[Freeciv-Dev] Re: connect dialog ver 3 (PR#1911)

[Christian Knoke <chrisk@xxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, Oct 20, 2002 at 09:05:47PM +0100, Vasco Alexandre Da Silva Costa wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Oct 2002, Daniel L Speyer wrote:
> > On Fri, 18 Oct 2002, Mike Kaufman wrote:
> > > > [snip]
> > > > o I feel this is for _single_player_games_. Inviting your friends to 
> > > > play
> > > >   really merits starting up a different server process don't you agree? 
> > > > This
> > > >   is mainly the reason why I didn't include Daniels patch to show 
> > > > incoming
> > > >   connections. It was a neat little patch, but out of sync with this 
> > > > project.
> > > > [snip]
> >
> > I would seriously disagree here.  It strikes me as unreasonable that an
> > end-user-targeted game should require command-line usage at all.  I hope
> > that RH8.1 will omit civserver from its menu, and people will get used to
> > simply runnig Freeciv, purely graphically.  Now, short of reading
> > documentation or source, how are users who learn of freeciv this way going
> > to know how to start a seperate server?
> 
> This is a Windows centric type of thinking. The mixing up of the client
> and server concepts for the sake of "usability". Well I don't feel such
> bastardisation is really necessary. Even for that.
> I guess it is because I am used to playing multiplayer networked UNIX
> based games.
> 
> IMHO when the original Freeciv designers made this game they used the UNIX
> concept. I also feel that is the correct way to do things in the long run.
> Playing a game with humans is a different thing altogether of playing a
> single-player game against the AI.
> This is the concept that needs to be reeinforced.

civclient should be able to control civserver. There is no need to mix up
the concepts. It doesn't even matter whether civclient starts civserver
or civserver is started independantly. The client automatically connects
to the server, can set up all options via a gui dialog, can allow or
disallow other players to connect to the server, can start the game.

The civserver shouldn't be killed if civclient crashes. That's why it may
be good to start them independently.

Several civclients should be able to control the civserver simultanously.
But for a first step it may be sufficient if the first civclient takes
control.

There is a security impact. Right now, civserver should not be controlled
by a remote client. This may change, if we have a way for secure
authentication. Right now, civserver should check whether the civclient
is local. Under Unix, AFAIK this is possible by checking whether it connects
via loopback interface. (I don't know how this works with windows, though).
First local civclient gets commandlevel hack.

The above implies that control takes place via TCP/IP, not pipes.

There should be a good gui, in the long run. The user shouldn't even be 
aware that there is a server. (But it's still two independent programs,
hey). For a first step, I could live with a dialog to set up basic server
options, since there is always the possibility to enter trickier options
at the chat line.

Regards,

Christian

-- 
Christian Knoke     * * *      http://www.enter.de/~c.knoke/
* * * * * * * * *  Ceterum censeo Microsoft esse dividendum.