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Devoluti0n
14 Feb 2009, 01:26
Hi dudes,

I think that a lot of people use Google as home page of their browsers.
And probably trough iGoogle, you know, this homepage where you can put any gadget you want... ;)

I'm developing an Online Snooper, for people who are stuck behind a school/Job firewall and who can't just use the 6667 (IRC) port to join WormNET.

As I'm learning php, etc with this project, it will take some time to be achieved.
But, as the gamelist development is over, I tough it would be nice to have a quick access and join any hosted game trough your browser's home page.

That's why I made a quick gadget for that. So if you are going to surf and see that a friend/neighbor/dog/doubletime hosted, you can, just by clicking the game, join it :D.

To add it to your iGoogle homepage,

Click on the link to add a new widget.
Search for Snooper and add it
or
1 - Click the link on the bottom left to add it from an XML file.
2 - Paste this : http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/102777424278602479519/minisnooper.xml
It will warn you that it's not made by a google developer.
Just click OK and it will be working.

I also wonder if someone could host my files, because I'm hosting it on my ex-clan server and it isn't as good as it could be, so the loading might take time, I guess.

This is how it looks like :

http://g.imagehost.org/t/0533/MiniSnoop_Screenshot.jpg (http://g.imagehost.org/view/0533/MiniSnoop_Screenshot)

Please, critic and suggest.

Friendly, Alann.
raffie
14 Feb 2009, 11:48
lol, n1
I had made something similar on my homepage (http://www.rigidattackforce.com/wormnet_games.php), but obviously, what you did is better ;)
bonz
14 Feb 2009, 15:10
a friend/neighbor/dog/doubletime
Hehe . :D
GreeN
14 Feb 2009, 15:26
Brilliant idea! Looks really nice, although I don't use iGoogle myself, good job! :D
raffie
14 Feb 2009, 16:02
Could I ask, did you make this in PHP? And do you get the country by IP? Because I wanted to display flags, but to get a country by IP you needed megabytes and megabytes of IP ranges :(
GreeN
14 Feb 2009, 21:42
Each channels games list holds all the required server information of each hosted game itself; Flag, scheme, game name, IP etc. - No IP database is required
Devoluti0n
14 Feb 2009, 23:08
Each channels games list holds all the required server information of each hosted game itself; Flag, scheme, game name, IP etc. - No IP database is required

Exact :), and yes, it's made in php.

Brilliant idea! Looks really nice, although I don't use iGoogle myself, good job!
Thanks GreeN for your comment :), maybe you should try it. ;)
CyberShadow
15 Feb 2009, 11:32
How often do you update the game list? If many users start putting this on their homepage and leave it open (especially in a background tab), it can result in an unintentional DDoS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDoS#Distributed_attack) attack against WormNET.

It would be safer to stop updating the list after a few minutes, and replace the list with a button which resumes updating.
Devoluti0n
15 Feb 2009, 13:36
The gamelist isn't updated by itself automatically.
You have to refresh it pressing the "OK" button on the right of the channel.
Once the list is retrieved, the connexion is closed right after.

I could add a refreshing timer in JS, as I've done for the snooper itself, but I wanted it to be refreshed manually, because it's supposed to be used on your homepage and I guess you start surfing a short time after you opened your browser, so, that would be useless.
There is still the manual refreshing available for theses who want to keep an eye on it, as I said before :).
franpa
15 Feb 2009, 14:25
theres add ons for firefox and others thatcan be used to constantly refresh pages etc. and can be used to probably DDoS WormNET.
CyberShadow
15 Feb 2009, 14:55
theres add ons for firefox and others thatcan be used to constantly refresh pages etc. and can be used to probably DDoS WormNET.
What's your point? Can you tell the difference between an intentional attack and an unintentional one? And "browser addons that refresh pages" are hardly the most efficient way to DoS anything.
raffie
15 Feb 2009, 15:21
The gamelist isn't updated by itself automatically.
You have to refresh it pressing the "OK" button on the right of the channel.
Once the list is retrieved, the connexion is closed right after.

I could add a refreshing timer in JS, as I've done for the snooper itself, but I wanted it to be refreshed manually, because it's supposed to be used on your homepage and I guess you start surfing a short time after you opened your browser, so, that would be useless.
There is still the manual refreshing available for theses who want to keep an eye on it, as I said before :).

iGoogle does refresh itself automatically though.
Devoluti0n
15 Feb 2009, 19:15
iGoogle does refresh itself automatically though.

As far as I know and have seen, it doesn't.

Btw, thank you CyberShadow for having paid attention to the possibility of an abusive use of this module, I appreciate.
Because that's true that even if I knew what a DDOS attack was, I had forgotten it might be used this way.
Luckily I didn't made any refreshing applet even if it wasn't for the same reason :P.
Malevol3nt
18 Feb 2009, 17:06
Btw Raffie, what's that on your clan homepage, says something like:

"The only clan with an eagle's wings in it's logo!"

I figure you never saw the DM logo? http://www.clandarkmatter.co.uk/ Hehe ;)
GreeN
18 Feb 2009, 20:26
Play one of Gnorks maps and you can't miss it! - Chances are, 95% of the map will be covered by that bloody DM logo :P
raffie
18 Feb 2009, 21:49
Btw Raffie, what's that on your clan homepage, says something like:

"The only clan with an eagle's wings in it's logo!"

