Making Quicksilver and friends play nice with wasm32.

Disclaimer:

This technology is indistinguishable from magic. I am merely recalling which spells and incantations worked for me. If you have anything to add, you can reach me on https://gitgud.io/yuvallanger/kaka.farm/ or https://gitlab.com/yuvallanger/kaka.farm/.

Several months ago, writing a Flappy Bird clone called Rectangly Rect, I have done a bunch of asking around and found exactly which parts don't work and how to replace them. Yesterday, trying to adapt YasamSim to the web, I have re-discovered those workarounds, and decided to write this down.

println!!

First thing, drop all of your println!s. For some esoteric reason, this function throws a wrench into the web's machinery. Same goes for std::time::Instance::now(). For now I just dropped all calls to now(), maybe I could ask the browser manually with whatever function Javascript has, or maybe there is a more standardized std alternative for the web - I don't know.

In order to replace println!, I had to add to Cargo.toml a general dependency for the crate log, an entry for every target that is not wasm32 for the crate env_logger, and an entry for the crate web_logger for the wasm32 target:

[dependencies]
log = "0.4"

[target.'cfg(not(wasm32))'.dependencies]
env_logger = "0.6"

[target.'cfg(wasm32)'.dependencies]
web_logger = "0.1"

In src/logging.rs, conditionally compile a different init_logger() function for each platform, wasm32 and not-wasm32:

```src/logging.rs

[cfg(target_arch = "wasm32")]

pub fn init_logger() { ::web_logger::init(); }

[cfg(not(target_arch = "wasm32"))]

pub fn init_logger() { ::env_logger::init(); }

In `src/main.rs`, call the `init_logger()` defined in the `logging.rs`
sub-module at the head of your `main()` function:

```src/main.rs
mod logging;

fn main() {
    logging::init_logger();
    
}

Now you can call info!(), error!(), warn!(), etc., as described in https://docs.rs/log/0.4/log/.

If you also debug it in your native target, you can also provide the RUST_LOG environment variable, as per https://docs.rs/env_logger/0.6/env_logger/'s documentation, in your command line incantations:

$ RUST_LOG=DEBUG cargo run

Sequentialize SPECS.

For some more esoteric reasons, probably something to do with threads, I had to rewrite how I run my specs::Systems , and how specs::Systems written.

Dispatching specs::Dispatcher.

One normally builds a dependency graph of specs::Systems using something like:

```src/main.rs fn make_specs_dispatcher() -> specs::Dispatcher<'static, 'static> { specs::DispatcherBuilder::new() .with( SystemFoo, "system_foo", &[], ) .with( SystemBar, "system_bar", &["system_foo"], ) .build() }

struct OurGameState { specs_world: specs::World, specs_dispatcher: specs::Dispatcher, }

impl State for OurGameState { fn new() -> Result { let specs_world = make_specs_world_and_register_components(); // Implemented elsewhere… let specs_dispatcher = make_specs_dispatcher();

    Ok(
        OurGameState {
            specs_world,
            specs_dispatcher,
        }
    )
}

fn update(&mut self, window: &mut Window) -> Result<()> {
    let system_foo = SystemFoo;
    let system_bar = SystemBar;

    system_foo.run_now(&selfworld.res);
    system_bar.run_now(&world.res);

    world.maintain();

    Ok(())
}

[imagine the rest of the quicksilver::lifecycle::State methods implemented here]

}

In this example `SystemBar` depends on the state of the `specs::World` left by
`SystemFoo` after it does its thing.

Instead of using this `Dispatcher` as described in
<https://slide-rs.github.io/specs/03_dispatcher.html>, you do this in your
`quicksilver::lifecycle::State::update()`

struct OurGameState { specs_world: specs::World, }

impl State for OurGameState { fn new() -> Result { let specs_world = make_specs_world_and_register_components(); // Implemented elsewhere…

    Ok(
        OurGameState {
            specs_world,
        }
    )
}

fn update(&mut self, window: &mut Window) -> Result<()> {
    let system_foo = SystemFoo;
    let system_bar = SystemBar;

    system_foo.run_now(&selfworld.res);
    system_bar.run_now(&world.res);

    world.maintain();

    Ok(())
}

[imagine the rest of the quicksilver::lifecycle::State methods implemented here]

} ```

But in order to sequentialize how you deal with specs, you'd need to change one more thing:

Lay off specs::LazyUpdater.

If you do anything with specs::LazyUpdate, you would have to convert it into another form, interacting with your Component Storages directly with WriteStorage or whatever.