Whereby should a willing helping hand begin?

[Winterheaven]

Besides my horrible post about the communities tolerance in the general forum (btw, thx to acraig for the open words and sorry for forgetting to name him like vengeance), i am not only a through and through critical people... i am willing to help, if help is needed and my time allows it.

But the question is, where to begin? I red through the information concerning compiling the source code and how a developer can participate the team, but my brain does not get the process running

Let\'s suppose, I want to search for laggy code locations... or I want to enhance the client-gui (as aineko already did in a wonderful way). I then have two choices:

1) I download and work with MB. The Pro is, that a server is running, providing MB-Client-Connection. So i can test all the things I am trying to develop. The Contra is, that I everywhere read about the old codebase and that it will no longer used, when CB comes out and that since a long time no one of the developer is sitting on this code. But that makes it silly trying to improve MB, isn\'t it? Here comes the forbidden question, how long will MB still used.

2) I can also try to compile a fresh extracted CVS-Planeshift. The Pro is, that - preconditioned that my extensions are usefull - I can give my ideas directly to the dev\'s for further improvement. The Contra is - and that is really a pain - I can not test my software, because there is no server running CB. Every reasonably coder does not give any line of code before he knows, that it will run!

I am shure, I am missing a simple step. Could someone give me an advice?

br, Winterheaven.

[Karosh_Steinkatz]

If you want to run and test the newest CVS compile it and run your own server. What\'s the problem? Well... there seems  to be one: The GUI doesn\'t work correctly, only the information button works. It  can\'t  find the other widgets *shrugs*

[orogor]

The cvs provide the sources of the server too , so you can launch and run a local server , and do the tests on it ( that s how everyone is doing ) , the server models and database contained in the cvs contain only test things , placehoders , and fake infos ( to avoid to leak info about quests and so from it ), but it allow you to run it.

Vengeance the main develloper use MSVC for compiling , but you could as well try with mingw ( not sure but i think talad does this )that will provide you a bash prompt from wich you should be able to compile everything , i doubt than running PS into VMware will work because you won t get any accelerated graphics ( i am even unable to watch a video into VMware ) or you could have  a true linux set as dual boot( that s how i do it).

Having your local server means than you have to have a mysql server running for launching the server , if you want to work on the web based consol you also need apache with php running

this guide should get you started if you choose the linux way.
http://icarus.uic.edu/~ssenne1/

[tangerine]

Trying to improve MB now is waste of your time because it will be obsolete soon. Right, there is no public server running CB, but you don\'t need one ! Every developer runs their own local server. Server is in the CVS and instructions how to get it running are included here http://icarus.uic.edu/~ssenne1/.
If you want to write code for PS, then download the CB source, build it, then go to irc.freenode.net channel #planeshift and ask acraig or Vengeance for a task.

[acraig]

Originally posted by Karosh_Steinkatz
If you want to run and test the newest CVS compile it and run your own server. What\'s the problem? Well... there seems  to be one: The GUI doesn\'t work correctly, only the information button works. It  can\'t  find the other widgets *shrugs*

Hmm, they work ok here.  Perhaps I can get some more info on this?

[Winterheaven]

Thank you for the answers. I know of course the possibility to run a local server (at work I am heavily involved in COM/DCOM of M$ and at home I am working on different server-client-architectures).

But on the one side I did not know, if it is allowed to start the server local - which it seems now, is no problem... and on the other side, the localhost/127.0.0.1-development means nothing in respect to any bandwith respective lag behaviour.

But I will give it a try. BTW, I am developing under VC 6 and 7.

br, Winterheaven.

[acraig]

Originally posted by Winterheaven

But on the one side I did not know, if it is allowed to start the server local - which it seems now, is no problem... and on the other side, the localhost/127.0.0.1-development means nothing in respect to any bandwith respective lag behaviour.

But I will give it a try. BTW, I am developing under VC 6 and 7.

br, Winterheaven.

Yes, that is one issue about using localhost in that dropped packets and latency is usually at a minimum. You can always stick a random delay/random drop inside the network code to simulate the network.

VC7 is a better choice since everybody that uses windows uses that. Well, I use 6 sometimes but I use Linux 95% of the time for PlaneShift development.

Make sure you read the docs in PlaneShift/docs/compiling.txt since the setup to build is a large one and you need several different libraries installed first.

