[dcc2] protocol tokens

[Dan Smith]

At 11:25 AM 2/10/2004 -0800, you wrote:
>Actually, DCC VIDEO was (more or less) successfully implemented in Visual 
>IRC '98. It's no longer implemented in ViRC 2 because it depended on an 
>obsolete third-party component, and I wouldn't worry about making a new 
>DCC VIDEO protocol compatible with ViRC '98, but there it was.
>
>Speaking of subprotocols, perhaps we should add DCC Whiteboard to the 
>list, which was implemented in ViRC '97 and which I'm still supporting 
>today. I haven't written up a specification yet, but the source code for 
>ViRC 2 is available (see ViRC/Src/WhiteboardU.pas in CVS at 
>www.sf.net/projects/visualirc/).
>
>Jesse

Speaking of lists, we should have defined values that certain tokens can 
take on.  Many tokens will be quite variable, but others like the 
connection protocol being used should be enumerated (in a draft or list on 
the dcc2 site).  I'm of the opinion that we should be pretty descriptive 
with the connection type, since in the future many other protocols will be 
added that may have similar names.

Here is what a whiteboard protocol may look like:
TYPE=Virc97Whiteboard  // virc 97
TYPE=T.126             // Whiteboard in the T.120 standard

We can also define protocol token values for different types of file 
transfers or direct chats.

If we added something like this, then we would change dcc2-command (perhaps 
to CONNECT or something along those lines) and use the TYPE token.
<dcc2-message> = <dcc2-command> <dcc2-parameters>

This way, clients will know it is a connection request even if they don't 
recognize the protocol.  This also makes the handshake cleaner, using only 
CONNECT, ACCEPT, (CANNOTACCEPT, and REFUSED) as the main commands.

Let me know what your thoughts are on this, Cheers!

~Dan


---------------------------
Dan Smith (dan at algenta.com)
+1 608-213-2867
Algenta Technologies, LLC