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diff --git a/starshatter_open_dev_update_2022_09.html b/starshatter_open_dev_update_2022_09.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2884c5d --- /dev/null +++ b/starshatter_open_dev_update_2022_09.html @@ -0,0 +1,72 @@ +<!doctype html> +<html lang="en"> +<meta charset="utf-8"> +<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> +<meta name="author" content="aki"> +<meta name="tags" content="starshatter, starshatter: the open source project, development blog"> +<link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="favicon.png"> +<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css"> + +<title>Starshatter: The Open Source Project - Dev Update - September 2022</title> + +<nav><p><a href="https://ignore.pl">ignore.pl</a></p></nav> + +<article> +<h1>Starshatter: The Open Source Project<br>Dev Update - September 2022</h1> +<p class="subtitle">Published on 2022-09-24 16:40:00+02:00 +<p>The time has come to write a dev update of the Starshatter project. It's been some time and there are some news and +some ideas that need a little more time to hatch but are good enough to share with you all to potentially get some +feedback. Let's start. + + +<h2>Release 5.1.87-350-g0fc03ad</h2> +<p>This is a regular development release with mostly internal changes. The major change directly aimed at players is +that vox and music data is now included in the project distribution. Of course, this means these resources have been +integrated into the building and packaging process. +<p>Download it from <a href="https://ignore.pl/starshatter/">landing page</a> or +<a href="https://ftp.ignore.pl/starshatter/releases/latest/">web FTP index</a>. +<p>Majority of development work was done around the archives and <i>dat</i> files. The module responsible for reading +and writing them has been rewritten pretty much from scratch while preserving backwards-compatibility. The +<i>Datafile</i> utility has been replaced by new <i>dat</i> utility which has somewhat different CLI. New implementation +is cross platform (to an extent; endianness) and compiles on Linux making it now possible to package game without Wine +(although it's not yet implemented this way). +<p>There were also some minor fixes done here and there, check out <a href="https://git.ignore.pl/starshatter/log/">git +repository</a> for detailed information.</p> +<img src="starshatter_open_dev_update_2022_09-1.png" alt="dat utility"> + + +<h2>Discord Server</h2> +<p>In an effort to get community together and overall respond to people quicker than through my sporadic visits to HLP +or SSC, I created a Discord server for the project: <a href="https://discord.gg/6GFacfuyBP">Starshatter: The Open Source +Project</a>. +<p>Make sure to say hi! Any bug reports, questions, feature requests are welcome. + + +<h2>Future Development Directions</h2> +<p>I'm continuing to aim towards the same goal as before: get Starshatter working natively with OpenGL and on Linux. The +major milestone is getting dedicated server to work on Linux and completely without linking to any external graphics +library. However, as I go and touch various parts of code, I obviously see more and more spots which I want to change. +Here are some project suggestions for those who are interested in contributing: +<ul> + <li>Rewrite Magic editor directly in game engine using game GUI and renderer. + <li>Implement OGG loading from memory or archive, to allow loading them from dat archives. + <li>Extract format loading methods from DataLoader to minimize DataLoader coupling with <i>everything</i>. + <li>Remove any of the singletons. + <li>Introduce namespaces and remove prefixes/suffixes from sources that were renamed to avoid conflicts. + <li>Extract any remaining third-party sources from StarsEx. + <li>Fix content.dat loading in initial startup. + <li>Fix MusicDirector choking at startup. +</ul> +<p>Regarding issue tracking - I don't feel a need for it just yet. I prefer direct communication and resolving problems +right away. If there will be requests to get it done and they will seem reasonable at that time, we'll figure out +something together. + + +<h2>Ideas Needing Feedback</h2> +<p>There are two ideas that are patiently waiting for their turn: Starshatter hackathon and multiplayer war games. +Since, they are quite similar I usually describe them as: scheduled periodical online meetings focused on Starshatter +project. First one is obviously to have development activity spikes and have some fun time together. The other one is +just for fun. After all, this is about a game. Now, I'm not doing anything about these just yet. If you find them +interesting or want to contribute to them, please let me know. +</article> +<script src="https://stats.ignore.pl/track.js"></script> |