A simple client-server program that allows people to play iconic online games like Tic-tac-toe and Gomoku. Chat and observation functions are included.
After compiling, use "ant run-client" and "ant run-server" to start a client or a server respectively. Only 1 server is necessary, but many clients can be created to play and spectate in the server ran lobby.Currently, this project is only runnable on one computer. In the future, we will expand functionality to be able to play on multiple csil computers.
Fall 2017, Hong Wang & David Roster: A new version of cs56-games-client-server that is identical on the outside, but substantially refactored inside to have better MVC separation.
Refactored JavaClient and other complex classes to create a more easily understood code while maintainingfunction. Javdoc descriptions have been added for every class and nearly every method. These descriptions will provide helpful insight when deciphering this beauty of a beast project.
We also changed the structure of classes by having a client, server, and games directory with their respected Views, models, and controller directories inside. THis can be made very clear by typing "tree" into our root directory called v2 (cs56/cs56-games-client-server-v2/src/edu/ucsb/cs56/games/client_server/v2). WE believed this would help with future user understanding.
v2: The version from Spring 2013.
The code works great and does it's job to near perfection. However, it can be difficult to understand all the mechanisms of the class due to large complexity and number of classes. The main classes that handle this project are JavaClient (and its respected helper classes recently refactored) and JavaServer (which will be refactored shortly).
Since there is a lot of classes some basic commands provided here can help display useful info. -> type "tree" into command line and it will illustrate the tree-like pattern of classes from that repo a nd on -> type "grep -Irne 'whatever string value you want to search for' " .This command will present all files that include that string on your terminal command with line numbers and color coded -> type "cat 'filename' " to print whatever file you want to on the command line. You can print multiple files as well because cat stands for concatinate.
*Both the main client and server repo's have these sub directories because they keep code cleaner and follow the MVC design pattern. Here's a link that will explain more ... https://www.tutorialspoint.com/design_pattern/mvc_pattern.htm
3 main directories: -games -> controls the game function for our application -client -> handles the client side -server -> handles server side
Controller -> This stands for Logic which means that most of our logic handling functions and raw code are in here... have fun
Model -> This is where the data of our actual game is processed and sent between controllers for processing.
Views -> This provides both our GUI application for Server and Client. Server is able to run on the command line but that's not as cool.
Explaination of the refactorization of JavaClient and JavaServer: JavaClient gained 3 helper files. MyCellRenderer and RefreshThread used to be parralel classes inside JavaClient.java, and now they are in their own files. MessageHandler is a helper class that provides helper methods for handleMessage() method from JavaClient. JavaServer was split into two parts. JavaServer now extends a new abstract class named JavaServerTemplate, which stores the basic methods and variable declarations for JavaServer.
Breakdown of abstract class design: In certain packages(directories), such as games, there is one or more abstract classes that other classes extend from. For example, each of the subdirectories of Games (ClientController, Models, ServerCobtroller, Views) has an abstract class that each of the other classes implement. These abstract classes are respectively "TwoPlayerGameController, TwoPlayerGameModel, TwoPlayerGameController, TwoPLayerGameViewPanel". The reason for creating these abstract classes are it provides a correct layout for creating other games such as possibly chess. When creating a new game such as chess, you would need to make 4 classes minimum (not including any refactored classes or additional helper classes) that EXTEND these abstarct classes.
From our testings, we did not observe any bugs. We did however observe that we created some complex methods such as checkWinner() in our Gomoku Game. This might need refactorization if the Conrad or the TA's deem it necessary. A resource to use to check how your code is (kinda like a report card) is codeClimate. Just submit your open source github files to it and it will relay back possible improvements to make.