Vanilla Netrek Server Development Archive
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[VANILLA-L:800] Re: BEEP-LITE
>
> Well, in my .feature file for the INL server:
>
> % fgrep LITE .feature
> %
>
> Nothing. So BEEP_LITE should be disable correct?
>
You've just encountered the great and almighty BORG-LITE debate.
(Can you feel the awe?)
What happened is, the client writers designed this new system they called
BEEP-LITE. They didn't feel there was anything borgish about it, but
willing to give the server gods the choice, they controlled this option
by a .feature file entry. However, the default action was to disallow
beep-lite _only_if_ the server specifically disabled the option. So,
if a server never heard of beep-lite, the client was free to enable it.
Of course, the simple thing to do, would be to change the default
distribution of the INL server to contain a default feature file that
disabled beep-lite. Or course, this would have been a simple way to fix
the great and almighty :ita bug - but that's another story.
Of course, the netrek community took the hard route, and attempted
to convince the client developers to redevelop their clients. In a mighty
victory, they recently convinced the developers of COW to "see the light".
New version of COW will only enable beep-lite if the server
specifically permits the feature. The old versions of COW, I believe,
are in the process of having their keys expired. However, there
is another major client that works the old way - COW-lite. Since,
there is no real development for COW-lite, there is little chance
a "fixed" version of COW-lite will appear. Perhaps a movement to expire
the keys for COW-lite will develop..
Anyway, to sum this all up, the easy way to disable this feature would be
to add the line Alec described to your .feature file.
However, it should be noted that this discussion is really unneccessary.
Most INL quality players find the blinking stuff an annoyance. And
in fact, you might find that the players that request
beep-lite be disabled, are doing so because they want _their_ client to
stop blinking. (I use to play pickup with beep-lite on because
it allowed me to play a little less intense. However, when I played
INL games it was simply annoying. Eventually I found it was
annoying in pickup too, and disabled it entirely..)
Actually, if you wanted to, you could run the INL server with RSA disabled.
Most "klews" know the difference between a borg and a beast - the RSA
protection, and .feature file protections, are really overkill in the
small netrek community of "klews".
--
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| Kevin O'Connor "BTW, IMHO we need a FAQ for |
| koconnor@acsu.buffalo.edu 'IMHO', 'FAQ', 'BTW', etc. !" |
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