My contribution to Desert Bus 4

[jtaylor]

The HUD that Alex made for us viewers is really cool. I was thinking that what would be just as cool is the same kind of thing for the crew. What I plan on doing before next year's Desert Bus is creating a custom irc client specialized for the crew's needs. The program would:
> display the chat
> display total raised, time played, fail count, etc.
> show split panes of chat so that the crew could scroll back in the top pane and still see the live chat go by in the bottom pane
> filter the chat to help the crew find links, image links, things said by a particular person, or a custom filter
> implement a bidding system where people would put a key-phrase in their bids such as !bid and the program would display the highest bidder and bid amount and then previous bids below it
> the ability to view images and maybe videos or web pages in a split pane so the chat is still visible
> the ability for all of these major functions to be controlled by a gamepad that can be button mapped in the program settings
> any other feasible ideas that the Desert Bus crew has

I am a Computer Science major so I think it is something I could feasibly code in a year, though I don't know that I'll be able to implement every feature.

Also if I become employed within the next year I will save up money to fly to Victoria for Friday to Sunday of Desert Bus 4 and help keep the program working and do other menial stuff to help out.

Can some people in the chat un-annoyingly let the crew know about this when they're not so busy? I can't get in the chat via university internets fail.

[ThrashJazzAssassin]

This sounds awesome. Kudos, jtaylor!

EDIT: The crew were pretty stoked about it! They asked me to tell you to make sure it works for Windows, Mac and Linux so that everybody will be able to use it.

[Lord Chrusher]

I would guess taking a graphical open source irc client that already works cross platform and build on that rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.

I would be willing to help develop this.

However if you do want to write a client from scratch this would be a good starting point: the irc protocol http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1459

[Trisha Lynn]

Jillers and I talked about this last night and are also attempting to scratch up the cash to fly up and act as Desert Bus 4 Pit Crew, taking over the menial chores like packing up prizes for shipping and taking them to the post office, organizing their magical Google Docs spreadsheet, organizing challenge PMs, etc.

Luckily for us in NY, you can get a special photo I.D. that will act like a passport if you want to travel only to Canada and/or Mexico so we will not encounter Kroze's passport woes.


Trisha Lynn
...East Coast, represent...!

[Theremin]

go trish & jillers!

[Master Gunner]

I'm worried about IRC for next year. Its barely readable as it is, and next year its only going to be bigger and going faster.

[Metcarfre]

We may have to consider multiple IRC channels.

Speaking as an attendee, if the constant "so-and-so has left the chat" and "what's-his-name was granted voice by X" messages were eliminated, it would be much, MUCH easier to read. The chat screen is HUGE, but also remember that when we're singing or whatever, in general the lyrics/YouTube vids are playing over the chat (so we can't see it).

The auction system needs to be overhauled TREMENDOUSLY.

[jtaylor]

I am going to use existing irc client code if at all possible, although I may have to translate that code into a new language. I think I am going to use a language that complies into Java Bytecode like Scala or Clojure so it is faster than an interpreted language but cross-platform. Once I get the core of this done other people can start helping me with adding features.

Also I have a passport already.

Edit: I am going to try to start programming today and get a lot done on it the next few days since it is Thanksgiving break.

[Master Gunner]

We may have to consider multiple IRC channels.

Speaking as an attendee, if the constant "so-and-so has left the chat" and "what's-his-name was granted voice by X" messages were eliminated, it would be much, MUCH easier to read.

In mIRC at least, you can do that (options -> IRC -> Events), which is how I have it set up. It makes it just readable. With any more people, it will be up to or past where the chat is now with the event messages.

[gcninja]

a good idea would be have another room for auctions next year

[jtaylor]

Progress Update: No actually code written yet since I am too distracted by the complete awesomeness that is Desert Bus, but I have done a fair amount of research and I think I am probably going to modify DMDirc (which is written in Java). I am planning on learning Scala, so if there are parts that I can write better in Scala I think I will do that.

[Genghis Ares]

a good idea would be have another room for auctions next year

+1, I was gonna suggest that as well.

[Lorithad]

I considered the separate auctions chat. However, I don't think it would go over all that well. The same people would join it, and the same people would talk. You'd get around that by only giving voice to people who want to bid. But then how do you decide who gets voice?

