EVE Technology Lab

I use it to pop up buy orders from item links as well as to easily see my production business alongside client windows. I would gladly tolerate the javascript quirks in exchange for a sell item popup and update buy/sell popups keyed on asset id. I also play on a single monitor and it would be a hassle to half-screen browser and client.

Yes and no. If CCP enables this, they can not claim that someone hacked the game etc...
So if they enable it, they will most likely only have CREST stuff available, which will also slow down some things ...

Me too on this. I never understood the whole 'CREST will replace the IGB' line. I use it to browse sites in game when I'm in full screen mode. I never understood how crest was going to allow that but gathered that the IGB was more of a link to the data in game instead of a dedicated browser. Then it makes sense to replace it with crest but I don't think you get how nice it is to have in game for just general use. When google docs became available then we really could have spreadsheets in space. It was a huge bonus to so many things.

I posted this in another browser related thread. But...

Since you're set on removing the browser app, perhaps replace it with a beacon app. What I mean is, a pilot clicks on the app and can enter a series of URLs perhaps with a status toggle (on/off). Every time a pilot switches systems the beacon app fires a JSON formatted POST to the URLs that are "on".

This would allow for pilots to send the data in the browser header to the websites in a nicely formatted manner, without having to continue to manage the in-game browser in all its modified glory.

This could be expanded down the road, so perhaps specific actions fire off the beacon. I could see this useful for mining, for instance next to the URL in the beacon app there is a "config/settings/options" button. Select that and a modal pops-up providing the pilot the ability to choose what data they want sent to the URL, include additional things that perhaps are already logged locally, like mining data, combat data. It would be infinitely useful to have such data automatically sent to web applications for consumption when they occur.

I would imagine the above would be a lot easier to manage then the full modified web browser, while still providing the pilots of EVE the ability to send live data to web applications and potentially data that isn't already available over time. The possibilities are endless and they wouldn't tax the EVE servers as much I would imagine as if we have to ping the CREST server constantly on combat opps for locational data on fleet activities.

Just my two cents!

I don't see EVE creating a special API outside of CREST since that's what they're trying to push and move everything too and I haven't played around with CREST yet to formulate a response. One thing I understand about CREST is like the API it relies on the website to make requests to EVE, so unlike beacon which would be active once the pilot starts EVE, with CREST you'd have to check to see what pilots are online I'd imagine then start pulling the what would have been in the header data or JSON data with beacon. Plus with CREST you're restricted by the number of requests which isn't a problem for small corps, but could be an issue for larger alliances or popular sites providing tools utilizing for multiple corps and alliances.

CCP Foxfour - I would like to add another point FOR keeping IGB (as a pure browser without build in eve integration like headers and js library - just pure in game browser, with crest to work as actual browser-server communication engine)

Interface-wise IGB is part of eve UI, it can be covered by other windows I open. Any DirectX overlay will be always on top. Especially for "always open apps" (like siggy, where you want them on screen all the time) this will be frustrating as you will need to close/minimize them before doing other stuff.

Right now You can open other EVE window that will simply cover the browser, you can always click on it to bring it back, etc

Hey,

There were some questions about the legality of using an overlay with EVE. Specifically in reference to our EULA apparently disallowing it. I went and asked some people internally for clarification on this and I got an answer back.

For reference:


Taken from: https://community.eveonline.com/support/policies/third-party-policies/

In essence you need to read between the lines a little. Our concern with overlays is cheating and botting. Our intention is not to hamper your enjoyment of EVE in any way. The whole point of this is that it gives us the discretion to do what we need to do to try and stop botting and cheating.

With that in mind you should all feel very safe to use overlays, assuming it "simply enhances player enjoyment in a way that maintains fair gameplay.”

This is my problem as well, Its useful and I don't see the reason for removal other than support. Links are part of the eve culture from kill mails to pictures and stuff. There is little chance an overlay will accurately allow you to view these nicely and while the overlay is up playing the game is difficult.

This is my biggest concern aswell.
A lot of the webbased third party tools (such as dotlan) work so well because the igb basically integrates them into the eve UI.
Having to use these tools while you play in an out of game browser will be cumbersome for some people. It might even break immersion for some people that play fullscreen with 1 monitor.

Feel free to voice your opinion but saying things like this only hurts your case. When you say this it completely invalidates your case since the majority of users DON'T use the IGB. We have metrics on it, I know how many users open the IGB, how many pages are requested with the IGB, how many times the custom JavaScript hooks are used, etc. The single biggest use of the IGB is leaving it open and letting it refresh for sites like SIggy and Tripwire to track your location in wormholes. Even with that the majority of users do NOT use the IGB. Taking the less than majority and subtracting a substantial portion of that leaves the user base of the IGB at... well not that large at all.

The rest of your points however are far more valid and being kept in mind.