ParaTracker

[NAB622]

Oh wow. Didn't expect that......especially since it lasted so long.

 

Because of JAOWNT, I haven't been doing anything new for ParaTracker - skins A B and C are the only ones completed thus far. (Skins E F G and H should theoretically take very little time each.) And then there's the ASCII/ANSI bug I still have to figure out. Other than that, ParaTracker should be completely usable, to the best of my knowledge.

 

If there is anything else you need added to ParaTracker, or if you're really itching for more skins to be released, let me know. My attention is elsewhere at the moment, but it can easily be diverted back to here.

 

Just a reminder; you do not need to host ParaTracker yourself. We have one already set up that you can use, just like JediTracker.

 

http://pt.dogi.us/

[Circa]

I attempted to make a new theme for it but I didn't have as much control as I preferred. Everything is laid out in a strange way, in my opinion. I wanted to change the way it is designed in addition to the cosmetic look.

[NAB622]

The design cannot be changed by the end user, due to it being controlled by the PHP. I am not very good with CSS actually. If you have a better way to do it, please share, since I am honestly way out of date with my HTML knowledge.

[Circa]

I really just want something more simple. JAWA's tracker is perfect, in terms of design and layout. Check it out below to see what I mean:

 

https://thejawaclan.com/wiki/index.php/Server_Information

[NAB622]

That's very helpful. I'll look into DIVs and the possibility of using them for the entire layout, but I really don't know what I'm doing with them yet.

[NAB622]

Sure, sounds like a bit of fun. I'm very *very* busy IRL, but I will be happy to switch gears back to here and make it work.

 

The back end of the tracker and the UI were kept mostly separate for this reason, so it shouldn't be very difficult to rework the UI. Keep in mind also that ParaTracker theoretically supports any Quake 3 based game, not just JA. I would still like to get Xonotic levelshots and Quake 3 Arena levelshots, and I'll need to get bitflag data for each of them as well. Eventually.

[NAB622]

Well the website for JediTracker is completely gone now.....did something bad happen to BlaSt?

[NAB622]

Just an update, since I imagine some people are following this project with interest now.

 

Cagelight saw a request for JSON on Discord, so he implemented it.

 

Caelum and I spoke a few days ago, and his requests should be possible. Most of them, most notably XSS safeguards and flood protection, were already implemented.

 

I have finished remaking skin A with all CSS, and will begin working on skins B and C shortly. The new CSS method is completely flexible and the end users can change literally anything they like about it. A few items, like the levelshots and player list, are grouped together to make them more useful, but other than that everything can be manually colored and placed anywhere. Circa, you'll have to let me know what you think when you get your hands on it, but I think you'll love it.

 

Edit: None of these changes have been uploaded yet; I want to finish skins B and C first, merge the two code bases we are working from, and look into Caelum's requests.

[NAB622]

Another update!

 

I am working on having the tracker auto-detecting games, and parsing them uniquely. So far, it is working well, but I still need some more time to make it completely flexible between multiple games, as it was not my initial intent.

 

For now, I have some great news; I have a test HTML page for ParaTracker and a CSS file ready to go. So for those of you who want to play with the skins, you can do that now instead of waiting. Here's the download link:

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19603700/ParaTracker/ParaTracker%20TEST%20PAGE%20FOR%20CSS.zip

 

To modify the skin, unzip the folder somewhere, go into the CSS folder, and modify the two CSS files however you see fit. Particularly, ParaSkinA.css is the one you'll probably be looking for.

 

Now, all this being said, I have a question: should the styles for the param list be different for each skin, or the same? Now is a good time to make that choice, before I go any further, because it will change the file I put the styles into.

 

Circa and Caelum, I look forward to your input, good or bad.

[Circa]

I'm curious why the styling needs to be split up at all. Why not have it all in one file?

[NAB622]

I'm curious why the styling needs to be split up at all. Why not have it all in one file?

There are a few things, like the dynamic tracker setup page, that have styles of their own. ParaStyle.css is intended for those styles. There's a few other oddball ones in there too but I can't remember them at the moment.

 

Regardless - I have already moved the RCon, Param, and colorizer styles out of ParaStyle.css and into the individual skin files, and separated the skin files into a skins/ folder. The next time I have an update, they will be available.

 

I'm going to get back to work on my own skins very soon, now that the back end is more stable and more flexible.

 

Also - if you are having trouble with the css skins, just make an image mock-up of what you want and I should be able to do it for you. More skins is better.

[Circa]

I want something like what I posted above. Maybe I can do it easier now that you changed some things, but if you want to at least get a layout similar to that I'd be glad to then style it to my liking.

[NAB622]

I forgot you posted that one above, sorry. Way too much stuff going on, I'm completely scatterbrained.

 

Okay, I'll see what I can do. It probably won't look exactly like that one, but I can get something pretty similar.

[minilogoguy18]

Will this have the ability at some point that xfire had where the server you were viewing you had the ability to just click a button, launch the game and connect to that server? If so that would be awesome, I used to love that program for that ability.

[Circa]

Will this have the ability at some point that xfire had where the server you were viewing you had the ability to just click a button, launch the game and connect to that server? If so that would be awesome, I used to love that program for that ability.

