Internal community chat

ady · Post by **ady** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 11:14 pm

download armachatron here

extract and place in some folder, dont move any files from their initial location.in the pub/server folder is a server that hosts a chatroom, use it for your clan or your own channel, enjoy!
private chat function doesnt work at 100%, sorry about it...

well, i was thinking about opening a chat, not web based, more like msn or icq, but only for armagetron.
ive been working on it today and just made the basic send-receive messages system, but id like to get more ideas from you.
explanation:
u open a program, it says : select channel , each clan could have a channel, or someone could host a public channel , etc etc. when you enter a channel , it displays a little text box and all players can chat there.
this application has 2 parts, the server and the client. the clients connect to a server, then each clan channel has to be put online by someone of the clan, who spends much time online, coz the server runs on a windows machine, like a normal application.

i had other idea, imagine that you need to talk to some armagetron player, but hes not on the game. well, it would be nice to do this:
each arma player runs one time this chat application(by doing this it will run at windows startup), the app sends to a master server the nick located in user.cfg, and his ip(to make possible a connection if someone needs so).
if someone needs to talk with mister x, chat client gets the list from inet, finds its ip, and direct connects to him, simple like that. i dont know if this its gonna be a good idea ... what do you guys think?

wrtlprnft · Post by **wrtlprnft** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 11:43 pm

Well, we do have our IRC channel, which offers capabilities for everyone to create their own channel.
There's also armabot, which does offer some of the services you want, it just can't directly let you connect, but you could modify some existing IRC client to do that.

ady · Post by **ady** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 11:50 pm

hm didnt know, anyways this thing runs in background until a msg arrives, u dont even notice it. the irc is other thing, a guy wont be all the time running the irc. and joining the channel...

wrtlprnft · Post by **wrtlprnft** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 11:53 pm

Well, if you're writing it I suggest you'd somehow hook it up to IRC. As I said, the master information is already there or available for you to parse at http://wrtlprnft.ath.cx/serverlist/serv ... tripcolors , and also consider that there's lots of players running some sort of unix who won't run any closed-source programs designed for windows written by one single person.

Website · Post by **Z-Man** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 11:57 pm

Right, the first bit sounds like you try to dublicate IRC on a smaller scale, why not just use IRC and save the work? I bet there are clients available that stick to the background until a message arrives.

About the second part, let me beat Luke to point out that this would be trivial(*) to add with XMPP authentication. You can even use your favorite(**) instant messenger as the program waiting in your systray for messages from the game.

The use case for messages from the game to the outside world would be collecting teammates for a clan war or other organized match, right?

*: Meaning there'd be just tons of glue code to write. And a tiny bit of UI. Nothing much, really.

**: As long as it is Jabber. The other instant messengers shamefully ignore the Official XMPP Internet Standard(***).

***: Proposed Internet Standard, all right.

ady · Post by **ady** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 12:29 am

you guys are right, irc is better and more professional, but do u think that a 10 year old boy (most of arma players

) would prefer irc or clicking on a single application that takes about 15 kb?
i never used irc chats, thats why i dont vote for them.
the project its almost ready(80%).
about the linux/mac guys... sorry for them, this would be kinda unfair.
now im really confused

Post by **Tank Program** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 12:46 am

I hate to say it but again, IRC is probably best. And if it doesn't run on linux or mac, most of the important, central Armagetron community members wouldn't be on it. It sounds like you're just making a generic instant messanging sort of application, but slapping a 'for Armagetron' label on it. For a while nixda.net had a IRC client on their website that was easy to use. Seems to be broken right now though. Also sounds like it would be complicated to get running for people hosting a channel.

And of course all of this is coloured by my personal grave misgivings of 'sounds like a bad idea' which are floating through my head for no particular reason.

Website · Post by **Z-Man** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 7:57 am

If size and ease of use (yes, IRC is complex) are a problem, why don't you write a lean IRC client preconfigured to join the main armagetron channel and the clan channels you're about to create? Or just redistribute a regular IRC client preconfigured for the same task? Tank is right, "Windows only" locks out many people, and not because they hate you or think this is a bad idea.

Post by **Lucifer** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 8:12 am

Mind if I remind us all the disaster armaspy became?

Website · Post by **Z-Man** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 8:46 am

That wasn't because it was Windows only. It was closed source without a working source backup plan

wrtlprnft · Post by **wrtlprnft** » Mon Nov 06, 2006 9:07 am

Note that ady probably isn't going to release his sources, either. At least he didn't for his map rotation thingy, let's just hope he has a proper backup plan.

ady · Post by **ady** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 10:40 pm

hmm the thing is that i cant stop when i start a project, so i will end it, but i guess the results wont be that good as i expected.
Talking about the non windows machines, couldnt any of you program sort of the same thing as i am doing , but for unix or mac? i would say all the necessary info like ports used, connection to the master server etc...
irc is...irc, and good work to the one who invented it, yes, i want something different, not to use a premade app, that could do it anyone.
tank, i dont understand what you mean with "it would be difficult to run a server". you mean, hosting a channel? well, its simple like clicking on a exe and , but before u have to fill up a setting file with the server's name, thats all. the project as i explained before has 2 parts, the public chat( chatrooms for 2+ users), and the private chat( ip to ip connection, no multi users in this one, only private talking,but there can be more than 1 "private talking")
ive ended the basic public chat server functions and GUI yesterday, and the only config that it needs to run is this question: " do you use armagetron 2.8 or 0.3?"
the client gets the nickname located in user.cfg and it automatically connects to the selected server with that nick.
this public chat doesnt allow transfers, webcams or others, just chat and a little extra, drawing, its possible to draw in a square and other players to modify it( just fun for bored kids:P), its possible to turn it off because i dont want to imagine 60 guys drawing at the same time...
the private chat is a bit different.
like i said before, this one connects ur ip with the other player's ip, allowing transfer of files, audio and video(webcam and voice chat) , things that i bet irc doesnt allow.(not sure , never tried it)

why not irc?
-hard to configure(not a good excuse)
-no merits to use it, its just "stealing" something and adapting it.
-irc is more like "for all persons in the planet", this thing im doing (called "armachatron" i hope u dont have any problems with that

) allows connections between armagetron players exclusively, and if someone downloads it acidentally from somewhere, it wont be able to run it - no user.cfg file.
- etc (i have more reasons, yes but not enough time to explain them)

I'm sure someone could try an effort if necessary to adapt this to unix/mac, maybe it wont be that full-functional as the win version , but a basic ver for unix/mac would also be nice.
Thanks to all for spending your time on reading this and on your ideas and oppinions, all you can do is give me ideas, because this project will be finished soon, i cant stop it, its that thing inside me that says "come on you can do it", and i dont mind if at the end it wont be useful, but at least ive tried to make something useful for this community

, lill step for me and big one for the community?

i have to stop taking drugs
peace

wrtlprnft · Post by **wrtlprnft** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 10:45 pm

Again, there won't be any real chance of getting it ported to linux if you don't provide the sources and use some multiplatform API like QT or GTK.

Website · Post by **Z-Man** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:36 pm

Yeah. And you need to convince us, or whoever shall do the unix/mac port, a bit more that it is better than IRC. What you describe sounds more like a simple not-invented-here syndrome.

ady · Post by **ady** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:50 pm

its more like a want-to-do-something-useful-for-the-community
and i dont need to convinve noone, unix/mac users will convince him if they will need it