Embedded web server

[Geoff Evans]

http://code.google.com/p/mongoose/ + Javascript bundled with the Editor install package.

Benefits:

• Anyone could connect to another editor instance and browse and potentially approve/sign off on work in progress (before its committed to RC)

• This makes approving assets developed in remote offices and by contractors easier since nobody has to download the source art until delivery

• It would be easy to prototype/implement since we would just need to implement a WebGL renderer for our engine (it generates and streams text via the webserver… we already have the raw shader code as text in our engine anyway…)

• We could use Bonjour/ZeroNetConf to browse/discover Editors running on the LAN to make connecting easier

• We could potentially consider implementing our asset browser completely in the WebUI, and since the server is compiled into our editor making custom changes and handling queries is way easier than hosting an external database… and doing intimate interaction like “Place this asset in the viewport is super-easy”…

• It’s a long shot, but this could open the door to shipping a WebGL game using the web as a platform (imagine how well positioned we would be if ChromeOS is a huge hit… or even an iPad/iPhone game that just runs in Safari… no AppStore woes or Objective-C headaches to deal with).

• This could expose an interesting backend to viewing profile / debug information directly from the game

• This could make an *awesome* UI for tweaking config data values for game economies and difficulty tuning (while the game is running).

Thoughts?

[Geoff Evans]