I figure you never saw the DM logo? http://www.clandarkmatter.co.uk/ Hehe ;)

I'm poking fun at myself for inadvertadly having 'borrowed' that little aspect from what is probably the best known logo on WN.
(lol @ thinking I don't know DM's logo)

:p
Devoluti0n
18 Feb 2009, 23:38
I'd really appreciate that you don't turn this topic off, thanks.
Malevol3nt
19 Feb 2009, 18:24
I'm poking fun at myself for inadvertadly having 'borrowed' that little aspect from what is probably the best known logo on WN.
(lol @ thinking I don't know DM's logo)

:p

I'm just pullin your leg mate ;)
PixelP
20 Feb 2009, 00:27
That's pretty cool. If it's a network resource hog I hope there's some way to fix it, because it looks useful. It doesn't look like it automatically refreshes on its own while remaining on the page, but if you leave Google and come back later, it refreshes. I don't know if that's a significant amount of network resources or not.

Edit: Maybe I'm just unlucky but joining games doesn't seem to work? I've tried with 5-6 different games.
Devoluti0n
20 Feb 2009, 13:21
That's pretty cool. If it's a network resource hog I hope there's some way to fix it, because it looks useful.

No, it's a very light script that I can optimize just a litle bit, but, don't worry about the network, it's safe for it :).



It doesn't look like it automatically refreshes on its own while remaining on the page, but if you leave Google and come back later, it refreshes. I don't know if that's a significant amount of network resources or not.

Indeed, like any other page when you surf on the web, refresh it, and it's content will be refreshed. But I get your point, you tough that the WormNET game list where updated once every x seconds, stocked somewhere, like in an xml file, then get back in your browser trough an html page with no dynamic content.
It's not the case, as I said before, refreshing, reloading your browser load a php script which connects to the gamelist page, retrieve the informations, and after that It analyzes them to display all the visual and link informations.


Edit: Maybe I'm just unlucky but joining games doesn't seem to work? I've tried with 5-6 different games.

Unfortunately, it's not coming from my script but from a bug of WormNET I reported here :
http://forum.team17.co.uk/showthread.php?t=38187 .

Add to this, people who host but who haven't forwarded their port or opened their firewall, and pouf, the gamelist is a giant mess :).

But to have a clean list, what would be great for now, is that WormNET would automatically ping every person trough their 'supposed opened port' (17011 by default) when they will try to host. And then display them a message saying their hosts won't work if the port isn't opened (with an exception for WormNAT), or display the classic host panel if the port is opened.

I had a dream, that one day WormNET won't be anymore an IRC server with all its limitations, and will let people to host even without any opened port, just by sending a request to a server to host a game for the player.
Then the person who requested the host will be set as the master of the host and will be able to control it as if (I guess it can be possible to program a command like this "/master [nick]", even for an IRC system (hosting buddy would just handle connexions between players)).
We all have the right to dream can't we ? :rolleyes:
Muzer
22 Feb 2009, 21:26
Still need a spot to host it? I have a few. PM me for details.
Devoluti0n
24 Feb 2009, 14:04
Never mind about my wish to make a total new online snooper as I was going to.
I discovered http://snoop.worms2d.info which is a lot better of what I will never be able to make, and reinventing a new bended wheel will not help the community. :)

I'll PM you theses days, I have to do a research before, to see if I can modify my widget without remaking a new one...
Muzer
24 Feb 2009, 14:09
Wouldn't it be easier just to change:

<IFRAME src="http://www.fniclan.com/minisnoop/index.php" frameborder="0" border="0" height="100%" width="100%" scrolling=auto></IFRAME>

to

<IFRAME src="http://snoop.worms2d.info" frameborder="0" border="0" height="100%" width="100%" scrolling=auto></IFRAME>

In the .xml? Or does the online snooper not display very well with a small screen?
Devoluti0n
24 Feb 2009, 15:08
oO, I don't think it can be nice to put so much boxes in an as small frame !
For people who want the whole snooper, yes I can make it but in a dedicated tab.

The gamelist will be enough for now.
And it's ok, it looks like I can edit My gadget with no problems (I mean in the google side). I send you a PM.
CyberShadow
24 Feb 2009, 16:28
If you want to, you can use the message stream from my snooper (just look at the source code).
Devoluti0n
24 Feb 2009, 17:12
If you want to, you can use the message stream from my snooper (just look at the source code).

Thanks.
I've taken a look at it and that's pretty amazing.

But I already made the code with messages parsing (not over yet).
It's a lot more noobish compared to you but it works.
My issue was that I was using php and JS.
And I wasn't able to send messages this way (indeed, this is not a language for that, but AJAX is) So I had to remake a big part of my code, etc...
I also had displaying's issues,because I wasn't able to make threads to separate and load each part individually :p.

But I noticed that your snooper is always connected. Mine wasn't working this way, I made a login similar to worms one, so you have your own nick, log in, and act like any other snooper. But your one is very amazing, it answered to my expectations and even more ;).

I just have a noobish question, is it an .exe server on which you listen ?
CyberShadow
24 Feb 2009, 17:26
Yes, it uses the same D network framework (originally written by Glide) as HostingBuddy, the WormNAT2 server, and the other IRC bots. It's the first Worms-related project to show off the HTTP server, though.
Devoluti0n
24 Feb 2009, 17:54
Yes, it uses the same D network framework (originally written by Glide) as HostingBuddy, the WormNAT2 server, and the other IRC bots. It's the first Worms-related project to show off the HTTP server, though.

Ok, it's a very nice use of all theses elements ! Nothing to add, the result is here :cool:.