Messages

451

Modification Help / Re: What you wish you had known before modding Blockland

« on: May 26, 2017, 03:27:46 AM »

the code of the default game functions

Implying that his is something you know now? How could I get my hands on this?

452

Suggestions & Requests / Re: Motion Detector

« on: May 25, 2017, 05:11:33 AM »

through some searching you'll find it's actually none of those

My bad. Didn't click the links like a moron.

453

Gallery / Re: Secret Riddler

« on: May 25, 2017, 05:08:59 AM »

sounds like a Riddler or miss

Boooo!

454

Modification Help / What do you wish you had known before modding Blockland?

« on: May 24, 2017, 08:02:22 AM »

In the spirit of Conan's Add-on Making Academy, I figured it would be good to create another small resource to help those delving into Blockland modding.

In this topic, talk about what you wish you had known when you were just starting to create add-ons for Blockland. Feel free to talk in a general sense, or about specific types of add-ons. Feel free to give more than one tip. Additionally, if you'd like, talk about how and/or why you got started.

455

Suggestions & Requests / Re: Motion Detector

« on: May 24, 2017, 07:42:00 AM »

Are you looking for some sort of zone brick, or some sort of item you can place down?

456

General Discussion / Re: Why Doesn't Blockland Glass Host Music Add-ons?

« on: May 24, 2017, 07:38:33 AM »

the songs are usually cropped and turned into mono OGG Vorbis loops

As far as fair use in concerned, the work must be transformative and be used for purposes such as "criticism, news reporting, teaching, and research". Simply cropping a music clip and changing its file format does not seem to fall under either of those categories.

Although I could be wrong. You would have to ask someone who actually studies law.

457

Add-Ons / Re: [Map] Kitchen

« on: May 22, 2017, 10:28:38 PM »

Do you think you would ever make a tutorial on how to make maps in v21?

458

Add-Ons / Re: Blockland Glass 4.0

« on: May 22, 2017, 10:10:26 PM »

add garfield player icons 2017

The lack of a garfield icon is easily the biggest flaw this mod has.

459

General Discussion / Re: Whatever happened to siba's GTA SA server?

« on: May 22, 2017, 05:37:01 PM »

I have been wondering about this, too. His GTA server was a favorite amongst my brothers and I for awhile. My suspicion is it's just been put on the backburner for awhile due to irl complications.

Or maybe the team working on it just got bored. It can be difficult to maintain motivation for such a large project.

460

Suggestions & Requests / Re: Universal GUI API

« on: May 22, 2017, 03:18:02 AM »

I tried that years ago as an addon.

What was the problem? I'd assume it was mainly that the add-on didn't get enough traction, which shouldn't be a problem with BLG. Or was it a functional problem?

461

Suggestions & Requests / Re: Universal GUI API

« on: May 21, 2017, 04:45:18 PM »

Too high latency. If you click on a button to do something, you expect something to happen now not a quarter of a second later.
Basically every gui application ever runs the gui code locally for that reason.

It would depend on the application. For instance, if it was just simple item store where you click a button to buy an item, each button press would have to communicate with the server anyway. The latency would be about the same as it would be if the GUI was implemented as a seperate client add-on. However, I could see how, say, a calculator would be a bit irking to use.

Since we would want to make this GUI API as widely applicable as possible, so I suppose we would have to have some way to send code to the user. We'll probably have to figure out how to put the code in some sort of sandbox so it wouldn't have access to everything. Perhaps we could make it so that a server that uses this API would have to request client permission for differnt sorts of asks. So when a client joins a server, they are given prompt asking whether they are fine with the server having access to a certain list of permissions (e.g. reading or writing to config). Think of when you are downloading an app on your phone and it warns you about what permissions the app will demand before you download it. But even if we just ran code arbirarily (i.e. without a sandbox) after receiving consent from the user, it wouldn't be any less secure than any other client add-on.

a sophisticated API to construct client mods on the client-side would be theoretically more safe, yes. however, it would be much less flexible, require a significant amount of infrastructure, and require modders to practically learn how to work an entirely new GUI system. there would be very little incentive for modders to choose an option like this when the option of simply requiring a client mod, which the modder can create in pure TS with the aid of vanilla tools, is available and made even simpler with a moderated add-on distribution system.

and, of course, if there were a vulnerability in the API somewhere, it would be incredibly trivial for server hosts to abuse it without any form of informed consent from the client

The logistics certainly seem to increase as more functionality is considered. Duly, one abused vulnerablity could lead many to get cold feet and abandon the add-on outright. We could limit the application of the API. But if we can't create a GUI API that works for virtually all applications, there's really no use in making it at all. I think I'm still going to toy around with the idea, though.

