SoC2012 chatrooms

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Description

Nikolai Agafonov - Chatrooms for Battle for Wesnoth

My proposal is to make message system much more comfortable for looking and useful without changing current sending mechanism. It would be implemented through the separate chat window which would be looks like IM-clients (like Pidgin, Miranda etc.). In this window you can make the converstions with anyone on the server with any number in one time.

Project Proposal

As any popular multiplayer game, Battle for Wesnoth has a lot of players which communicate with each other during the game with something like a chat. For now it looks like just a chatstream where you can send a message to everyone in current room (lobby or game) or use some advanced commands (for example, the typing of "/m theMightyPlayer hi" will reach to sending message "hi" to player with nickname "theMightyPlayer"). So current chat state has not a lot of options and, to be honset, just uncomfortable (for example, to talk with particular player you always should type "/m nickname " before you can type the message).

My proposal is to make message system much more comfortable for looking and useful without changing current sending mechanism.

How would it look

I want to implement new chat interface with addition functions. I propose to create new chat interface. It would look like separate window with design and functions like IM-clients (like Pidgin, Miranda etc.) have. Whereever you are - in one of the games or lobby - this window would be viewed in same place as it was before. In this window you can:

• talk with players from your friendlist directly
• item make your conversation lists with players
• save conversations and open the old ones
• talk with more than 1 player (multiple conversations) not only in current room but from any game or lobby at the same time
• easy copy/paste and link opening

Sure, that is not full list of features which are planned. All the fetures would be implemented with current low-level messaging system as it was said before. Besides talkative players, such an improvement would be very useful for players who dont like the mess on the screen (current chat state provides to share the messages only on the gamefield during the game) and want to sort the messages on groups For example, some players dont wanna watch on the trashtalks on the screen but only talks with their teammates while their opponents want to talk with everyone include the observers. So the "untalkative" palyers can just choose their conversation group in the chat window. Another example, some players dont know english enough so they prefer to talk on their own language. Let's imagine the situation when some popular game get a lot of observers from all over the world. Some of them want to discuss the game in observers' chat on the local language while the players from another countries dont wanna see on the laguage mess. So the separate conversation group can be created and nobody would be inconvenienced. Also "local-speakers" can be added to the "banlist" on this game so they would annoy all the others.

IRC

nagafono

Questionnaire

1) Basics 1.1) Write a small introduction to yourself.

My name is Nikolai Agafonov, I am a 3rd-year-student and study on Departament of Computer Science, Math faculty. Relatively to Wesnoth: I'm well-experienced player which is often play serious ladder games (my current position is between 30 and 40 places)

1.2) State your preferred email address.

nagafono (at) gmail (dot) com

1.3) If you have chosen a nick for IRC and Wesnoth forums, what is it?

nagafono

1.4) Why do you want to participate in summer of code?

Because I want to implement the stuff which would be really useful for me and, I hope, for all the players also. And Google's stimulation of such a work makes summer of code the main priority thing on summer for me.

1.5) What are you studying, subject, level and school?

I'm studying IT and math in Petrozavodsk State University (Russia): 3rd grade, Departament of computer Science. Before that, almost 2 years my Departament was Applied Mathematics.

1.6) What country are you from, at what time are you most likely to be able to join IRC?

Russian Federation 16:00-00:00 GTM.

1.7) Do you have other commitments for the summer period ? Do you plan to take any vacations ? If yes, when.

I'm planning to make 1-week vacation on the last week of June, nothing more.

2) Experience 2.1) What programs/software have you worked on before?

Languages/frameworks (good knowledge): C++, Qt framework Languages/frameworks (avarege knowledge/rare usage): C, Python (+Django framework), PHP Languages/frameworks (low knowledge/basics): C#, Java

2.2) Have you developed software in a team environment before? (As opposed to hacking on something on your own)

Yes I am (4 projects experience). Prefer to use git but have knowledge about SVN and CVS also.

2.3) Have you participated to the Google Summer of Code before? As a mentor or a student? In what project? Were you successful? If not, why?

Nope

2.4) Are you already involved with any open source development projects? If yes, please describe the project and the scope of your involvement.

I was working on next projects: - Transfomail (SMTP client for mobile platforms) - my own project. Long time ago took 4th place in local Nokia apps competition but was stopped long time ago. - QMF-vkontakte - messaging plug-in for a big student (separated from university) project "MySocials" (crossplatform client of popular social networks for Maemo 5/MeeGo platform) provided by Nokia - teamwork here, i was a simple coder with some easy design tasks. - Mobile Battery Predictor - charge predictor (with graphs and other cool stuff) for Maemo 5/MeeGo. Here I was main designer and coder. - VochMee - TV-shows program for mobile devices. On hold for now. Here I was main designer and coder also.

