I REALLY REALLY would like to see the three enhancement requests listed in the subject of this message become a reality. I have a VASSAL module that has been sitting in mothballs for over 6 months because of the fact that VASSAL currently does not provide functionality for these three items.
Is there any way I could push these items to the top of the enhancement list somehow? Is anyone currently working on enhancements? What are the chances that these enhancements will see the light of day before I die? Ok, that last comment was a bit over the edge, but I really would like to see if I can persuade/bribe someone to work on these three enhancements.
Thanks a million (although I don’t have that much money).
If you can give a brief description of what these RFE’s are, I will give you a rough idea of how much work is involved as a starting place for discussion.
1795642 is "Add Tabbed Panels to the Private Windows and/or Player Hand elements. "
1795642 is “Is there any way to make the Charts element be restricted to a side, similar to a Player Hand?”
893639 is “Allow player to join more than one side.” Now on this request, I’d prefer to see the players be allowed to multi-select one or more “sides” in the opening dialog box. For example, in a seven-player game, a player could select Side A, Side C and Side D from the “Join game as which side” drop down box. Of course, providing multi-selection would mean using a list box instead of the current drop down box. I don’t know if that is possible or not.
By this, I presume you mean the ability to add Private Windows and Player Hands to Chart Window elements, in the same way that you can currently add standard Maps to Chart Window elements?
If so, then it should not be too difficult to do, building on the existing code to add standard maps.
Exactly what do you mean by this? Do you mean that a chart element would have a ‘Restricted Visibility’ and a list of sides, and that Chart would only be visible to those sides? What would be the point of this? Is this just so that private windows and player hands added as part of the previous RFE would only be visible to their owners. Or are you thinking that there might by two different Terrain Effects Charts (for example), each one only visible to its own side?
If you are talking about visibility of private windows and hands in Chart elements, then it should be taken care of as part of 1795642 in some way.
This is potentially a much more difficult issue. Large amounts of code exist that assume you have one and only one side associated with you.
Brent Easton
Analyst/Programmer
University of Western Sydney
Email: b.easton@uws.edu.au
Insofar as enhancements 1795641 and 1795642 go, if I could get one or the other of these two, that would be great. The current problem is that there is no window-type in VASSAL (that I know of) that provides both: 1) tabs AND 2) limits which players have access to that window. So, if tabs could be added to Private Windows/Player Hands (which DO provide player access restrictions but do NOT offer tabs) OR if player access restrictions could be added to the Charts Window (which DOES have tabs but does NOT provide player access restrictions), then that would be nice.
As to enhancement 893639, how are other multi-player modules in which a player can play multiple sides currently getting around this limitation? This seems like a BIG limitation for multi-player games using VASSAL.
Adding tabs to any sort of map window is not going to happen soon.
The structure is already there, this option is the way to go. So, will this satisfy your requirements:
a) Private Windows and Player hands can be added to Chart window elements.
b) If the Private map/hand is not visible to all players, then it is not visible to the other side. Presumably not appearing in the Chart structure at all?
Brent Easton
Analyst/Programmer
University of Western Sydney
Email: b.easton@uws.edu.au
This won’t work for all games or all in all situations. It’s not a general purpose solution where any player can take any number of sides. (In fact, I am not sure we would really want to allow this as a matter of course?)
For games where there are set combinations of multiple sides that can be taken in combination for different scenarios, then I would approach it like this.
Imagine a game where the Allies can be played individually (US, UK, Russia) or in combinatins (US/UK, UK/Russia, US/Russian or US/UK/Russia). I would create additional sides for each combination and make any restricted components accessible to all appropriate combinations. For example, the a Russian Player Hand would be visible to the 4 sides Russia, US/Russia, UK/Russia and US/UK/Russia.
Then create saved games for the different scenarios where the side not in use are alreadt taken. A 2 player scenario might only have the two sides Axis and US/UK/Russia availabel to be chosen. A 3 player scenario might have Axis, US/UK and Russia as the sides available.
I’m happy to report that I’ll be working on #1795642 (tabs in private
windows) as part of a project which will give you tabs virtually
anywhere you want them, for VASSAL 3.2.
The other two aren’t in my plans for the near future, but maybe somebody
else could be convinced to pick them up.
Brent, all of the Flexdock stuff we looked at is relevant to this. I
think it’s feasible to do for 3.2. Whether that counts as “soon” is
up for debate.
Remember, this is a seven-player game I am working with here. Rather than try to rephrase everything I stated a few months ago, here is the text of the original e-mail I sent on 7/25/07 regarding this issue:
"Thanks for your reply. Your proposed solution is the one that I believe is the only possible solution provided by the current version of VASSAL, since today you are only allowed to select one side from the “Chose player side” dropdown box. Thus, this would require me to create a “player” for all possible side combinations.
For example, I’d have to create a side for all the possible combinations for Factions A, B, C & D:
Faction A
Faction B
Faction C
Faction D
Faction A & B
Faction A & C
Faction A & D
Faction B & C
Faction B & D
Faction C & D
Faction A & B & C
Faction A & B & D
Faction A & C & D
Faction B & C & D
Faction A & B & C & D
Then do the same thing for Factions E, F & G:
Faction E
Faction F
Faction G
Faction E & F
Faction E & G
Faction F & G
Faction E & F & G
Thus, the “Chose player side” dropdown would have all these “sides” listed in them. In addition, I’d have to make the player windows usable for all the appropriate selections. For example, the window for Faction A would be available for Faction A, Faction A & B, Faction A & C, Faction A & C & D, etc. Although doable, this doesn’t seem like a very user-friendly solution.
IMO, a more user-friendly solution would be to allow the players to pick the side(s) they are playing in a list box, which would allow the player to select more than one side via ctrl+click, instead of the current dropdown box, which only allows one side to be selected. (I’m not saying to do away with the dropdown box, just provide the module creator the option to use a list box instead of a dropdown.) Thus, the list box would only contain 7 sides:
Faction A
Faction B
Faction C
Faction D
Faction E
Faction F
Faction G
The player then could select one or more of the sides he wanted to play from the list. This would mean I would only have to make the windows accessable to the appropriate Faction, not all the possible Faction combinations. I don’t know if this is doable, but, if so, I think it would be a worthy enhancement. Otherwise, if no one can provide a viable option, then I will have to create my module as described above, with the multiple Factions (ugh)."
I hope you can appreciate the frustration with this approach. If there currently is some way around having to go through this process to provide multi-player functionality, I would appreciate hearing about it.
There is perhaps one way we could do something. Too much of VASSAL assumes that 1 side = 1 player, I really don’t think that can be changed. However, another approach might be to make it easier to take on and manage multiple sides as ‘different’ players.
At the moment, you can play 2 sides at once by synching to the same game with different passwords from 2 different Vassal sessions.
How about we add a component that allows you to do this from within a single vassal session?
The component would allow you to take on different sides using different passwords and allow you to easily change between them. You would be able to play 2 different sides, but not at the same time - You could be either one, or the other, with a button click to change between the two.
Have a think about the flow of play in your module. Does this make sense?
Brent, this sounds like a hack to make it work, not a proper solution.
In the long run, wouldn’t it be better to make a side be a set of
players? I have a feeling we’re going to regret not doing that, if we
don’t already.