[X3D-Public] multiuser mode (newbie question)

[Chris Marrin]

Because it has not been mentioned, I thought I'd mention it. Have you heard of WebSockets?

	http://dev.w3.org/html5/websockets/

It's an API which allows for socket connections with a server. The server side can be written in any language you desire. There are examples in JavaScript, Python, Java, Ruby, and others.  It's Wikipedia entry talks about browser status and server implementations:

	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Sockets#Browser_Implementations
	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Sockets#Server_Implementations

This basically says that the latest, unlreleased versions of WebKit, Chrome and Firefox for Windows and Mac have them implemented. I think this is true for Linux as well. You can see if your browser supports WebSockets here:

	http://jimbergman.net/websocket-web-browser-test/

WebSockets is used in the WebGL based Quake 2 game here:

	http://code.google.com/p/quake2-gwt-port/

Here's an Ars Technica article about it:

	http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2010/04/html5-and-webgl-bring-quake-to-the-browser.ars

Like WebGL, WebSockets is an emerging standard that can allow multi-user protocols in the browser without plugins.

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~Chris
chris at marrin.com