2.5) Gaming experience - Are you a gamer?

Yep, prefer to playing ladder (my elo is 1900+ for current moment) and wanna hope that i'm not the bad one

2.5.1) What type of gamer are you?

Grand strategy gamer.

2.5.2) What type of games?

Wesnoth, Civilization 5, Europa Universalis 3, Crusader Kings 2. some RPG when my brain wants to take a rest.

2.5.3) What type of opponents do you prefer?

Wesnoth: In serious ladder games - the players with 1700+ elo. In all other the cases i dont really care - they just should not leave the game too early. All other the games: I prefer to play offline.

2.5.4) Are you more interested in story or gameplay?

Relatively Wesnoth gameplay is on the main place because of its uniqueness.

2.5.5) Have you played Wesnoth? If so, tell us roughly for how long and whether you lean towards single player or multiplayer.

Singleplayer experience is about 5 years when multiplayer about 1-2.

2.6) If you have contributed any patches to Wesnoth, please list them below. You can also list patches that have been submitted but not committed yet and patches that have not been specifically written for GSoC. If you have gained commit access to our SVN (during the evaluation period or earlier) please state so.

No development activity until now. Until application period is not over i will try code one of the required patches

3) Communication skills 3.1) Though most of our developers are not native English speakers, English is the project's working language. Describe your fluency level in written English.

Seems like this questionnaire should already give an answer :) I think my level is avarege: less skils in grammar, more - in talks

3.2) What spoken languages are you fluent in?

Russian and English.

3.3) Are you good at interacting with other players? Our developer community is friendly, but the player community can be a bit rough.

Unlike the RNG, I am. Real life people from my country are much more rougher so wesnothian players are friendly enough for me anyway.

3.4) Do you give constructive advice?

If there is a need and the guy which this advices should be responsed is want to hear it

3.5) Do you receive advice well?

Depends on problem. In professional meaning - only from specialists or people whose really know something about this area. In all other the cases - again, depends on the problem and person.

3.6) Are you good at sorting useful criticisms from useless ones?

Absolutely yes

3.7) How autonomous are you when developing ? Would you rather discuss intensively changes and not start coding until you know what you want to do or would you rather code a proof of concept to "see how it turn out", taking the risk of having it thrown away if it doesn't match what the project want

Well, I want to see the mentor in manager's role. So when i would have the design plan, it should be approved by, same thing with all other the stages

4) Project 4.1) Did you select a project from our list? If that is the case, what project did you select? What do you want to especially concentrate on?

In this application - no.

4.2) If you have invented your own project, please describe the project and the scope.

Chatrooms for Wesnoth (just "Chatrooms"). Something between interface and message service

4.3) Why did you choose this project?

'cause i have a need in this :) and i'm sure that other players also have

4.4) Include an estimated timeline for your work on the project. Don't forget to mention special things like "I booked holidays between A and B" and "I got an exam at ABC and won't be doing much then".

As my task is not designed yet there is no reason to plan something for "active coding" time. When everything would be designed by, there would be priorities and timeline for each priority.

4.5) Include as much technical detail about your implementation as you can

C++ as a language. Current message service interfaces would be used as a data. Everything which would be created would be membrane or handling. Implemented application would be existed as separated process.

4.6) What do you expect to gain from this project?

Everything what it provides: knowledge, experience and same stuff. Also, my idea would be useful for me so i'm going to just improve Wesnoth in the i want to see. And sure, all the promotions like diploma and all oher the things that Google donates also would be a nice addition :)

4.7) What would make you stay in the Wesnoth community after the conclusion of SOC?

I'm going to working serioulsy on unofficial wesnoth ladder, so it will be high priority. dont know about official Wesnoth - its all depend on time.

5) Practical considerations 5.1) Are you familiar with any of the following tools or languages? Subversion (used for all commits)

Yep, i know the basics, but use git.

C++ (language used for all the normal source code)

Absolutely yes

STL, Boost, Sdl (C++ libraries used by Wesnoth)

SDL a bit

Python (optional, mainly used for tools)

There is some experience but mostly for web apps

build environments (eg cmake/scons)

Yep

WML (the wesnoth specific scenario language)

Not really

Lua (used in combination with WML to create scenarios)

Nope

5.2) Which tools do you normally use for development? Why do you use them?

Qt Creator because of substitution :)

5.3) What programming languages are you fluent in? copy of 2.1:

Languages/frameworks (good knowledge): C++, Qt framework Languages/frameworks (avarege knowledge/rare usage): C, Python (+Django framework), PHP Languages/frameworks (low knowledge/basics): C#, Java and all this html/css stuff also well known

5.4) Would you mind talking with your mentor on telephone / internet phone? We would like to have a backup way for communications for the case that somehow emails and IRC do fail.

why not, my skype is on!