Re: GTetrinet integration with instant messaging applications

["Jason D. Clinton" <me jasonclinton com>]

No this is not the right place for Gtetrinet and the more I hear about
Telepathy the more I want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon.

On 10/21/07, Alban Crequy <alban crequy apinc org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> [ Is it the right mailing list for GTetrinet ? ]
>
> GTetrinet uses a client-server model: each player must connect to the
> same server and then start a game with people connected to the server
> [1]. I think it would be great to have some kind of integration with
> instant messaging applications, namely Jabber [2] and Telepathy [3].
>
> [1] http://alban.apinc.org/files/gtetrinet/gtetrinet1_small.png
> [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabber
> [3] http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/FrontPage
>
> == Use case ==
>
> The use case I want to resolve is friends that already chatting over
> IM and they want to play GTetrinet together. They don't want to choose
> a server because it is an unneeded configuration task since they are
> already connected via the IM. The IM application already knows how to
> send messages from a player to another. Each player should configure
> the IM one time and then everything should be automatic. They don't
> want to choose a nickname in GTetrinet either because all players have
> already configured their nicknames in the IM application.
>
> So instead of writing the tetrinet server name, the user should be
> able to select other people directly. GTetrinet can know the list of
> online contacts because the IM application already know that list. See
> example screenshot [4].
>
> [4] http://alban.apinc.org/files/gtetrinet/gtetrinet_with_telepathy.png
>
> Then the player start the game.
>
> To keep compatibility with others clients, the client-server model
> must remain. But it is possible to have both client-server support and
> IM support.
>
> == How to do that ==
>
> This can be done with the Telepathy framework [3]. We can use contacts
> widgets from libempathy-gtk. Empathy is an IM application for the
> GNOME desktop using the Telepathy framework. Empathy and other
> Telepathy components *may* be included in the GNOME 2.22 desktop: see
> thread [5].
>
> [5] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2007-September/msg00301.html
>
> To achieve this goal, a lot of work is needed: the tetrinet protocol
> is designed to be client server. The new protocol scheme may look like
> [6].
>
> [6] http://alban.apinc.org/files/gtetrinet/gtetrinet2_small.png
>
> In order to have something working quickly, we can keep the protocol
> unchanged and just use the Telepathy framework to route the packets.
> The first player will have to host the server but it does not change
> anything for users. Other players do not have to know the IP address
> of the server (player1's computer) because Telepathy take care of
> this.
>
> This use the ability of Telepathy to create "tubes" (application data
> channels). Tubes make applications able to exchange arbitrary data
> between contacts. This can be "D-Bus tube" or, in case of GTetrinet,
> "stream tube" (implemented by Guillaume in Gabble, the Telepathy
> Connection Manager for Jabber). This behaves like a proxy [7].
>
> [7] http://alban.apinc.org/files/gtetrinet/gtetrinet3_small.png
>
> == Status of this work ==
>
> Guillaume (in Cc: of this mail) and I are interested to see GTetrinet
> working with tubes. We have some experimental patches. Guillaume has a
> patch for this use case:
>
> - Player1 start the GTetrinet application.
> - Player1 select the player 2 in the contact list and click on "play".
> Player1's GTetrinet start a local tetrinet server and configure a tube
> for player2 for exporting the listening socket of the tetrinet server.
> - Player2 is using the Empathy client. When the player2's Empathy
> client receive the tube from the player1, it start GTetrinet with a
> options "gtetrinet -P <xxx> --connect=localhost". The -P option is for
> choosing the tcp port of the server. Player2's GTetrinet is connecting
> to localhost because the listening socket has been proxied by the
> tube: see schema [7].
>
> Guillaume's patch need an Empathy support for starting other
> applications. I don't know the status of this support. In the future,
> we don't want this feature to be specific to one IM client (Empathy in
> this case). There is a thread [8] on the Telepathy mailing list for
> putting this feature in the right layer of the Telepathy framework.
>
> [8] http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/telepathy/2007-October/001127.html
>
> I have another (ugly) patch [9] that does not need a Telepathy client
> support (but need Telepathy of course):
>
> - Player1 start the GTetrinet application and register a callback to
> telepathy on "new tubes" events.
> - Player2 start the GTetrinet application and register a callback to
> telepathy on "new tubes" events.
> - Player1 select the player 2 in the contact list and click on "play".
> Each GTetrinet has a server included that listen only local
> connections (bind address 127.0.0.1). I take the tetrinetx-ng [10]
> code. Player1's GTetrinet configure a tube for player2 for exporting
> its server socket.
> - When player2's GTetrinet receive the tube from the player1, it
> connects to the tube. See schema [7].
>
> [9] http://dede.muadda.org/~alban/d/2007/10/gtetrinet_telepathy-v14.patch
> [10] http://sourceforge.net/projects/tetrinetx-ng/
>
> My patch is ugly because it includes all code from tetrinetx-ng. It is
> just a prototype, but I was able to play via tubes. The relevent
> Telepathy bits are in src/telepathyclient.{c,h} and README.Telepathy.
> I wanted to clean up my patch but I don't know when I will do that. So
> I prefer to let you know right now the fun I have with
> GTetrinet/Telepathy hacking ;-)
>
> Thanks in advance for your comments,
> Best regards,
>
> --
> Alban Crequy
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