Spring javascript web irc

[gajop]

I'm sure a lot of people, devs especially, connect to Spring Lobby servers only for the chat, and it's quite nice to have it available on every machine, even those without desktop lobbies.

Currently the only way to do this is to use the Java Weblobby: weblobby.springrts.com, which while great, still depends on Java in browsers (that has issues of its own, best discussed elsewhere) since it's meant to be used to actually initiate Spring games.

I'd ideally want to use something simple and elegant, much like the stuff that can be seen on popular irc networks: http://webchat.freenode.net/ and http://webchat.quakenet.org/. And it turns out that qwebirc is an open source project, and bibim(? he's the github owner at least) created an IRCBridge: http://springrts.com/wiki/IrcBridge.

So what I did was put qwebirc into one of my dev machines and after a bit of configuring and some changes to the source code I've made it connect to springrts. You can try it out here: http://ec2-54-213-69-69.us-west-2.compu ... onaws.com/.

Could we perhaps have it added in webchat.springrts.com, springrts.com/irc or something similar?

Example picture:

[CarRepairer]

Some people still have problems getting Java to use weblobby, so this chat alternative is a good thing. So long as common folks don't think they can play the game with it.

As a game dev however, I use weblobby's single player tab to run test games if I want to test bots or modoptions, for example. So ultimately a game dev would need a single player client to test certain things.

[dansan]

Awesome - bookmarked!

+1 on webchat.springrts.com -> talk to Tim

[gajop]

Of course, this is not meant to replace WebLobby (or any other lobby for that matter). It's not meant to be used to play games with, and it never will be.

It's just an alternative (simpler, Java-free) chat-only system for work ( ) and similar places.

[gajop]

OK, for those interested, the repo is here: https://bitbucket.org/gajop/qwebirc-springrts.
Mercurial is used because the original project is also using it so it will make updates easier.
config.py will need to be modified if configured on a different server.

[abma]

why is a patch for qwebirc needed?

will you or did you try to get your patch merged upstream?

[gajop]

A copy with slight modifications of things I answered in the lobby:

I think it's needed so users can specify the server password (only) as it's used instead of the original NICKSERV IDENTIFY thingy.
The 2nd part of the patch was the change to have PASS be supplied before USER, which the IRC bridge seems to need.
And the 3rd part of the patch is just some configs which will need to be slightly changed (e.g. address would need to be changed to webchat.springrts.com).

Note that most IRC servers don't use a server password. I will check with the qwebirc team to see if these changes are correct and whether they will be merged upstream.

[Forboding Angel]

Very Cool! Great work!

[gajop]

Thanks. I still need to configure connection settings so timeouts don't happen as often.

[abma]

atm iframe only:
http://webchat.springrts.com/

sorry, no idea when i've the time to set it up on springrts.com, but its a beginning :)

i've set #sy/#main as default channels to join, hope that is ok...

(and fuu, we need https!!)

[gajop]

https is great but i can't provide a certificate :)

[bibim]

The 2nd part of the patch was the change to have PASS be supplied before USER, which the IRC bridge seems to need.

This is not a requirement of the IRC bridge specifically, but a requirement of IRC protocol as specified in the IRC RFC:

A "PASS" command is not required for either client or server connection to be registered, but it must precede the server message or the latter of the NICK/USER combination. The recommended order for a client to register is as follows:
1. Pass message
2. Nick message
3. User message

The PASS command is used to set a 'connection password'. The password can and must be set before any attempt to register the connection is made. Currently this requires that clients send a PASS command before sending the NICK/USER combination

[abma]

TurBoss "updated" the webchat, it uses now "the lounge" and runs on the springrts.com server.

https://springrts.com/webchat/

[Forboding Angel]

Abma, this is awesome! Thank you!

[gajop]

TurBoss "updated" the webchat, it uses now "the lounge" and runs on the springrts.com server.

https://springrts.com/webchat/

Well done.

I think next steps should be to add it to the wiki and make it easily discoverable.
Maybe https://springrts.com/wiki/IRC would be a good page?
Also, we should add the navigation bar there if possible.

[abma]

Abma, this is awesome! Thank you!

kudos go to TurBoss, he did the hard work! (i just posted this info)

[TurBoss]

Hi

Ive updated the webchat to the stable version 2.0 from 1.5.0 of "The Lounge"

https://github.com/thelounge/lounge

plz post any issue here thx!