Tractor Community Center

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 4:34 pm

was just htinking of some sort of community center. im thinking of a place for tractor lovers to hang out

ive had a chat client in development for a few months called Pulse 1.0 i origonaly made it for tractor but i failed to see the point in it but i dont like the fact its just sitting here doing nothing so i thought i would see what everyone here thinks of the idea

Features:
Multiple chat rooms(user created also)
Private Messaging
Message Boards (Private & public)
friends list (shows who's online and offline)
File Transfer(not yet 100% working[work in progress]
Depository of trac knowledge (?) lol

please note that: pulse 1.0 is not 100% complete yet and could still take a few months to be completed (2 months at the most) also need a user to h ost the server for pulse. i would host it myself if it wasnt for 56k dial up connection

if there are any applications anyone wants/needs please let me know. i have a lot of time on my hand and im looking for some projects to do

Current Projects:
Trac Bot (99% complete. released before the month end)
Yahoo chat client (ymsg11 protocol)
pulse 1.0

ScreenShot bellow of pulse 1.0:

Mattizme · Post by **Mattizme** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 5:45 pm

Is that skinned or WindowBlinds?

One thing that I think would be useful is to have one client that can interact with multiple chat clients. like, you put where the chat log box is and the typing box, then you choose which one you want to send to. would be useful for interacting Tractor with IM Clients

Even if not, Pulse looks pretty spiffay. keep up the good work. Hell, I'll use it

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 5:57 pm

matt. ths skin is a skin i made using ActiveSkin (Skin Control for developers. you need to pay for it though

it isnt a windows skinner it just skins my applications)

ive tried window blinds activex component for vb but its just to damn crapy, it lags the hell outa my apps, and my whole pc as a matter of fact.

the other thing you were talking about. i dont think i understand you 100% but what i do understand is it would be very very very hard but i will look into it. a little more info please ?

Mattizme · Post by **Mattizme** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 6:25 pm

mmkay. you know the bot interacted with the small mode of Tractor?

Well, I'd like to see somethin that could interact wityh multiple progs - diff copies of tractor, or instant message services. that way I can talk on IMs and still chat in tractor without window switching.

get me?

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 6:35 pm

um i think i get ya. only thing is it would be very very slow in getting chat text and responding to multiple chat windows. as you have seen the way it gets chat text seeing you have old source it can lag realy badly so its better just to keep to one trac small mode chat windows

as i re read your topic i think of what you mean

if you mean when you minimize the tractor small mode and go to another window and bot cant find window of trac small mode, now it can. you can go away and do what ever you want without having to worry if the bot can find the trac small mode window(Updated that problem ages ago)
sorry im a little drunk

Mattizme · Post by **Mattizme** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 6:49 pm

Not that. it's kind of hard to explain..

Let's call the Tractor window Window X, and I'm talking to someone on MSN (or any other, for the sake of this.) and let's call that window Y. What I'd like to do is connect a single chat client to both of them, and make it take their massage log box and its message entry box. then, I want to be able to assign a shortcut to it - such as F1 for Window X, and F2 for window Y. then, I want to be able to hit the shortcut key and type a message, and it will send it to that window. then I want to be able to hit the other shortcut key, and send it to that one... so you change the focus of your message. then be able to get up to 12 diffrent ones (F keys) and be able to easily switch between em. it'd be severely processor intensive, but what the hell, it'd be fun

Thou it really wouldn't fit into Pulse.. both category and filesize

Mattizme · Post by **Mattizme** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 6:50 pm

Oh and andy, how do you mask the input ont he password box?

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 6:58 pm

that could be done(thinking of coding it in my head) but the bad thing is that i would need to be connected to both msn and a tractor through winsock not hwnd. now the realy bad thing is that i cant decrypt the encrypted data that tractor sends and recieves. so if it was all done via window manipulating it would be very very laggy. id hate to even see how laggy it would get doing that all through window manipulating

but if you have a super computer lets say 10ghz then no problem i could probably do it

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 7:06 pm

in reply to your password masking. vb's text boxes have a propertie to set the charecter to be displayed if you use it as a password input textbox
(image bellow 317 KB) please exuse the colors ms paint sucks ass

Mattizme · Post by **Mattizme** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 7:14 pm

Schweet - never seen that before. that is VS6, right?

