GSoC Ingame lobby
From Spring
GSoC idea: Basic ingame lobby
Why
External lobby programs are powerful but confusing. There's a need for a simple lobby client that works in-game and to launch spring.
What
All existing Spring interfaces (lobbies) are either difficult to customize for game developers or have a different look 'n feel from the game itself and require focus switch from the game itself to operate.
A new, Lua scriptable, lobby should be implemented with customization and control in mind, possibly integrated with spring codebase and/or running as a separate process overlaying the game's UI.
Optionally, the engine's start screen should be replaced and integrated with it.
Required skills
- Knowledge of C++
- Knowledge of Lua
- Knowledge of Lua API/C bindings
- Knowledge of basic OpenGL programming
Difficulty
Estimated: hard
Technical details
- ensure Spring can clean up properly
- ensure Spring can change mod during program runtime (requires that some singletons be converted to Spring's *handler pattern)
- The lobby API should reuse/be identical to spring's LuaUI where possible ( GL calls, access to game infos )
- to prevent Spring <-> lobby crash propagations they should run as separate processes, with lobby overlaying on top of Spring's UI, the only exception could be made for start screen.
- create a new Lua context or initalize current context earlier in the code and rewrite Spring's start interface using Lua scripting.