 

I don't think that's possible to do through a browser with PHP/JS/HTML, etc. Could be wrong. GameTracker has that option but you need their desktop client for that to work.

[NAB622]

Not to mention, that brings up a lot of security concerns. Web pages should *never* *ever* be able to launch a program on the client computer.

[NAB622]

All right, everything is in order; skins A B and C are redone in the new CSS method.

 

The skins are completely redone now with CSS.

 

The text labels on each item are now generated from within the CSS skin files, and can be modified at the user's discretion.

 

Cagelight vastly improved the network response time - in my tests, getting and parsing info took less than one second on average. Many servers responded in less than 1/10th of a second.

 

Server ping was added as a feature on the param list as well as optionally on the tracker page.

 

Completing the JSON support is next on the list, as it is primitive right now (It needs access to the levelshot files and a few other things), and once it is done I will be updating the GitHub repository and the website. Hopefully in the next day or two.

[NAB622]

ParaTracker 1.3 is released.

 

It is currently hosted on our website at http://paratracker.dogi.us/. Please check it out and let me know what you think. Feel free to use it if you like.

 

There were some HUGE changes this release. It took a long time to finish because vast portions of the back end have been updated. According to the changelog:

 

 

 

• Added Call Of Duty 4 support.
• Changed levelshot transitions to use CSS animations, and added a setting in ParaConfig.php to control them.
• Added css/LevelshotAnimations.css to allow users easy access to the animation classes.
• ParaTracker will now auto-detect the game it is tracking.
• Rewrote and improved the parsing of game-specific information.
• Greatly improved the speed at which server data is retrieved (Thanks, Cagelight)
• Rewrote the parsing function to be faster. (Thanks, Cagelight)
• Removed a few deprecated features from ParaConfig.
• Moved skins from the /css folder into a new /skins folder
• Renamed skins (Since users can create their own.)
• Added a setting in ParaConfig that specifies the skin to be used (Static mode only).
• Completely rewrote the HTML and CSS files for the skins.
• Created a template skin file.
• Added automatic detection of a skin's resolution during ParaTrackerDynamic setup.
• Fixed a bug in the RCon system that would send commands to the wrong address under certain conditions.
• Fixed a bug in the booleanValidator function that always resulted in the default value being returned.
• Various other bugfixes.

 

 

 

In addition to all this, the Dynamic setup page will now generate HTML for a sandboxed iframe, although a lot of things had to be re-enabled for it to work, so isn't really a whole lot more secure than it was. But at least it's there.

 

I do expect some backlash for the new levelshot transitions, but here's the good news: you can either choose a single transition that you like, or turn them off entirely. Or, if you really want to get extreme, you can make your own, even crazier ones.

 

Caelum - I have not yet completed GeoIP support. There are two options in the config file for it, but currently, it does not work. I'll get there at a later date, as unfortunately, life has thrown me yet another painful curveball at a most inopportune time.

 

Circa - There's now a skin called "Bigflat - Light" that might appeal more to your tastes. There's also a variant called "Bigflat - Dark" that I like better.

 

For anyone that would like to make a skin of their own, there's a file called "Template.css" in the skins folder you can use, or you can use the JSON response to make your own from the ground up.

 

Feedback is always welcome.

[Aldro Koon]

Feedback is always welcome.

Just how do we add levelshots? At one point they were suddenly showing without me doing anything and now they arent. How come? :S 

[NAB622]

Can you elaborate a bit on that? Are you saying they were showing at one point and now they aren't, or that you are trying to add some custom ones?

[NAB622]

Edit:

 

Instead of editing the post repeatedly I'll just delete and summarize. I am watching as servers show up on our ParaTracker host and adding levelshots to things here and there. I added levelshots for your guys' servers a few days ago. It looks like someone changed the BSP name of the map you guys are using to read "Temple" instead of "TEMPLE" - and case matters.

 

Cagelight fixed it already, so you should be fine now.

[Aldro Koon]

Edit:

 

Instead of editing the post repeatedly I'll just delete and summarize. I am watching as servers show up on our ParaTracker host and adding levelshots to things here and there. I added levelshots for your guys' servers a few days ago. It looks like someone changed the BSP name of the map you guys are using to read "Temple" instead of "TEMPLE" - and case matters.

 

Cagelight fixed it already, so you should be fine now.

Sweet thanks!

[NAB622]

In case anyone was wondering why there was a brief outage earlier, PHP updated earlier today, which caused the player list to always show up as empty. Cagelight tracked the issue down to stricter type casting in the new php library, and corrected it. All is well.

[NAB622]

ParaTracker 1.3.1 is released.

 

http://paratracker.dogi.us/

 

Two new skins have been added, each with a light and a dark variant: Banner ad, and Skyscraper ad.

 

There is also a major change this release; you can specify a background color (with opacity), text color, and two player list colors (with opacity).

 

Several bugs have been fixed as well.

 

 

Feedback is welcome.

[NAB622]

Another update has been released.

 

http://paratracker.dogi.us/

 

This update added a new skin. Also, Cagelight made a killer bit value calculator that will work on any supported game that uses bit flags.

 

A bug that was causing a delay reading from new servers has been fixed.

 

Quake III Arena is now fully supported.

 

Any feedback or concerns are welcome. If someone is still looking for a skin they like, please give feedback on the skins as I will be happy to change them where possible.