The Clan Lord Sentinel

I'm spinning this off from Rieger's thread because I don't want to overwhelm it with bug reports. For those tuning in late, iClan is an application client (as opposed to a widget client) for Rieger's Clan Lord status system. The primary advantage is that it isn't a Dashboard Widget and thus doesn't require 10.4 - the primary downside is that it's not a Dashboard Widget and is therefore 35% less nifty right off the bat.

Public Beta 2 has arrived:

* The dock icon badge should stop blowing up 10.2/10.3 systems.
* I'm no longer cutting off the last player in the list.
* Status strings in the main window and prefs window should all update when they're supposed to.
* SIMBL is on the watch list; if you've got SIMBL installed and things don't work right, please remove SIMBL and try again.
* Help menu removed. We're officially helpless.

Get it here. Feedback welcome, crash logs appreciated.

Coming 'soon': All those nifty things in the preferences window.

Very nice. I think I'll use it as my clanning window instead of the default one.

Edit: Can you info someone with the window?

Kazik wrote:Very nice. I think I'll use it as my clanning window instead of the default one.

Be aware that the information displayed by iClan can be something like five minutes out of date, making it a less-than-satisfactory substitute. Of course it would be nice to have something similar in the client. (Reason number 328 to release the client source or documentation of the packet structure and image format. )

Edit: Can you info someone with the window?

You can't /info someone with it, but it should be possible to set that up. I'll investigate. It's unlikely that I can make it synchronize with the selected player in CL, though. (Reason #329!)

Reason number 328 to release the client source or documentation of the packet structure and image format.

No. Doing so opens the game up to cheating via client hacks.

If you think you have an extraordinary idea for enhancing the client, or need access to the client code to produce some wonderous utility, email Ann or one of the other GM's, and they may decide to give you access.

Skirwan wrote:Public Beta 2 has arrived:

Back to making sure it's broken!

I'll have to fiddle with it a bit, I'll get back to you.

Jeff Ray wrote:No. Doing so opens the game up to cheating via client hacks.

How so? What could you do with a 'hacked' client that a normal one couldn't do?

Skirwan wrote:Reason number 328 to release the client source.

You know, you could do the same thing... [/quote]

Skirwan wrote:Be aware that the information displayed by iClan can be something like five minutes out of date, making it a less-than-satisfactory substitute.

Actually assuming the data back end is working (and sometimes it's down for hours at a time) the data should be less than 2 minutes old. And half that delay is because Skirwan agreed to poll every 90 seconds instead of 30 like the Widget and Web pages do. That'll change (improve) down the line, assuming this experiment continues to be well received.

Rieger

rieger wrote:Actually assuming the data back end is working (and sometimes it's down for hours at a time) the data should be less than 2 minutes old.

Ah, sorry for spreading misinformation. I thought you had written somewhere ath the new XML file's uploaded every five minutes.

Jeff Ray wrote:No. Doing so opens the game up to cheating via client hacks.

Phroon wrote:How so? What could you do with a 'hacked' client that a normal one couldn't do?

The only reasonable things I can think of are highlighting ore and letting you see in black caves like the one beneath the undine hut - both of which, if I recall correctly, have already been done.

If having different client software lets you do anything you couldn't normally do, something's pretty messed up with your design, IMHO. Not trusting the client is rule one for this sort of thing. I'm half-tempted to start guessing at the packet format if that's the case - being a GM looks like fun.

This is cool, nice job. How about audio alarms when your friends log on?

Tigger wrote:This is cool, nice job. How about audio alarms when your friends log on?

Sounds good. Anyone out there in TV-land want to donate an appropriate sound effect?

Skirwan wrote:

Tigger wrote:This is cool, nice job. How about audio alarms when your friends log on?

Sounds good. Anyone out there in TV-land want to donate an appropriate sound effect?

Use OSX's speech functions to attempt to recite the name of the person who the alarm is going off for. *chuckle*

-Xel

Skirwan wrote:

Jeff Ray wrote:No. Doing so opens the game up to cheating via client hacks.

Phroon wrote:How so? What could you do with a 'hacked' client that a normal one couldn't do?

The only reasonable things I can think of are highlighting ore and letting you see in black caves like the one beneath the undine hut - both of which, if I recall correctly, have already been done.

There was also that utility that could read the image and sound files, which gave players hints about where to find new content. Fixing all these took GM time that could have gone into something else.

If having different client software lets you do anything you couldn't normally do, something's pretty messed up with your design, IMHO. Not trusting the client is rule one for this sort of thing.

Recall that a lot of the client hack techniques hadn't been invented when CL was created. A lot of work has gone into hardening CL against such things, but hackers are pretty inventive; I'm sure something got missed. Personally, I'd rather the GM's spent their time creating new content instead of wasting time chasing down hackers.

I'm half-tempted to start guessing at the packet format if that's the case - being a GM looks like fun.

It's more efficient to contact Ann and go through channels. That would let you advocate changes to the protocol to make it easier to do what you want to do.

i say keep the current system, it works fine!
little 5 year old risa clicker cant run around in a pen!

Jeff Ray wrote:There was also that utility that could read the image and sound files, which gave players hints about where to find new content. Fixing all these took GM time that could have gone into something else.

I affter accused Eldon of the GMs breaking CLimage he told us the real story: They imptoved the way the images were stored and a side effect of it invalidated CLimage, but he said they wouln't mind if we kept giving them credit for nerfing it. There was no time "wasted" fixing it, it was just a side effect of a game improvement.

Seld'kar wrote:

Jeff Ray wrote:There was also that utility that could read the image and sound files, which gave players hints about where to find new content. Fixing all these took GM time that could have gone into something else.

I affter accused Eldon of the GMs breaking CLimage he told us the real story: They imptoved the way the images were stored and a side effect of it invalidated CLimage, but he said they wouln't mind if we kept giving them credit for nerfing it. There was no time "wasted" fixing it, it was just a side effect of a game improvement.

Well, GM time WAS used to fix the other two things mentioned (the hacked ore and hacked dark cave images); I know, cuz I've seen the code that does it. I mentioned all three together because someone asked what harm could be done by releasing the client source, image format, or packet format.

I remember when the image format was changed, because it was changed to add the light flags. So you are right, it wasn't changed specifically to fix this, but not because it wasn't wanted; it was just a big job to do it, and nobody wanted to take it on. Adding the light flags was the excuse to do it, and nobody (among the GM's, at least) shed a tear that it broke that image viewer.