EVE Technology Lab

Long story short, Google docs is slowly getting more and more upgrades, and recent upgrade that for now is optional and not forced on old spreadsheets/forms/etc... no longer works in IGB

As CCP is probably aware many players use many google docs spreadsheets in game via IGB. with links based on data linking to pages running IGB javascript functions. My corporation is using this extensivly. We have IGB Jscript app based on Google spreadsheets to do a lot of stuff.

Sooner or later Google and other web developers will keep making stuff that no longer will work with IGB.

Now I know that IGB is not priority, but pls consider in some future upgrading the underlying engine to more recent chromium version.

Just a thought FoxFour:

I know that this really isn't CCP's thing, but have you considered making a community project out of the IGB? Essentially making it a "module" that fits into EVE Online. For example, there are set calls/methods/functions for headers, JavaScript popups, and the like that the code can reference. This would keep us players from knowing the interworkings of your code. Thehe players, under the supervision of a developer or two who could simply review and OK the code, craft the "new" IGB. If there's really that many people using the IGB (as I would expect), there's bound to be players who are interested in joining in on such a project. I would be one of them.

Granted, I will make a relatively safe assumption that even if this project was put into the community's hands, it would take significant work to get the IGB into a module status that can simply be "loaded in" whenever EVE is compiled or updated so players have the most up-to-date stable version. However, I believe it would be cool to allow players to be notified for IGB updates as well which could be downloaded separately for beta or nightly builds to help with community testing.

Hearing this is perhaps the most detrimental news as far as my major project. I had intended to provide data into Eve, not just out of it, and relying on CREST alone limits my options for tools I have planned to create.

Additionally the IGB isn't just a data source, it's a tool, it's a resource, because tabbing between Eve and a normal browser is suicide in lowsec and nullsec. Depreciation of it would be a crippling blow, seeing as there is no other way to provide a 'plugin' to add features. I mean, heck, when I'm in Eve, I use it to order food.

The Google Drive/Docs concern is one I also echo, as the GDocs have been a vital tool for me to track corp resources in the past, they provide a tool without the spyware potential of other apps (this is EVE after all) they provide a way for people with limited or no programming experience to create management tools for their corps. Or people like me, Google Docs lets me prototype formula logic without having to toggle between Eve and a browser, which tends to result in my poor old computer crashing out of EVE.

Personally I think there's not so much a demand for adding features to the CCPEVE Javascript object, or the IGB trusted site headers (though the wishlist on the wiki would be nice to source ideas for additions from), just keeping the codebase for the IGB current with it's parent projects, Chromium and Awesomium would be beneficial from a usability, security and safety standpoint.

The ability to use plugins for certain sites like Youtube or maybe add a trusted site plugin option would also be VERY useful to deal with the hours of time wasted by sitting in belts while shooting asteroids. (which was the first goal we reached on the 11th anniversary challenge)

Personally I would love to be able to watch youtube videos while hauling cargo around, it'd also give the pirates who target me a better chance of ganking me, so they'd like it too.

While EVE is a space ship game, and an internet browser tool is certainly a different thing, and not in the game's scope, EVE is very different from most games in play style.

We have an in game a tool we use as a regular browser for intel, sharing intel, assets management, market stuff, passing time and ten thousand other things.

Just count all the web sites that are made for EVE! How many has functions that rely on simple copy-paste since IGB doesn’t have that feature! How many can use IGB’s functionality as a trusted source to create an integrated feeling with the game while offering a gazillion other functions! How many sites are there, that share stuff as a simple internet source, like wikis and many-many market sites!

We don’t have addons.

We have an IGB.

Your players rely on it now.

Hey guys,

We are aware of all those concerns. However the engine we are using, Awesomium I believe, was heavily modified to work with EVE. The end result is that it's not nearly as simple as upgrading to the newest version. Especially after all these years. It's an unfortunate situation but it is what it is.

We are not in a position to dedicate resource to the IGB right now. While we do of course hope we can get CREST out to you and that we can get it to a state that it covers most of your needs there are obviously clear benefits to having the IGB. These are things we are aware of and thinking about what we can do.

For now though, it's not even being looked at.

Don't stop poking us about it though, but don't go expecting anything either.

Thank You for the answer, so here is something that may sound like a solution, although I don't know if it covers all of the stuff we want to do:

so IGB have 3 EVE usages
1. TRUSTED/HTTP headers to get info from EVE to web server - probably can be replaced by CREST (will require high frequency of data access trough CREST measured in seconds)

2. Displaying pages that may or may not be EVE related - can be replaced (theoretically) by plain upgrade to new web engine without ANY changes - just plug in browser into eve and do nothing more like HTTP Headers, Java Script library and stuff to it. Except maybe blocking plugin usage to increase security. Pages can get data trough CREST from players that let them access it

3. Accessing certain in game functionality: currently done by EVE JavaScript library and is probably hardest to replace, but what if CREST when we finally get into the time when it can write and not only read the EVE server could run the same things as today's IGB JS library. i.e. cause in game events to occur, open certain show info page, view market details, set destination to a system.

Not sure if this actually solve anything. Maybe I don't see the extra work that is needed to simply plug a non-eve browser into the game? Maybe crest will only be able to do stuff silently (i.e. can't open show info, but maybe can set destination)

Chromium - Awesomium - Moondoggy - carbon subsystem of the client

Also I do plan on keeping on this FoxFour, I do thank you for being understanding and responding in more depth, I'll move my flavor of pestering back to IRC, as I'm not a forum person.

I do echo the desire for the system to be more modular, thus allowing Chromium to be upgraded as needed.

The best thing about the IGB is that it's not the old IGB.

The second best thing about the IGB is the game related functionality.

As far as a web browser goes, I always tell rookies to not bother, to just run in fixed window and alt-tab. Sounds like some people get some use out of it, but it sure would be nice if it had the basic features to essentially be a oog browser replacement. My only use for it has been google docs, and even that's always been an ordeal with window sizing and weird scroll focus. For me, it's never been feature complete enough to even consider it a functional tool.

+1 for giving it some much needed attention.

Based on the newly begun discussion here,https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=357198, there are a lot of people who very much want the igb to stay in the client. Updates would be great. But removal is a non-starter for a large number of players.

CREST, in its proposed read only state (unable to push data or action back to the client) represents a huge loss in functionality for how many of us currently play your game. Additionally, there is no ETA on CREST that I'm aware of so even floating the idea of the igb removal and forced migration to CREST is a not good customer service.

Throw us a bone here. Allow us to continue making use of tools that you, CCP, won't make. That only benefit your game and your players.

Thank you.

Said no CCP Dev ever.