Feature: servers can now set a Message Of The Day #9469
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TrueBrain
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LordAro
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…ing a lobby window Nobody really paid attention to the lobby window, and it completely missed its purpose. Most people don't even wait for companies to show up, but just hit "New Company". This in turn means people create a lot of unneeded companies, while they "just want to watch the game" or join another company. Instead, "Join Game" now just joins the game as spectators.
Hopefully this hints players a bit more where to go to next, to create their own company.
Referring to one window in two ways is a bit annoying.
TrueBrain
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This is shown to clients upon joining.
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I'm very much against this feature the way it is right now. Though I'm just looking at UI and PR description like normal users and didn't dig too deep into the code to see if some of these limitations can be hacked around. First of all, the whole premise is wrong. You're trying to solve bad UI by adding more bad UI. Go fix mp window, don't add kludges in other places. And what is this window even supposed to be? Is it MOTD or is it welcome message? MOTD it's a weird thing to forcefully pop up on login, especially since it doesn't even change daily :p Welcome message can be a useful feature but the way it is atm it's not usable because:
So, basically, as I see atm it can only be used to put some random junk in that message. If I can't find a way to hack around it I may be forced to show something like "Sorry for this stupid popup but OpenTTD forces us to show it, please read the real welcome message that follows" there. |
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Some real welcome messages for example: |
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What I think would actually be useful would be to store the MOTD in a text file by itself, first and foremost. Bonus feature would be to have an in-game administration UI to let the server owner edit the MOTD. That would require implementing a multi-line text editor UI. |
We can demand a golden palace from day 1, but sometimes all we get is a shed. Either way, this is an opinion, and that is fine.
Personally, I do not think this really is an issue. We could limit the text, but I would also hardly call it a show-stopper. But I am open for alternatives.
No. And in my opinion we should never allow GS to change MOTD. GS has plenty of ways to communicate with the user, no need to add yet-another-one on top of that. This is not what a MOTD is for.
Not sure the word "actually" was really needed here, but yeah, I started out with trying to do exactly that ;) But there are more than a few problems, as it turns out :) The main thing I found out, that adding a feature that cannot be controlled from in-game, is a weird thing to do. With that I mean it didn't feel right that you could only modify the MOTD via a text-editor. So I wanted to make it editable from the interface (you called it a bonus, but I think that is pretty mandatory :P). But as you mentioned, that is currently not possible .. and adding it doesn't seem easy. So I tried to allow That is how I got to this result, as a stop-gap, allowing for plenty of future-work. Rome doesn't have to be build in one day ofc :) If you have some suggestions how to bridge the gap, I am all ears (and again, why I mention these things in limitations :D). Would be nice if we can allow And yes, when is your next holiday to finish #7786? That would be really useful and cool :D :D |
It's one thing to start small and another to add a useless popup that exists only to kludge an issue in some other place. Welcome message is the face of the server, it doesn't get a second chance to introduce itself to the player. And you're trying to brush it off with some one-liner.
It's not a big issue and, tbh, it's an issue with the network lobby that servers need all that junk. But until it's addressed I guess I'd suggest adding a second setting: lobby name for lobby and short name for other UI.
"Plenty" of ways but no good one :p Welcome message that you for some reason keep calling MOTD is a unique window, allowing GS modification is to allow maximizing its utility. For example, look at CityMania welcome window, it actually calculates the exact time until server restart, super useful feature. Oh, and btw, even in its current form GS are probably able to change it since they can change settings, there is just no point. P.S. MOTD: https://i.imgur.com/nlPHUzO.png |
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Going to close this PR for now. Most developers agree that having a MOTD would be valuable additional to OpenTTD, but also that not having multiline support sucks. As that requires more groundwork first, it is unlikely this Pull Request is useful by the time that is done. Additionally, I will not actively be pursuing adding MOTD for now, and I hate having dangling PRs on my name I have no further interest in :D The goal of having a place to hint to players they are spectator and should join a company has been addressed in others ways, at least, so we hope. We will find out with our first beta :D |
Includes #9467
Draft, because it will most likely be superseded by #9474, reaching the same goal in a different way.
Motivation / Problem
Now we no longer have a lobby window, it is a bit unclear for new players what they should be doing to start playing. So I wanted to add something that points this out.
It was suggested to add a MOTD for this, and that sounds like an excellent idea. I tried a few things, see what I liked most, and came up with this.
Description
When the MOTD is changed when you are connected, you are shown the MOTD again. The footer will be removed if you are no longer a spectator. Not sure this is wanted behaviour, but it sounds like the right thing to do to me.
Additionally, I decided MOTDs should never be empty. It just feels better to force server-owners to write something nice :) But I can be convinced otherwise!
PS: suggestions for the default MOTD (
Please enjoy your stay.) are welcome :)Limitations
GetStringHeightreturns 0. I have no clue why, but I also moved it out of this PR to fix that, as I do not think it is a bug in this PR.{}codes, so you can make it fancy and colourful. But .. that seems neither easy and also a bit tricky. So I didn't do it for this PR, but it might be future-work.Checklist for review
Some things are not automated, and forgotten often. This list is a reminder for the reviewers.