[Freeciv-Dev] Re: More imporved game starting [patch]

[Vasco Alexandre Da Silva Costa <vasc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 25 Dec 2001, Daniel L Speyer wrote:

> My apologies if you're getting this twice -- I think the first time got
> caught in a file-size filter.
> 
> I've uploaded another version of the patch to
> ftp://ftp.freeciv.org/freeciv/incoming/conndlg3.patch (written before most
> of the recent conversation -- I would have posted it earlier but my
> network connection is intermittant).  I've removed the seperate server
> window and instead given cmdlevel hack to the player who spawns the
> server, plus I added Start, Save, End, and Score buttons to the message
> window.  I've also set it up to offer a list of players on loading a game.
>  
> In writing that last one, I did parse server output from the pipe, and it
> was extremely troublesome.  There's a reason they say not to use C for
> text-parsing.  If we're going to expand this to graphically setting
> variables, we *really* need to develop a more machine-readable syntax
> (possibly textual, but simpler in any case).

IMO we should send all server options (/set, /show) via the network. This
would make the code capable of supporting server options on remote machines.
Considering the amount of people that play on civserver i consider this 
necessary. This should be the part we should be focused on implementing
right now.

About commands, i'm still a bit doubtful about how to properly implement
that. My first impressions lead me to consider they too should be
transmitted through the network, but then we have the problem that not all
commands (e.g. load) can be executed after the server has started.
We can use some sort of authentication to ensure who gets cmdlevel hack
has what it takes.

=== I propose the following roadmap:

1) build common client code for sending/receiving options.
2) build a reference GUI code around that.

3) make the server able to load games after it has started up.
4) implement remote commands using a GUI.

---
Vasco Alexandre da Silva Costa @ Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa