Master Hotline Socket

Author: Andrew Waterson Price: <free> Download: cafe.realbasic.com (Hotline)

  So, you what to build a hotline client, eh? You think you've got the stuff, eh? Well, let me just tell you, it's not as easy as you think. At least it isn't if you plan on building your own Hotline class. There's a lot to consider: Sockets, TCP ports, the way the protocol works and so on.

  But, REALbasic should be a program for beginners. It should be easy. That's why we have those nice programmers who can make those nice protocol classes for us.

  One of those sockets is Master Hotline Socket (MHS). This socket makes the creation of Hotline Clients as easy as splitting protons... No, really. It's very easy: You make a socket, set it's super to MHS, and off you go.

  Making a Hotline client dosen't require much programming effort. I made a client when I had programed for only 4 months. I could do that because a) REALbasic is so cool, and b) MHS is so cool. MHS can be as simple as you want and as advanced as you want. You get a comprensehensive list of events, and you can use as many as you like.

  As with most Hotline protocols, it do not support file transfer. This can be very annoying in many ways since you cannot build a full client without file transfer capabilities. If there was one thing I would like to see in MHS in the future, it would be file transfer. I have heard that the author has figured out how to do it, and he has already made server side transfer. So I would like to use this opportunity to nicely ask him to get started on client side file transfer.

  There are two more things that annoy me with MHS. 1) It has not been updated since the pyramids were built, and 2) There is no documentation. There is nothing to do about the first one, other than asking the author to update. There is a way to go around the second one though. Download the file at: RB cafe - Files - Miscellaneous Items - Other -HLSL Documentation. It's the unofficial documentation for HLSL (Hotline Socket Lite), and can easily be transferred over to MHS.

  All in All, I like MHS. A lot. You need to work around a few things, but it's a good class. If you are making a Hotline client, you should check this out.

- Oliver Kofoed Pedersen oliver@starmail.com