[Freeciv-Dev] (PR#11805) Store chat and notify messages for later retrieval

["Ed Overton" <edoverton@xxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=11805 >

In the context of managing messaging via events...

> [per - Wed Feb 23 16:26:42 2005]:
> 
> On Tue, 22 Feb 2005, Ed Overton wrote:
> > > It has been suggested before. I am very much in favour of it. It would
> > > solve the translation problem between client and server (different
> > > languages in each) and might reduce network bandwith usage.
> >
> > I guess I'd like tosee this ticket head in that direction, then, but I
> > don't want to duplicate work that's being done on event handling.Is
> > that development active?Should I change this ticket to work on a
> > preliminary event management system that would (currently) just manage
> > messaging, or am I going to step on someone else's work?
> 
> The previous work on this is very old and nobody is working on it. I think
> it would be less work to reimplement it from scratch at this point. I
> don't even know if it has a PR#.

I'm finally at a point where I've got a good build environment along
with some good chunks time I can devote to coding.  My intent is to move
forward in several discrete steps.  The point is to split out the task
into manageable chunks, and have time to validate each one.  I see (at
least) four chunks, and here are the overviews of what's involved.

[ Goal:  Make an event aware server ]
1) Change the server side so that it has fully formed events, and uses
those to fire off messages to the clients.  The event type should
indicate the recipients of the messages.  The messages should be formed
out of the event data, and message creation should be a separate
function.  Be sure to have a generic, catch-all event category.  The
client side won't change at all here;  the server will still use the
notify_* functions.

[ Goal:  Make an event aware client ]
2) Update the server so that it can pass events with server-generated
message text to event-capable clients.  For non-capable clients, the
server should back off to the notify_* functions.

[ Goal: Let the client build its own messages ]
3) Move the event message generation function into the common code. 
Update the server and client so the client can identify what events it
supports.  There will now be three ways for the server to pass an event
to a client:  a) the event alone, b) the event along with
server-generated message text, and c) via the notify_* functions.  a) is
used for clients that support the event type.  b) is used for
event-capable clients that do not support the event type.  c) is used
for older clients that lack event support.  The reason to allow both a
and b is that it allows a later server (with new event types) to work
somewhat reasonably with a client that lacks support for that particular
event.  The client would handle an unknown event type as the catch-all.
 b) could / would also be used to pass chat messages.

[ Goal: This ticket's original purpose ]
4) See this ticket for the details.  Instead of having the server store
messages, the server stores events.

Ed