It is probably a question of point of view, but I would be happy to keep EQBrowser a "read-only" tool, at least regarding to the regular EQEmu DB tables used by the game. And if additional tables created just for the purpose of the browser get corrupted and have/can be reloaded without any harm , so much the better. In fact I run EQBrowser with a special MySQL user that has read-only access to all my EQEmu databases (I do not use the quest thingy at the moment).
I think it is very much possible to keep EQBrowser faithful to its name, a browser. We can complicate it as much as needed to handle more specific "requests", but keep it a browser and a portal to other places (PEQ Editor, Lucy, whatever else). The EQEmu database Google in a way.
Thanks to the Web philosophy, you can have a tool dedicated to searching and other tool(s) for doing more involved tasks. This is the reason I linked NPC pages to their Edit counterpart in PEQ Editor : use the power of the web, and delegate to much-better written, to the point tools. It is the opposite of monolithic applications and the reason that I like web apps, and that I dislike Web 2.0 in a way : because you tend to lose the power of the "link" in Web 2.0. You get one URL for your home page and that's it.
To answer your post now, having EQBrowser display info about players, their inventory etc why not. Having it display a player list or a list of characters who have so-and-so items, and forward you to a Magelo clone, even better. Having another icon send you to an Edit page on the web app you are going to write and passing it the character/PC info (ID), sure.
Just a sound sharing of responsibility : you take care of the editing, EQBrowser takes care of the searching, and we know how to interface both (and the many new unsuspected other apps people can write) cleanly. That way you can be the master of your hill, and share it with the others through well-known, SECURE, interfaces.
If I could give an advice to web developers around here, it would be : provide as much functionality as you can through direct links (with parameters). Think of each of your application pages as a whole, that can be accessed individually and provides a clear service. Avoid forcing people to "click-click" through many wizard-like pages to do what they want. It is good for advert-sponsored pages, but not for charitable utilities. This is the spirit of the web after all, how it started at least.
|