MapTools Networking Protocol docs/API?

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MidnightLightning
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MapTools Networking Protocol docs/API?

Post by MidnightLightning »

Now that 1.3 is final, I'm wondering if there's been any progress (since this thread) on documenting the networking protocol used by MapTool? I'm interested in making some custom clients/servers to fulfill some specific use-cases, and having some documentation would be great.

The one use-case I'm most interested in would be when the DM has a slow connection outbound from their computer. I've experienced that when six players try and grab a 2 MB background image all at the same time, it seems they're all trying to connect to the one instance of MapTool that's running as a server, and if that one has a bad connection, everybody drags. I've run into this, and as such rented time on a VPS server, setting up MapTool there. But that instance doesn't have to be a full client; it could be a 'headless' server, just shuttling resources around, and the DM logs in from their workstation as another client (with GM privileges). Writing such a 'headless' server script that takes a campaign file, name, and a GM password, and just runs in a command line would be very helpful to me.

I've not seen the protocol documented anywhere, but if anyone has anything, please let me know!

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Azhrei
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Re: MapTools Networking Protocol docs/API?

Post by Azhrei »

MidnightLightning wrote:Now that 1.3 is final, I'm wondering if there's been any progress (since this thread) on documenting the networking protocol used by MapTool? I'm interested in making some custom clients/servers to fulfill some specific use-cases, and having some documentation would be great.
I have no plans to document anything network-related at this point.

I've looked at the connection layer in the past but I really have no interest in trying to figure it out since it works. 8)

We will likely want to swap it out later and when that time comes I'll look at it.
Writing such a 'headless' server script that takes a campaign file, name, and a GM password, and just runs in a command line would be very helpful to me.
That's not really related to documenting the networking API, though.

If it matters, someone else posted that they found that the MapToolServer class had a main() method and they were going to try to run MT headless. I warned them that there was a fair amount of work involved. (Was that you, ML?) If you search around the forums you should probably find it. I'd say it was within the last 4 weeks or so, certainly since the beginning of the year.

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