Qconnect .99  (c) Copyright Sean Allen and Enigma Software
----------------------------------------------------------
This program is released into the public domain.  Permission is granted to use 
this program for any purpose you desire as long as you give me credit somewhere 
and as long as you derive no monetary benefit from the use of this program.  
This program is provided AS IS, and I'm not responsible for any effects it has 
on you or your system.  If your computer blows up during use, or you fall over 
foaming at the mouth, I'm not responsible because you have been warned ;)  I 
would like to thank Steve Jankowski for releasing his code into the public 
domain, without it I would have had a hard time figuring out the server init 
string.

Installation
============
Unzip qcon_99.zip to your Quake directory.  It HAS to reside in the same 
directory as Q95.bat or it will not work correctly.  The qcon.bat file runs 
Qconnect using the servers.txt file.  Edit this file (servers.txt) or create 
a new one with all your favorite Quake server hosts in it (can be IPs or 
hostnames).  
Enjoy!

Overview
========
Qconnect is a Windows 95/NT character based program that lists active Quake 
servers and lets you quickly connect to them.  I wrote the program after 
becoming tired of scrambling to write down an IP address and losing it among 
the 1000 others or so I've already written down, starting Quake, typing the IP 
address only to find the server full.  After seeing qstat by Steve Jankowski, 
I thought I'd take it a step further and have my program kick off Quake 
(Q95.bat actually) and automatically connect to the server selected.

Here is some sample output while running the Qcon.bat file(included):

 1. 206.248.16.205       206.248.16.205:26000   Quake        e1m2   08/08 400ms
 2. quake.intersurf.com  206.151.208.134:26000  Jamal        e1m3   07/10 340ms
 3. quake.phantasy.com   156.46.216.101:26000   Quake        e1m5   08/08 380ms

Simply type the number "2" and press enter.  Qconnect will spawn Quake and 
connect to 206.151.208.134 (quake.intersurf.com) automatically.

Ping Times
==========
Please note that the displayed ping times are not "true" ping times that you 
would receive if you used a ping program.  It actually displays the time it 
takes from requesting server information until the time it receives it.  This 
is a better measure of actual server response time but will probably average 
100ms or more higher than a ping program would.  Please remember that ping 
times are only one way to measure game play on a server and that there are 
other more important factors.

Command Line Parameters
=======================
I tried to make this program as flexible as possible, foreseeing web page use,
etc.  Here are the command line options:

-f filename	Will search through all hosts listed in the file filename
-s		Will list all hosts searched, even the ones with no responses
-b		Don't display the banner (but still give me credit;)
-l		Don't display the line numbers, spawning will be disabled but 
		you still have nice formatted output
-r n		Repeat if no response "n" number of times, the default is 3.  
		Since Quake uses datagrams, it is possible for packet loss, so 
		the higher this number the more reliable yet slower it becomes
-t n		Cycle through the list every n seconds (please set this to at 
		LEAST 10 seconds or above to reduce net traffic and ease the 
		load on Quake servers...)
-x		Exit after spawning Quake.  Otherwise the program will Pause 
		while it tries to connect to the server.  *** This is highly 
		recommended - I just relized how much time Qconnect sits there
		waiting for a key press - made a HUGE difference in playing
		speed, ALWAYS USE THIS PARAMETER (will be taken off in future
		releases)
-p		Don't display the ping times
-host[:port]	You can enter a host and port number directly on the command 
		line if you wish

Web Masters
===========
You will probably want to run Qconnect with the following parameters:

	qconnect -f filename -s -b -l -p

This will display nice formatted output without any numbers or ping times.

Quakers
=======
You will probably want to use something like the following:

	qconnect -f filename -r 2 -t 30 -x

This will allow you to select numbers to spawn Quake and cycles every 30 
seconds.


Future Enhancements???
======================
A windows interface where you can highlight the server and just double click 
to launch Quake.
An option to highlight A server and have Qconnect log into it and retrieve the 
current list of players playing and their frag counts (has to be an available 
slot open though).
Maybe some kind of statistical tracking, etc.


Contact Info
============
I welcome all comments.  Please let me know what you think or of any problems, 
suggestions.  Just remember, that this is free software (you can send money if 
you want), so don't flame me too hard.  Thanks.

You can contact me at:

Sean Allen
Enigma Software
srallen@nando.net
"SirAllen" on the Quake servers and IRC.

Next on my list - Quake'bots!
Happy hunting!
