the oacon protocol

[Dihoruar]

We, IO^clan, proudly Present:

Click and play!
Launch Openarena and connect to a server with a single click from your browser!

After a lot of work we finally managed to make a new URL protocol.
With this new protocol you can connect to OpenArena servers by simply using
<this serverviewer> and clicking the Join button. That is all, just clicking Join.
For private servers we also made a little option to enter the password. After
entering, it connects just the same way as it would normally

So enough talk, you want to see it of course! Just move on to <http://theoacon.tk/> and click
the downloadlink. Follow the simple steps and test it on your favorite server

Hope you enjoy it ^^

Regards,
The IO clan.

[...]

Wow this is nice.

I tried it with Windows 7 and Firefox and worked perfectly. Great job. Something i will be using.

[RMF]

Wow this is nice.

I tried it with Windows 7 and Firefox and worked perfectly. Great job. Something i will be using.

Cool (and little thanks as i've worked a bit on it too )

[Udi]

It's a nice idea, the next step could be a browser addon . Why don't you list the player names as on dpmaster? Because currently it's displaying the exact same informations as the ingame browser, except there's no ping informations and no info about the mods.

There's a small tutorial on MozillaZine how to register protocols manually in case you need it (like me).

Edit: could you release the source code under GPLv2? It would allow to move and mirror the page, the tk has some restrictions, and if you're moving out from the clan (hopefully not), than you will probably bring the page with you (as Ston3r did with the player list). It could also be converted into an e107 plugin, and integrated into the openarena.ws site, if fromhell agrees. But if not, I'm sure there will be people who will glad to mirror the page.

[RMF]

We've thought about an addon, but a protocol was easier (or at least doable) and nicer (this supports both IE and FF, which cover about 85% of the market).

The website won't go down. And if it would be, we would post a redirection link to a new host.

About the source; I have been thinking about making it public in some time, thought didn't talk with diho about it yet.

[Dihoruar]

Well, sure I will talk with RMF about this first. But i think that we will make a sub-forum where we can talk about the source etc  

But if not, I'm sure there will be people who will glad to mirror the page.

The problem is, for the serverlist we need a host which allows "file_get_contents".

[Udi]

I had more time to read about that, if I'm right you actually bind the oacon protocol to the oacon executable not the openarena executable. Because if you would speficiy an URL like: oacon://+connect 127.0.0.1, then OA would get a connect%20127.0.0.1 parameter, and couldn't handle that. So if the ioquake3 engine or OA could handle the URL encoded space, or could be able to recognize paramteres with a = sign, then the oacon protocol would run without any OS specific executables.

The problem is, for the serverlist we need a host which allows "file_get_contents".

I see, because it parses the dpmaster html output.

So, what if a browser plugin could expand the dpmaster listing (FF+Greasemonkey can do it) and display the oacon url there, or display a javascript function which could launch the browser plugin which would parse the necessary parameters and launch the game?

[Dihoruar]

well it's a good idea, but not everyone has ff, and not everyone knows how to install a add-on like greasemonkey. ( or they are just too lazy )

[sago007]

I actually worked on a protocol tool like this at some point. It used a sligthly different syntax: openarena:/oa-0.8.1/IP:PORT. The idea was that it should read the version and in the home folder like (~/.openarean/) there should be a file named oapl.names with lines like this:

Code:

oa-0.8.1: /opt/games/openarena-0.8.1/openarean.i386
oa-0.7.7: /opt/games/openarena-0.7.7/openarena.i386 +fs_homepath ~/.openarena077

The engine should at every start find this file and ensure that the path was correct. That way the tool itself would need configuration (and therefore did not need a gui layer and therefore could be made very protable), but it was still a pain to install.

I never really reached this read configurations part.

[RMF]

@Udi, for me greasemonkey doesn't work, when I click a script to install it just opens the javascript like it normally would instead of adding it to greasemonkey.

[RMF]

BTW the source is released at the forum here: http://io.smfforfree3.com/index.php/board,14.0.html

[Udi]

Thanks for releasing the sources . But what do you mean with this line:

You may help with making it work better, but we trust you guys that you don't use it to make your own version of it.

Do you meant that I can't compile it as it is and call it mine? Or do you meant that I can't make an NSIS Installer which can extract the files, write to the registration database, so basically I would only need the handler.exe? Or what about the pure definition of the protocol? Can I make another solution from scratch but using the exact same protocol? And do you plan to release the PHP sources too?

Why not applying the GPLv2 like OpenArena itself? It would require every derivative work to have the same license and it would also require to credit the original authors.

[RMF]

do you plan to release the PHP sources too?

Diho made and has only access to the php sources so I can't answer that atm.

