Re: [Freeciv-Dev] proposal for extensible races framework

[Trent Piepho <xyzzy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 9 Jan 1999, David Pfitzner wrote:
> I propose that the current flag icons be excised from tiles.xpm,
> and placed in a new flags.xpm, for easier extensibility.  

With the tile xpm files being chopped up as they are, (first me taking out the
small and treaty tiles, then another patch that takes out the road tiles, now
flag tiles), it's getting annoying to have different tile sets.  You get a
directory with 50 files in, and in order to swap tiles you have to change 6
files!  So here is my proposal to deal with this, and make tiles sets more
practical:

Each tile set has a subdirectory from data, where all the xpm files go.  The
default tile set does into default.  So we have

data --> default +-> tiles.xpm
     |           +-> units.xpm
     |           +-> treaty.xpm
     |           +-> small.xpm
     |           \-> etc...xpm
     +-> civ2 +-> tiles.xpm
     |        +-> units.xpm
     |        \-> flags.xpm
     |
     +-> something --> units.xpm

Normally the client uses xpms in the default directory.  When the client is
started you can specify an alternate tile set, e.g.  "civclient -tiles civ2",
and the client will look in that directory.  The civ2 directory doesn't have a
treaty.xpm file, so the client will fall back to treaty.xpm file in the
default directory.

In the future, the client could have a dialog where one could select the tile
set (or change tile sets) at run time.  This directory structure makes it easy
for the client to see what's available.

[rest of race stuff snipped]

I think that sounds like a good way to do it, and it's actually practical. 
The most difficult part will probably be modifying the client race selection
dialog so that it's made from race names received from the server.  I suggest
having flag and color selection be done after races.  ie.  first the race
dialog pops up and people pick race.  Then a flag dialog pops up and people
pick their flag.  The default flag for each race would already be selected.

You also have to come up with a packet format for sending city names and the
other information to the client.