Web and Mobile Development articles
If you’re a browserify user, then beefy might help you bundle your JavaScript file automatically. It is a command line tool that runs a local node server which accepts a path to the JS file (with all your require() calls) and serves the bundled asset via browserify.
Continue reading “Fast Automatic Browserify Bundling with Beefy”
Using the node-open module you can open files or URLs in the user’s preferred application.
Continue reading “Quick Tip: Node.js Open URL in User’s Preferred Application/Browser”
Browserify is an excellent tool that lets you use CommonJS modules right in the browser by bundling them up into a single large file. If you are well acquainted with Node and it’s way of loading modules via require('module') and exporting them using module.exports = ..., this is the exact pattern browserify brings to the browser. Not only can you write your own modules in this format and load/export them, but you can also use those installed via npm!
Continue reading “Browser-Side Node.js Style Modules require() and exports with Browserify”
First of all what is weighted random ? Let’s say you have a list of items and you want to pick one of them randomly. Doing this seems easy as all that’s required is to write a little function that generates a random index referring to one of the items in the list. Sometimes plain randomness is not enough, we want random results that are biased or based on some probability. This is where a simple weighted random generation algorithm can be used.
Continue reading “Weighted/Biased Random Number Generation with JavaScript based on Probability”
If you’ve wanted to code your next Node.js app in CoffeeScript then it ain’t that hard. Since coffeescript is just a little language that compiles down to javascript it is pretty much compatible with node.js. Let’s take a look at some of the ways in which you can execute your node.js script (written in coffeescript).
Continue reading “Using CoffeeScript over JavaScript in your Node.js Application or Module”
Few days ago, I wrote a post about why time based animations are better than frame based animations. However, in animations done as a function of time, some serious problems could arise. One of them is that your regular collision detection techniques might fail if the frame rate is lower than acceptable. Your object might pass through the walls or even fall through the floor!
I am going to share a neat little trick that was learnt while working on an HTML5 game recently. The game is pretty much like our HTML5 Doodle Jump. We had to make sure that the game scales down very well on smaller devices like mobiles, ipads, tablets, etc. and in the process learnt a neat trick to scale the entire canvas across all devices consistently.
Continue reading “Scaling Your HTML5 Canvas to Fit Different ViewPorts (or Resolutions)”