Add user message hooking API

[Ayuto]

The API should allow hooking every user message. Within a hook it should be possible to change all attributes of the user message.

For reference:
http://forums.sourcepython.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1138

isnt that exactly what sp is? an api that can hook into user messages?

[Ayuto]

One part of SP is to provide an API to create function hooks. But it has no API to easily create user message hooks.

Currently, plugin authors have to understand how bitbuffers and protobuf work. Moreover, they have to do checks whether the game uses bitbuffers or protobuf for its user messages to properly create the hook. This new API should change that, so hooking and modifying user messages is unified and easy to do.

in csgo atleast, most UMs are serverorigin based. so i assume you are thinking of those that clients send to each other? e.g. saytext? i havent looked into it really, but how about a simpler solution like a playerproperty of textcolor etc, that, if set, inits a prehook for saytext with a precoded arg replacement.

so plugin authors would only have to set player(1).saytext_color = PINK ( simple solution )
or if you really want a global function , player(1).set_UM("saytext",("color"=PINK)) -- UM / kwargs

hope i didnt misunderstand you though.. but i think best would be to point out first with UMs you are thinking of here

[Ayuto]

The idea is to make the solutions proposed in this thread easier to use:
http://forums.sourcepython.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1138

However, this is actually just a reminder for the development team, but if you think you got a great implementation, feel free to create a pull request. The forum thread provides all the information you need.

thanks!

[Ayuto]

No design decisions have been made yet. So, feel free to create a PR, which can be used as a base for a discussion. Though, I think it should really be a callback that gets called before a user message is sent and not some attributes that are set on a player. E.g.

@UserMessageHook('SayText2')
def pre_saytext2(buffer, recipients, chat, msg_name, index, param1, param2, param3, param4):
    param2.set('blabla')

Based on that you can still add your player attributes.

yeah i had something similar in mind. but do you really want to do this for all UM's or just saytext ( + some other maybe )? thats why i asked which UM's you are thinking of. maybe start a list open for discussion? i still think the implementation highly depends on that

[Ayuto]

All user messages should be implemented. Though, the priority is obviously SayText2.

yeah, i see. most common usages for intercepting usrmgsgs i can really think of are these 3 then:

1. blocking ( mostly used )
2. redirecting ( rare cases used )
3. editing ( very rare cases used )

i think naturally usermsgs are not meant to be edited, except for rare cases like textcolor. i mean this really encourages a lot of tempering imo. like serveradmins trolling people. by letting them write users stuff they never said or serverowners adding advertisment into hud msgs etc. this is really just my opinion. i think hooking everything can be useful in rare cases, so maybe concentrate on implementing only those rare cases, like

textcolor of a player -> create playerproperty with textcolor
chatfilter -> replacing specific swearwords

btw, i have question

@UserMessageHook('SayText2')
def pre_saytext2(buffer, recipients, chat, msg_name, index, param1, param2, param3, param4):
param2.set('blabla')

i know this is an example, but where is the sender in the params? is it part of buffer? i think it would be useful to have the sender deserialized here.

[satoon101]

UserMessages are sent to a client, not being sent from one. The only reason SayText2 involves a client sending is because it is utilized when a player uses say or say_team. We could certainly expose the m_iClientCommandIndex value so that plugin developers have access to that in a SayText2 hook.

[satoon101]

i mean this really encourages a lot of tempering imo. like serveradmins trolling people. by letting them write users stuff they never said or serverowners adding advertisment into hud msgs etc.

You can do all of that already. There is no need for a UserMessage hook to do any of that.

[satoon101]

Well, I do see the merit in allowing access to the say/say_team sender a SayText2 hook itself. For instance, to add a tag to the player's name, like [Admin] satoon101. A SayFilter just doesn't work as well for this as a SayText2 hook would, in my opinion. I mean, you could get the player's index via their name in the first parameter, but that isn't as nice of a way as just providing access to the player's index which is already stored when they send the chat.

and thats exactly why i said in the beginning: isnt this what sp already does? if this "usermsg hook" really is going to be an interceptor for every usermsg, i think there will be a lot of wasted pythonbuffer on non-interfered usrmsgs.... thats the whole thing. i see the point of a playerattribute and chatfilter etc, but i think those could be easierly implemented by admins themselfes as satoon also said

You can do all of that already. There is no need for a UserMessage hook to do any of that.

[satoon101]

While I said you can already do the things you mentioned, that doesn't mean there isn't a need for UserMessage hooks. SP doesn't hook UserMessages already. We do hook say and say_team, but those are server commands, not UserMessages.

And, it will only intercept the ones that are registered to be intercepted. That's the same way our entity hooks already work. Only the ones registered to be hooked are hooked. We will also provide an API to better handle those situations across engines. Otherwise, plugin developers have to write a lot of extra code to handle both bitbuf and protobuf (which is what they currently have to do).