Half-life Programming Question

noelephant · July 2003

<div class="IPBDescription">AIM client inside half-life</div> Does anyone have any idea about the feasibility of coding an instant messenger client to work within half-life and its mods? Would this not be possible in half-life?

Maybe this could work using console commands allowing one to message people.

This could make for an interesting project. (As alt-tabbing is not really a valid option in half-life, a built in messaging client would be rather useful.)

Please let me know if you know of any glaring technical limitations, which would prevent this.

BigMadSteve · July 2003

I'm pretty certain that Steam allows you to IM people in game.

DOOManiac · July 2003

Steam's IM is a proprietary format though. Its not compatible with AIM/ICQ/YAHOO/etc.

As far as feasability goes... I'd have to gear towards now. It may be technically possible, but in no way would it be worth the effort it would take to code such a thing...

Liku · July 2003

It's a good idea, because when you're bored of waiting for someone and you play HL and someone IM's you and you lose sound... it sucks.

Satanic_Monkey · July 2003

getting your sound is easy. I only know how for windows xp home or pro. Next tiem your hl minimizes cause your damn friend and his chain letters. Just press ctrl+alt+del, go to application click on hl and right click it and do bring to front and the sound should be fixed.

SoulSkorpion · July 2003

I've thought about this before (well, not for HL, but... anyway.)

It's certainly possible... it just isn't necessarily easy. Well, I don't think it's possible to write this without writing a whole new mod. Maybe if you're really good you could make one of them hook thingies, but that would be picked up by Cheating Death.

It... it's definately possible. Considering that there exist third party IM programs, and considering that you've got access to the source code of HL...

Sniper_Chance · July 2003

VAC would gun it down with the snap of a finger.

CForrester · July 2003

I'd prefer just an IM "manager." It's compatible with all the major IM clients (Including Trillian and Trillian Pro.) and what it does is auto-hides the windows if you're playing HL, and notifies you with a small message on the bottom of your screen, between your health/armor and ammo counters. You can also have it autorespond with a message, but it never causes HL.exe to lose focus. Is that feasable?

SoulSkorpion · July 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (CForrester @ Jul 24 2003, 01:43 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I'd prefer just an IM "manager." It's compatible with all the major IM clients (Including Trillian and Trillian Pro.) and what it does is auto-hides the windows if you're playing HL, and notifies you with a small message on the bottom of your screen, between your health/armor and ammo counters. You can also have it autorespond with a message, but it never causes HL.exe to lose focus. Is that feasable?  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
I doubt it. Well... maybe there's some nasty evil windowsy way of doing it, but I can't think of any good ole honest C++ way to do it. Ask MonsE, maybe.

Moquiao · July 2003

alas somethign i have always wanted... i get moaned at when i leave my mates to play games..would be nice if i could play and chat <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'>

lolfighter · July 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> ([WoLF] @ Jul 24 2003, 11:09 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> alas somethign i have always wanted... i get moaned at when i leave my mates to play games..would be nice if i could play and chat <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'>  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
Umm... an IRC bot?

NewName · July 2003

i made somthing like that, but for IRC. And it still has lots of bugs. Basicly my idea was to make a window on top that is triggered through a keylogger, HL never loses focus and so you dont lose your sound. To retreive what you want to say, the keylogger in the background dispays what your typing so the window never has to be in focus. The same key(to display the window) is then set to unbinall and exec config.cfg so when your typing somthing out you dont acidentally start a say: or jump about wildy. And when u have a new message, a little box pops up in your top left hand corner of your screen. If anyone wants to use this idea to make a MSN/Trillian client, feel free to do so.
(the window doesn't quit take up half your screen so that Cheating Death doesn't think your cheating)

I attached a screenie so you can sort of see what I mean:

Maus · July 2003

*Maus wanders in and grumbles something indistinct about "spotting"

Scum_of_the_Universe · July 2003

<a href='http://hlamp.com/' target='_blank'>http://hlamp.com/</a> has an email saying that a half-life plug-in system will be implimented at some point.

Liku · July 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Satanic Monkey @ Jul 23 2003, 08:30 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> getting your sound is easy. I only know how for windows xp home or pro. Next tiem your hl minimizes cause your damn friend and his chain letters. Just press ctrl+alt+del, go to application click on hl and right click it and do bring to front and the sound should be fixed.  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
It doesn't work for me.

Satanic_Monkey · July 2003

Damn that blows, it works for the all the people that i taught!

esuna · July 2003

That's a bit longwinded. What works in 2k is just bring HL back up, then goto the menu and click Resume Game. Problem solved.

Half-life Programming Question

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