YANG - Yet Another Netplay Guider

09/04/2010
Bugfix release: YANG v0.83.
- Following the new Server/Client EDuke32 support added in the previous YANG release, the command line syntax has been fixed for the UDP port : EDuke32 servers will now use the UDP port configured in YANG, and the clients will be able to connect properly to them.
- Finally fixed a long standing bug, where when inside a gameroom, the host and clients ping refreshing operations would stop working, after a client would leave the gameroom exactly while being pinged by the host.
- Also fixed a mistake about the user map file's copy/symlink and delete operations for DOS Descent 2, D1X-Rebirth and D2X-Rebirth only, where mission files would not be copied or would even be deleted from the "missions" subdirectory : if you had some bad experiences about your mission files being deleted, and are scared of it, don't worry because it won't happen anymore ... sorry for any inconvenience.
Now, there's something else which has never been documented at all, about the user maps storage concept in YANG, and as a result, it seems that many players don't understand it :

The goal of this concept is to avoid having duplicated user map files, stored into each of your game source port directories for a same main game, but rather having only one unique copy in the YANG "user maps directory".
This "user maps directory" you can configure for each of the main games in the "source ports" dialog, is the directory where are stored the user maps you download with YANG, and where YANG will look for the available user maps, in the single player dialog, the multiplayer gameroom creation dialog, or the user map upload dialog.
Also, when a game is launched, the user map will be temporarily copied (Windows) or symlinked (Linux and Mac) from the YANG "user maps directory", into the game source port executable's directory (or the "missions" subdirectory for DOS Descent 2, D1X-Rebirth and D2X-Rebirth), just before actually running the game.
Then, when exiting the game, this temporary copy/symlink will be deleted.

Note that by default, the YANG "user maps directories" are located in your OS's user directory (see the "readme.txt" file for more details), and that the first time you use YANG, you are supposed to move all of your user map files, from all of your different game source port directories, into their respective YANG "user maps directory".
If you don't do that, YANG will still ask you to download a map into the YANG "user maps directory", despite you may already have it in your game source port directory.
However, in this case, you'll have the map into both the game source port directory and the YANG "user maps directory", and when the game is launched, YANG _won't_ copy/symlink or delete the map you already have in your game source port directory.

In the future, for the players who are not interested in this YANG "user maps directory" concept, either because they only use one game source port, or because they don't mind keeping duplicated user maps into many different game source port directories for a same main game, it is planned to provide an option to enable/disable this feature.
And in the meantime, you could still set the YANG "user maps directory", to point to the game source port executable's directory (or the "missions" subdirectory for DOS Descent 2, D1X-Rebirth and D2X-Rebirth), in case you only use one game source port for a same main game.

24/03/2010
Here we meet again. So, it's time to announce the release of YANG v0.82! Thanks again to Turrican for working on the updates. Here is a list of changes:

New Server/Client EDuke32 is now supported
With Server/Client EDuke32, no maps are needed to be downloaded when one joins a room.
You can still upload a map to the host. You should now be able to join ongoing EDuke32 games, assuming they're being run with a recent build of EDuke32.
As a workaround of avoiding an issue ppl may have with a current version of EDuke32 (Server/Client), when both host launches EDuke32 while a client is in the room, a short delay is added for the client. It isn't an issue if one joins an EDuke32 room after the game has already been launched by the host.
Legacy Peer 2 Peer networking, using an older version of EDuke32, is still supported, and can be toggled by the host. Make sure all players use a relevant, and identical, version of EDuke32, in that case.
The same checkbox is now used for choosing between P2P and Server/Client in EDuke32, and choosing between P2P and Master/Slave in Duke3dw.
Fixed a potential crash with future versions of Mac OS X (later than v10.6 Snow Leopard).

