[1.3.b50] MapTool stores/recalls server info

If you have an idea for a new feature, please discuss it in the main MapTool forum first, then post a summary of the discussion here. Use the first Sticky as a template.

Moderators: dorpond, trevor, Azhrei, giliath, jay, Mr.Ice

User avatar
Azhrei
Site Admin
Posts: 12086
Joined: Mon Jun 12, 2006 1:20 pm
Location: Tampa, FL

Re: [1.3.b50] MapTool stores/recalls server info

Post by Azhrei »

palmer wrote:As of RIGHT NOW, I count 51 games listed on the server list.
4 of them are 1.3.older (including one b24!)
5 of them are Pre-1.3

That's almost 18% of games not using the most current... and we can't expect people to always stay current.
Interesting numbers. One thing that downloading ZIP files promotes is people using older versions. At least with the WebStart, if there's just a huge bug in some version, we can tell the web site not to serve the file any more and people would have to upgrade/update. Right now if we find a bad bug, there's not way to necessarily inform the user.

Trevor and I were talking about the initial handshake between server and registry and I think a message box that confirms that the server started should also have any notes sent by the registry. Then we could warn users of certain versions if there were problems. Or just let them know that a newer build is available...
Obviously this functionality won't work at all for another few builds, but after that point, you know?
Well, the web site updates can be made immediately, but yeah, people would need to use a build that had the command line functionality in it. So at least one build, maybe two.

User avatar
jfrazierjr
Deity
Posts: 5176
Joined: Tue Sep 11, 2007 7:31 pm

Re: [1.3.b50] MapTool stores/recalls server info

Post by jfrazierjr »

Ok... good news... I got a maptool client to accept -D parameters (separate ones) and auto connect to a server using host,ip, username, and password. Yeah!!!

Bad news is that I still have to work on all the other stuff... such as making the client KNOW it's connected to a server, data validation to make sure it's got enough information to actually connect to a server.

Since Maptool starts a fake server when you load up, I have to make sure I can get that stuff sorted out in all cases (player boot, player disconnects normally, etc.) This won't be in b51 unless Trevor goes more than tomorrow before building. I plan to work on this tomorrow night and if I don't get everything finished, I will work some more on it over the weekend...
I save all my Campaign Files to DropBox. Not only can I access a campaign file from pretty much any OS that will run Maptool(Win,OSX, linux), but each file is versioned, so if something goes crazy wild, I can always roll back to a previous version of the same file.

Get your Dropbox 2GB via my referral link, and as a bonus, I get an extra 250 MB of space. Even if you don't don't use my link, I still enthusiastically recommend Dropbox..

Craig
Great Wyrm
Posts: 2107
Joined: Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:53 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: [1.3.b50] MapTool stores/recalls server info

Post by Craig »

jfrazierjr wrote:Ok... good news... I got a maptool client to accept -D parameters (separate ones) and auto connect to a server using host,ip, username, and password. Yeah!!!

Bad news is that I still have to work on all the other stuff... such as making the client KNOW it's connected to a server, data validation to make sure it's got enough information to actually connect to a server.

Since Maptool starts a fake server when you load up, I have to make sure I can get that stuff sorted out in all cases (player boot, player disconnects normally, etc.) This won't be in b51 unless Trevor goes more than tomorrow before building. I plan to work on this tomorrow night and if I don't get everything finished, I will work some more on it over the weekend...
Not sure if you shouldn't just pop the connect to server dialog box up with the details filled in, especially in the case where a sever will use a password. Plus if I have a link I send to all my players I want it to open up the dialog box so they can put in their name, I certainly don't want them all using the same name ;)

Also you may want to publish your games "connect" string, but you certainly wouldn't want to place the password in it if its in a public place everyone can see it. That would defeat the purpose of having a password ;)

User avatar
Azhrei
Site Admin
Posts: 12086
Joined: Mon Jun 12, 2006 1:20 pm
Location: Tampa, FL

Re: [1.3.b50] MapTool stores/recalls server info

Post by Azhrei »

Craig wrote:Not sure if you shouldn't just pop the connect to server dialog box up with the details filled in, especially in the case where a sever will use a password. Plus if I have a link I send to all my players I want it to open up the dialog box so they can put in their name, I certainly don't want them all using the same name ;)
Well, part of the goal is exactly that: to prevent the need for the player to have to do anything! So I suppose a command line option to show/hide the dialog box would work for me. And the player's name will be one of the command line parameters, if I understand correctly. (Hmm, "IIUC". A new acronym. :))
Also you may want to publish your games "connect" string, but you certainly wouldn't want to place the password in it if its in a public place everyone can see it. That would defeat the purpose of having a password ;)
But that would be fine for sending it to ones players who, presumably, need to know the password. ;)

Craig
Great Wyrm
Posts: 2107
Joined: Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:53 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: [1.3.b50] MapTool stores/recalls server info

Post by Craig »

Azhrei wrote:
Craig wrote:Not sure if you shouldn't just pop the connect to server dialog box up with the details filled in, especially in the case where a sever will use a password. Plus if I have a link I send to all my players I want it to open up the dialog box so they can put in their name, I certainly don't want them all using the same name ;)
Well, part of the goal is exactly that: to prevent the need for the player to have to do anything! So I suppose a command line option to show/hide the dialog box would work for me. And the player's name will be one of the command line parameters, if I understand correctly. (Hmm, "IIUC". A new acronym. :))
But then I would need to create one separate link for every player. :)
Azhrei wrote:
Also you may want to publish your games "connect" string, but you certainly wouldn't want to place the password in it if its in a public place everyone can see it. That would defeat the purpose of having a password ;)
But that would be fine for sending it to ones players who, presumably, need to know the password. ;)
I am not likely to make use of the function but look at the ways it may be used.

