now be called through item.get( 0,0 );
HTML elements
Easily create HTML interfaces:
html( "/*
There are multiple ways to define the id, class and content (eg. p#intro and p id="intro" is equivalent). Some special attributes (such as assign) will be recognized and assigned to the corresponding Ynet UI events. The final append() call adds this structure to the body.
Other namespaces (ie. svg and ynet) can be accessed through the colon sign.
The following code creates a SVG line element:
html( "
The ynet namespace simplifies the creation of everyday complex HTML elements.
html( "
This creates your typical "on/off" switch button with a sliding bullet.
Similar to the knob switch, radio buttons can be assembled as follows:
html( "
Interacting with the radio buttons will trigger the selectAction event to handle this.value().
CSS syntactic sugar
body { color:#000; }
CSS only allows /* block comments */ but Ynet fixes this stupid decision.
div {
Allow scrolling in x, y or xy direction. Translates to a overflow and touch-action setup.
border-left-right:1px solid;
border-top-bottom:1px solid;
Border setup for two opposite sides.
if(
Included if the screen width is less than 200 px.
if(
Included if the screen height is at least 10 em.
if(
Included if the screen is in landscape mode (width > height).
if(
Included if the screen is in portrait mode (height > width).
if(
Included if the primary input is the mouse cursor.
if(
Included if the primary input is the touch screen.
button
Ynet automatically applies :hover styles only for mouse cursors.
button
The custom :ui selector applies to both, :focus and :hover. This allows easily setting up the same styles for mouse and keyboard interaction.
CSS variables made simple.
Conditional CSS
To avoid the limited CSS media queries and their weird syntax, Ynet offers custom CSS conditions:
$css(
This style will be included in portrait mode (w / h < 1.0) or if the app domain starts with mobile.. Since this is simply evaluated JavaScript code, literally anything can be used, eg. custom variables or function calls. Common variables like w, h, aspect are pre-defined and can be used as shown.
Ynet modules
core | Ynet core (server/client). | 115 KB |
html | HTML (creation, manipulation, dragging, language translation). | 44 KB |
image | Image (creation, manipulation, drawing, color effects) and color class (RGB/CMYK/HSL/Greyscale, alpha channel). | 22 KB |
audio | Sound effects and music playback (sound sprites, volume/pitch variations, reverb/distortion effects, seamless looping, crossfading, equalizer). | 10 KB |
login | Account manager (FIDO2, password, e-mail, device) and session handler. | 30 KB |
map | 2D map class for editing (cut/copy/paste areas, insert/delete cols and rows, rotate/scale/flip/blur map, terrain generator) and tile-based games (wrap/endless mode, A* path finding). | 17 KB |
math | Numerous math and geometry functions, randomization, vector / matrix classes. | 25 KB |
webgl | WebGL 1+2 (shaders, textures, polygons, lights, shadows). | 72 KB |
voxel | Voxel addon (loader, renderer, shaders). | 44 KB |
data | Buffers (array_map, growbuffer, heap, ringbuffer) and interpolation (curve, slope, tween) | 21 KB |
+ | Everything else (database, gamepad / keyboard, hashing, heartbeat / fps, resource loader) | 34 KB |
Complete chat example
The following code is a complete example running a simple console-based chat. Users can enter a name, get a list of all connected users, get notified when someone joins or leaves, and can broadcast plain text messages. For simplicity, a user counts as logged in if the username property is set (otherwise the user is connected but didnt' choose a name yet).
Note that the print event is built-in and text coloring is done through color tags (eg. <lr> means light red). The application is started by running node main.js on the server.
main.js
chat.js
Download
Not (yet) available to the public, sorry. This is a private project.
History
Ynet is the HTML5-based successor of the YDK framework, which was created around 2005 as a Visual Basic 6.0 convenience API. Large parts of the original YDK were DirectX wrappers, so one could easily render graphics (shapes, 2D images and later even 3D models), play sounds (variing pitch and volume), setup music (fading and looping automatically), handle input devices (including rumble effects) and many things more (networking, path finding, data encryption, scripting, etc.).
Unfortunately Microsoft decided to discontinue the DirectX extension for VB6 (the last version was DirectX 8.1) and even VB6 itself, in order to push their dotNet framework. After some roaming through the realms of early HTML5 (before WebGL was available), Java and even Flash, the final decision was to use HTML5 and a node.js server respectively. Finally, in the summer of 2020, the Ynet.dev project was born and here we are.
The lesson of this journey is to stick with standards, not companies.
Although I am very disappointed to see WebGL being discontinued in favour of the upcoming WebGPU API. I was strongly hoping to see geometry shaders in WebGL one day...