Module Purpose

FomSaver is an application that runs under Microsoft Windows that allows customers to save their game configurations and saved games onto a server when they are done playing, and then to retrieve them and set them up on a different station when they visit the cybercafe again in the future.

Module Status

Version 1 is undergoing beta testing.

Known Bugs

• Doesn't save AIM configuration correctly; FomSaver seems to freeze if AIM has been installed and setup by the customer.

• "Check In" / "Check Out" terminology is confusing to customers, because it's ambiguous (are they "checking out" files from the server, or are they "checking out" [i.e., leaving] the cybercafe?).
• FomSaver is sending a huge number of errors to the Apache error log that look like this:

    [Tue Feb 22 19:33:03 2005] [error] [client 66.80.219.174]
    Cannot encode 'value' element as 'hash'. Will be encoded
    as 'map' instead
  

• Need to add more games:
  • Internet Explorer
  • OpenOffice
  • Joint Operations
  • Battle for Middle Earth
  • Yahoo Messenger (doesn't seem to store config in files?)
  • WC3 Frozen Throne(see if it's different than regular WC3)
  • America's Army
  • Far Cry

Plans for Changes to Version 1 / 2

• Change scrolling list of files being transferred into a progress bar with an optional “see details” button.
• Consider making FomSaver operate in a two-step fashion: first you login with username/password, and FomSaver tells you the date/time of your last save; second, you select the desired function (check-in or check-out) and execute it. Having a reminder of when you last checked in might help reduce incidence of selecting the wrong function.

• Maybe translate detailed list of files being transferred into English (“Saving BF1942”)
• Add some kind of check to prevent check-ins without a prior check-out (except the first time); and to prevent following a check-out with another check-out; maybe set a flag, or leave a program running in the background that prompts to check-in upon logout or restart?
• Some kind of locking to prevent people from using FomSaver on multiple computers simultaneously.
• Security: right now anyone with the right login information (easily gleaned by using Ethereal) can FTP into the server (but probably just to their own directory). We’d like secure authentication of the transfers, but no encryption on the transfers themselves.
• Check a “valid” status flag in the authentication database—so we can have website users blocked if they don’t have a valid email address
• Factor out authentication code, to make it easier to use a different database.
• Consider making it a web application that uses CsaAgent to do it’s work on the local PC (but that would mean disallowing home use).
• Add log file that tracks check-ins and check-outs. Maybe record IP address, bytes transferred?
• Status widget should not be editable.
• Protocol version checking, so incompatible versions of client and server can't be used together inadvertently.
• Add names to parameters in SOAP call.
• Add support for Steam games; probably requires looking at timestamps on check-in to figure out which license was assigned by CAS.
• Find a different way to do the server config file; using Perl code is difficult to set up, and too easy to make mistakes.
• Seems like server returns an enormous amount of data to the client; is compression turned on? Would we be better off just returning an "ls -lR"?
• Make it work from home: Requires. . .
  • Move authentication to server, execute via SOAP, and make the transaction secure.
  • File transfer doesn't need to be secure, but authentication of the the transfer does. . . so we might need to replace FTP with something else. Consider using WebDAV.
  • Compress transferred files (currently running around 11MB per user, probably too much for home use)
  • Have to read registry to see where games are installed on client
• Why just reject customers who don't have a valid website account? Instead, if they don't have a valid account, ask them if they want to sign up, and if they do, pop open a browser window to a a configurable URL.
• Make sure config file is hitting the directories where games save their custom maps--not just saved games and settings. Customers frequently have to download and install custom maps, and FomSaver can easily handle making these persistent.