[crossfire] Crossfire release?

[Mark Wedel]

On 11/16/10 08:24 PM, Kevin R. Bulgrien wrote:
<snip>

> IMO, it is time to ditch gtk-v2.glade as the default.  It is becoming a
> not so uncommon event for a new user to come on IRC and have fits
> getting the important window panels to show up (inventory in particular).
> I've had one disappear off IRC after trying hard to help with little success.
> I'd personally rate this pretty much a necessity.  Maybe dealing with that
> should be a different thread though.

  I have no issue changing the default to something that is easier to use/works 
for a larger number of users.

>
> I did work to fix the caching of hosts in the metaserver dialog, but there
> is a bug still left. Somehow the cache list displayed isn't quite right.  I
> haven't followed up to find out what's wrong yet.
>
> I'd like to rework the new dialogs.  They do not match the style of the
> other dialogs, and, IMO, with apologies to the designer, ugly.  It is not
> necessary to do so, but already that client has a reputation for its not
> so elegant looks.

  I know many of the new dialogs would need some work.  I was also caught 
somewhat in not quite knowing the best/correct size for them - some of the 
windows would be much better if they were larger (descriptions are scrunched in 
small area), but at same time, I didn't want to make the windows too large to 
work on low res displays - I'm not sure what the minimal display resolution we 
target currently is.


> As for ChangeLog, I've personally taken to heart an IRC conversation about
> that document.  I have started only logging things there that seem likely to
> be of end-user interest., and to allow the SVN log to serve as the technical
> change log.

  That may be a different discussion - I missed the IRC conversation, but what 
is really recorded in the changelog could become just significant changes, and 
minor bug fixes not recorded there.

  I suppose I just followed the format of most projects where everything is 
recorded in the ChangeLog to high detail, but some are much more general.

  One concern I do have about that is to make sure comments recorded for the 
actual changed files be meaningful.  Having a comment in the svn log like 'bug 
fix' is pretty useless - I'd much rather have the description be something like 
'fix possible null pointer reference ....'.  I only bring this up because in 
many cases, the same entry in the Changelog is what is used in the files.


> Music is working in GTK-V2 though there is no mechanism to deliver music
> with the client.  I think some work needs to be done to at least define a
> system-wide location for music and a user-specific location for music.
> We also have no infrastructure set up to distribute media either.  Not
> sure its worth making a big deal about the new feature at this point.

  I suspect music will be like sounds - distribution will be in tar 
files/rpms/whatever.  That said, any music files we have should get committed to 
SVN so they can be distributed.

  I suspect that music files will change infrequently enough that such a 
distribution method works fine.  But if something more frequent was needed (say 
you add several new song files and don't want to wait for next official release 
that may be 6 months away), packing up a new tar archive with the new files and 
calling it a .1 release or something would probably be fine.


> Sound/Music may eventually need with respect to possibly fixing old
> .crossfire folder content, but then maybe one needs to just ditch the
> legacy files rather than try convert them to the new system.  (The old
> system was severely broken as it used hard-coded absolute paths that
> could single-handedly disable sound if changes occurred upstream.)

  I have no issues disabling/breaking old stuff if there is a good replacement - 
in fact, I'd rather ditch legacy stuff than adding bits of code to try and keep 
it functional.