24/10/2009
Version 0.81 of YANG has been released. The following issues have been addressed:
- Wrong icon has been used for the executable on Windows. Now it shouldn't be.
- If the host changes settings and no MOD files are selected, there shouldn't be an unnecessary new line appearing.
- A few changes for support of a certain official Descent 2 add-on. - Turrican
  
  Oh yeah...a few other things that should be mentioned. About Descent 1 and 2, the host can start a game alone, and players can join while the game is running. If a map is missing, it should be transferred to you (as a client) before you can join.
  Also, note that the details like map you see in Descent 1 and 2 rooms may have been changed by the host while being in game.
19/10/2009
Version 0.80 has been released, mostly thanks to the efforts of Turrican.
- Improper UI used on Windows XP/Vista/7 (UI controls making it feel like Windows 2000) - lets hope it's fixed now.
- To avoid issues with DOS games, I should mention that now, the amount of RAM for DOS games is always set to be 32MB.
- YANG isn't just for Build games anymore. Thanks to a lot of work made by Turrican, it now supports Descent 1 and 2!
  You can run each of them using the corresponding DXX-Rebirth source port (D1X-Rebirth or D2X-Rebirth). You should also be able to run the originals using the DOSBox emulator.
- As a result, a few changes have been done to the map file transfer mechanism.
- Furthermore, in a few UI dialogs, what has been called "Episode Map" before is now called "Original Map". Makes more sense now.
- When someone tries to join you a room with a too high ping, you should now see the corresponding country
  
  Now, just one more thing. I'm aware of the tree in the main window and the fact it's big and you may not want to see all of it. Well, I can say that future changes are planned, which may affect the way the tree is used. So a change you'd like may come later.

29/09/2009
An update to YANG is available, marking it as version 0.72.
- Made a few changes regarding the validation of DOS games, so now the GOG.com release of Duke3D should be recognized.
- If you're using Duke3dw, you should now be able to select a player color.
- On the Mac, hopefully, Application Bundles (like DOSBox.app) should now be supported.
- The directory for Blood MOD files should now be hidden, cause it isn't really used, at least for now.
23/09/2009
That was a long time, huh? Well, a month has passed, minus one day :P
It's now the time to release YANG v0.70. Thanks to the efforts of Turrican for most of the following updates.
The latest of the updates is maybe the most important one.
- First, just one thing to note: If you host a room and check to record a game, it'll now be recorded on the clients' sides too.
  A claim for that is that the clients wouldn't be recorded while not being aware of that. - Turrican
- Due to financial issues, there's now a single server list of rooms, and not two.
- Demo playback has been fixed. For Duke Nukem 3D, it has been fixed for user maps.
  For Shadow Warrior, it has been fixed for episode maps. - Turrican
- Made a fix for certain users who may like to have a room with Internet and LAN players, mixed.
  Apparently, with certain firewalls or routers, one can't connect to a server (join a room) with its own external IP. - Spanator
- A few UI changes in the host and client rooms. This is also a preparation for the major addition mentioned at the end. - Turrican
- If you play a DOS game, note that you may need to reconfigure something. There's a separation to the different versions.
  This is also related to the latest major addition. - Turrican
- And finally, BLOOD SUPPORT! That's right, there's now support for Blood, thanks to the efforts of Turrican.
  This is, in fact, why he made certain UI changes, along with a few technical changes to DOS games support, regarding the different versions.
  
  So, if you have Blood and want to play some Blood match, get DOSBox and YANG and start a bloodbath!

24/08/2009
YANG v0.60 has been released.
- A quite minor "update": Older versions were numbered 0.2 and 0.3. Now though, I number this 0.60 and not 0.6. Just to stay homogenous with other version numbers.
- More UI fixes and updates, along with a major one mostly coded by Turrican: A tree for filtering the list of rooms by game or source port.
- As a few have maybe noticed, Windows 9x support has been (temporarily) borked since version 0.53, when I switched to MSVC++ 2005 Express Edition, for compilation of YANG. Previously, limited support was there for quite a short period, with versions 0.47k, 0.48, 0.48a, and a second release of 0.47j. Now I'm back to using MinGW, and I can inform that two other users have got YANG to work on Windows 98 SE.
- Some words regarding Mac OS X support. I have had initial OS X work together with someone known as Dopefish7590.
  Later, someone known as rhoenie has hosted quite a few Mac executables of YANG. Not all, nor even most. But he has still compiled and hosted.
  Now Turrican has come, also got to test YANG on OS X, and as it seems, can provide me OS X executables for now! So, you can get one.
- For now, you can't use the dark theme on OS X. I'm not using OS X but there could be something related to aesthetics.
- Server lists are now hosted on port number 3333, as a trial to avoid issues that a few users had, when the lists were hosted on port 8000 (yes, it's related to the port number, apparently).
- In chat rooms, you can now enable time stamps.
- If you use the SWP source port, a game type (like Wangbang) is now set for multi-player games.
- For EDuke32, Duke3dw and SWP, MAP files are not copied from the configured maps dir anymore.
  Instead, the maps dir is specified as a search path for each of these source ports.
  This is also relevant to MOD files, although I may change the way MODs are handled. No promise as usual, but it may happen soo