Implementation of the auction chat would just be a pain that results in less bids. And we want all of those bids.


Right now, my only problem is my computer. My IRC client (Icechat7) cannot keep up with the thousands of messages per minute. From all the enters, quits, name changes, whois queries. All of those things take processor time. Even if you've got them set to hidden. So I need a more efficient irc client (though icechat is one of the best i've ever seen), or a more powerful computer.
Its kind of depressing to even think about. My computer isn't good enough for IRC.

[Arius]

A bid box would work. You can only enter numbers in it, and it would echo to bold red text so people will see the bids.

[Fuzzyfreaker]

I have a decent amount of coding and design experience, so if you need a hand, I would be glad to help out with this.

[jtaylor]

I am not sure how easy it would be to design a bid box that everyone can use and also see other people's bids in near real time. Designing something for the crew to use is easier and I proposed that above.

[Genghis Ares]

I considered the separate auctions chat. However, I don't think it would go over all that well. The same people would join it, and the same people would talk. You'd get around that by only giving voice to people who want to bid. But then how do you decide who gets voice?

Implementation of the auction chat would just be a pain that results in less bids. And we want all of those bids.

I doubt you'd get a third of the people on it.

[Arius]

The bid box would be pretty easy (Have it echo to the main chat), but you could also just have a /bid command to format the text.

[jtaylor]

I have a decent amount of coding and design experience, so if you need a hand, I would be glad to help out with this.

The codebase for DMDirc is source controlled in git and the code is under the MIT license so I would do the same and put it up on github. Right now I use git on a server that I ssh into, but that is for one of my courses that will be ending soon so I am going to have to work on either getting git set up in windows or finally partitioning my laptop and installing Fedora 12.

Edit: I opened up the notebook I use for programming projects I do outside of class, and the last page with writing on it has notes about an IRC app. I don't even remember when I wrote this.

[Elomin Sha]

I have plans for a 2 week holiday in Canada next year. I will be taking my camera and plan to document Desert Bus, last year I mentioned doing this, and some one asked about a Desert Bus DVD. I am willing to do that.

[Evil Jim]

I have a decent amount of coding and design experience, so if you need a hand, I would be glad to help out with this.

Don't do it! He means a real hand! I know the guy it came from!

[spartanhelmet]

I'll put my hand up here. Just finished 2nd year CS, so I'm yet another CompSci major looking to make a difference.

I had my IRC running on a heavy-duty server at uni, yet it was chugging at times. That and the fact hundreds of people are planning to converge on Victoria has me both worried and excited

[Ergo]

I can help with pure-Java stuff; I'm not familiar with Scala though.

One thing that might be nice is smooth-scrolling. I found it was really difficult to follow the chat when any given line instantly jumped up 50 lines because we hit a milestone or whatever. If it scrolled smoothly (with a dynamically calculated/smoothed velocity) it'd be much easier to read.

I have a number of ideas for an alternative integrated browser-based Java client portal for next year which I'm thinking of developing. Perhaps we could work in parallel to some degree?

A client version would obviously mirror some of the functionality of the crew version - a bid entry box, for example. It could also have a donation challenge-offer entry box, to allow the crew to easily distinguish them from the other PMs.

I was thinking I could also integrate my Desert Bus applet - or at least a portion of it. Have a rolling demo mode, link the fuel-guage to donation/time status, have billboards with sponsored ads rolling past, as well as billboards for milestones (points, time or donations). A bug-splat for every fail (I'd make the windscreen wipers work and slowly clear them away), stuff like that.

It could also have a fold-out mini-map showing the current position of the bus on the route from Tuscon to Las Vegas. It would only be an estimated "ideal" time of arrival obviously, but it should be accurate to within a few minutes (the size/resolution of the map would hide the inaccuracy anyway).

All of that would work seamlessly if the main crew instance could send automatic notifications into a separate IRC channel...

I have a few other ideas but I'll save those for later.

[tak197]

I know I'm gonna be working on Craftalong II stuff myself. Maybe I can learn to knit and crochet well enough to rival a one-armed drunken Chemistring!

[White Flame]

A number of things could probably be handled with an IRC bot instead of a custom client. Something to think about.