GSoC Ingame lobby

GSoC idea: Basic ingame lobby

Why

All existing Spring interfaces (lobbies) are either difficult to customize for game developers or have a different look and feel from the game itself and require focus switch from the game itself to operate.

What

A new lobby should be implemented with customization and control in mind, using Lua scripting and reusing Spring codebase when possible. It should be running as a separate process overlaying to 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.