News: Z-Net 3 Progress... Part 3

Tuesday, January 08, 2013

Things really have been going slow. Thanks to the horribly designed recent WoW expansion, the free time that WoW and my coding projects share has mostly been taken up by WoW. It it hasn't been until recently that I've had only little to do on WoW each day so that I could have more time to code. However, I did still find time here and there, but didn't get much done.

Since my last progress update, I tried working on some menubar stuff and hit some roadblocks. That got me sick of custom GUI work altogether for the moment, so I decided to work on building the basic window setup for the client with the goal of being able to plop in my IRC code as soon as possible. I've found that even when I intend to slow my development down, I still need to see results at a better rate then I have been, or else I have a hard time getting interested in working on things. So getting the client running as a crappy IRC client feels more like progress than several development projects I use to work on the different aspects of the final project.

As the project sits right now, it vaguely resembles my basic ideas for the final project. I do now have my IRC code plopped in, and outputting basic RAW IRC messages to a window. Soon I need to finish working on getting the RAW messages properly parsed, and resulting client generated messages outputted to windows instead. Then I need to start setting up the frame work for handling multiple IRC channel windows. If I didn't post it on the Z-Net 3 forum already, unlike Z-Net I, and more like Z-Net 2, I plan to have chat rooms available in ZN3. Not just one, but several. Ideally 1 for each Emu and common language.

Once that's done, I'll start working on the nick name list stuff for the rooms. Then finally it will feel like a project to me, and not just a mish-mash of code. My goal is now to get it into sharable alpha stages asap, even if it looks like crap. If it does something, I'm happy. Such a state for the project would allow me to more freely work on different areas of the project as I lose interest in other areas, unlike right now where I feel a bit more limited. I'll talk about more later, after I'm working on it, because I could theorize what things I'll do after what, all day.

Of note, seeing the way ZNI has gone since 1.1, I've found myself more willing to work on it. I haven't worked on it yet since then, I just realized I'm more willing now. ZN3 is still a priority though. If I do work on it, I would do so only because I'm in need of doing something that moves faster then the coding work on ZN3. What I've been considering doing if I do work on it, is likely some GUI additions/tweaks. Namely setting the recently revealed TCP option as switchable in the host window, moving the disable download option to the host window, and possibly adding a window for setting up the white/black lists. No promises on anything though. If I do make a update, none of those could be added, or perhaps some of those and something else.