So to replace it we have a new tool that will work external from BZFlag. This tool is called StartBZFS and it is based on Blast's "BZFSTestLauncher", but is more tailored to just starting servers.
This is the initial prototype for that tool. It has a lot of fun options, and should make it very easy to start a server. We plan on having this tool as an installable package when 3.0 releases, for all OSs.
http://my.bzflag.org/staff/jeffm/StartBZFS_0.0.5.zip
Now, this is also our first foray into building a tool with C# and mono, so some of the rules about how this thing will be used are a little different then normal.
1) There is only ONE build of the tool. It works on Windows, OSX, and Linux. It will always have the .exe extension ( and no it will not use wine).
2) On windows you must have the .net 3.5 runtimes from Microsoft installed. On linux and OSX, you MUST have the mono framework installed (version 2.0 or later).
3) On linux and OSX, you must have the exe be run with mono. This can be done from the command line using mono StartBZFS.exe or by associating the .exe extension with mono if your desktop system allows it. I have not seen a linux or OSX system that will simply let you double click it with out some kind of configuration or script first.
If you don't believe me, here is the exact same program running on my Ubuntu system.
This is running the exact same file as windows is(I just moved my flash drive over). It's really cool when you think about it.
If you follow these rules all should be OK. I'm sure there will be some things we'll find out about how the process works on all the various OSs and I'll update things here as we know more. Before release we hope to have a complete set of instructions on what to do for each OS.
Please note that I don't have a mac, and haven't tested this on a mac, so if there are problems, report em here and we'll figure it out. But it "should' work on a mac.
Enough of how to start it, now how to use it.
On launch it will try to find out where your BZFS server is. On windows, it'll first search for installed copies of bzflag, and look there. On linux and OSX it won't do anything because that code isn't done yet.
If it can't find your server, the little message in the lower left will say "No server path defined" and the start button will be grayed out. This means you need to go to the options menu and set your paths.
Once you do that you can set your options and start a server. Please note that if you are using 2.0.x (yes it works for that version too), don't' check OpenFFA, it wont' work.
So give it a shot and let me know how it goes
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
You can find the sources in our SVN repository under trunk/bzflag/tools/StartBZFS