[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Introduction and Patch Approval Process

["Per I. Mathisen" <Per.Inge.Mathisen@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 16 Aug 2001 col@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> ahem... I think that the most developpers thought not easy enough as
> getting sound output is the easiest thing to integrate due having such
> programs as "play" which is nearly available for every platform.

Ok, as one of the people developing sound support way back then, let me
tell you what I was thinking (although I recommend going back to read the
mail archives from that period):

 - the server should be in command of sound
 - client and server should negotiate which sound to play
 - the server sends a generic signal of what type of sound it wants
 - the client interprets this signal according to the local sound library

Why make it so complex? Because of modpacks. I have only briefly skimmed
your patch, but it looks likes it hardcodes current freeciv rules. Not a
good thing, although it might be a worthwhile start, perhaps.

Another problem is that the server does not send sufficient information to
the client to allow it to play the sounds it should (for wonders and
such). So eventually we started looking at cutting down on the verbosity
of the client-server communication, and putting all the server
generated text strings in the client. This would also fix the issue
where the server has a different locale (language) than the client. Again,
please consult the mail archives for the (lenghty) discussion on this
topic.

All this is from the top of my head, and I haven't looked at the freeciv
code in more than a year, so I might be wrong about a thing or two, but I
hope it helps more than it confuses... ;)

I will try to dig out the patches I made, and send them to you. But it is
huge amount of work that remains, if you wish to go that way.

Yours,
Per

Be creative. Be disruptive. Absolutely refuse to go away.
 -- NYC Ya Basta!