Esoteric Update #320 - Brooming Java Script

They let me out yesterday. That was a few days later than initially expected, hence the update is today.

So, to address the hospital thing first. I'm about as fine as possible given the situation, still having minor mobility issues due to swelling, and a bit of pain. Yesterday, I just absorbed the presence of cats, as it is well known to soothe both the body and soul.

Because I've been constantly in the hospital since the last update, I only have some minor things to report. Since I didn't have the opportunity or the right environment to work on the game during my stay there, I just snuck in some late-night coding to close off various loose ends. In no particular order...

Ended up reading about modern JS a bit more. There were a few things that were either causing problems or lacked an elegant solution to the issues they were trying to solve. This touches on almost everything I've done.

I've cleaned up the code that handles keyboard input to solve some edge case problems and also improve the keyboard handling and customisation. Sadly, the customisation itself is still not menu-based, but the keys and key combos can be set through configuration files. To realise this, I slightly refreshed the CSS and HTML that build the key markers and made that part of the UI framework too.

I've also finished the page that displays the key combos, by reading them from definitions... mostly. The first three are defined separately through UI elements. Obviously, I also went through all of the UI declarations and definitions to properly account for this.

I've also redone the word list UI element, mostly by cleaning up and fixing the code, but I also enhanced it with smooth UI animations. In the process, I also implemented a general solution for modals with arguments, which I am sure I'll use elsewhere in the future too.

Finally, I've been contemplating an issue with pronouns in the original implementation and opted to implement pronoun handling that is separated from the sex tag a character has - this was important for certain non-human entities. After polling my server, I also decided to add an option to select pronouns to the character creator. Please note that the choice is only between feminine, singular they and Spivak/Elverson pronouns and that there will be some narrative complications related to them. At the core, the game still aims only to support a feminine identity, but this can be used to fiddle around with the character within that constraint.

Furthermore, I've found and fixed some bugs, either with other parts of the JS or, interestingly, the code of the engine itself, as I ran into an edge case with the print-raw token. That last one was rather unexpected! And I wrote a bit, just to continue getting into the swing of writing, which is once more starting to come somewhat naturally.

Anyway, I have a few major things I need to take care of next, and I'm not sure in what order I'll be tackling them. But I'll try to get it done step by step. Things should be more manageable now that I've had this surgery, as things were getting pretty bad otherwise.