[tetrinext] Re: let's talk about the chat interface MODULE.

[Jared Johnson <solomon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Seriously, if we so wanted, we could have a window or area of the screen,
> where an existing irc client could open (say, epic4 or bitchx) so that the
> users could have all their preferences already done (wrt to coloring, and
> nick completion, and whatever).  Or we could have our game be in a
> bitchx/epic4/whatever window.  In either case, the actual communication is
> done over existing IRC connections, possibly via a new channel.  You could
> even have it so that lurkers could watch games in progress by watching
> (and possibly decoding) the messages sent in that IRC channel. (How to do
> this all is left as an exercise to the reader, as I haven't the slightest
> idea :-/ ) 

there are some obstacles to doing alot of the stuff you're talking about. 
first, it has to work on just about any platform.  This prevents us from
incorporating TINT into any particular client, er incorporating any particular 
client into
TINT -- that is, any particular client we don't write for ourselves.  Sending
any game data over an IRC type connection would not be a very good idea for many
reasons =)

This is very interesting, though.  If there were some way to let people use
their own IRC clients to chat instead of our minimal client, that would really 
own.
It's just that it would probably have to a completely seperate thing from
normal gameplay.  Sort of analogous to what Tetrix does now for admins, but 
make it
available to everyone, and make it a bit less broken.  Allow people to interface
with the chat and some of the commands (like viewing the winlist and whatnot)
via IRC.  I don't see any sane way to let people do this and play at the same
time, though.  Something like that would be very hacky.

I think we will have to end up basically writing a very minimal interface to
chat and gameplay into the core, and then from there extend with things like 
extra
chat functionality and perhaps an IRC interface.

-- 
Jared Johnson
solomon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Just machines to make big decisions,
Programmed by men for compassion and vision,
We'll be clean when their work is done,
We'll be eternally free, yes, eternally young,
What a beautiful world this will be,
What a glorious time to be free.
                -- Donald Fagon, "What A Beautiful World"

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version:  3.12
GCS/C d+(-)>-- s:+ a18 C++++$ UL++++>$ P+>++++ L+++ E--- W+ N+ o? K- w--- !O
M-- V-- !PS !PE Y PGP- t+ 5-- X R-- tv- b+ DI>+ !D G e>++(>+++) h-- r* y-(+++)
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------