Do you meant that I can't compile it as it is and call it mine? Or do you meant that I can't make an NSIS Installer which can extract the files, write to the registration database, so basically I would only need the handler.exe? Or what about the pure definition of the protocol? Can I make another solution from scratch but using the exact same protocol?

Hm maybe we should have defined it better. We meant that you may not just copy the project and distribute it, or use large parts and program just a little on your own and then distribute. We thought oa's community isn't like that, so we pretty much trust noone would do that.

Why not applying the GPLv2 like OpenArena itself?

I'm not so much into licences, they are all long texts and often hard or boring to read. As I said we don't think anyone would abuse the source release so we didn't put much effort into finding a good licence.
Hm let's just define what you may and may not do. Note that this is a concept and I'll talk with diho when he's online if it is allright (pretty sure it is maybe some small changes, but just to be sure).

• You can use the source as an example, or copy small parts, for other projects which are not related to what oacon does (exa make some launcher is allright, but not for OA)
• You can extend the possibilities of our program, but not make a full distribution on your own. Any changes made have to go via us, you will get credits.
• If you want to make something which basicly does the same as oacon, you may do it if the way you make it work it is completely different.

Example for a firefox plugin (not sure where i read someone was working on that, but i have read it):

• If you make a firefox plugin which adds links to the dpmaster page and launches OA, you are allowed to distribute.
• If you make a firefox plugin which starts our handler, you may distribute the plugin but not the handler (just link to the page, no direct download).
• If you make a firefox plugin which just puts links on dpmaster to oacon://ip:port, you are allowed to distribute, but not combined with our installer (again just put a link to our page).

Now I was reading the topic back if someone posted here about the FFplugin I see i missed the remark about e107. According to wikipedia you have to install it next to a webserver, which we don't have. We have free hosting so we can only use what's already on (which is just a webserver with php and mysql support).
(I was working on my own webserver, but the problem is that my pc needs too much power, the motherboard from the pc i wanted to use smells like its burning and doesn't detect harddrives anymore, and the other one i have has only a pentium1 and RJ-11 port)

[Cacatoes]

You shouldn't dig too deep into custom licenses, particularly if you're not familiar with licensing, you'll quickly reach a point which makes your project useless to some free software community.
I advise you to use either some BSD-ish license, like MIT, or to use GPL, like OpenArena. Both are simple to understand, you may find quick explanations on the internet, or may already know their meaning.
I haven't read carefully what's your project aim, but I think it is minor compared to the whole OpenArena, that means you could feel confident and use the same license than the main project. Also, it is better to work with the team when you develop such tools, rather than making it third party. Our will is to improve OA, and for this it is better to take part of the project, even if sometimes it doesn't go so well, it would have been productive if you had got in touch with someone like Mr. Sago himself first.

Suggestion for your webpage: make the "password" field visible only if the server is private.
Good luck !

[Dihoruar]

Suggestion for your webpage: make the "password" field visible only if the server is private.
Good luck !

ye, about that, we already talked about that.
But since the serverlist is already slow with loading, we try to make it as fast as possible.
sadly we have no paid hoster, just a free hosting website. so we rly have our limits.

Maybe in the future we will search for a good paid hoster, but for now we have do it with this.

But well we sure can try to make it work.. But we can't promise anything

[...]

I made a quick little video for my clan mates showing how to install it and what it does. Figured id post it here too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB6twReKyOg

In this video i used Windows 7 and Firefox

*The quality isnt great. Was just something i quickly made. You can watch in HD though.

[Udi]

Example for a firefox plugin (not sure where i read someone was working on that, but i have read it):

• If you make a firefox plugin which adds links to the dpmaster page and launches OA, you are allowed to distribute.

I've posted about the FF plugin I'm working on, thanks for clarification. One more question: if I make the plugin work with the serverlist on the ioclan site (oacon:// stuff), but I don't need the installer nor the handler for that, can I distribute it? Both of you will be credited for the work on the oacon protocol of course.

[RMF]

I'm ok with it

@dots, thanks man I saw a referral from tuxfamily in the stats and checked it out, cacatoes linked there to your vid and so i saw it even before reading here Anyway I'll put it on the site tomorrow, thanks for making

edit: btw forgot, it's also working with opera (easiest of all actually). Gotta download some english version then we upload the tut on the site

[WaspKiller]

Suggestion for your webpage: make the "password" field visible only if the server is private.
Good luck !

...sadly we have no paid hoster, just a free hosting website. so we rly have our limits...

Dihoruar,

Contact me for a free site (LAMP, cPanel, 3.5GB drive space, 40GB monthly bandwidth).  However, you must have your own Domain.

[RMF]

@wasp, o.O that is really nice of you! Will talk to diho about it, though that's prolly mondayevening.