Scenarios.
I have a public web page for my campaign I want to put link for MapTool for players
I need a password so not any one can just click on the link, so MapTool will need to open connect dialog box, for password and probably user name.

I want to generate a link for my players and email them
I will probably generate one that lets them choose their own user name, again I need the connect to server dialog box (or something similar) to pop up.

Actually the more I think about it, the less uses of an automatic connection I can see, apart from if all the players generate their own links, which means I have to send them the info, then they have to plug it into the website and get a link. Which kind of defeats the purpose. :)

So I would say that having the choice to have the user dumped into the connect to server dialog when MapTool opens when you click on the jnlp so players can change info such as username/password is important, so I think you would need to give people that ability. If you can't do it both ways then I would think the need to be able to dump them into the connect to server dialog would out weigh the need for people to connect directly without having have to click ok/push return on that dialog.

User avatar
jfrazierjr
Deity
Posts: 5176
Joined: Tue Sep 11, 2007 7:31 pm

Re: [1.3.b50] MapTool stores/recalls server info

Post by jfrazierjr »

Craig wrote:
Azhrei wrote:
Craig wrote:Not sure if you shouldn't just pop the connect to server dialog box up with the details filled in, especially in the case where a sever will use a password. Plus if I have a link I send to all my players I want it to open up the dialog box so they can put in their name, I certainly don't want them all using the same name ;)
Well, part of the goal is exactly that: to prevent the need for the player to have to do anything! So I suppose a command line option to show/hide the dialog box would work for me. And the player's name will be one of the command line parameters, if I understand correctly. (Hmm, "IIUC". A new acronym. :))
But then I would need to create one separate link for every player. :)
Azhrei wrote:
Also you may want to publish your games "connect" string, but you certainly wouldn't want to place the password in it if its in a public place everyone can see it. That would defeat the purpose of having a password ;)
But that would be fine for sending it to ones players who, presumably, need to know the password. ;)
I am not likely to make use of the function but look at the ways it may be used.

Scenarios.
I have a public web page for my campaign I want to put link for MapTool for players
I need a password so not any one can just click on the link, so MapTool will need to open connect dialog box, for password and probably user name.

I want to generate a link for my players and email them
I will probably generate one that lets them choose their own user name, again I need the connect to server dialog box (or something similar) to pop up.

Actually the more I think about it, the less uses of an automatic connection I can see, apart from if all the players generate their own links, which means I have to send them the info, then they have to plug it into the website and get a link. Which kind of defeats the purpose. :)

So I would say that having the choice to have the user dumped into the connect to server dialog when MapTool opens when you click on the jnlp so players can change info such as username/password is important, so I think you would need to give people that ability. If you can't do it both ways then I would think the need to be able to dump them into the connect to server dialog would out weigh the need for people to connect directly without having have to click ok/push return on that dialog.
My initial goal for this was to autoconnect with no player action required after clicking the JNLP (or optionally a correctly modified batch file.) For me, my goal was to create a collection of JNLP files for each of the games I play so I don't have to remember John's server/port and then Ben's server/port since I have to use direct connect for some reason to get to them. The secondary goal was to allow someone experienced in creating web based forms to ask the player for information in text fields and have said information used to build the JNLP specific for that user(which Az has said he could do on the Maptools page). Those will be my primary focus. I can however see the possible need to throw the person to the dialog, so after I get the main functionality working, I will look at that. Since I am not a GUI programmer, that's going to take some more work, so will be relegated lower on the list of my priorities.
I save all my Campaign Files to DropBox. Not only can I access a campaign file from pretty much any OS that will run Maptool(Win,OSX, linux), but each file is versioned, so if something goes crazy wild, I can always roll back to a previous version of the same file.

Get your Dropbox 2GB via my referral link, and as a bonus, I get an extra 250 MB of space. Even if you don't don't use my link, I still enthusiastically recommend Dropbox..

User avatar
Azhrei
Site Admin
Posts: 12086
Joined: Mon Jun 12, 2006 1:20 pm
Location: Tampa, FL

Re: [1.3.b50] MapTool stores/recalls server info

Post by Azhrei »

jfrazierjr wrote:[...] I can however see the possible need to throw the person to the dialog, so after I get the main functionality working, I will look at that. Since I am not a GUI programmer, that's going to take some more work, so will be relegated lower on the list of my priorities.
No problem. If the command line stuff is working, we'll figure out the GUI.

Did you create a class to hold the various fields from the command line? If not, create one and populate it with the command line parameters. Then someone else can write a method that takes your object and puts the data into the ConnectToServerDialog object, displaying the dialog if there is any data missing.

