Windows clients

[Reven]

I've decided to try and do some work about getting a good Windows client together. Right now I'm using the Crossfire+ client, simply because it's the only one that works for Windows with sound et al.

The links for all other windows clients are broken on the web site. So I am looking for anyone that has sources to the Direct X, SDL, Win32, or OpenGL. clients. I'd rather not write one from scratch if I don't have to.

[Ryo]

Regular GTK client works fine on Windows.
You'll find it at:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... e_id=99311
and sources are in the CVS, in the "client/gtk/win32" directory.

It was built with GTK2, so requires that to be installed.

[Leaf]

The links for all other windows clients are broken on the web site.

Really?

What's the URL of the site that you are finding these links at?

[Leaf]

... I am looking for anyone that has sources to the Direct X, SDL, Win32, or OpenGL. clients.

Source code for the DirectX client was never released.

Source code for the OpenGL and SDL clients is no longer available.

[Rednaxela]

with sound et al.

Sound has been considered an unsupported feature for many years now, for a long period broken too (though I think it's working at least on linux systems again now), and nobody is actively maintaining it. To my knowledge, few to no users use sound anyways.

... I am looking for anyone that has sources to the Direct X, SDL, Win32, or OpenGL. clients.

Source code for the DirectX client was never released.

Source code for the OpenGL and SDL clients is no longer available.

Actually the code for the SDL client is still hanging around in CVS, though of course as it's been unmaintained since forever it's out of date, but because the server tends to be very backwards compatible, may still work.

[Reven]

Regular GTK client works fine on Windows.

Yes, I use that one right now because the Crossfire+ client is too sluggish. Problems I see are:

• Pickup menu doesn't reflect preferences set in earlier sessions, so to change any setting must reset all.
• Image caching is broken and will crash client.
• Split windows is broken and will crash client.
• Darkness is broken and cannot be turned off.
• Save window positions lacks any sort of support for detecting/setting a maximized window.

Sound is also an issue for me - perhaps "few to no users" use it because it has been "for a long period broken". I like it and want it. But mostly I would simply like to get a client working that is responsive, modern, supported, and where all listed features actually work. I also like some of the CF+ features, like an overmap.

[Rednaxela]

Pickup menu doesn't reflect preferences set in earlier sessions, so to change any setting must reset all.

Odd, it seems to work for me. Are there only certain conditions it works in?

Image caching is broken and will crash client.

Any more details on this? It's always worked perfectly fine on my linux system, and I have never heard any reports of it being buggy on win32 before.

Split windows is broken and will crash client.

Same as above, any more details on this crash?

Darkness is broken and cannot be turned off.

It certainly doesn't seem broken here, other than one minor bug, and I can turn it off here. Any other details of what you mean by "broken"?
Also, helpful info for a few of these issues would be, what version of windows you're running, what client version you're using, and what version of gtk you're using.

Save window positions lacks any sort of support for detecting/setting a maximized window.[/list]

Yes that is an issue, should probably file a bug report for that sf.net tracker.

Sound is also an issue for me - perhaps "few to no users" use it because it has been "for a long period broken". I like it and want it.

One issue is coding sound support is different for windows than alsa/oss which currently is supported on linux, and simply, we don't have any developers that use windows regularly (Ryo, who makes the win32 packages doesn't use windows normally, so it's a hassle to actively work on win32 specific code). If you want to develop sound support for windows, feel free. If you need any help for setting up a win32 build environment for it, I suggest you talk to Ryo as he would know most about that

But mostly I would simply like to get a client working that is responsive, modern, supported, and where all listed features actually work. I also like some of the CF+ features, like an overmap.

There's a newer gtk2 client that's in development, Ryo isn't currently making windows packages of it, but you may want to look into making a win32 build of it yourself. (if you do that, I would suggest getting the latest code from CVS for it because lots of bugfixes and improvements have happened in that one since the last release) Many find this client to be more modern, and though there are some wrinkles to iron out in it, some prefer it already. It's sound code is common with that of the other gtk client so developing win32 sound code for one would also make it work on the other. In terms of features like an overmap, feel free to work on adding something like that to the gtk2 client if you want to

[Reven]

Odd, it seems to work for me. Are there only certain conditions it works in?

Perhaps I should have said NEWPickup. But no, there are no conditions that it works under. If my pickup is set and the client terminated, the next time I log in none of the entries in the NEWPickup menu are tagged. To change anything, I must set it all from the beginning.[/quote]

Any more details on this? It's always worked perfectly fine on my linux system, and I have never heard any reports of it being buggy on win32 before.

