Your ideas are needed.

[Nimrod]

This message goes out to the entire community, a development library is being created to hopefully ease the creation of useful applications for JJ2. However, I need something from you guys, I need some ideas of what to put into the library to further expand it's functionality and usefulness. Your ideas can range from anything, all suggestions will try to be added. Anything goes here, from memory editing/reading to network related things (Both TCP and UDP sides of JJ2).

Please contribute to this, as I hope it will further the well being of JJ2.

[blurredd]

Is this development library something I can expect to see sometime this year? And what about the other projects in progress? When will they be finished?

[Nimrod]

Yes, it will be finished this year, infact it releasable in it's current state as it does have some functionality already, however it will be updated on the basis when requests are made. This is the reason this post was made, to further expand it.

Other projects? Which are you referring to?

[Birdie]

well, perhaps an online "spectator" so you could look inside of jj2 games there are a few memory adresses that can change your viewpoint so this should be possible

[Stijn]

What exactly will this library be like? Will it simply be a set of C(++? I forgot what JJ2 was coded in) functions or does it contain other useful stuff?

Something that allows you to make gameplay events trigger things outside JJ2 itself would be nice. Like changing the background sound when the player has 100 gems or something (yes Cooba I know background sound can be changed with Activate Boss).

[Neobeo]

Yes, it will be finished this year, infact it releasable in it's current state as it does have some functionality already, however it will be updated on the basis when requests are made. This is the reason this post was made, to further expand it.

Wow, I didn't realise such a project was being made. May I ask who is developing it?

Anyway, I have made quite a number of Jazz Jackrabbit 2 apps, and these are usually some of the things that repeatedly pops up time and again:

Memory-related

AttachToJazz2Process (equivalent of FindWindow + GetWindowThreadProcessID + OpenProcess)
CloseJazz2Process (equivalent of CloseHandle)
DetectVersion
WriteDWORDToMemory (equivalent of WriteProcessMemory, automatically handling buffer and size; for lazy people)
ReadDWORDFromMemory (probably not needed)
Advanced: AllocateCodeCave (Searching for code caves in memory)
Advanced: HookJazz2Winsock (Hooking of winsock DLL from within memory rather than packet editor/analyzers)
Advanced: CloseWinsockHook
Maybe, but not recommended: pre-defined addresses in memory

File format hacking

Zlib functions
Perhaps a pre-defined structure of headers is various file formats

Registry-related

ReadPlayerKey, WritePlayerKey (wrappers for Reg* APIs that automatically point to Subkey)

Networking

A set of functions that connects to list server and handles data



I had more in mind when I started writing, but forgot half on them on the way :rolleyes:. I might fix up this reply when the ideas start coming back. Btw, I had C++ in mind when I wrote these. I'm not sure if you are making a library for Visual Basic, which more people are fluent in.

[Monolith]

You could have helped me with my project when I was looking for people to work on the same sort of thing.

[Nimrod]

*********
** WMLIB **
*********
_______________________________________
/- *Library Update* -\
_________________________________________.
Added to WMMem: // Added to WMMem |19|
\_
-OpenProcessX
-CloseProcessX
-WriteMem
-ReadMem
-GetChat
-PlayerYPos
-PlayerXPos
-PlayerPos
-FindPNum
-KeyPress
-ChangeGun
-GetGun
-CVTC
-PlayerName
-WarpToPlayer
-Warp
-WMTag
-WriteStatus
-GetVersion
_________________________________________.

/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\
\/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/
_________________________________________.
Added to WMComms: // Added to WMComms |15|
\_
-ConnectTo
-CloseConnection
-GetFile
-SendFile
-SendConnected
-SendJoined
-SendChat
-SendPacket
-ReadChat
-ReadSystem
-ReadPlayer
-ReadListServer
-ReadListServer2
-ReadMOTD
-AntiBCTO
_________________________________________.


Additional Notes:
-More Ideas Are Needed
-Beta Testers Needed
-Security Added To Prevent Abuse
-Detailed Documentation Soon

Current Release:
-Private

Download:
-Unavailable

[Neobeo]

Oh, I see it is quite a specific-type library. I was thinking it was more of a general-purpose wrapper so that people didn't have to go through the bother of re-writing the same APIs each time.

Anyway, in this case something useful would a be a function that reads the level. GetLevelWidth, GetLevelHeight, GetEvent(width, height), FindFirstOccurenceOfEvent(which I use to find the position of CTF flag). These were the basic functions of my Event Debugging Tool (EDT) which I wrote 5 years back. Maybe also include some server-specific functions like PC4?

Anyway, I would be glad to help beta-test/discuss it. You should probably be able to find me in IRC <strike>at any time</strike>.

[NovaStar]

I could beta-test, you have my MSN already.