Bluewing help file mostly done
Added 2021-04-11 22:29:14 +0000 UTCHey folks!
Continuing the work on Bluewing I discussed in February's post, I've been updating the help file and documenting the intricacies of Lacewing, more on that below.
Bugfixes
Along the way, I've been checking for inconsistencies between Relay and Blue, and found some bugs in both versions.
Naturally, for Relay, those bugs won't be fixed, but for Blue, they're normally quick fixes.
Bug fixes include:
- During a channel join denied event, the denied channel name wasn't valid
- On Disconnect would trigger twice, if you ran Disconnect action while connected... all other scenarios it would trigger once
- Fixed a bug inherited from Relay that would cause bad domains to make inconsistent behavior - if it failed to find the server you tried to connect to, you would get an error, but it would still consider itself "connecting", so you would have to run Disconnect before Connect would work again.
- On Disconnect has a valid port to go with the IP address
There are additional features now added:
- Name Set when not connected now gives an error
- Added an error event for Client when the server replies that it has channel listing disabled
- Client has the causing Fusion event number in error messages
- Four added UTF-8 expressions on both Client and Server:

Lacewing intricacies
The help file has been expanded to cover all the intricacies of Lacewing.
These details aren't game-breakers usually, but it helps a lot to have a documented behaviour, rather than trying to make a guess
For example:
- When you run a loop of all channels, what channel is selected during the channel loop finished event?
- What firewall settings, port forwarding or other things do you need to set up a server to host?
- What happens if you use Unicode Bluewing with non-Unicode Lacewing Relay?
- If your connection is denied, will you get just Connection Denied or On Disconnect too?
- What event happens if you can't connect to the server at all, as in the server is down?
- Does received Any Message on Channel trigger before Text Message on Channel, or after?
- Are there any restrictions on client/channel names, like length?
The help file also includes:
- A Tips article, with a section dedicated to performance
- A Security article, including guides on securing your apps, and what to do with malicious servers/clients
- A guide on debugging apps, including a process of elimination demonstration and a list of Relay bugs
- An Examples article, including a link list of external examples
Estimated schedule
The help file is around 75% done, and I estimate it will be a week or two before it's done fully. It will be released in CHM, PDF and possibly hosted on the Darkwire website in HTML format.
Once it is done, work on Bluewing Android will begin immediately.
Thanks a bunch for your patronage!
~Phi