[CF-Devel] Re: Repeated line supression for the gtk client.

[crossfire-devel-admin at archives.real-time.com]

Sebastian Andersson wrote:
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      On Wed, Jul 30, 2003 at 10:02:37PM -0700, Mark Wedel wrote:
     
     
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      I've never liked the way the server does message collapsing right works
     
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      now, from a playing point of view.
     
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      First of all "1 times You pray". The "1 times" should be removed,
     
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      probably an easy fix, it looks really ugly. Then the annoying time
     
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      delay until you see the first message makes one think the server is
     
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      lagging, the key binding doesn't work or something. It can of course
     
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      be made smaller by changing the default value, but then it collapses
     
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      fewer messages. A better fix would be to send the first collapsable
     
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      message immediatly, then start to collapse it.
     
     
  well, the 'times' thing could certainly be removed.

  It also wouldn't be hard for it to send one message initially and then have it 
start collapsing them.

>
     
      Thirdly, it doesn't work when you mix two messages, does it?  Like:
     
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      "1 times The ball of lightning zaps dragon"
     
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      "1 times The ball of lightning electrocutes dragon"
     
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      "1 times The ball of lightning zaps dragon"
     
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      "1 times The ball of lightning electrocutes dragon"
     
     
  Depends on how you mean mix them.  The server would combine that into 2 
messages - one '2 times ball lightning zaps' and '2 times ball ... 
electrocutes'.  There is some number of buffers which the server has for this, 
so changes that result in a larger set of messages can start to mess that up.

  This can result in the order of messages getting a little mixed up, but for 
most messages, that shouldn't be that big a deal (that is why the NDI_UNIQUE was 
really there - for messages you know won't be merged, or messages you don't want 
to get mixed up, like listings, that should be set.  However, since most people 
see all the draw_info with that tag, any new one also gets passed with that 
parameter, which isn't always right.



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      If one looks at it from a system point of view, the messages should be
     
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      collapsed on the server to save bandwidth. But the server can't (yet)
     
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      update old messages in the client and that is needed if one wants more
     
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      info to fit on the screen (like the ball lightning example). The best
     
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      thing is probably to combine output-sync with my patch (if gtk was
     
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      working that is). The "X times" could be removed in the client and then
     
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      my new patch could further collapse the messages. Even better would be
     
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      a way for the server to send a shorter message, telling which message
     
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      was repeated and let the client repeat it, but I don't know if the few
     
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      bytes it would save (and further client/server complication) would be
     
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      worth it.
     
     
  As said, I think the server already does most of what you want.  It wouldn't 
be hard for the server to send the first message when it shows up.  And the 
server already handles collapsing multiple messages.

  The other reason to handle collapsing on the server is to reduce bandwidth 
some, but not likely much an issue.



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