By the way, you've mentioned MS Paint's suckiness.

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 7:18 pm

yeah vb6

the textbox is just a normal text box but with '&' in the passwordchar making it a password text box

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 7:31 pm

see this is why it would be good to have a sort of community center type thing so we dont need to chat in forums all the time waiting for a reply

its much more better to have just a chat room without having to go into an island all the time just to talk. its kinda pointless just chating on an island and eating stuff in your house while you chat

or it would be nice to beable to chat on all islands without having to actualy enter the island

Knoxjoey · Post by **Knoxjoey** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 9:14 pm

i rember a long time ago mit was talking about a world chat that is very WIP

maby if it ever get's done you can find a way too link it up too your program that would be very useful

and nice job btw

(ps: make sure too leave a special time and room for the aynomus tracaholics heh

)

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 10:35 pm

knox i would love to do alot of things with tractor, alot of useful stuff, if i could only encrypt/decrypt a-tractor data.

only thing keeping me from realy trying to figure it out is that all i can do is enter an island via my own application using winsock and chatting in that island (would be very useful for my bot) but when i think more about it theres the file downloading and logging into the house so your char doesnt die and logging out without any problems, its just to big a task to take on

plus i spoke to mit and he said more than half of a tractor was the login

(at least i think thats what he said

)

if it was just a chat application on tractor without entering any island or downloading anyfiles like the map the dats and other stuff then i could do that no problem (if only iu could encrypt/decrypt a tractor data)

Knoxjoey · Post by **Knoxjoey** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 12:57 am

aye aye, perfectly understandable i am a programer myself it was merly a suggestion if ye dint know about it

Whirl · Post by **Whirl** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 3:30 am

In reply to Andy's statement about there being an apparently 'huge' login sequence:

** "i spoke to mit and he said more than half of a tractor was the login (at least i think thats what he said" **

I think you're correct. You can't just connect to an island via Telnet or a program interface working directly with the server. Such things that are sent in the login sequence are (to my knowledge):
* Username
* Password
* Various configuration info
* Client version information

Which (maybe I should post this on the suggestion board) leads me to suggest that maybe Mit could make a simple login sequence available with -very- limited ablities. Instead of having to send configuration and version information, possibly you could just send a username and a password to the server and you'd be logged in under the status of "Chat mode." This would make preliminary porting of the chat aspect of the client to other platforms easier and a possible chat-only aspect in a way to the game. (I think this is somewhat along the lines of what Andy was saying)

However, the economic and travel aspect of the game would be disabled for that login session. And, this may not be so easily implementable due to the way the game is designed. But otherwise, there is basically no way to produce a third-party chat client that actually interacts directly with the server without having access to the original source code. Then again, maybe Mit doesn't want third-party apps that close to the server...?

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 4:56 am

Which (maybe I should post this on the suggestion board) leads me to suggest that maybe Mit could make a simple login sequence available with -very- limited ablities

whirl. it would be verry nice of mit to do such a thing but i feel it would leave a-tractor open to exploits if he allowed interaction with servers from 3rd party clients as he would probably need to expose a-tractor data encryption for login data. i'am glad that mit hasnt said anything about trac encryption and i hope he never does(sort of) i wouldnt like it getting into the wrong hands

but yes a simple login and chat stuff would be great which doesnt give much room for people to exploit trac and doesnt expose any true tractor data(stuff like sending what you bought and buy and the ammount of cash you have. ect)

Whirl · Post by **Whirl** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 3:33 am

Nah, what I'm suggesting is completely unencrypted, and maybe doesn't even require the use of passwords, just selecting a name and logging in.

zaroba · Post by **zaroba** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 3:52 am

then what would stop somebody from logging in as Whirl and making you look bad?

Whirl · Post by **Whirl** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 2:09 am

They couldn't use names that are registered to users.

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