Feature Request: Auto download selected games when i start the client up.

Currently I'm doing this with spring lobby and a batch file but it looks ugly and leaves an error filled rapid window open. So, yeah if it's not hard or whatever I would greatly appreciate this feature.

If we're on feature requests - Filter by game would be great. For my needs this need only be setable via a/the config file. I'd probably use this lobby in the (early) windows portable Engines of War install if it had that (and we go down that installation route - which is likely).
Caveat - if SpringLobby shows progress on the "real game menu" side of things, I'd probably be switching there later on.

Auto downloading a game on launch is fairly easy to add as a hidden configuration option. There needs to be some way to browse rapid sources to have a good (ie. discoverable) implementation though. Currently it's only possible to download a mod after someone else hosts with it, I know this sucks.

As for filtering by game; I'm not sure I would want to do this. Other lobbies can filter, but sorting is good enough imho. I can understand why you would want to filter out other games, Zero-K lobby does, but I think most of its users end up turning it off filtering when they figure out how.

Right now, lobby is nowhere near being distributable. Has an occasional crash when downloading, and if you close it without any channels open, it tries to open a garbage channel on next start. Both fixed on my side but I can't update link because I'm partly through other changes. Hard to find time and motivation between full time work though.

EDIT:

I'm thinking you mean more of a single task workflow, like most games, rather than being able to tab between open battles, replays, and singleplayer at any time. I am thinking about how to make Alphalobby into something other than a bad SpringLobby clone, but don't want to be different for the sake of being different.

Sure thing. It was meant less as a demand, and more as a "you might be interested to know". "Single task workflow" is pretty much exactly what we'd be looking for longer term. However, I think the average current "Spring player" (ie lobby user) prefers the tabbed setup for it's flexibility...

I could add some compile time options to 'brand' the binary with a default game, which would allow a splash screen, auto updating the game, and some other tweaks that wouldn't make sense if the lobby is game-agnostic. It wouldn't be pretty since its win32 not opengl / directx, but I could match the functionality.

Its a too early to start building something like that, but there isn't a _huge_ amount of work required to get the lobby from being obviously WIP to something more or less usable, would also like to open the source up but the build process isn't entirely automated yet.

maybe simple put it on github... the rest can be fixed later. At least, you've a nice backup then

Source is now available at https://code.google.com/p/alphalobby/. I haven't had enough free time to work on this for over a month, and tbh I'm not sure when/if I'm going to develop it further.

Code is ugly and disorganised, I never got around to cleaning it up, but probably better to have something online in case my PC gets eaten by robot zombies or something.

That is really too sad. It was just becoming my offline test & backup lobby. Hope you find time to continue with this.

Anyway, why I clicked the thread:

Had some problem with singleplayer, spring would say "player 0: empty playername" and in script.txt it really said "Playername=;"
I think it happend after I used the singleplayer menu while I was logged in to server instead of using it offline like I always did before.
Entering a name in the connect menu or deleting alphalobby.conf did not fix it. Only logging into server fixed it.
Now just noticed the login window has this entered as playername:
0 of 16 - 1 spectators
So it seems something gets messed up somewhere.
(version Alphalobby 0.05.5 (alpha))

Development hasn't entirely stopped, the issue you mention is fixed now. I lost some progress a while ago (which is what motivated me to upload source) so its possible some other bugs are reintroduced that weren't in an older version.

link:
http://springfiles.com/downloadmain/5909

i do not know if you use this unitsync function (FindFilesArchive), but in case you do, you may be interested in this change:
https://github.com/spring/spring/commit ... d240d2244f

(i also added more documentation to unitsync_api.h)

Those rare times that I play nowdays, I use this lobby. Its so fast and simple and nice. Thanks for making it!

You too? Seems this is a common bump in the road in many projects.

The link seems to be broken.

use this one:
http://springfiles.com/spring/lobby-clients/alphalobby

Noticed two small hotkey conflicts:
1) I can not type ┬▓┬│{[~ in chat because (on german layout) alt gr + number are hotkeys to change chat channels.

2) ctrl + arrow right/ left:
on windows it usually moves cursor to previous/next word in text fields. (like chat)
in alphalobby it switches through channels.

Sorry, I'm not going to fix anything. I thought I might start working on this again at some stage, but realistically; I probably won't. Knowing win32 doesn't help getting a job so I don't really care about maintaining this.

Hm too bad, guess you graduated from college and now you're entering the job market. What will you code for fun?

Since I've been playing Spring lately I've decided to fix this lobby. It shouldn't crash randomly now.

Other changes:
Unified menubar, tabbar and status bar into a single toolbar.
Battleroom has been significantly redesigned.
Supports PNG sidepics (and now requires devIL.dll)
Autounspec button.
Dedicated Startbox split buttons.

That votebox doesn't do anything yet
Singleplayer and battle hosting are buggy so are disabled in release builds.
Note that I don't need any bug reports. There is more than enough to work on as it is.

YAAAY!!!

I was sad when you stopped making this lobby. Great that you came back!

New version.

Changes:
Added download and chat tabs.
Added a GUI for rapid.
Can auto update mods
Votebox works
Unitsync calls are cached to disk. So changing maps/mods is a lot faster.
Added support for different minimap types (metal/elevation maps)
Minimap draws significantly faster.
Minimap scales to actual map height:width.
Added start box buttons, works in spads and springie games.

Hosting and single player isn't supported. I don't need bug reports.

Downloads tab: (yes I know its ugly)