[Freeciv-Dev] text based client possibilities

[nikodimka <nikodimka@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Hello,
> Someone on this list mentioned the possibility of a text-based client for 
> freeciv that would be accessible to the blind. 
> I do not have the source code for freeciv, nor do I have any kind of UNIX 
> environment.  
> The closest thing I have is cygwin  for windows.
> I am just wondering if such a client could be constructed how it would work, 
> and if binaries could be made for windows, preferably in console mode.

It was me. 
I started the development of Puppeteer --
-- the textual control interface to civclient.

You can look at ftp://ftp.freeciv.org/freeciv/incoming/puppetter.patch.gz
Its a patch to freeciv source, but also contains short
README description.

the architechture looks like:
civserver<-civclient<-textual input.
where <- is a socket connection.

You can give a textual commands like

ls cities -- to get list of cities
cat 103 -- to get info on unit with id=103
build 103 -- to order a unit to build a city

etc.

everything is in pretty early development stage.
And right now it is integrated only with gtk gui,
but I have future plans to eliminate GUI dependancies
and create pure textbased client.

Note: the primary intent of the interface is 
the clientside AI written in languages other than C
(e.g. python, perl, lisp, java)
And the creation of interactive demos/tutorials.

But some steps could be made to make it more suitale
for human player.

PS: I am not subscried to this list,
(I read it through http://news.gmane.org/gmane.games.freeciv.devel )
so I can't see Zack's email to put it into CC:
And not sure if Zack is subscribed, so could anyone 
who is subscried please forward my reply to Zack,
yes I am going to suscrie right now, sorry for such a mess, please

nikodimka


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