AddonServerSocial

Me and Myself

Who Am I IRL ?

My name is Bastien Abadie, I'm french (21), living in Brittany (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittany). I'm in an engineering school (http://www.enib.fr), i'll get my master in Computer Science next year.

Actually i work daily on a project for my school about 3D representation of ship and climate conditions of the sea. Plus there is a big network part in this project (connecting a C++ client to a matLab server and using data).

...Online ?

You can contact me by mail or GTalk using lao.geek(at)gmail.com .

My nicknames on Wesnoth are:

• lao on the forum
• La0 on the wiki (lao was already taken :/ )
• lao on gna.org
• Lao on IRC

Experience

Development

I've worked on many websites as a developper (i'm not a design guy !), mostly in PHP, using XHTML/CSS, and sometimes Javascript (with Jquery). Many of my school's projects were made in C/C++ (nethack-like game, HTTP/HTTPS server with cgi server, paint-like ,...); I've played with JAVA (JSF, JQuery for the web, Netbeans ide...) but I rather prefer C++.

Speaking of GUIs, i've made some in Tcl/TK, Qt, and C# but no GTK at the moment. Like most Linux developpers (... and admins) i've made lots of shell scripts, a bit of python,... and played with config files.

Open Source

I'm an occasional developper for ZenPhoto http://zenphoto.org, the simplest and cleanest web photo gallery! I've worked on the video support for ZenPhoto http://la0c00n.info/zenvideo . Now videos are officially supported in the core Zenphoto, no more needs for hacky patches :p I have been very busy at school this year, so little implicated recently in this project.

I have NOT participated in any ways to the Google Summer of Code before.

Games

I'm not a big gamer, but enjoy some good FPS : Half Life 1&2, Portal, Counter Strike (original, not really into Source), all Call of Duty, Serious Sam (only in coop!). I like RPG games as Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights,... I play a bit on my Wii too: Zelda, Super Mario Galaxy, Wario Smooth moves.

Now, for Open Source Games: Lbreakout2, Tremulous, frozen-bubble, ... and Wesnoth of course :)

Work on the Addon Server

I plan to work on the Addon Server, update the code to improve inter-operability with external tools (such as WML tools and WesCamp) and add some social content.

My personnal idea is adding some social content to addons. It means adding tags, which represents and defines in a more human way the addons.

Tags

Tags can be given by Wesnoth staff and by author. After discussing of it on IRC, users should not have the possibility of adding some tags to addons. By the way, authors can add tags too but NOT the same as those used by the staff.

There would be 2 types of tags: Registered ones, applied by the admins/staff, and "normal" ones applied by addon's author. Tags used by authors could be set freely or selected in a list defined by the admins.

Tags permit also to know which addons he liked, and search for addons he WOULD enjoy. It's a simple search function for tags, but it should be appreciated by users.

Web Interface

I think it's important to get addons directly from Internet; so the addon server should be accessible on port 80 (HTTP) or 443 (HTTPS), and display the same informations as the normal Wesnoth Client.

Possible evolutions could be tracking of addons used/installed, independantly of user's installation; and the possibility of comment on the addons more easiliy than through an unfamiliar interface.

-> Needs to refine this idea... :/

Server Side

I plan to work on the server code in C++, because:

• C++ can easily embed python directly, or with Boost C++ Libraries (which are already one of Wesnoth' dependancies)
• C++ runs on Linux AND stay easily portable to others platforms (Windows, Mac Os X...)
• The biggest part of Wesnoth is in C++, so why change ?
• Python tools like the WML suite of tools wan be easily usable directly from the server

The integration with WesCamp is an interesting part, I could use some svn libraries in C++ to connect to the server or use Python to do the dirty Job. Personally, i'd choose the C++ way.

Client Side

The Client is too simple actually, so i'd improve it by adding some new lists:

• List of new addons
• List of most popular (After speaking of this idea on IRC, it's not a good idea after all. Elder addons are the most downloaded but not the best)
• Search box, looking after title, dates, authors, tags

Each addon should have an expanded view, and a simple view Expanded view shows more informations:

• comment by the author
• tags (given by staff and by the author)
• list of actual translations (versionned)
• Date of creation
• Actually installed on user system ? (if so, an Uninstall button would be great)