[Karosh_Steinkatz]

I\'m running Arch  Linux 0.6 with the current 2.6.5 kernel, and my specs are:
Athlon XP  2800+
2x512mb RAM
Epox Mainboard with NForce2 chipset
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 256 MB
SB Audigy Player

My copy of the sources is  from 18.04.
When log  onto the server follow errors occur on the client:

planeshift.application.client:
  PSLoader: step 4: success
Scrolling widget -1 dir -4000 to value 0.0
Scrolling widget -1 dir -5000 to value 0.0

Load:
  Failed the PostSetup for IgnoreWindow

LoadWidget:
  Widget IgnoreWindow failed to load pawsIgnoreWindow

LoadGame:
  One or more widgets failed to load

planeshift.application.client:
  PSLoader: step 5: success

After I logged on  and tried to click on the Options button for example, this appears:

Found OptionsButton but FindWidget returned null!

I already looked at the corresponding .xml files in the /data folder,   but they seem to be ok, I found no   errors. Same  for the source itself  as far  as I can tell. (I\'m a bit out  of practice with  C/C++)

[acraig]

Aha. Try placing an empty file in:

planeshift/data/options/ignore.xml

I ment to fix this a long time ago but forgot.  I will fix over the weekend.

[Karosh_Steinkatz]

Seems like that just an empty file isn\'t  enough:

planeshift.application.client:
  PSLoader: step 4: success
Scrolling widget -1 dir -4000 to value 0.0
Scrolling widget -1 dir -5000 to value 0.0
Error Loading Ignorelist: Error document empty.

Load:
  Failed the PostSetup for IgnoreWindow

LoadWidget:
  Widget IgnoreWindow failed to load pawsIgnoreWindow

LoadGame:
  One or more widgets failed to load

planeshift.application.client:
  PSLoader: step 5: success

EDIT:  I used touch  to create the file.  I tried to add an empty line   to  it and  now the client segfaults when it tries to load the Ignorelist:

planeshift.application.client:
  PSLoader: step 4: success
Scrolling widget -1 dir -4000 to value 0.0
Scrolling widget -1 dir -5000 to value 0.0
./client: line 4: 30055 Segmentation fault      ./psclient

[acraig]

ok try placing in that file:



If that does not fix it I will have to look at it later tonight to figure out the exact reason for failure here.

[Karosh_Steinkatz]

It worked. Thank you

[Winterheaven]

Originally posted by acraig

Yes, that is one issue about using localhost in that dropped packets and latency is usually at a minimum. You can always stick a random delay/random drop inside the network code to simulate the network.

Indeed, that is a possible method. And I use it already. But it will never be the reality

Originally posted by acraig

VC7 is a better choice since everybody that uses windows uses that. Well, I use 6 sometimes but I use Linux 95% of the time for PlaneShift development.

Ok, will use VC 7 too. The IDE is somewhat improved. But first of all the compiler is now nearer the standard and even to gcc. So it makes sense for a development under different platforms for different targets.

Originally posted by acraig

Make sure you read the docs in PlaneShift/docs/compiling.txt since the setup to build is a large one and you need several different libraries installed first.

A very good tip. Read now through the document. Will download the precompiled libs. Because there are differences in the code bases of PS and CS. A fresh CVS of CS does not compile any longer to a libcsengine.lib (they changed the structure against 96 very heavy). But this lib is still needed... or better to say it is insert as required library in the project settings of planeshift. That should be changed in the future I think... if PS and CS should go side by side.

br, Winterheaven.

[dfryer]

Winterheaven: PS and CS do \"go side by side\", in that current CVS of PS goes with current CVS of CS.  I think the 0.96 release of CS came at an unfortunate time, and so the MB tag in the CS CVS repository points to the version of CS that was \"current\" (plus a few modifications) with the release of PS.

The CS team releases on a very ... flexible schedule, so it\'s very difficult for the PS team to sync releases.

[Winterheaven]

Thank you, @dfryer. Your post brings me to the decision to have a deeper look in the compiling docs. It is all there... perhaps i should buy eyeglasses

My error was to take the old folder visualc6, which contains also workspace and projects. Seems that this is obsolete? Anyway, I should take care reading docs... (remembers me, what my boss said all the time *grins*)

br, Winterheaven.