13/08/2009
First of all, I've forgotten to mention that the current server list version is incompatible with YANG v0.54. So is YANG v0.57 itself.
But now, version 0.58 of YANG has been released, with the following updates:
- First of all, if you changed the text and/or background colors in chat and wonder where are the settings gone,
  using v0.58: Well, they aren't. Go back to the chat layout dialog where you've chosen the colors.
  You can see that this time, there's one checkbox for text font and size, and another one for the text and background colors.
- Minor layout changes have been done. As an example, one hosting with version 0.57 could see a bunch of buttons at the bottom.
  Some of them have been moved to be just below the players table.
- Now for hosting private rooms online, a better and easier-to-use solution available is: Password protected rooms!
  These rooms can be advertised, while there's still a limited access to them.
  Please note that there's a special checkbox that you should check, if you want the room to be private permanently.
  Furthermore, the "Manual Join" dialog is now recommended for local (LAN) games only.
- SWP players, you can now choose the player color in multi-player games.
  Game type choice (with SWP) is expected to come later, at a point when I update the server list software again.
- A few possible bug fixes I may forget again.
11/08/2009
YANG v0.57 has been released, with the following updates:
- The manual join portion in the main window has moved back to its own dialog.
  Yes, it was in its own dialog before. That was in versions preceding v0.45, which many of you may have not used.
- By request of one user or two, you can now see the list of rooms while you're already in some room.
  Press the button "Show rooms list" to see.
- Another request: You can optionally set customized font, text size and colors for the chat input and output.
  Lets see if there aren't serious bugs, as it was somewhat problematic to implement on Windows.
- I've removed the "Send" button from the chat rooms. It isn't really useful anyway.
- You can now see the list of players in a room with the IP addresses, countries and operating systems, without joining.
- Thanks to a bit of work by me, but most of it by Turrican, there's now a functioning "Ready" button.
- Fixed a few bugs I may forget. I'd say that one of them is a security fix.
31/07/2009
YANG v0.54 has been released, with the following updates:
- First of all, this version is network-incompatible with all of the previous versions, and so is the server list software.
- YANG is now closed source.
- Added support to ban clients by IP. You can optionally decide where to store the banlist (in some dialog).
- When you host a room with a max ping limit and someone tries to join you with a too high ping,
  you should now see the client's nickname.
- For comfortability, added a few commands for the chat rooms, using (almost?) the same format as in a fork of YANG.
- Fixed a few bugs, some regarding single-player game launches, others regarding multi-player game launches.

28/07/2009
Version 0.53 has been released! The main changes, some of them coded by someone known as Turrican, possibly modified a bit by me:
- A LITTLE BUT IMPORTANT NOTE: Duke3d_w32 (not xDuke) supported has been removed. Please use another source port.
  xDuke is the most similar one, as it's a derivative of Duke3d_w32 with a few added features.

Show ping and flux between host and client. - Coded by Turrican
This includes setting max. ping for your hosted room. - Coded by Turrican

Also show the country flag and operating system for each player in a room. - Coded by Turrican

Show the ping, flux and country of each room in the rooms list. - Coded by Turrican

MAP and MOD files are now sorted by the Alphabet, independent of the letter cases.

You can now start fake multiplayer games from within the "Single Player" dialog,
including the choice of enabling/disabling fake player (bot) AI.
ok, you could technically do it before, but now it's more user-friendly .

Now you can resize the main windows (rooms list, host room and client room).
You can also change in the tables the columns' widths. The modification should be saved.

Oh, and there's now a link to the YANG FAQ in the Help menu.

YANG - Yet Another Netplay Guider - NEWS