I would still very much like to avoid having to use a unique keybind for every server that uses a client add-on. Perhaps Blockland Glass could include a few action keybinds (like Gmod's F1-F4 keys, as per Crøwn) that mods could utilize. I don't think it would be particularly difficult. They could probably have a wider application than just opening menus, too. It could be as simple as binding a function like BLGActionKey1() and packaging it in a client add-on, and/or binding commandToServer("BLGActionKey1") to a keybind and packaging serverCmdBLGActionKey1() for server-sided add-ons.

462

General Discussion / Re: Why Doesn't Blockland Glass Host Music Add-ons?

« on: May 21, 2017, 02:53:53 PM »

Lots of loops are ripped from copyright audio which can result in a lot of problems for Blockland Glass. I think Blockland Glass doesn't want to deal with this problem which is understandable.

If that's the case, it's totally understandable.

463

Music / Re: Remove Kebab / Serbia Strong

« on: May 21, 2017, 02:52:53 PM »

Thanks Sir!

No problem!

464

Suggestions & Requests / Re: Universal GUI API

« on: May 21, 2017, 02:34:26 PM »

I think he's talking more about sending GUI data to clients instead of making them download the add-on first

This is correct. I am have been acquainted with the mission editor; although it has been some years since I last used it. To be more precise, though, they would only have to download a single add-on once.

With the way GUIs work in Blockland something like this wouldn't really be too helpful. If all you could do is create gui controls and menus for people with no code attached with it, the functionality would be pretty bare.

Again drawing an brown townogy with web development, think of how HTML forms work. An HTML page can include a button that, when clicked, sends a POST request to the web server. In the spirit of this idea, the GUI layout that a server sends a player with this mod would include the server command (i.e. serverCmd____) that will be send to the server when clicking a particular button.

The closest thing to this that we have is the "required clients" portion of Blockland Glass which hasn't really been used very much, but it basically prompts people to download an add-on and will download and execute it automatically before connecting (documentation in the manual).

This could be good enough. Would probably work the same. I'll look into it later.

I like how Garry's Mod leaves F1-4 as spares.

I think this is where I got the idea from. Why shouldn't GUIs in Blockland load like GUIs in Gmod?

clients get assurance that the code they download is safe.

Honestly, I would be more wary about downloading a client than using a prexisting API. It would depend, however, on how much functionality the GUI API would be given. If we tried to implement some kind of JS into it, security concerns would be higher given it would be automatically run. However, if the GUI API simply sends over a GUI layout with some info regarding what server commands each button sends, then I can't really see how this would be more of a security risk.

So, this is actually what Blockland Glass was originally (2012) and I've thought about re-implementing this in a new innovative way in a future update. Many have dismissed it as unfeasible but it's actually very do-able. The downside of this old implementation is that it's not very kind to developers, but I believe I have a remedy to that. Could make an appearance in Glass 4.2

That's good to hear! I was certain someone else had already thought of this before. What you say about this not being friendly to developers is my main concern, too. I would like developers to be able to continue using the mission editor to create GUIs. However, if we just arbitrarily send GUI code to a user, that could pose a huge security risk (I think this is what otto-san is specifically concerned about). Perhaps there would be a way to sandbox the GUI code? Would converting everything to XML, JSON, etc. on the server-side and then back again on the client-side be feasible (i.e. not drive the people developing the GUI API insane)? These are my primary concerns at this stage.

If you have some code you'd be cool with sharing, I would love to see it. Post it here, or PM me.

I may try to get a proof-of-concept working by the end of the week. I'll try to upload a video to accompany it. Hopefully it will help clear up some confusion on exactly what I'm proposing.

465

Suggestions & Requests / Re: fidget spinner addon

« on: May 21, 2017, 02:06:44 PM »

I got one



It's almost done.

Left click = spin

Right click = throws depending on current speed of the spin

You should make it change color based on the user's paint can (like the skis).

Good lord... I'm way too invested in this.