User avatar
jfrazierjr
Deity
Posts: 5176
Joined: Tue Sep 11, 2007 7:31 pm

Re: [1.3.b50] MapTool stores/recalls server info

Post by jfrazierjr »

Azhrei wrote:
jfrazierjr wrote:[...] I can however see the possible need to throw the person to the dialog, so after I get the main functionality working, I will look at that. Since I am not a GUI programmer, that's going to take some more work, so will be relegated lower on the list of my priorities.
No problem. If the command line stuff is working, we'll figure out the GUI.

Did you create a class to hold the various fields from the command line? If not, create one and populate it with the command line parameters. Then someone else can write a method that takes your object and puts the data into the ConnectToServerDialog object, displaying the dialog if there is any data missing.
Not yet. At this point, I am just grabbing the information from inside the Maptool.postInitialize() method and calling connectToServer() directly passing the collected data. Will think about the best way to handle the UI. When I brought this to Trevor a week or so ago, his thought was to not store the data at all, so that's why I did not start with a new class, but that was before we thought of possibly sending to the start server dialog as an option.
I save all my Campaign Files to DropBox. Not only can I access a campaign file from pretty much any OS that will run Maptool(Win,OSX, linux), but each file is versioned, so if something goes crazy wild, I can always roll back to a previous version of the same file.

Get your Dropbox 2GB via my referral link, and as a bonus, I get an extra 250 MB of space. Even if you don't don't use my link, I still enthusiastically recommend Dropbox..

User avatar
Azhrei
Site Admin
Posts: 12086
Joined: Mon Jun 12, 2006 1:20 pm
Location: Tampa, FL

Re: [1.3.b50] MapTool stores/recalls server info

Post by Azhrei »

Having it all encapsulated inside a class would make it easier to use some other form of external storage later on. For example, maybe later the info is stored in a configuration file. Now a route could be written to load the config file to initialize one of those objects and the rest of the code would be the same.

User avatar
jfrazierjr
Deity
Posts: 5176
Joined: Tue Sep 11, 2007 7:31 pm

Re: [1.3.b50] MapTool stores/recalls server info

Post by jfrazierjr »

Azhrei wrote:Having it all encapsulated inside a class would make it easier to use some other form of external storage later on. For example, maybe later the info is stored in a configuration file. Now a route could be written to load the config file to initialize one of those objects and the rest of the code would be the same.
Yea.. like I said, my initial thought was where to "store" the data, but Trevor messed me up.. I will figure out a class for it though...
I save all my Campaign Files to DropBox. Not only can I access a campaign file from pretty much any OS that will run Maptool(Win,OSX, linux), but each file is versioned, so if something goes crazy wild, I can always roll back to a previous version of the same file.

Get your Dropbox 2GB via my referral link, and as a bonus, I get an extra 250 MB of space. Even if you don't don't use my link, I still enthusiastically recommend Dropbox..

User avatar
Mrugnak
Dragon
Posts: 745
Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2008 7:38 pm

Re: [1.3.b50] MapTool stores/recalls server info

Post by Mrugnak »

Floating by to say that putting a server password, of either type, in clear text, in a JNLP (which is just a text file)?

Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh.

Defeats the point of passwords. :P

User avatar
Azhrei
Site Admin
Posts: 12086
Joined: Mon Jun 12, 2006 1:20 pm
Location: Tampa, FL

Re: [1.3.b50] MapTool stores/recalls server info

Post by Azhrei »

Mrugnak wrote:Floating by to say that putting a server password, of either type, in clear text, in a JNLP (which is just a text file)?

Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh.

Defeats the point of passwords. :P
Actually, it doesn't in this case.

Passwords have two functions: keep out the general public, or keep out everyone. Passwords on MapTool servers fall into the first category. Putting a plaintext password into a JNLP file and emailing that file to a player is no different than just emailing the password to that player.

The purpose of passwords is for those gaming groups that would rather not have observers just dropping in unannounced. The password prevents them from connecting. (Although there is a possible denial-of-server attack with passwords and connecting to a MapTool server, but one thing at a time.)

User avatar
palmer
Great Wyrm
Posts: 1367
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: [1.3.b50] MapTool stores/recalls server info

Post by palmer »

Agreed, Az.

Hell, people post the server passwords here in the forums, over in the game threads. They're not security passwords, just... invitations.

wetware1967
Kobold
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2008 3:59 pm

Re: [1.3.b50] MapTool stores/recalls server info

Post by wetware1967 »

Is this topic/concept dead?
I'd love to have a one click icon on the desktop that will take a Maptool client directly to the LAN server, login as a player, and open in full screen.

Maehrus
Kobold
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2015 1:17 am

Re: [1.3.b50] MapTool stores/recalls server info

Post by Maehrus »

Hello wetware,

I am trying to do the same.
I will tell you when I have figured out something new.
wetware1967 wrote:Is this topic/concept dead?
I'd love to have a one click icon on the desktop that will take a Maptool client directly to the LAN server, login as a player, and open in full screen.

Post Reply

Return to “Feature Requests”