User:KingofCamelot

Google Summer of Code Application

This is my proposal for enhancing the current BZFlag server listing.

Abstract

In it's current implementation, the BZFlag server listing provides a basic listing of playable servers, with a basic server name search feature. However, it is lacking many of the more powerful sorting and filtering features that most modern games include in their server browsers. The C++ code for the server listing is also lacking any real comments, making it hard to decipher, and is designed at the moment to be rather singularly functional, written for the current listing, without much room for expansion without some serious re-writing. As the number of BZFlag servers continues to grow, a user-friendly server listing, with sorting and filtering options, is quickly becoming a necessity. While BZFlag doesn't need the end all of server listings, the current server listing is pretty bare bones, and makes it difficult for players to find specific servers which match their tastes.

I propose revising the current server listing, using the current menu system. This revised server listing will include several new features, built upon a well commented code base, making future additions and renovations to the server listing quick and easy. The revised code will also be designed with future improvements in mind (such as a buddy list) and as such will be coded broadly, to allow for easy integration of add ons, instead of coded narrowly, like the current server listing, which is so specific to it's current form that it is hard to add onto without much re-writing. The new features I propose to implement will include: sorting options, filter options, a players on server list, and a recently played server view. The current server listing view will also be re-arranged and expanded upon in order to accommodate the new information. This new server listing view will best be discussed amongst the developers and the community, although I provide a mock-up of one possible solution (see appendix). The server sorting options will include: sort by domain name (alphabetically), sort by server name (alphabetically), sort by players (numerically), sort by map name (alphabetically), and sort by client to server ping (numerically). The filter options will allow server filtering by various server-specific settings, by server capacity status (show full servers, show empty servers), and will include a server name filter (including wild cards). If desirable, a domain name filter may also be implemented. The players on server list is fairly self-explanatory, displaying the name and team of players on the currently highlight server. The recently played server view will be an alternative server list, along with a favorites list. The user will be able to switch between the normal server list, the recent list, and the favorites list, and may set different filter and sorting options for each.

One major 'concern' that must be addressed during all of this re-configuring of the server listing is to not make it overly complex, since one requirement is that the entire menu be keyboard accessible. This is a unique challenge since most server browsers in mainstream games use many mouse activated features. However, I feel with clever design a user-friendly, keyboard accessible menu can be designed. My mock-up gives a basic keyboard interface, and my detailed explanation will expand on this further. In the end, the user should always know how to use the menu, without being overloaded in a sea of explanations.

This will all be implemented by expanding the current server listing code (and re-writing as necessary). As such it will be written in C++, and will work off of the current dependencies. All of the information needed for the enhanced server listing is already provided in the current code, it just needs to be tapped into. As mentioned earlier, the entire server listing code will also get generous commenting (but not too much), to ensure that in the future it is easily modified as new needs arise. I will also provide wiki documentation for the code, allowing me to be descriptive without overloading comments in the actual C++ code. The code will be written with re-usability in mind, and will be made as dynamic as possible, so that in the future it can be expanded upon, instead of re-written. Obviously no one can predict all future needs of specific code, but due to the fairly narrow scope of a server listing, I feel that most features can be written in a way that will lend themselves to future modifications.