I'll make a separate post for this issue with all the details I know.

Same as above, any more details on this crash?

Sorry, nothing more interesting than a "crossfire has encountered a problem" when it is turned on. One window labelled "Crossfire - View" is created and the configuration dialog is retained, but no other windows are created before the crash.

It certainly doesn't seem broken here, other than one minor bug, and I can turn it off here. Any other details of what you mean by "broken"?

If fog of war is turned off, tiles that would normally have been dimmed don't render correctly. When the player moves, they keep their last image, corrupting the display.

Also, helpful info for a few of these issues would be, what version of windows you're running, what client version you're using, and what version of gtk you're using.

XP professional, GTK1 client, reported behaviors occur with both GTK+ runtime versions 2.6.10 rev a and 2.8.18.

Yes that is an issue, should probably file a bug report for that sf.net tracker.

Will do.

One issue is coding sound support is different for windows than alsa/oss which currently is supported on linux, and simply, we don't have any developers that use windows regularly (Ryo, who makes the win32 packages doesn't use windows normally, so it's a hassle to actively work on win32 specific code). If you want to develop sound support for windows, feel free. If you need any help for setting up a win32 build environment for it, I suggest you talk to Ryo as he would know most about that

I'll first take a look at the gtk2 client, but I'm not adverse to this. I would suggest using SDL to make it cross platform. The gtk1 client has an option for SDL, though it doesn't appear to do anything on Windows.

There's a newer gtk2 client that's in development, Ryo isn't currently making windows packages of it, but you may want to look into making a win32 build of it yourself. (if you do that, I would suggest getting the latest code from CVS for it because lots of bugfixes and improvements have happened in that one since the last release) Many find this client to be more modern, and though there are some wrinkles to iron out in it, some prefer it already. It's sound code is common with that of the other gtk client so developing win32 sound code for one would also make it work on the other. In terms of features like an overmap, feel free to work on adding something like that to the gtk2 client if you want to

I'll take a peek (reserved word, oops) at it and see if I can get it working.

Man, I'm dating myself by referring to "peek" as a reserved word. :p

[Rednaxela]

One issue is coding sound support is different for windows than alsa/oss which currently is supported on linux, and simply, we don't have any developers that use windows regularly (Ryo, who makes the win32 packages doesn't use windows normally, so it's a hassle to actively work on win32 specific code). If you want to develop sound support for windows, feel free. If you need any help for setting up a win32 build environment for it, I suggest you talk to Ryo as he would know most about that

I'll first take a look at the gtk2 client, but I'm not adverse to this. I would suggest using SDL to make it cross platform. The gtk1 client has an option for SDL, though it doesn't appear to do anything on Windows.

Could use SDL for sound, but since we already have a linux native sound backend, not an awful lot of advantage to an SDL one as opposed to making a win32 native one in addition IMHO, of course if we had a well enough working SDL one, not much reason to keep any others around either.
The SDL option in the client makes it use sdl for rendering which can be faster in some cases, however this is not supported in win32, because the hack (and the only possible way) to get sdl to display inside of a gtk controlled window, is X11 dependent.
One note, the new gtk2 client currently has plain, sdl, and opengl rendering methods. SDL would have the same win32 limitations, but not sure if opengl would or not. Also, SDL rendering support is planning on being removed in the gtk2 client at some point as that simplifies things that the other two work about just as well for most people.

There's a newer gtk2 client that's in development, Ryo isn't currently making windows packages of it, but you may want to look into making a win32 build of it yourself. (if you do that, I would suggest getting the latest code from CVS for it because lots of bugfixes and improvements have happened in that one since the last release) Many find this client to be more modern, and though there are some wrinkles to iron out in it, some prefer it already. It's sound code is common with that of the other gtk client so developing win32 sound code for one would also make it work on the other. In terms of features like an overmap, feel free to work on adding something like that to the gtk2 client if you want to

I'll take a peek (reserved word, oops) at it and see if I can get it working.

Man, I'm dating myself by referring to "peek" as a reserved word. :p

If you need help with that, my suggestion would be to see if you can talk to Ryo on the crossfire IRC channel.

[Reven]

I've got the v2 client to build, but so far only in Cygwin and not mingw yet. OpenGL pegs the CPU at 100%, and I didn't happen to compile in SDL support, but pixmap works ok. Actually, despite what the docs say about it being slower than the v1 client, I find it much more responsive.

If I get a mingw client running, do you want me to make a Windows install package right away, or wait until sound is written?