A long overdue release with a lot of fixes, and new additions, including support for lua and map options.
Archive for the 'AFLobby' Category
The recent update to 0.76b1 has introduced several protocol changes. One such change that wreaks havoc on the current stable AFLobby is the introduction of two new ranks with make AFLobby crash almost immediately. The other change is the introduction of SETSCRIPTTAGS and the deprecation of UPDATEBATTLEDETAILS. AFLobby 3.9.8.1 and several alpha versions of 3.9.9 do not support these new commands, and thus fall apart in the new server protocol environment.
To this end a working version of AFLobby is needed. Support for mod options has been added along with a pretty new GUI page for setting them.
This release is more of an in between of 3.9.9 and beta 4, and you’ll notice many changes.
Numerous UI components have been torn out and replaced with tables which run hundreds of times faster while eliminating rafts of bugs in the process. A lot of internal structures have changed too, increasing stability and overall speed, aswell as other speed ups to prevent the user thinking the program has frozen, such as loading messages on mini maps. The map browser on the main view has been removed as it was a silly thing to have there and added more tabs, the colours on the battles are gone, substance GUI updated, a proper swing window rather than swing controls in an old AWT window, there’re a lot of changes going on.
In other news, I’ve been differentiating this site a little more, so you may see a lot more in the way of blue diagonal stripes. A good dose of css and png transparency goes a long way.
I have been implementing the new protocol specifications, and correcting GUI issues since my last post. Sadly I have not been paying spring as much attention as usual but thats due to University, and impending coursework deadline monopolizing my time among other things.
Of note would be the new lua mod and map options. Other lobbies have added these but have made no or little attempt to take advantage of the necessary changes, resulting in perhaps an extra tab as in tasclients case. Whereas I however have decided to take full advantage of this opportunity to breathe a little life into the battlewindow.
Thus I present the beginnings of the new way of setting and viewing game options, lua and nonlua:
All the nonlua controls will be removed in favour of this approach rather than being left in as cruft for the sake of it. Map and mod options will be distinguishable via icons when completed, and eventually modder definable images for each option. In the far future a search option would be available, but don’t expect a search box for many months just yet.
I currently have checkboxes/boolean options implemented. I now need to tie in lua unitsync functions and create the other option type UIs for the list.
As it stands I have implemented client side support for options so desyncs should not occur, however the visual representation in the list is a todo. Hostside implementation is limited to those items in the list that where in 0.75b2.
Christmas has passed, and the 0.76 release did not come, but I have it on good authority a release will happen before or on new years day under the best of circumstances.
Unabated by the delay of the much anticipated release, content makers have been busying themselves in hopes their frantic typing and screaming will keep their Christmas dinners from exiting the wrong orifice.
One such artist being ralphie, who re-engineered charlie in the hills into a much prettier spectacle. Granted the older version was a little crooked but ralphie has taken the golden game play of the original and improved upon perfection itself!
In response UF was down for christmas day as IaMaCuP applied much needed maintenance to his servers.
The great former king of the mods Caydr has re-appeared on the spring forums! Advising forum goers on cut price games on steam before january 1st, he has started a discussion on what to call AA’s next version in light of the AA 5.2 fiasco.
And it seems aGorm may have another map up his sleeve! In highlighting part 1 on the spring forums aGorm posted this image:
l have also been adding more features to aflobby, removing clunky slow html panes and adding fast clean and pretty UI table controls, compelte with filters, icons, sortable columns, amongst other things:
FibreV5 was also released, sadly there was no screen shot parade, but what we did get was a slew of CA concept art models and their 3D equivalents. Of note was a cannon by Treeform based on the CA concept art I reported a few weeks ago:
Indeed Treeform has been busy, he found the time to create this Jethro model:
Argh however, has been spending his Christmas wisely. Having completed most of the Overmind race, he has started work on the second faction of P.U.R.E. As well as preview images of what is yet to come, he has added new balancing units to the Overmind faction:
The starwars people are getting twitchy, and they too have started releasing more images again:
Visit the Star Wars Hype Thread
Submit channel icons for AFLobby
Watch Treeform turn turrets into art deco
Deliver Arghs lua Christmas present
Help name the next version of AA
Dance with Charlie in the hills
Recently I’ve had a little more time than usual with aflobby. Of note are a slew of bug fixes and glest support.
I’ve corrected numerous aesthetic issues, including icons that stretch tabs, and windows that are still undecorated such as the warning window. The bundled Substance has been updated to 4.1 stable, and I’ve made other GUI tweaks to make minor improvements.
I will make clear that 3.9.9 will not support the svn protocol changes unless spring is released before 3.9.9.
Glest Support?
Indeed, with the recent Glest 3 multi player alphas there’s been some talk over glest lobbies. Sadly martinho tried out the wrong lobby program and was repulsed by tasclient, resulting in official support being dropped. Nonetheless, unofficial support started. Hailstone has been working on patching glest to give external lobby support, and I can announce that the aflobby side support is now completed, and sitting in the spring svn.
So what does this involve?
Glest games in the lobby will use the ‘Glest’ mod to identify them from spring based games. Battles will then move into a battle room before the host launches the glest battle set-up screen. Details such as team numbers, spectator modes, maps or battle status are all to be ignored. Chat, player joins, exits, kicks, locks and launches are all that are needed.
More updates
I’ve also removed the html control with the clunky html tables on the player list tab. Instead it now uses a table control, so the whole thing is much faster and prettier.
